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Monday Links from the Council Tip vol. CCLXXVII

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    Monday Links from the Council Tip vol. CCLXXVII

    I'm taking this week off from ClientCorp; while I relax by spring cleaning junk out of my flat, you can all skive reading this lot:
    • Surely you can’t be serious: An oral history of Airplane! - "In 1980, a trio of gentlemen from Wisconsin - Jim Abrahams and brothers David and Jerry Zucker - took a cast of predominantly non-comedic actors, put a parodic spin on the disaster-film genre, and created a film which not only made moviegoers howl with laughter but also earned critical acclaim. Airplane! celebrates its 35th anniversary this year… we spoke with as many people involved in Airplane! as we possibly could—including the Zuckers, Jim Abrahams, and cast members Robert Hays, Frank Ashmore, Al White, Lee Bryant, Ross Harris, Jill Whelan, Maureen McGovern, David Leisure, Gregory Itzin, Marcy Goldman, and Jimmie Walker—and asked them to reflect on their experiences while making the film as well as their astonishment that audiences still love Airplane!”

    • How to (try to) Lie With Wikipedia - "Neckbeards. A fashion choice. An internet insult. Has the term been used as a pejorative since Colonial times? The internet says so. I looked into it." Jessamyn West investigates dubious Wikipedia citations.

    • Strange continuity - "Suppose you were sitting at home, relaxing on a sofa with your dog, when suddenly your visual image of the dog gave way to that of a steaming bowl of noodles. You might find that odd, no? Now suppose that not just the dog changed, but the sofa too. Suppose everything in your visual field changed instantaneously in front of your eyes." Jeffrey M Zacks on advances in understanding how our visual perception systems work that explain why cuts in movies don’t freak our brains out

    • The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State - "An Iraqi officer planned Islamic State's takeover in Syria and SPIEGEL has been given exclusive access to his papers. They portray an organization that, while seemingly driven by religious fanaticism, is actually coldly calculating… When the men later learned who they had killed, they searched the house, gathering up computers, passports, mobile phone SIM cards, a GPS device and, most importantly, papers. They didn't find a Koran anywhere.”

    • The Honecker Nuclear Bunker in Berlin - "Codenamed 17/5001, this secret bunker was one of the communist world’s most advanced bunkers, built to protect the leaders of the former East Germany from a nuclear attack." Lots of photos of yet another Cold War relic:


    • Impetus - "Let me tell you about a game I made with the sole intention of watching it die… After my first suggestion – a game that would only be playable a single time, for 10 seconds, and then disappear once and for all – iteration quickly led to what eventually would become Impetus.” Dominik Johan on a “weird idea” that took off, then was brought back to earth with a bump.

    • The Untold Story of Mussolini’s Fake Diaries - We’ve all heard of the Hitler Diaries which so embarrassed Lord Dacre, but years earlier, the purported diaries of the Italian Fascist were offered to Sunday Times journalist Clive Irving: ”The women produced diaries for 1940, ’41, and for part of ’43, as well as a transcript of entries from the 1942 diary… my team was persuaded that the diaries were authentic. They had checked out the chronology and details of meetings with the Italian historical records, the physical condition of the diaries looked right, the paper was unusual, said to have been manufactured specially for Mussolini by the state printers, pages were scuffed and the covers were missing ‘because they were too conspicuous.’”

    • Homeless Millennials Are Transforming Hobo Culture - Vagabonds ain’t what they used to be: ”“The day I started on the road, I had a flip phone, an iPod, a TomTom GPS, an atlas, a laptop, and free Wi-Fi wasn't very easy to find,” says a medic who’s been a hobo for four years and asks me to identify him as “Nuke.”… He now lives out of a ’91 Ford pickup and says, “I have a smartphone, a laptop, and free Wi-Fi is everywhere.””

    • 13 MORE Things That Saved Apollo 13 - ”On the night of April 13th, 1970, when the oxygen tank in Apollo 13’s command module exploded, a 27-year-old engineer named Jerry Woodfill sat at his console in the Mission Evaluation Room at Johnson Space Center, monitoring the caution and warning system he helped create for the Apollo spacecraft.” Back in 2010, to mark the 40th anniversary of Apollo 13, Universe Today published 13 Things That Saved Apollo 13 (included in Monday Links XXXVI). Now, for the forty-fifth anniversary, Jerry Woodfill brings us thirteen more; three have been posted so far, so keep checking back daily

    • Bags of Style – Record Shop Bags - "Back in the day when every high street had a record shop and people actually went out of their houses to buy music the record shop bag was quite a style accessory for any aspiring young man (or woman) about town. We’ve had a good root around the internet and dug out these images of record shop bags from times gone by." It’s not the most impressive design here by a long way, but much of my record collection originally came home in one of these Andy’s Records bags in the late 70s - mid 80s. I may even still have one somewhere that'll turn up as I spring clean the flat



    Happy invoicing!

    #2
    Well done you NF !

    Honeckers Nuclear Bunker is fascinating .

    Comment


      #3
      Record and Tapes in Falmouth. Later became Compact Records and Tapes from what I can remember. Falmouth used to have a few places to pick up tunes. I remember from Records and Tapes many Fall albums, most noteable in my mind was probably Code: Selfish. Lots of Dead Kennedys, New Fast Automatic Daffidols and then later on the first wander into Techno and Jungle. I remember picking up some really nice early Drum and Bass from there. Also in Falmouth, just down the street, was HMV. Used to be the odd decent bit in there, remember getting a few good bits in there. Some Half Man Half Biscuit albums were the best haul I think.

      Then right down the other side of the town, almost opposite Trago Mills, was the second hand record shop. Got most of my Joy Division collection in there, quite a lot of punk stuff as well. It's still there I think. Sounds OK:
      https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.15...Es6qUL4mSA!2e0

      Thanks for stirring the memories Nick! I finally have my record collection back in reach now the house work is done. Just need the time to root through it all Good luck with the flat clearing, nice weather for it.

      Comment


        #4
        From memory both Compact Records and Sounds OK still exist. Won't be able to confirm until August though...
        merely at clientco for the entertainment

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by eek View Post
          From memory both Compact Records and Sounds OK still exist. Won't be able to confirm until August though...
          If it does it has moved:
          https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.15...iQ5YNnQjOQ!2e0

          Comment

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