Interviewed for a potential gig earlier: fun stuff, good company, and best of all: near home! Time to short Premier Inn... Anyway, that's why these are a bit late:
Happy invoicing!
- Cracking the Agrippa Code - "In 1992 cyberpunk author William Gibson wrote a short poem called Agrippa (a book of the dead) that tells about memory, loss, nature and mechanism, all framed by a Kodak photo album. The poem was bundled into a Mac System 7 application and included on a 3.5” diskette in the back of a noir art book by Dennis Ashbaugh and Kevin Begos, Jr. Once run, the program displays Gibson’s poem just once, and encrypts itself. Never to be seen again, until now." Join the challenge to decrypt Gibson's poem and you can win a copy of all of his books. Or you could just do it for fun
- Cocaine Incorporated: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Money - "Michael Braun, the former chief of operations for the D.E.A., told me a story about the construction of a high-tech fence along a stretch of border in Arizona. “They erect this fence,” he said, “only to go out there a few days later and discover that these guys have a catapult, and they’re flinging hundred-pound bales of marijuana over to the other side.” He paused and looked at me for a second. “A catapult,” he repeated. “We’ve got the best fence money can buy, and they counter us with a 2,500-year-old technology.”" In-depth look at the multifarious facets of the international drug trade.
- Super-Resolution From a Single Image - This research project promises to make CSI-style "zoom and enhance" a reality; well, a bit anyway. (The example image switchers need JavaScript enabled, you NoScript folk.) Just for fun, here's the excellent "Let's Enhance" video again:
- The Chickens and the Bulls: The rise and incredible fall of a vicious extortion ring that preyed on prominent gay men in the 1960s - "Though now almost forgotten, the case of “the Chickens and the Bulls” as the NYPD called it (or “Operation Homex,” to the FBI), still stands as the most far-flung, most organized, and most brazen example of homosexual extortion in the nation’s history. And while the Stonewall riot in June 1969 is considered by many to be the pivotal moment in gay civil rights, this case represents an important crux too, marking the first time that the law enforcement establishment actually worked on behalf of victimized gay men, instead of locking them up or shrugging."
- Supervising Women Workers - "Y'know, women workers can be surprisingly good producers." World War II training film for managers, by the United States Office of Education Training.
- 1 shaft, 4 heads: The echidna’s penis - "The echidna is an odd animal for many reasons. It looks like a cross between a hedgehog, a platypus and an anteater (and indeed it is commonly known as the “spiny anteater”). Additionally, the females of this mamalian species lay eggs, which is really rare – in fact, the only other mammal known to do this is the platypus (egg-laying mammals are called monotremes), so already we can see that these are special ickly cuties. But what is perhaps most bizarre about this little Australian waddler is its penis. Dare you look?"
- 100 Greatest Beatles Songs - Brilliant tour through the Fab Four's finest works.
- Metropolis: A Rare Film Programme for Fritz Lang’s Masterpiece - "The world’s most valuable movie poster, for Fritz Lang’s 1927 masterpiece Metropolis, is to be auctioned again after making a record $690,000 in 2005. Ephemera related to the film is notoriously scarce, with only four copies of the poster known to survive. Almost as uncommon is this amazing film programme produced for the London premiere at the Marble Arch Pavilion on March 21, 1927, one of only three copies that we have handled. Not only a list of cast and crew, it includes eleven short pieces on the making of the movie, commentary from the director and cast, and numerous production photographs and film stills, many attractively arranged as modernist collages." Excellent high-res scans of this bit of cinema history.
- tulipe Food - "tulipe Food was started as an antidote to the middle class ‘food porn’ programmes on television. Tired of seeing Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Nigella Lawson spunk the average persons food budget for the week on one meal, I thought it was time for a dose of reality." Had to use a URL shortener to get this one past the naughty words filter; for reference, the true domain name is tulipefood.co.uk, with the usual word replacing "tulip"
- "Here's a bunch of GIFs I made zipping and spinning through San Francisco with a camera" - Just shows what you can do nowadays with some cheap kit and the right amount of free time
Happy invoicing!
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