Monday Links from the Gap Between Teams Meetings vol. DCCLXXVII

[NickFitz]

Early wintry weather is approaching, giving you an even better excuse to stay in with some nice, cosy Internet

• She’s One of Florida’s Most Lethal Python Hunters—but the Invasive Creatures Still Have a Hold on Her - Pythons are a problem in the Florida Everglades: ”Donna Kalil has plunged into

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[NickFitz]

It's sunny here today, for a change! Not that it matters when there's a whole Internet to read

• The Rip in the World - ”When magma tore through in early 2021, it was the first volcanic activity at Fagradalsfjall in almost a millennium. A smaller fissure eruption followed the next year, and

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[NickFitz]

Take a break from working out what to do with the farm when you die and read something interesting instead

• The Crash of the Hammer - ”How concerned citizens ran a Neo-Nazi out of rural Maine.” Weird how these ubermenschen always want to build themselves a kind of makeshift Center Parcs :rolley

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[NickFitz]

On my current project it's usually Slack Huddles instead of Teams Meetings, but I'm not putting that in the thread title

• The fermented crescent - ”Ancient Mesopotamians had a profound love of beer: a beverage they found celebratory, intoxicating and strangely erotic.” Which came first: the civilisation

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[NickFitz]

Some light reading to pass the time until the weekend, when you get back that hour of sleep that was stolen from you in March

• Journalist or Russian spy? The strange case of Pablo González - ”As a Spanish reporter, Pablo González charmed his way into Russian opposition circles and covered Putin’s

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[NickFitz]

Some things to read while you wait for the comet to appear after sunset, clouds willing

• The Noblest of Things - ”I told my wife today, while straining the last of the four gallons of honey they left behind, that someday, maybe next spring, we should put more bees in those boxes down by the

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[NickFitz]

First week on new project: the meetings are fewer, but they seem to expect me to do a lot more during the gaps so you'll have to read this lot for me

• City on Fire - ”It was November 25, 1864, a clear, cool Friday just after Thanksgiving, and New York City was thick with crowds of people

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[NickFitz]

Not that there are any Teams meetings. I'm back from my break, but my contract manager is OoO at a training thing all week and has left no word, so I've no idea what I'm supposed to be working on or who with! Might just take another week off reading stuff like this

• Down in that metal nightmare:

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[NickFitz]

If it's as grey and rainy where you are as it is here, you'll need something to read instead of going out in it

• The Nazi of Oak Park - ”It was a stunning revelation: A respected high school custodian had been a concentration camp guard… The disclosure of a dark secret in the early ’80s

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[NickFitz]

Some stuff to read while you're waiting in the bushes on the golf course

• Why Does Yellowstone National Park Turn Us All into Maniacs? - Drew Magary acts like an idiot: ”Petting bison, cooking food in geysers. Ride along with our writer on a wild trip to our nation’s most iconic national

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[NickFitz]

On the first Monday of my holiday last week, I came down with a cold, picked up from going to a meeting in London the week before. Slightly recovered by midweek, I went away to a wedding, and returned with either a different, worse cold or a relapse of the original. The moral of the story is, don't...

[NickFitz]

Last week, I got to shut down the project I've been working on for eighteen months with unseemly but money-saving haste. Now I'm taking September off before resuming invoicing in October, which means plenty of time to find stuff like this for you to read on billable time

• The Contingency Contin

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[NickFitz]

It doesn't feel like a Bank Holiday somehow, perhaps because it isn't teeming down

• “Your Honor, Can I Tell the Whole Story?” - Yet another story of the wretched failings of what passes for a system of justice in the USA: ”A murder in New Orleans, a trial that lasted less than a day, and

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[NickFitz]

While you're waiting for the fancy Moon to rise (only to be hidden by clouds) you could be reading this lot

• Danger on the Divide - Maggie Slepian and her partner Matt have an extremely rough time on the 2,700 mile Great Divide Mountain Bike Route: ”My confidence eroded by the day. My stomach

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[Jimbo54]

I'm in a contract that has an "outside" determination, and a contract that ticks all the boxes for "outsideness". I work from home, on my own PCs, using my own software and my own internet link. All good so far.

However, the client has decided that they want to use "Monday.com"...

