• Visitors can check out the Forum FAQ by clicking this link. You have to register before you can post: click the REGISTER link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. View our Forum Privacy Policy.
  • Want to receive the latest contracting news and advice straight to your inbox? Sign up to the ContractorUK newsletter here. Every sign up will also be entered into a draw to WIN £100 Amazon vouchers!

Monday Links from the Bench vol. CDLXXXVII

Collapse
X
  •  
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Monday Links from the Bench vol. CDLXXXVII

    Just time for you to skim through this lot before mudskipper's seventh appearance on Countdown, Channel 4, 14:10
    • Breakdown Palace - The story of Kingsley Hall, the community psychoanalyst R. D. Laing established in the 1960s with the intention that, rather than being "treated", people should be allowed to "work through" their madness: ”Mary has been painting on the walls of her room with her tulip… The fact that Mary’s bedroom is beside the dining room does not make the situation easier.”

    • Icefish Study Adds Another Color to the Story of Blood - ”The icefish of the Channichthyidae family are unusual in several ways — they lack scales and have transparent bones, for example — but what stands out most is their so-called white blood, which is unique among vertebrates.” Lots of interesting blood facts here: did you know that haemoglobin is toxic?

    • Archaeologists unearth more evidence that when a civilization drinks together, it stays together - ”The Wari empire, an ancient Peruvian civilization that predated the Inca, made advances in agriculture, art, architecture, and warfare… According to archaeologists, Wari breweries—largely managed by women—played a major role in spreading the empire’s influence across diverse communities throughout Peru during its height between 450 and 1,000 C.E.” Cheers!

    • Forensic reconstruction reveals face of man’s ancient four-legged friend - ”A reconstruction, commissioned by Historic Environment Scotland (HES), has revealed the face of a Neolithic dog for the first time in over 4,000 years. The reconstruction has been created from the skull of a dog discovered in Cuween Hill chambered cairn on Orkney.”


    • Speak, Memory - A strange, sad application of machine learning: ”It had been three months since Roman Mazurenko, Kuyda’s closest friend, had died. Kuyda had spent that time gathering up his old text messages, setting aside the ones that felt too personal, and feeding the rest into a neural network built by developers at her artificial intelligence startup. She had struggled with whether she was doing the right thing by bringing him back this way. At times it had even given her nightmares. But ever since Mazurenko’s death, Kuyda had wanted one more chance to speak with him.”

    • Gravitational waves hint at detection of black hole eating star - Meanwhile in the Universe: ”Gravitational waves may have just delivered the first sighting of a black hole devouring a neutron star. If confirmed, it would be the first evidence of the existence of such binary systems.”

    • You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you - The Oatmeal explores the backfire effect.


    • The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine - Throughout human history, it seems, people have eaten bits of other people for the good of their health: ”The question was not ‘Should you eat human flesh?’ says one historian, but, ‘What sort of flesh should you eat?’”

    • Dark Matter Search Discovers A Spectacular Bonus: The Longest-Lived Unstable Element Ever - ”Many of the chemical elements that appear stable on short timescales will turn out to be fundamentally unstable, decaying away into other elements if we wait long enough… In a spectacular discovery, the XENON collaboration has just publicly announced the discovery that xenon-124, an isotope of the element Xenon, is fundamentally unstable. Its half-life is a whopping 1.8 × 1022 years: more than one trillion times the present age of the Universe.”

    • Museo Del Objeto - Museum of Mexican packaging and other ephemera: ”Forty years ago, the founder of MODO, Bruno Newman, started to gather and collect a series of objects which he found some beautiful, others original, but all interesting. The Museum today holds close to 90 thousand objects from the last 200 years. Unique artifacts whose destiny was to be perishable, such as packaging materials, cases, advertisement and other objects related to graphic arts all form a mayor part of MODO´s collection.”



    Happy invoicing!

    #2
    I read this bit wrong.

    ”Mary has been painting on the walls of her room with her tulip…
    I thought well it's unusual to paint with a tulip, not particularly effective but still not that mad. Darn swear filter.

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by woohoo View Post
      I read this bit wrong.



      I thought well it's unusual to paint with a tulip, not particularly effective but still not that mad. Darn swear filter.
      I wondered if I could justify bypassing the naughty words filter for that one, as it's a direct quotation and might - in fact did - cause confusion, but I decided not to risk it

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by woohoo View Post
        I read this bit wrong.



        I thought well it's unusual to paint with a tulip, not particularly effective but still not that mad. Darn swear filter.
        She appears to use the same method as Keith Boadwee but just uses different materials.

        Boadwee is best known for squirting paint onto canvasses from his anus.
        I'll let anyone interested in him Google it themselves rather than put any links up but obviously not one for the office.
        'CUK forum personality of 2011 - Winner - Yes really!!!!

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by northernladuk View Post
          She appears to use the same method as Keith Boadwee but just uses different materials.
          Does he sell a lot?
          When the fun stops, STOP.

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by DoctorStrangelove View Post
            Does he sell a lot?
            Dunno, I refrained from buying any of his future master pieces. If that's how he paints I was a little worried about how he signs the paperwork.
            'CUK forum personality of 2011 - Winner - Yes really!!!!

            Comment

            Working...
            X