- Atomic Tank: The Unique History of Centurion 169041 - Mike Cecil on the remarkable history of a Centurion tank which was placed immediately next to Ground Zero for a nuclear test, survived virtually unscathed, and continued in service for many years after, including seeing action in Vietnam: "The test was codenamed Operation Totem, and was one of a number of British atomic tests carried out in remote areas of Australia during the 1950s... With every expectation that the damage would be so severe as to effectively destroy the vehicle, the provision of a Centurion was certainly a measure of the importance placed on the atomic tests by the Australian Government." More info in and linked from This Atomic Tank survived a nuclear test, then went to war.
- Data Mining the Internet Archive Collection - "The collections of the Internet Archive (IA) include many digitized sources of interest to historians... In this lesson, you’ll learn how to download files from such collections using a Python module specifically designed for the Internet Archive. You will also learn how to use another Python module designed for parsing MARC XML records, a widely used standard for formatting bibliographic metadata."
- The Longest Way 1.0 - walk through China and grow a beard! - Christoph Rehage's journey through China was epic. "A lot of people look at the video thinking “I want to be free like that guy!” – but they don’t realize that I was driven by something, and maybe I was losing control over it.”" Here's the time-lapse video of how he changed during his 4,500km trek:
- Here’s what happens when the readers choose the front page story - Interesting exercise showing print newspaper's front pages alongside a version that reflects how much the online versions of the stories were shared on social media: "We replaced headlines and pictures, though did not get into replacing story text and bylines. The results are pretty neat – maybe even thought provoking."
- The Legend of The Blind MC - Venture capitalist Ben Horowitz on the origins of his love for Hip Hop in the shooting of his closest friend: "Seth Clark and his family—Joel, Adam, Dana, Joel, and Penny—were my family too. We lived two houses away from each other. We ate dinner with each other almost every night. We saw each other every day. I went on their family vacations. He was my brother and he was 13 and he was blind for life."
- Battersea Power Station Control Room - "This 360 allows you to explore inside the Battersea Power Station Control Room. The decommissioned 1930′s power station is an incredible example of Art Deco architecture and getting the chance to explore inside this building was an exciting experience for me."
- Fake Name Generator - This tool allows you to generate a random identity, down to the level of a fake mother's maiden name, birth location, residential address, fake credit card number, and lots more... it goes quite some way beyond what you need to sign up for a free trial of a paywalled website
- A Blog About Crisps - "Reviewing as many crisps as possible, until we run out of packets, or die from doing so." Does exactly what it says on the packet
- Rituals, Or Why Poaching Elephants Is So Awful - Caitlin Doughty, mortician, on pachyderms' attitudes to death: "If a member of the herd dies, the other elephants will first attempt to revive the dead elephant, pushing, prodding, poking. If that is unsuccessful, they will place dirt and soil over the body. Some members will leave to bring back branches, leaves, and fronds to cover the carcass. Herds have been observed to stand a vigil for two days, leaving only briefly to eat or drink."
- Artist Sipho Mabona Successfully Folds Life-sized Origami Elephant from Single Sheet of Paper - Speaking of elephants: "The piece stands over 10 feet tall (3 meters) and took a team of nearly a dozen people over four weeks to fold."
Happy invoicing!