[NickFitz]

Token August heatwave day today, so slip into the shade and pass the time with this lot

• I was raised in a utopian commune where children ran wild. Only years later did I realise how much danger came with that freedom - Susanna Crossman on her unusual upbringing: ”It was all I knew: a radical,

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[NickFitz]

After the last few days, I think the whole country could do with just settling down and reading a bunch of stuff to take their minds off things. Like this lot, maybe

• Coming to America - ”Layan Albaz lost her legs in an Israeli air strike in Gaza. To learn how to walk again, she had to travel

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[NickFitz]

It's getting hot out, so you probably want to settle back indoors next to a big fan and read this lot instead - if I can get it to post

• Emma Carey: The skydiver who survived a 14,000-foot fall - ”She glides through the streets of Denver on a steaming summer day last July telling her remarkable

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[NickFitz]

I have no idea if this will post successfully, but it's worth a try

• The Sinking of the Bounty - ”Haba had never encountered a situation like this. An hour and a half earlier, he’d been snoozing on a lumpy leather couch at the air station when the call came in: A large wooden ship was in

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[NickFitz]

This seems like as good a time as any to point out that the US Secret Service don't like having their name abbreviated to "the SS"

• The Dog and the Dinosaur - ”The epic true story of a war hero, his rescued dog, and their improbable quest to find a living brontosaurus in the Congo.” A

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[NickFitz]

Some light reading to distract you from the noise of new-build homes and wind turbines being erected in the broad sunlit uplands of your front garden

• The Extra Mile - ”After a horrific accident, doctors told Todd Barcelona that he’d likely never run again. So he and his wife decided to run

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[NickFitz]

Some light reading to pass the time until we enter the sunlit green uplands on Friday

• My 750-mile Hike Through the Grand Canyon Started with an Epic Fail - In this extract from his book about the experience, Kevin Fedarko reveals what happened when a friend persuaded him to go for a walk: ”Together

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[NickFitz]

Not quite as hectic with meetings today though I still haven't had lunch, as getting your afternoon reading sorted out is clearly of much greater importance

• The Case of the Missing Chacmools - Weird hippy tulip: ”Soon after New Age icon and bestselling author Carlos Castaneda died in 1998, a group

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[NickFitz]

Barely enough gaps for a sandwich today, never mind getting this lot together. Anyway, here's something to read while we wait to see if they cancel the project I've been working on since early last year

• The Old and the Restless - ”An indecent proposal, a crime of passion, and legends of murder

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[NickFitz]

There are so few gaps between Teams meetings today that I'm not sure I'll have time for lunch now I've got this lot sorted out

• The Donald Trump I Saw on The Apprentice - Bill Pruitt was a producer on the show that created much of Trump's image as a successful entrepreneur. His non-disclosure

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[NickFitz]

It's a long haul until the next Bank Holiday, but I've just booked the day after the election off to give me some respite

• Anatomy of a Murder - Minnesota not-so-nice: ”Grand Marais is a quiet outpost on Lake Superior’s North Shore, set among boreal forest in the easternmost corner of Minnesota.

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[NickFitz]

One of those days when the first article suddenly goes behind a firewall and I have to hunt around for something else. Good job I don't have any work to do

• The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds - ”Occasionally in a game I'll look up and I'll notice the clouds… I wanted

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[NickFitz]

I take it that's the warm weather over with for this year then?

• Baghdad Country Club - How a chance meeting in an airport led a British contractor to set up a bar in occupied Iraq: ”He had never handled that much of his own money before—$150,000—much less handed it over to someone

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[NickFitz]

Beset by triffids? Simply hide indoors and read this lot, possibly with the assistance of a screenreader

• Death of the Hiker - Leyton Cassidy went for a solo trek up a mountain in Slovenia. Things didn't go according to plan: ”There is a moment—an imperceptibly fast one—when a human’s

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[NickFitz]

Surprising lack of Bank Holiday rain here. Looking at the radar, I see not all of you are so lucky, so here's some stuff you can read aloud to the family as you huddle in a windswept shelter on the seafront

• The Last Shall Be First - ”A few weeks before Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans,

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[NickFitz]

Looks like we may get some actual spring weather by the end of the week, but here's some light reading to pass the time until it arrives - if it arrives

Oh great, the database is falling over again - take two… and take three… and take four… and take five… and take 2³-1 I think it must...

