Category Archives: amusements

amusements, history, links, science

Your Interesting Links

So soon already here’s another rag-bag of links to interesting articles you may have missed the first time round …
Quite a long time ago Scientific American posted an interactive Periodic Table, but they have been doing some updates to it. Click the element for some basic information. May be helpful for those with yoofs studying chemistry.
So ladies, what if everything your doctors told you about breast cancer was wrong? Find out some of the realities ad decide for yourself whether you should have that mammogram. [Long read]


Staying with jiggling lady-parts … here’s why scientists are saying you should throw your bra away.
Moving down the body, Belgian sexologist Goedele Liekens is on a mission to sort out prudish British sex education. And not before time, says I.
In another medical piece, scientists now think that anything up to 25% of our genes work in sync with the seasons. And that may mean our central heating and artificial lighting are screwing our physiology which expects winter to be different to summer.
Here are just two of many recent pieces which have looked at the sleeping patterns of hunter-gatherers and compared them to our modern habits. Seems they aren’t so different as we thought. First from the estimable Ed Yong in The Atlantic and the second from IFL Science.
And now for the obligatory piece about our feline companions. It seems our cats aren’t so emotionally distant as we think and they do seem to be able to sense our moods.
So at last to the history section …
It’s right what they say: you don’t know what you’ve got until you look. An historian has found the earliest known draft of part of the King James Bible hidden away in a Cambridge college.
Those of us who live in London love to moan about London Transport. But have you ever wondered what London’s public transport was like in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries?
Back in the 17th century lots of amateur natural philosophers (what we would now call scientists) were experimenting with lenses and looking at the microscopic world. Mostly they didn’t understand what they saw and had to get artists to try to draw it for them.
Returning to London, here’s a brief history of Georgian London (1714-1830).

And finally here’s something totally mad … A Steampunk-themed café filled with kinetic sculptures has opened in Romania.

amusements

Oddity of the Week: Internet Connected

New! Amazing! Awesome!
Low-benefit (but Internet-connected!) devices now on sale (from February 2015 MacLife magazine):

  • HAPIfork — Bluetooth-connected, alerts you if you’re eating too fast
  • iKettle — heat water at different temperatures for different drinks, controlled by phone
  • an LG washing machine — lets you start the wash cycle while away; provided, of course, that you’ve already loaded the machine
  • Kolibree “smart toothbrush” — tracks and graphs “brushing habits”
  • Satis “smart toilet” — remotely flushes, raises and lowers the seat, and engages the bidet — all features which MacLife touts mainly good for “terrorizing guests”.

Culled from Weird Universe.

amusements, history, people

Ten Things #22

In a couple of days time my mother should have been celebrating her 100th birthday, but sadly she died earlier this year. So for this month’s Ten Things I thought we should do something to reflect on the momentous events my mother saw in her lifetime.
Ten Historical Events from My Mother’s Lifetime before She was 21 (in October 1936)

  1. Russian Revolution (1917)
  2. End of the Great War (1918)
  3. Spanish Flu Epidemic (1918-19)
  4. Creation of Irish Free State (1922)
  5. General Strike (1926)
  6. Universal suffrage for everyone over 21 in UK (1928)
  7. First talking films (1928)
  8. Wall Street Crash (1929)
  9. Hitler comes to power in Germany (1933)
  10. Accession of Edward VIII (1936) (but not the Abdication as that didn’t happen until December 1936)

And that is just the tip of the iceberg!

amusements

Oddity of the Week: Password Security

Soheil Rezayazdi has suggested the following Nihilistic Password Security Questions:

  • What is the name of your least favourite child?
  • In what year did you abandon your dreams?
  • What is the maiden name of your father’s mistress?
  • At what age did your childhood pet run away?
  • What was the name of your favourite unpaid internship?
  • In what city did you first experience ennui?
  • What is your ex-wife’s newest last name?
  • What sports team do you fetishise to avoid meaningful discussion with others?
  • What is the name of your favourite cancelled TV show?
  • What was the middle name of your first rebound?
  • On what street did you lose your childlike sense of wonder?
  • When did you stop trying?

Lots stupidity in this vein over at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.