Apparently there's some kind of footballing contest cluttering the TV at the moment, but it's easy to dodge it on the Web
Happy invoicing!
- McMoon: How the Earliest Images of the Moon Were so Much Better than we Realised - "Fifty years ago, 5 unmanned lunar orbiters circled the moon, taking extremely high resolution photos of the surface. They were trying to find the perfect landing site for the Apollo missions… After their use, the images were locked away from the public, as at the time they would have revealed the superior technology of the USA’s spy satellite cameras, which the orbiters cameras were designed from." How the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project photographs were recovered from the tapes on which they'd originally been stored. You can also have a look at the project's blog, and the recovered images are now hosted by NASA's JPL at Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project (LOIRP) Online Data Volumes.
- Layers of London - This project allows you to layer old maps of London, such as a Tudor map from 1520, on a modern interactive map of the city, and explore associated resources: "The layers include historic maps, images of buildings, films as well as information about people who have lived and worked in London over the centuries."
- Davey Jones, the Man Behind the Real Ale Twats - Interview with the man behind the Viz strip: "I’ve spent quite a lot of time in pubs and the characters are sort of composites of types that I encountered. There was a bloke who used to come into my local in Newcastle who had a big beard and a beret and always seemed to be carrying several shoulder bags. He may not even have been a real ale enthusiast – I don’t think I ever heard him speak – but he had the right look, so I drew him. Probably very unfairly."
- The Next Plague Is Coming. Is America Ready? - "The epidemics of the early 21st century revealed a world unprepared, even as the risks continue to multiply. Much worse is coming." TLDR: if you thought Ebola was bad, wait till you see what else nature combined with rapid international travel has up its sleeve.
- She Caught Bullets with Her Bare Hands — and Made Magic’s Glass Ceiling Disappear - "When her husband died and left her penniless, audacious Adelaide Hermann transformed from lowly assistant to ‘the Queen of Magic.’”
- BBC sound effects 1940–86 - You may remember the BBC sound effects library from a couple of months ago. Some of the locations where they were recorded are known, so the London Sound Survey has put them on a map. ”The BBC's numerical filenames have been replaced with descriptive ones, and brief descriptions of the recordings have been copied from the database. You can use placenames and other distinctive words from the descriptions to look up the original recordings on the sound effects website.”
- So what’s the story? The prototype book - How salesman Douglas Keen invented the Ladybird book: ”Keen realised there was a gap in the book market for well-made, robust and colourful books in schools… Children’s book publishing was still seen as a sideshow, Keen as enthusiastic but misguided, and the company went on as before.” There’s an exhibition covering the history of Ladybird books at The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge in Canterbury until late September, if you’re down that way
- Love Boats: The Delightfully Sinful History of Canoes - "Before the youth of America fooled around at drive-ins and necked on Lover’s Lane, they coupled in canoes. Boatloads of them. In the early 1900s, canoes offered randy young guys and gals a means of escape to a semi-private setting, away from the prying eyes of their pious Victorian chaperones." One reason to head up the creek
- Can there be a ‘very good dog?’ Philosophy has an answer - On the interesting question of attributing morality to animals: ”Does a dog know right from wrong? It’s a question philosophers have long pondered, coming to a slew of different conclusions.”
- 507 Mechanical Movements - "This is an online edition of the classic technical reference Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements by Henry T. Brown. This site contains the original illustrations and text from the 21st edition of the book, published in 1908. It also includes animated versions of the illustrations, and occasional notes by the webmaster." The coloured images are the ones you can click on to see an animation showing them in action.
Happy invoicing!
Comment