A roundup of recommended links: the internet before the internet, power corrupts the brain, Reservoir Dogs anecdotes, hermit millennials, the disgusting bacteria on banknotes, the great alien invasion, and the monstrous fanged eel. Keep reading!
Videotex: The Internet Before the Internet
"In the 1980s, the Internet did not yet exist as we know it today, but the concept of sending information to users over telephone lines had already been born. One of the attempts to achieve this was through Videotex technology. This technology originated in the UK in the 70s and spread to different European countries and North America. It arrived in Spain in 1982 coinciding with the soccer World Cup, and in 1983 Videotex was already used to communicate the results of local and regional elections of that year."
Power Corrupts and Damages the Brain
"Power anesthetizes certain regions of the brain, making bosses more productive, but at the same time more prone to developing arrogant and arrogant attitudes. Dacher Keltner, a researcher at the University of Berkeley, concluded that an individual's behavior under the influence of power becomes more impulsive, with less awareness of the risks of their decisions. Worse: leaders become increasingly worse when it comes to putting themselves in others' shoes to try to see the world from another point of view. In other words, there is an inversely proportional relationship between power and empathy. Do you know what else alters our perception of risks and empathy? Brain injuries. And from here arises a question. Could it be that our brain suffers some kind of damage when exposed to the feeling of power over others?"
The Great Alien Invasion: What Happened When 6 Flying Saucers Landed in England
"They had metal domes, emitted a strange and ominous hum and appeared in a straight line one morning in southern England. The public, the police and the Army thought that extraterrestrial spaceships had landed, until it was revealed that it was a prank by some students. But how did they make the hoax so successful? The apparently extraterrestrial ships triggered a large police and military operation, witnessed by Ray Seager, who was playing with other children when one of the six saucers was found on the Isle of Sheppey on September 4, 1967."
Netflix Reveals the Most Watched Star Trek Episodes by Fans
"As expected, the first episodes of a series tend to be the most watched. However, if we analyze beyond the start of each first season, we find fascinating data (as Spock would say) that reveals which episodes are watched again and again. The results indicate that those that are re-watched the most are where iconic races, emblematic characters (Q, for example) or memorable captains are introduced. In addition, fans of this science fiction classic make it very clear which themes engage them the most when repeating episodes: where time travel, alien abductions or a crossover of universes are shown."
'Reservoir Dogs': 25 Anecdotes for 25 Years
"Those of us who wanted to make films in 1992 hated Tarantino. Yes, some will say they admired him, but in the case of many it was filthy, unhealthy envy. The guy was from a humble family, had not enrolled in any film school and had raised an indie film full of blood with four dollars that everyone was talking about. The surname Tarantino was on everyone's lips and all new filmmakers wanted to imitate that crazy guy who talked like a machine gun. But they imitated him badly. Tarantino was a great dialogue writer with a good ear, a lover of verbal filth and swear words, monologues, banal conversations, non-linear structure... And not to mention a tremendous visual talent for creating unforgettable images and musical talent for creating memorable soundtracks. Today, having completed its quarter century, we remember 25 anecdotes of Reservoir Dogs."
The Importance of Being BoJack Horseman
"BoJack Horseman is an actor at a low ebb whose fame and wealth was built in the nineties, after starring in a sitcom called Retozando. He lives with a young man without a home or job known as Todd Chávez and tries to take control of his life with the help of Diane Nguyen, a young writer, Princess Carolyn, his agent, and Mr. Peanutbutter, a former acquaintance of the show business. In this universe, far from the classic sitcom, three lines of comedy always gravitate whose omnipresence works as an agile way to break dramatic bubbles. The comedic is in the gene of a more complex story and attacks when we least expect it to never stop surprising, just in that delicate narrative moment when it is most uncomfortable to draw a smile."
I, Maximiliano Ferzzola, recommend it.
New Trend in China: Millennials Moving to the Mountains to Live as Hermits
"One of the young hermits documented in the piece says: 'Everyone at some point wants to go live in the mountains, escape the frantic modern life and find peace.' The young people seem to have a feeling of being lost because they received an 'education that is neither Western nor Eastern'; they have lost their traditions, no longer know Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism (the three great religions of China). They feel disconnected from nature, no longer have faith, and 'life without faith is difficult'; they want to recover 'the wisdom and tranquility of the ancients', to regain the heritage that belongs to them."
