Recommended Links of the Week (N°297)

Come and have a good time with our recommended links, full of those things we love: video games, cinema, technology, science, and many curiosities. Plus, we have the week's viral videos and galleries full of images worth your time. A lot to feast your brain on!

Telehack, a trip to the 80s Internet: "Before Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web arrived on the Internet, it relied on systems like ARPANET or Usenet, which offered communication and information transfer between users far from the graphical environment we've been used to for quite a few years. And to evoke those days of monochrome monitors when the Internet was almost exclusively linked to the military, corporate, and educational spheres, Telehack comes in. It's a simulator game and at the same time an educational tool, which includes hacking, whose purpose is to show what the Internet was like in the 80s while preserving online digital culture." Excellent.

We explain the Architect's speech in 'Matrix Reloaded': "The climax of 'Matrix Reloaded' remains one of the most radical bets in entertainment cinema: culminating a frantic action, science-fiction, and martial arts film with a monologue. And it's not just any monologue, but one that questions the very mythology of the saga. It's not simply that Neo's revolution seems doomed to failure, but that it isn't even a revolution in the first place. Provocative, stimulating, and unrepeatable, the Architect's sequence is the key to understanding the uniqueness of a trilogy like 'Matrix'. So we've set out to analyze it step by step, phrase by phrase. This is the time bomb the Wachowskis planted in our brains back in 2003." It ends up talking about politicians, but the rest of the article is good.

Captain Hook and the bionic hand: "Hook's hook is a prosthesis (from the ancient Greek prósthesis πρόσθεσις, addition, application, attachment), an artificial device that replaces a part of the body, lost due to trauma or disease, or congenitally absent. Hand prostheses have been known for centuries. Pliny the Elder tells the story of the Roman general Marcus Sergius, whose hand was cut off during a battle, and he asked a blacksmith to build him an iron one that would allow him to hold his shield and return to combat." It starts with Hook and ends with Luke.

Back to the Future LEGO

A tour of the 10 least populated capitals in the world: "I thought about making only the national capitals with the fewest inhabitants in the world, but that would leave out a lot of places I wanted to talk about. So the solution was easy: I'll talk not only about national capitals but also about those of Overseas Territories, Associated Territories, or with some degree of autonomy within the states they belong to. And why not? In the end, when you look at a list of the world's countries, territories like Greenland, the Falkland Islands, French Polynesia, or New Caledonia appear. So I did the same and included them. Having made that clear, let's go with the 10 least populated capitals in the world. Bring coffee, here we go." Very few people!

Twenty crazy, obtuse, and completely disoriented maps: "Borges tells that in that remote Empire, the art of cartography had reached such a degree of perfection that they produced a map as large as the Empire itself and 'coincided point by point with it'. But, of course, such a map was completely useless, so they 'abandoned it to the inclemencies of the sun and winters. In the deserts of the West, torn Ruins of the Map persist, inhabited by Animals and Beggars'. The following maps are not drawn by the hand of imperial ambition but by an uneven mixture of clumsiness and folly. Twenty maps that instead of guiding, mislead, and far from expanding our worldview, plunge us into the distress of the lost traveler." 0 in geography.

Judge Dredd, notes for a social history of dystopia: "Peter Coogan, one of the few historians who have treated the superhero phenomenon with some rigor, identifies three main characteristics of the superhero: a mission, powers, and an identity tied to a nickname and a costume. If we accept some elasticity in the definition of 'powers', perhaps we can agree that the technological and human capability of Judge Dredd clearly places him on a level of augmented ability, to such an extent that he can face extrasensory threats like Judge Fear with the same ease with which he breaks up a protest. On the other hand, although Dredd wears an official uniform, his function is clearly symbolic. Dredd never takes off his helmet or dresses in civilian clothes because his physical appearance is a metaphor for his narrative role, so the judge's suit fulfills the same functions as Peter Parker's suit." My favorite article of the week.

Dancing origami

Virtual hoax: a whole city mobilized for a girl who doesn't exist: "The residents of Colón, Entre Ríos, lived a movie-like episode. For a week, the whole city was on edge over Sofía Velzi, an 18-year-old girl who supposedly disappeared while traveling from Jujuy to see her boyfriend, firefighter Luciano Benítez. The thing is, to everyone's surprise, the girl they were looking for never existed." Poor thing...

Girls with a (electronic) collar: "Without a doubt, the operation of that app is simple and effective. From any computer or phone or whatever, you access via the internet a secure server and, with a password, send a signal to the girl's phone – let's put it that way –. Then, the phone activates its GPS and returns the position, which her parents (or, in an emergency, the cops) can see projected on Google Maps or wherever they prefer. If the girl leaves a predefined area, an alarm automatically triggers. And all for a few bucks a month. Simple, secure, and cheap (there are even free ones, but this particular family thought it better to 'hire something more serious'.)" A wonderful and informative anecdote.

10 signs that your cat loves you: "Headbutts. If a person did this to you, you'd have a clear idea of what they were trying to tell you, but with cats it's a completely different story. In the cat world, headbutting is actually a great privilege. Felines have glands on their heads (around the temples) that secrete pheromones, and by transferring them to you, they 'mark' you as a being that gives them calm and protection." My kitty loves me!

Fish Friend, amazing short

Ten essential inventions that were rejected in their time: "Think back and try to remember what you thought when you first heard about the 'smartphone', the tablet, or the e-book. Did you feel rejection? How long did you last without WhatsApp? And now, what? Can you live without them? Relax, it's normal to feel rejection towards the new. We're not the first and probably won't be the last. Throughout human history, people have repudiated new creations of all kinds for many different reasons, but they have finally been accepted and loved. Here we present ten of them."

Ed Link and the first flight simulator: "Edwin Albert Link, an American born in 1904 and died in 1981, was a singular character with many interests. Without going into depth, Link was an airplane pilot, a pioneer of aviation for advertising purposes, a successful businessman also in the aviation and submarine sectors, a creator of new technologies for underwater archaeology research, and a documentary producer. This mechanical engineer obtained nearly thirty patents, including those related to his most famous invention, the Link Trainer, which is the first flight simulator ever commercialized, which paved the way for an impressive industry."

The icebreaker Lenin, the first nuclear ship in history: "The polar icebreaker Lenin has the honor of being the first nuclear-powered ship in history. Completed in 1957, this icebreaker was powered by four steam turbines and two nuclear reactors. However, being first at something can sometimes bring problems, as evidenced by the 2 nuclear accidents that Lenin suffered during its operational life, which have not been fully clarified even to this day."