• 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 Lockdown vol. DLXXII

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

    Monday Links from the Lockdown vol. DLXXII

    I see lots of Google things like Gmail are down. Good job you don't need them to read stuff like this
    • The Ballad of Ron and Dorinda - ”In 1986, two lovebirds busted out of a coed prison in a hijacked helicopter. They’ve been trying to escape ever since.” The saga of Dorinda Lopez, imprisoned for bank robbery, and Ronald J. McIntosh, a fraudster who'd flown helicopters in Vietnam, and their escape from Pleasanton Federal Correctional Institution.

    • Super Slow Computer Programs Reveal Math's Fundamental Limits - No need for speed: ”[Hungarian mathematician Tibor Radó] asked: How long can a simple computer program possibly run before it terminates?… In the last several years, the busy beaver game, as it’s known, has become an object of study in its own right, because it has yielded connections to some of the loftiest concepts and open problems in mathematics.”

    • Scientists Uncover the Universal Geometry of Geology - A new mathematical insight into how stuff breaks: ”From mathematics alone, Domokos argued, any rocks that broke randomly would crack into shapes that have, on average, six faces and eight vertices. Considered together, they would all be shadowy approximations converging on a sort of ideal cube. Domokos had proved it mathematically, he said. Now he needed Jerolmack’s help to show that this is what nature does.”

    • Phosphorus equivalent of graphene makes reconfigurable transistors - ”At the moment, our processors are built on silicon. But fundamental limits on what can be done with that material has researchers eyeing ways to use materials that have inherently small features… But can these materials allow us to do things that silicon can't? The answer appears to be yes, based on research published earlier this week. In it, the researchers describe transistors that can be reconfigured on the fly so that they perform completely different operations.”

    • Behind the Yakuza: documenting the women of Japan’s mafia - ”Photographer Chloé Jafé’s new series lends a voice to the notoriously closed subculture of women associated with the Yakuza.” And yes, they have tattoos.


    • The Obsessive Life and Mysterious Death of the Fisherman Who Discovered The Loch Ness Monster - The tale of Sandy Gray: ”A humble Scotsman saw something strange in the water—and daringly set out to catch it—only to have lecherous out-of-towners steal his fame and upend his quest.”

    • Jupiter and Saturn align in the sky, their closest approach to each other in 400 years - Look to the southwest after sunset to see the appulse of the two largest outer planets: ”On Dec. 21 they'll pass so close together that by eye they'll barely be distinguishable as two objects! They haven't been this close together in nearly 400 years, and won't be again for a long, long time, so catch it while you can.”

    • A Tree That Makes Poisonous Rats - ”Meet the African crested rat (Lophiomys imhausi). Its large size and bold color patterns make it look like the result of a passionate encounter between a porcupine and a skunk. However, it is 100% rat and it has a fascinating defense strategy that begins with a tree native throughout parts of eastern Africa aptly referred to as the poison arrow tree (Acokanthera schimperi).”

    • Trunk Road Gritter Tracker - HT to WTFH for this interactive map showing the realtime locations of Scotland's gritters, which have names like "Mr Plow" and "For Your Ice Only": ”The Trunk Road Gritter Tracker page provides live tracking of gritters on the trunk road network. It displays the current location of gritters and a trail with an age range for where gritters have previously passed along the trunk routes across Scotland.”

    • Lucas Zimmermann: Series - The portfolio of German photographer Lucas Zimmermann: ”There are many situations in our everyday life when we miss a beautiful moment, or in this case a picture, simply because we don’t stop and look around. I once read that you can’t create a perfect moment but that you will witness them. We only have to stop from time to time and let it happen.” This one is from his first series of long exposures of traffic lights in fog



    Happy invoicing!

    #2
    Awesome set Nick. Thx

    Comment

    Working...
    X