Apparently it could take up to two weeks to sort me out a pass for NewClientCorp; until then, I need to be accompanied to enter or leave the building. On the bright side, I am allowed to go to the toilet on my own 
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- The Sixth Stage of Grief Is Retro-computing - ”Over the last few days I’ve been crazy for emulation—that is, simulating old, busted computers on my sweet modern laptop. I’ve been booting up fake machines and tearing them down, one after the other, and not doing much besides. Machines I’ve only heard of, arcade games I never played, and machines I never used… Eventually I realized: This might be about my friend Tom dying.” Paul Ford on the intertwingling of memories and old computers.
- A Classic Case of Deception: CIA Goes Hollywood - If you’ve seen the film Argo, you’ll know the story of how the CIA exfiltrated a group of stranded US diplomats from Iran in 1980 in the guise of a movie company. Here, the CIA officer who organised and carried out the operation explains how it was done: ”In our discussions with Canadian officials, we learned that the Parliament in Ottawa had already approved the use of Canadian passports for non-citizens for humanitarian purposes. We immediately requested six spares for the six houseguests to give us a redundant capability for the operation… We had an opportunity while meeting with our Canadian ministry contact, "Lon DeGaldo," to display a bit of magic. He thought one of the proposed aliases had a slightly Semitic sound--not a good idea in a Muslim country. We quickly picked another name, and I forged a signature in the appropriate handwriting on the margin of a fresh set of passport photos.”
- Why Banksy Is (Probably) a Woman - Kriston Capps speculates on the identity of the artist: ”During the very first interview that Banksy gave to The Guardian, another figure was present ("Steve," Banksy's agent). Another figure is always present, says Canadian media artist Chris Healey, who has maintained since 2010 that Banksy is a team of seven artists led by a woman… Although Healey won't identify the direct source for his highly specific claim, it's at least as believable as the suggestion that Banksy is and always has been a single man.”
- The Hunter, The Hoaxer, And The Battle Over Bigfoot - "Jeffrey Meldrum is a respected anthropologist risking his reputation to prove Sasquatch is real; Rick Dyer is a self-described “entertainer” unapologetically capitalizing off it. Their rivalry represents two sides of the fractious but booming subculture."
- How the Morning Star reported the fall of the Berlin Wall - “Cautiously” about sums it up: ”Despite the propaganda being pumped out daily in the West, Socialism is not the issue in question. Any interference in the internal affairs of the Socialist countries by the Western powers in an attempt to turn any difficulties to their advantage can only threaten peace and stability…”
- Commodore VIC-II Color Analysis (Preview) - The VIC-II was the video chip in the Commodore 64, and here’s far more than you ever expected to know about the way it output colour signals: ”If you just measure the "Y" signal with an oscilloscope, you'll notice, that few of the very early VIC's just had 4 different luma-levels (excluding black) and the majority of VIC's (called the "late" ones here) have 8 different luma-levels (excluding black). They doubled them, because quite some people still had black&white TV-sets, where many colors looked exactly the same.” (N.B. uses “,” for decimal point, which is why some of the numbers seem a bit odd on first viewing to us UK types.)
- Violence Is Currency: A Pacifist Ex-Con's Guide To Prison Weaponry - Daniel Genis, who spent ten years in NY state penitentiaries, describes the armoury available to convicts: ”If you're looking to bludgeon someone, filling doubled-up socks with bars of soap or a lock or a can of corn makes for an effective weapon. I saw a man's arm broken with a tin of black beans with one of these, after which a scavenger retrieved the dented can and ate the evidence.”
- In a Box of Old Letters, a Romance Is Reborn After 70 Years - Another story of old letters found, which led to a lasting friendship between the finder and the correspondents’ family: ”A hint of leftist Jewish politics, a suggestion of long-distance romance, a compulsively readable voice—it was all catnip to my inner voyeur… All I was hoping for was a satisfying wallow in a stranger’s long-ago romance. I had no idea that I would meet that stranger and spend years diving even deeper into his family’s personal and political history.”
- Top Secret WWII Bat and Bird Bomber Program - "The United States was engaged in a number of secret aviation projects during World War II. Two of them, not revealed to the public for many years, involved American fliers that were being trained to attack enemy forces and die in the process, kamikaze style. However, these fliers were not humans but common bats and pigeons, drafted to make surprise bombing raids on enemy forces." The incendiary bats idea even continued after the accidental burning down of "a barracks, a control tower and other buildings" at an airbase while in testing
- The Worst Things For Sale - "The Internet's most horrible items." Yet more great ideas for Secret Santa
Happy invoicing!
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