Bit late today: I got back to watching Breaking Bad last night, and finally reached the end of Season 5 (part I) at about half five this morning 
Still, that's what time on the bench is for, isn't it? 
Happy invoicing!
Still, that's what time on the bench is for, isn't it? - Mount Everest in 3D - "On April 18, a deadly avalanche killed 13 and left three Sherpa missing on Mt. Everest, the single deadliest day in the mountain's history. Discovery was at base camp preparing to film a live event with adventurist Joby Ogywn when disaster struck." You'll need a modern browser to get the most out of this site and take a journey to the summit in 3D. While you're there, use the menu to find out more about the tragedy, and how you can help.
- How Far Are You Flung When an Amusement Park Ride Goes Terribly Wrong? - "Let me start off by saying that the Booster Maxxx is the best amusement ride ever. Ever since a friend of mine got me drunk a few years ago and took me to the carnival, I’ve been hooked... Part of the joy of the Booster Maxxx is knowing that every few weeks, a bunch of underpaid Eastern-European carnies take it apart and put it back together again in another city, significantly increasing the chances of a catastrophic accident. Not that I have a death wish—but if I have to die anyway, then a Booster-assisted parabolic launch seems like a good way to go." Includes Google Maps views of your likely landing place, depending on which Dutch city the fair is in when disaster strikes
- Best Illusion of the Year: 2014 Finalists - No, not politician's broken promises or (in UKIP's case) deranged ramblings: "The Neural Correlate Society’s current main purpose is to host the Best Illusion of The Year Contest, to be held annually in Naples, Florida (during the same week that the Vision Sciences Society meets). The community served by the NCS includes visual scientists, ophthalmologists, neurologists, and visual artists who use a variety of methods to help discover the neural underpinnings of illusory perception." In other words, cool optical illusions
- The Infinite Space Between Words - Thanks to quackhandle for pointing out this one, in which Jeff Atwood brings together some comparisons of relative computer system component speeds with other systems: "That infinite space "between" what we humans feel as time is where computers spend all their time. It's an entirely different timescale." (Similar points are considered in Michael Lewis's recent bestseller about HFT, Flash Boys.)
- The Worst Waiter in History - "San Francisco in the late 1960s was a place for lovers, poets, and peace-makers. Positivity and goodwill were as omnipresent as the fog, and people were greeted with open arms and rosy cheeks. Unless, of course, you were on the second story of Sam Wo Restaurant in the heart of Chinatown... Edsel Ford Fong -- the world's most insulting waiter -- greeted patrons with a “sit down and shut up!” Routinely, he cussed out his customers, sexually accosted female companions, and unapologetically spilled soup across laps."
- The Disappearing Physicist and His Elusive Particle - Profile of Ettore Majorana, colleague of such luminaries as Fermi, who came up with a cornerstone of particle physics, then disappeared: "In 1982 Pontecorvo, one of the Via Panisperna boys, wrote “in the ’50s and in the ’60s the opinion was frequently expressed that neutrinos a la Majorana, although beautiful and interesting objects, are not realized in nature; … [things have changed] and the question raised by Majorana is now the central question in neutrino physics.”" Can a cornerstone be central? Ah well, mixed metaphors FTW
- How Firewalls Killed Zynga or Why the Mobile Internet Took Off in 2012 - Kostadis Roussos considers the sharp decline of browser-based gaming that drastically affected Zynga and, almost, Facebook: "At the same time as Facebook and Zynga were taking over the world, ng-fw‘s (next generation firewalls) came into existence. Their claim to fame was that they could identify the applications and then apply security policies at the application layer."
- Defensive BASH Programming - Kfir Lavi has a load of useful advice, should you dare to venture into the weird world of Bash script programming: "Nothing is new here, but from my experience pepole like to abuse BASH, forget computer science and create a Big ball of mud from their programs."
- 33 Amazingly Useful Websites You Never Knew Existed - Thanks to cojak for this one, a great list of useful little web apps, some of which have already appeared in Monday Links, many of which haven't
- Signs From the Near Future - "We better get used to them..."
Happy invoicing!
