Marijuana beer, what happens when your "intimate" video leaks, why we're all exhausted, and church punishments for sex for pleasure, among much, much, much more. The Links, a column only for people who want to have a good time.
Heineken's new beer made with marijuana instead of alcohol: "Lagunitas, Heineken's fast-growing California beer brand, is labeling its new beer as 'hoppy sparkling water'. This is because these cans of beer contain no alcohol. Instead, the beer is made with THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Called Hi-Fi Hops, Lagunitas' new cannabis drink is part of a larger movement of established companies diving into the marijuana industry." I don't want to die without trying that. Two of my favorite things in one package.
SLIM, the Japanese probe that will land horizontally on the Moon: "According to SLIM's current design, the spacecraft will use a very novel 'horizontal landing' system. Instead of a traditional vertical landing, which requires great precision and obviously landing gear, SLIM will use special landing gear that, once it makes contact with the ground, will allow the probe to 'fall' until it ends up horizontal on the lunar surface."
Thirteen years after her intimate video leaked online — "They ruined my life": "She had never recorded herself having sex with her boyfriend, Santi (name changed), or at least she had never been told about it. But that wasn't the worst part: the worst part was that her video had started circulating all over the internet. Laura panicked and was taken to the emergency room. The director of her residence called the National Police, who arrested Santi, released him pending trial, and interrogated a large part of her university circle to find out what had happened."
The culture of fatigue: why we're all exhausted and can't avoid it: "At the end of each day, millions of bodies are thrown onto the living room couch, recovering from fatigue with the current series, the day's game, the 10 p.m. nap. A nation of zombies anesthetized by night, mere survivors by day, trying not to drown, like castaways in the middle of the multitasking sea. And perhaps dreaming of vacation. We've reached the point where we wish the weekend would arrive so we can finally do nothing. Sad paradox, since that's the moment when, being able to devote our time to what we like, we decide to hibernate before a new wave of stress."
What are blue lies? Or the reason so many people seem stupid to you: "There are many kinds of lies. White lies, for example, are those we consider most morally acceptable, because they are told in order not to hurt others. Less known, however, are blue lies – clearly absurd beliefs that we actually maintain in order to belong to a group."
L. Ron Hubbard's tips for getting rich writing on a piecework basis: "Before becoming the leader of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard devoted himself to writing pulp novels on a piecework basis – science fiction, adventure, detective, war, and Western. He was paid by the cent per word and produced more than a hundred thousand a month, following rules that turned literature into an activity subject to the laws of capitalism and made writing differ very little from managing a factory."
Silent Running, the missing link between 2001 and Star Wars: "And Silent Running is often forgotten – as a film it's less polished than those mentioned, but just as important in terms of the development of special effects and production design in the genre. Released in 1972, it reached Spain in 1973, where someone decided that the concept of 'silent navigation' – what submarines do when they don't want to be detected by the enemy – didn't fit in space, so they translated it as 'Naves misteriosas' and thought nothing more of it. In any case, without 'Naves misteriosas' later science fiction movies wouldn't be as we know them."
Stephen King's son is convinced the movie Jaws can solve a 1974 murder: "Now Joe Hill, the son of horror novelist Stephen King, has decided to add fuel to the fire by speculating on the possibility that the victim appeared as an extra in the movie Jaws (Tiburón), which was filmed in Massachusetts in 1974. In a lengthy Tumblr post, the comics creator compares one of the forensic images with a still from Jaws showing a woman with similar features, reddish-brown hair, and a blue bandana similar to the one found with the corpse 46 years ago."
The real reason video game characters almost never take off their clothes: "Graphics in video games have reached simply astonishing levels of realism. However, there is one type of scene where even the big studios and games with multimillion-dollar budgets stumble upon an almost insurmountable obstacle: the moment of taking off clothes. It's not a matter of modesty."
Kohima, the agonizing battle that prevented the Japanese from invading India: "Operation U-Go was based on attacking Imphal and Kohima, capitals of the states of Manipur and Nagaland, respectively. Capturing those two cities, key strategic points in communications between India and Burma, would also interrupt American supply to Chiang Kai-shek. The one tasked with carrying it out was Lieutenant General Renya Mutaguchi, commander of the 15th Army and veteran of the war against the Red Army in Siberia, who had also been a military attaché in France and military governor of Beijing, before taking part in the invasion of Malaya, the Philippines, and Burma."
10 punishments the Church gave for different sexual positions during the Middle Ages: "There is no better way to learn about the customs and thoughts of the Middle Ages than the literary works that appeared during that period. All of them illustrate a way of thinking about different topics and customs; however, the treatment of sexuality is something that deserves special attention, since if all the rules imposed mainly by the Church had been followed, a large part of Europe's population would have disappeared almost immediately."
A magnetic cannon from 1902: "The most surprising thing about these cannons is that they don't use explosives (...). The projectiles are launched by the cannon without gunpowder or explosion, without noise, flash, or deterioration of the piece caused by the tremendous pressures that quickly disable currently used gun barrels: advantages to which is added the fact that the absence of flash prevents the enemy from determining the position of the artillery firing at it."
Videos
Liszt – La Campanella, LEGO in real life, Audi production, a car on rails, new method to extinguish house fires, Through the Fire and Flames (at 150% speed and 100% FC), attack of legionary ants on a wasp nest, short woman finds solution to get in and out of her truck, dancing to the tune of street violin, $100 tequila shot in Mexico, drum set with magnetic tapes, La Chona with Tio Choko, almost almost, a forest full of Saint Bernards, neon signs in Hong Kong, mowing the lawn with a Segway, the light at the end of the tunnel, finishing six Mario games in one hour, herding sheep from above, waking him up with 1000 horsepower, Batman vs. Joker parkour style, the best of July in Guinness records, drone ride over Pompeii, gym fails, plane loads water in a lake full of tourists, cute Thai ad, Seoul in seven minutes, the evolution of video game music and the winning performance of the World Cosplay Summit 2018.
Galleries
The world before AutoCAD, funny animal photos, old photographs of the city of Babylon, how nearsighted people see, amazing kaijus, people's questions before Google, what we're doing to the planet, putting faces on inanimate objects, illustrations of elegant fish, the artistic self-portraits of Alexandra Chertulova, the immense archive of abandoned images, the weekly animated dump, and the sensational dump.
Done. I'm tired. See you next weekend and thanks for reading!
