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Monday Links from the Lockdown vol. DXXXVI

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    Monday Links from the Lockdown vol. DXXXVI

    Lovely day out there. You can look at it through the window if you like, or you can read this lot instead
    • Stickeen: The Story of a Dog - From 1909, John Muir recounts his adventure on an Alaskan glacier in the company of a small dog: ”I had not gone a dozen rods before he left his bed in the tent and came boring through the blast after me. That a man should welcome storms for their exhilarating music and motion, and go forth to see God making landscapes, is reasonable enough; but what fascination could there be in such tremendous weather for a dog?… Nature, it seems, was at the bottom of the affair, and she gains her ends with dogs as well as with men, making us do as she likes, shoving and pulling us along her ways, however rough, all but killing us at times in getting her lessons driven hard home.”

    • To Make the Perfect Mirror, Physicists Confront the Mystery of Glass - Natalie Wolchover on work to improve the already incredibly precise mirrors used by LIGO to detect gravitational waves: ”LIGO’s mirrors are imperfect, however, because of a strange form of noise that is baked into glass, a mysterious substance in general. Glass consists of atoms or molecules that are haphazardly arranged like those in a liquid yet somehow stuck, unable to flow. Physicists believe that the noise inherent in glass comes from small clusters of atoms switching back and forth between two different configurations… Given the thousandth-of-an-atom amplitude of the gravitational waves LIGO is looking for, the atomic motions are a big problem.”

    • Drawabox - Need something to do while you're stuck inside? Why not learn how to draw with this online course: ”Drawabox's goal is to provide beginners with a strong foundation, and to equip them with the things a lot of other courses and tutorials tend to take for granted.It is not going to make you a professional on its own, but it will teach you how to practice, how to use the resources available to you on the internet, and equip you with the tools and skills you need to take advantage of them.”

    • My Cousin Jack Survived the Unimaginable. Here’s His Advice for Right Now. - Some tips on staying in from Jack Solome, who hid from the Nazis for two years: ”It was a farmer who was hiding us. He had built something under the floor, where the moments we felt there was somebody coming from the outside we would hide… At times, we were 15 people in the small hole there; if they would find us, they would shoot all of us. We had situations like that for the whole two years.”

    • What Happens When Two Strangers Trust the Rides of Their Lives to the Magic of the Universe - ”Once upon a road in Kazakhstan, two men converge in the desert. Strangers born an ocean apart, riding bicycles burdened like camels, they emerge from either horizon, slowly approaching a common point. Day by day, hour after hour, they make their way through a land as flat and featureless as a page without words. Thousands of miles spool out behind them. Thousands more lie ahead. One rides east. The other, west.” The adventures and surprise meeting of two transcontinental cyclists. Below: Noel in the dried-up region of the Aral Sea; Leon dines with a family in Kyrgyzstan.




    • Scientists have turned the structure of the coronavirus into music - ”You’ve probably seen dozens of images of the novel coronavirus—now responsible for 1 million infections and tens of thousands of deaths. Now, scientists have come up with a way for you to hear it: by translating the structure of its famous spike protein into music.” And why not

    • Milky Way Dark Matter Signals in Doubt after Controversial New Papers - Yet more difficulties looking for dark stuff in the dark: ”New analyses question whether mysterious gamma-ray and x-ray light in the galaxy actually stems from an invisible mass”

    • Former RAF Jaguar pilot tells the story of when he was shot down by a RAF Phantom interceptor - ”Bang! The aircraft was yawing violently to the right, and not responding to the controls; I heard the canopy shattering. I hear Paddy’s voice from the other aircraft yelling “Eject! Eject!” Thought process — he must know what is going on because I certainly don’t! Result — I eject.” HT to Scruff for this one

    • textadventures.co.uk - Another way to pass the time: ”textadventures.co.uk is a community of interactive fiction game makers and players. All games here are either playable in your web browser, or as an app for your smartphone or tablet. Almost all are free, and you can even make your own, using our free software - Quest or Squiffy.”

    • How Medieval Artists Saw Elephants: Claws, Hooves, Trunks Like Trumpets, and Castles on Their Backs - ”Imagine a four-legged beast with no knee joints that cannot lie down and has to sleep leaning against a tree. An animal with a long, skinny trumpet for a nose. A creature large enough that one can build small castles on its back. It lives for 300 years and is afraid of mice. Its mortal enemy is the dragon. It must ‘travel to the East, near Paradise, where the mandrake grows’ when it comes time to mate. Now draw this thing.” Some of these aren’t bad; other, not so much



    Happy invoicing!

    #2
    Former RAF Jaguar pilot tells the story of when he was shot down by a RAF Phantom interceptor - ”Bang! The aircraft was yawing violently to the right, and not responding to the controls; I heard the canopy shattering. I hear Paddy’s voice from the other aircraft yelling “Eject! Eject!” Thought process — he must know what is going on because I certainly don’t! Result — I eject.” HT to Scruff for this one
    Great site that one. Cool stories, well written and a host of links within the stories to others. Spent all lunch on this and still at it.

    Nice one!
    'CUK forum personality of 2011 - Winner - Yes really!!!!

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by northernladuk View Post
      Great site that one. Cool stories, well written and a host of links within the stories to others. Spent all lunch on this and still at it.

      Nice one!
      The credit for that one goes to Scruff, and you’re right, it’s a great find

      Comment

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