Recommended Links of the Week (N°551): Inner Voices, H.G. Wells, Star Wars, Falcon 4.0 & More

Not everyone has an inner voice, H. G. Wells' time travel, Star Wars and philosophy, the legend of 'Falcon 4.0' and the town of a thousand borders are just a few of the things you'll find in these spectacular weekend links. Don't miss them!

How are online videos helping Chinese farmers get rich?: "Ma Gongzuo was a modest beekeeper until he started selling his honey using an increasingly popular technique among Chinese farmers: recording video clips about the origin of their products and life in the countryside. Now he drives a BMW."

Not everyone thinks with an inner voice: "Fun fact: some people have an internal narrative and others don't. That is, some people's thoughts are sentences they can hear, but other people only have non-verbal thoughts and have to verbalize them consciously. And many people don't even know that another kind of person exists."

H. G. Wells' time travel and social warning: "This was the optimistic forecast that the ruling class, not only British, and most cultivated men, had of the progress of humanity. We already pointed it out in the Metropolis post, how before World War I, the development of technology and industry was perceived as an uninterrupted line towards paradise on Earth. But H. G. Wells was a socialist, and for him, as for many thinkers and activists of this ideological current, the future did not necessarily present itself so idyllic."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/MT-70ni4Ddo

The arrival of a train at La Ciotat station in 4K

Star Wars and the rise of philosophy: "Star Wars, the war of the galaxies, has become a classic of science fiction in its own right. Although, does it hide more reality than one might think at first? Its ability to present current social problems with the most advanced special effects techniques has made this saga a true mass phenomenon. But is there philosophy in Star Wars?"

The legend of 'Falcon 4.0', a flight simulator kept alive for more than two decades by a dedicated community: "Probably all of you reading this have one or several special games in your lives. For many people that game is 'Falcon 4.0', a flight simulator developed by MicroProse in 1998 that became one of the best in history and in which we piloted the legendary General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon. It is for many reasons, but also because of a community of users who have managed to keep this simulator alive for more than two decades."

Trip to Baarle, the town of a thousand borders: "Baarle is a town of ten thousand inhabitants divided into two municipalities of two different countries: Baarle-Nassau (Netherlands) and Baarle-Hertog (Belgium). The town is on Dutch territory although two-thirds of its surface is under Belgian sovereignty. There are many binational localities, even national capitals that are next to each other, but what makes Baarle special is, of course, its border. Or its many borders."

Draining the oceans

What science has to say about the Apocalypse: "The Doomsday Clock was created primarily to warn of the risks of annihilation of human civilization if the Cold War, which for decades pitted the US and the Soviet Union against each other, turned into an atomic conflict. Today, however, many more risks are evaluated, such as uncontrolled artificial intelligence or biotechnology and, as physicist Lawrence Krauss, a member of the Doomsday Clock scientists' council, has written, “this multiplication of threats has raised the sense of alarm.”"

Don't worry! Pseudomedicines have the cure for the Wuhan coronavirus: "The main characteristic of those wagon fairground performers who practice alternative pseudomedicines is that they have a cure for all known diseases and also for unknown ones. And so, as soon as a new disease appears, they are able to develop (without the need for those long, complicated and tedious scientific protocols) an appropriate “medicine” in a matter of days or even hours. And this is what has just happened with the recent zoonosis of the Wuhan coronavirus."

What Chernobyl fungi can teach us about traveling to space: "Many animal and plant species were also logically affected by the intense levels of radiation that invaded the city of Pripyat and other nearby places. However, there are living beings that not only resist those harsh new conditions, but also seek them out. These are some species of fungi that have thrived among the ruins of the old plant, covering them with a thick layer of jet black color."

Train acrobatics

Nazi plans in fiction and reality: "The stories of vanished submarines and forbidden aviation technologies fueled wild theories of Nazi redoubts and the imminent resurrection of the Third Reich. A major United States Navy operation in Antarctica in 1946 seemed to confirm the worst fears: that the Nazi reign of terror had survived underground near the South Pole."

Disgust at dirt, disgust at sex, and moral disgust: three types of disgust we mix more than we think: "Disgust at pathogens, sexual disgust and moral disgust were the three categories of disgust recently studied by a group of researchers at the University of Texas. To measure the different types of disgust, questionnaires were carried out related to each of them."

Iran's new spacesuit appears to be a child's $20 costume: "The Islamic Republic of Iran has today presented its official astronaut garment, a lightweight-looking suit that bears many similarities to a Halloween costume that can be purchased online for just 20 dollars. The Iranian Minister of Information and Communications Technology, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, published on his verified Twitter account a photo of the spacesuit along with the message “astronaut suit” and the hashtag “bright future”."

I make a GYROSCOPE: Do you know what it's for?

Videos

How to create a virtual traffic jam
Sidereal day vs solar day
How cats always land on their feet
Susan SuLu Dubow - Ode To Spock (1982)
Music synchronized to a roller coaster
The hospital built in 10 days
Eating in the forest
The dog blah blah blah
Little box with surprises
Dance with 'mirrors'
'Tight Pants, Body Rolls' Remix
Ayyyyyy
How the brain shuts down at the idea of our own death
Old woman on a virtual roller coaster
A lawyer and his Super Bowl ad
Videophone '93 running Street Fighter
Levitating objects with sound
Unearthing a locomotive after 93 years
The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from 'Ghostbusters' actually edible
How strong different materials are at -196°C
Mini planets
The octopus escape
Goes up stairs with his head
Theme from 'Pirates of the Caribbean' with electric toothbrushes
48 musicians collaborating to perform Daft Punk's 'Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger'
Accessory promises unlimited air underwater
Communicating by radio with the ISS
If you honk you don't advance
Christina Koch returning to Earth
How many corn kernels are in a can of corn
Thirsty snake takes a guy's hand
The short animated eggshell