The Danger of Knowing Only a Little
"Even theories as lacking in support and as twisted to defend as the Flat Earth have resurfaced from intellectual death and have new followers who defend them with noise and passion. And if one bothers to try to discover the deep reasons of the phenomenon, one stands out and is common to almost all these peculiar ideas and theories: the distrust and rejection of what they call official science or medicine, an intense conviction quite difficult to eliminate that scientists, doctors, and technologists are part of an elite that conspires to hide the truth from ordinary mortals. The best part is that they rely on a sort of parody of the scientific method consisting of choosing and defending a select handful of data and facts from which they build a parallel explanation opposite to the 'official' one. Which shows that the most dangerous thing is not ignorance, but partial and scarce knowledge."
This Is the Disgusting Variety of Microbes on the Banknotes We Use Every Day
"Since we get up until we go back to bed we touch hundreds of things with our hands. Books, papers, stairs, elevator buttons... and all contain dirt. However, the 'king of bacteria' are money bills. This post is aimed at those who don't wash their hands before eating. According to a study published this year in PLOS ONE, paper money is, basically, a magnet for germs and other microorganisms. The researchers were able to show microbes from numerous sources living inside the fibers."
Creative Work Requires Slamming the Door
"From the play 'A puerta cerrada' (No Exit) that Jean-Paul Sartre premiered in 1944, a sharp phrase remains that still resonates today: 'Hell is other people.' This is what can happen when someone needs to concentrate alone, desperately, locked in their thoughts. Others then become vampires that suck the minutes, remove attention, bite states of lucidity. Many writers, scientists, and thinkers had no choice but to put a closed door between them and others. That or throw their frustrated projects out the window."
The Monster That Hurricane Harvey Washed Up Has a Name: The Fanged Eel
"Preeti Desai, communications officer for the National Audubon Society, asked for help on her personal Twitter account to identify a strange creature she had found stranded on a beach in Texas. She shared four images of what would quickly become known as the 'sea monster' of Hurricane Harvey. 'Biologist tweeters, what the hell is this?' After going viral, Desai got in touch with Kenneth Tighe, a biologist at the National Museum of Natural History in the United States. In the expert's opinion, the creature is what is known in the US as the fanged snake-eel (Aplatophis chauliodus) and in Cuba, more simply, as the fanged eel."
Animals in Mines That Saved Thousands of Lives
"There is no field in which the human being has developed any activity where animals have not participated in one way or another: medicine, science, the conquest of space cannot be explained without the contribution of animals. Less glamorous, but no less important, mining activity could not have grown and evolved without the help of different species that, due to some of their characteristics, made possible or facilitated the hard work of miners underground. The best-known example is the presence of canaries in coal mines."
Videos: What happened to the Giant Hovercraft?, a 30-day time-lapse video at sea, bear versus flamingo, the robot dog that faints if you have smelly feet, Star Trek warp speed comparison, fishing with bow and arrow, iPhone X (parody), strange white giraffe, life in a Chinese village, giant 15-year-old spider, pampered cheetah, he and his cat get scared trying to catch a rat, doppler effect, beatboxing with sulfur hexafluoride, and the shorts: Senses (NSFW), Slash in the Box (Horror), The OutRunners (in English, but set in an arcade hall of the 80s), and the great animated short Winston.
Galleries: Landscapes that no longer exist, the fashionable clothing in 80s porn, Stranger Things pays tribute to horror classics, the adorable paws of spiders, the finalists of the 2017 Best Wildlife Photography award, a selection of Cassini images, and sleeping on the London underground.
This week at NeoTeo: Solve math equations in the address bar, TOR for Android, check if the Bluetooth vulnerability affects your Android phone, how to free up space on your Android phone, how much space you should leave free on a Windows PC, iPhone X, RED's holographic screen, the Earth in 250 million years, China wants to ban internal combustion vehicles, what happens if we bring a piece of the Sun to Earth, a programmable pedal for your electric guitar, Virtual Reality on the Commodore 64, the return of Futurama, the most insane fighting game in the world, and Super Mario 64 Online for PC.
What a genius Lili! See you next week!
