Sunny out. Presumably the traditional Bank Holiday downpour is waiting until I hit the road later 
Happy invoicing!
- 50 years ago – a huge steel umbrella for Oxford Circus tube station - "On the August Bank Holiday, 50 years ago, a massive operation was undertaken to open a giant umbrella over what was to become Oxford Circus tube station. It took the whole bank holiday weekend to open the umbrella, for this was no flimsy device to protect ladies hair, but something so vast that it that would put even a bankers golfing brolly to shame." Quite neat that in order to fit the work in over the Bank Holiday weekend, they Tarmacced the road sections before delivery
- The Third Core’s Revenge - "By the end of August 1945, there had been a total of three plutonium cores created in the entire world. Everyone knows about the first two. The first was put into the Gadget and detonated at Trinity in July 1945. The second was put into the Fat Man and detonated over Nagasaki in August 1945. The third, however, has been largely overlooked." It managed to kill a couple of scientists long before it was finally detonated
- Fritz Lang’s M: Watch the Restored Version of the Classic 1931 Film - Much better than that rubbish on the telly: "When Jean-Luc Godard asked the Austrian filmmaker Fritz Lang in 1961 to name his greatest film, the one most likely to last, Lang did not hesitate. “M,” he said. Made in 1931, near the end of the Weimar Republic, M is Lang’s brilliant link between silent film and talkies, and between German Expressionism and what would eventually be called Film Noir. It tells the story of a Berlin society caught up in hysteria over a series of child murders, and of the massive mobilization — by police and criminals alike — to catch the killer."
- Extensive timelines of slang for genitalia - Just what you always needed, going back to the 1300s
- Bears Need Highway Overpasses, Too - "Beautiful Banff National Park in Canada began to install the first of several dozen underpasses and overpasses across the Trans-Canada Highway inside the preserve's boundaries in the 1980s. They connect on either side of the four-lane road to no sidewalks or trails. And they've never been marked on hiking maps of the park used by tourists." Not just bears, but wildlife of all sorts make use of these remote pedestrian crossings.
- The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Starting And Running Your Business - Trenchant advice from James Altucher: "Q. If a client wants you to hire their friend or they won’t give you the business (e.g. like a bribe) what should you do?" "A. Always do the ethical thing: Hire the friend and get the client’s business."
- Mapped: Every Protest on the Planet Since 1979 - "The Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone (GDELT) tracks news reports and codes them for 58 fields, from where an incident took place to what sort of event it was (these maps look at protests, violence, and changes in military and police posture) to ethnic and religious affiliations, among other categories. The dataset has recorded nearly 250 million events since 1979, according to its website, and is updated daily. John Beieler, a doctoral candidate at Penn State, has adapted these data into striking maps, like the one above of every protest recorded in GDELT -- a breathtaking visual history lesson."
- Heroin.com: Selling Junk Online - David Shapiro and Joe Coscarelli meet the NY drug dealers who hook up with customers via sites such as Craigslist: "Sellers thinly camouflage their activity by posting ads for "420 T-shirts" or "tickets to the 420 show," using the numerical calling card for marijuana, or referring to "Tina," "T," and "parTy" for crystal meth. "Snow" or "skiing" is a cocaine reference. "Relief" calls up a healthy section of pills: Xanax, Ambien, Ativan, Klonopin, morphine. Ironically, no search term is more productive at bringing up drug ads than "law enforcement," standard words for a buyer or seller who insists he's not with the NYPD."
- justdelete.me - "A directory of direct links to delete your account from web services." Now you can easily remove yourself from all those sites you've signed up for but never use. Well, except those that don't let you.
- Abandoned House in the Woods Taken Over by Wild Animals - "Finnish photographer Kai Fagerström presents unique photo series, where he captures wild animals making themselves comfortable in abandoned houses in the woods of Finland. Titled The House in the Woods, the photo series is set in cottages near Kai’s summer house, which were abandoned by their tenants after the owner of the place died in a fire."
Happy invoicing!
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