[WTFH]

Looks like we may get some actual spring weather by the end of the week, but here's some light reading to pass the time until it arrives - if it arrives

• Don’t Bleed on the Artwork: Notes from the Afterlife - Wendy Brenner on the joys of working at a picture framer's: ”Landscapes and dreamscapes,

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[NickFitz]

Looks like we dodged the end of the world one more time this weekend, so you'll need some stuff to keep you occupied until it finally happens

• The new science of death: ‘There’s something happening in the brain that makes no sense.’ - ”New research into the dying brain suggests the line

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[NickFitz]

Oh great, forum's broken again, so I need to change this bit to get past the "duplicate post" thing Another selection of excuses not to go out in whichever storm it is at the moment

• Battle Scenes depicted in moving pictures before C.G.I. - ”History has been shaped by military

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[NickFitz]

Another selection of excuses not to go out in whichever storm it is at the moment

• Battle Scenes depicted in moving pictures before C.G.I. - ”History has been shaped by military events and therefore it was natural that film makers the world over would eventually attempt to show images of passed

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[NickFitz]

Some light (and some rather heavy) reading to celebrate the coming of the season of Bank Holidays

• The Devil Went Down to Georgia - ”For years, a mysterious figure preyed on gay men in Atlanta. People on the streets called him the Handcuff Man—but the police knew his real name.” Dark doings

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[NickFitz]

Short week this week, but you'll still need this lot to help fill the billable time up to COB Thursday

• Fire. Dog. Life. Ice - Aimee Levitt felt like a change, and ended up in the Antarctic: ”There were so many things I could have done. I could have studied abroad in college. I could have tried

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[NickFitz]

Some stuff to while away the time until the Vernal Equinox

• The Holocaust Angle - Some people on Alderney didn't want any development happening there, and turned to the notion of Nazi war crimes to bolster their case: ”It might have been left at that, another crackpot proposition in a supposedly

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[NickFitz]

Seem to have hit a lot of pay- or registration-walls today, but hopefully this lot will be free of any but minor impediments to your reading pleasure

• “Please I Will Give Anything for You to Come Back” - ”Why did a mother with no backcountry experience take her sister and 13-year-old son

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[NickFitz]

You could read "informed" analysis of all the stuff that will turn out not to be in the Budget after all; or you could read this stuff instead

• Watch It Burn - A story of fraudsters extracting billions from carbon credit scams: ”Maybe he was paranoid, having built a multimillion-dollar

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[NickFitz]

February seems to be going on for a long time this year, so here's some light reading to take your mind off it

• Inside Ukraine’s Wartime Salons - Ukrainians won't let Russian attacks come between them and their manicures: ”On January 2, like many Kyiv residents that morning, salon owner Ludmila

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[NickFitz]

Feels like an early spring out there, with blossom already appearing on trees that produce it. Anyway, enough of that: there's stuff to look at on the Internet!

• Fresh Meat - ”I am standing in the middle of a large, stark classroom… On the block in front of me are half a dozen dead pheasants. This

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[NickFitz]

The Internet may be full of American sports and Taylor Swift today, but luckily there's enough space left on there for other stuff too; like this:

• His Best Friend Was a 250-Pound Warthog. One Day, It Decided to Kill Him. - Nature, red in tooth and claw: ”By the age of thirty, a time when most people

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[NickFitz]

I don't know about you, but I'm about ready for a Bank Holiday. But until one shows up, we'll just have to pass the time with these scrapings of the Internet

• Mayday: Miracle in the Jungle - ”The race to find four children who survived a plane crash deep in the Amazon.” Means of local transport

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[NickFitz]

Bit late because I've had a busy morning, but taking the time to read this lot should ensure you have a less busy afternoon

• Rescuing the Rescuer: Saving Myself from a Lifetime of Hurt - ”How witnessing trauma after trauma on the mountain exacts a cumulative emotional toll on ski patrollers” Cathleen

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[NickFitz]

Once you've retrieved your trampoline from the railway, you can settle down with a cup of tea and read this lot

• A Lighthouse Keeper Hangs Up Her Bonnet - The USA's last official lighthouse keeper has retired: ”For 20 years, Snowman has served as the keeper and historian of the 307-year-old

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[NickFitz]

This is the start of my first five-day working week since the end of November. Thank goodness for all kinds of odd things on the Internet to distract me from the horror!

• Damages - Dark doings in the world of privatised medicine: ”An ob-gyn in Virginia performed unnecessary surgeries on patients

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[NickFitz]

Bit chilly out, but of course you have more sense than to go there when you can stay in reading this lot

• ‘Badass detective’: How one California officer solved eight cold cases — in his spare time - Detective Matt Hutchison adopts ingenious methods to get his results: ”Along with poking through

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[NickFitz]

My brother gave me a stinking cold for Christmas, but it's improved just enough to let me get this lot posted so I can go back to wondering if I'll be able to manage work tomorrow

• An Icelandic Town Goes All Out to Save Baby Puffins - ”Two small, round eyes glint like shiny black sequins

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[NickFitz]

I've got to hop in my sleigh and head south to see the rest of my family but before I go, here's a selection box of stuff you can read to avoid talking to yours

• Cloud Racers - ”The story of two rival pilots chasing a dream during the golden age of aviation.” The good old days when flying was fun,

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