Quite a pleasant day out there today, though I'm assured the weather will deteriorate nicely tomorrow 
Happy invoicing!
- GamesMaster: The Inside Story - "Dominik Diamond, Dave Perry and friends reveal what went on behind the scenes of the greatest games show ever made." A look back at the 1990s games show featuring Patrick Moore.
- The Rise and Fall of the Lyons’ Cornerhouses and their Nippy Waitresses - "In 1924 the directors at J. Lyons and Co. decided to update their image and specifically their waitresses… The name ‘Nippy’ was eventually chosen, probably for the connotation that the waitresses nipped speedily around. If ‘Nippy’ sounds odd as a nickname for a waitress, it’s worth noting that other rejected suggestions included ‘Sybil-at-your-service’, ‘Miss Nimble’, Miss Natty’, ‘Busy Bertha’, ’Speedwell and even ‘Dextrous Dora’.” The article also mentions LEO, the world’s first business computer, which very properly existed solely to ensure the English could take afternoon tea in a civilised manner
- A Converstion with Erik Spiekermann - Om Malik talks to the designer and typographer: ”The English were good at concepts, and then they lost it. That’s actually a good combination, the English with their creativity and their weird ideas and then you get a German to make it work. To tighten all the bolts… Everything in England is idiosyncratic. I don’t know how they ever managed to have their stupid empire. I mean, how did the Brits conquer people?”
- I worked in a video store for 25 years. Here’s what I learned as my industry died. - Dennis Perkins on the drawn-out demise of a business: ”I spent 25 years of my life in an industry that no longer exists. Maybe I'm not the most ambitious guy. But that time has provided me with an up-close look at not just how the industry is changing but how people's tastes, and the culture those tastes create, have changed with it. Here's what I've learned.”
- When chickens go wild - "The feral chickens of Kauai provide a unique opportunity to study what happens when domesticated animals escape and evolve."
- Corpse Brides and Ghost Grooms: A Guide to Marrying the Dead - "Posthumous marriage—that is, nuptials in which one or both members of the couple are dead—is an established practice in China, Japan, Sudan, France, and even the United States, among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The procedural and legal nuances of each approach vary wildly between cultures, but here is an overview of how to tie the knot with someone who isn't quite alive." Handy hints from Ella Morton.
- 10 Classic Poems about Cats Everyone Should Read - From 9th century Irish monks to TS Eliot, poets have had good things to say about cats: ”Christopher ‘Kit’ Smart (1722-1771) was confined to a mental asylum for a number of years… Jeoffrey was Smart’s only companion during his time in the asylum, and Smart wrote this touching celebration of his feline friend.”
- Thaddeus Cahill's Teleharmonium - A remarkable machine for playing music down telephone lines, an early version of Muzak created by a kind of weird synthesiser: ”By 1906 the new Telharmonium was beginning to take shape. 50 people were now working in Holyoke to build this massive machine. Four years and $200,000 later, it was now 60 feet long, weighed almost 200 tons and incorporated over 2000 electric switches. The newer model featured 145 gear driven alternators (or dynamos). These provided more accurate intonation than the previous design and produced 36 notes per octave with frequencies between 40 - 4000 Hz.”
- The Making of Lemmings - History of the classic game: ”The characters and objective tap into a minor strain of folklore: the idea that real lemmings follow each other to death en masse… Which is why the twist of Lemmings – that you can save these leaderless creatures – intrigues our inner logic and strokes the ego. But it’s also unusual for a game to focus on saving things. ”
- Marmalade Skies: Remember the Times 1966 - 1970, Remember the Times 1971 - 1975 - HT to Zeity for this great archive of psychedelia/prog related stuff.
Happy invoicing!
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