- The Old and the Restless - ”An indecent proposal, a crime of passion, and legends of murder in an enclave of bohemian retirees.” Strange doings in a Mexican town filled with American expats in the 1970s.
- Why small annoyances can harm us more than big disruptions - ”A largely forgotten psychological concept helps explain the insidiousness of minor problems – and what to do about it.” It’s the little things…
- Computation Is All Around Us, and You Can See It if You Try - ”Computer scientist Lance Fortnow writes that by embracing the computations that surround us, we can begin to understand and tame our seemingly random world.” I suspect I’m surrounded by ZX81s
- The Man Who Raced to Tell the World That Mount Everest Had Been Climbed - ”When Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary made history by reaching the summit, a courier named Ten Tsewang Sherpa ran 200 miles to Kathmandu to deliver the news. He died a few weeks later. His story has never been told—until now.” A modern(ish) Pheidippides.
- These conspiracy theory believers went deep down the rabbit hole — then found a way out - There is hope for those lost in a maze of twisty little Facebook groups: ”Today Stephanie is, in her words, a conspiracy theorist in recovery. And she wants to help others who are trapped in a world of false beliefs to recover, too.”
- In the Mind of Marie: A Haunting Encounter in the Gardens of Versailles (1913) - ”In 1901, two British women just getting to know each other took a trip to Paris. The day they visited Versailles, things turned strange.” Their theory was that they didn’t just see ghosts, but the actual memories of Marie Antoinette
- For the first time in 37 years a new parliament will meet without a member of the cast of The Railway Children - One of the more recondite circumstances that will surround the new government. ”For an explanation, listen carefully to Bernard Cribbins in the film's most famous scene.”
- The Dave Nice Video Show, Part One: “A 60s Version of The Word” – Dirty Feed - A remarkable project to find the source videos used in Smashie and Nicey: the End of an Era: ”Where does the archive footage in these scenes originally come from? Surely we can do better than “a 60s episode of Blue Peter” and “footage of a Beatles concert”? Yes. Yes, we can. Much better.” Already up to four parts, with more to come!
- In 1989, A Teenage Atari ST Dev Made One Award-Winning Game Then Vanished - What Happened? - ”A 14-year-old Swiss resident created an amateur game for the Atari ST, won a prize from the bank Crédit Suisse, and then promptly vanished… what happened to Jean-Claude Schopfer?” Life, it turns out.
- Lucky strike. - ”Twenty five old Japanese matchbox labels, mainly 1950s, scanned from a recent stash we acquired.” More nice ephemera from the stationers at Present & Correct
Happy invoicing!
