The Japanese death ray, an artist donkey, stoicism and the only three places on Earth that belong to no country, among countless other awesome things. The same quality as always, with the best selection of links.
Ku-Go, the Japanese death ray: "In 1943, development of the 'death ray' resumed at the Noborito laboratory with research on living organisms. In 1944, they made progress with wavelengths between 10 cm and 2 meters, gaining additional funding. At the beginning of 1945, the army minister ordered them to develop a powerful weapon, allocating one million yen. By the end of the war, two million yen had been spent."
John Draper 'Captain Crunch', the whistle hacker who programmed the first word processor for Apple II from prison: "Captain Crunch and the founders of Apple have a wealth of anecdotes and stories they lived together, especially at the beginning of the company's creation. We must remember that the apple company was founded thanks to the blue boxes, and precisely about these devices Captain Crunch knew a lot (although this is another story that we will tell someday). This time we are going to talk about how the famous phreaker programmed the first word processor EasyWriter for Apple II ... from jail."
Ultima Thule, a primordial body shaped like a snowman in the outskirts of the solar system: "More specifically, everything points to Ultima Thule being born with this snowman shape, unlike the aforementioned comets, which probably evolved to have this appearance due to the sublimation of volatiles during repeated passes through perihelion (although it is also plausible that these comets had an original shape similar to Ultima Thule). The asteroids with similar appearances that we know are not primordial and have obtained that appearance through catastrophic events."
The donkey that ridiculed Paris art critics: "As the donkey was happy with the food, he wagged his tail over the canvas, so that it kept filling with paint. When the animal stopped moving its tail, the work was considered finished. Only the title remained to be given to the painting, and after several proposals Roland decided to call it Sunset over the Adriatic Sea. The canvas, painted in two colors, represented the sky and the earth, a technique that seemed directly inspired by Monet."
What is Stoicism, the 2,000-year-old philosophy used to survive chaos: "How to live a good life in an unpredictable world? How to do our best within our possibilities while accepting what is beyond our control? These are the central questions of Stoicism, a philosophy created more than 2,000 years ago in which more and more people seek antidotes against the difficulties of contemporary life."
The music industry - From gold records to digital downloads: "Most analysts mark 1999 as the precise moment when the music industry changed forever. After decades of buying music in physical format (from 8-track cartridges in the sixties to compact discs in the nineties), three letters revolutionized everything: www. The arrival of the Internet opened a new world in communication and consumption. An intangible world, developed in virtual space. Untouchable and yet within everyone's reach."
No man's land - The only three places in the world that belong to no country: "Considering that each country needs a territory to exist, that implies that the planet's territory is already 'allocated' and distributed among the countries that make up the international community. Thus, the world is a great plot of land occupied by several owners, fenced and enclosed by borders. Artificial borders, but effective after all. When we observe a map, we can see that all the world's territory is already painted a color, and it corresponds to one nation or another. However, there are three specific zones of the globe that do not belong to any country: the so-called terrae nullius. They are No man's land."
History of Maps: "In this article you will learn the History of Maps. The representation of the world is as old as writing, but it was not until the time of classical Greece that cartography acquired its status as a science. Very necessary for wars, maritime voyages, and as a consequence of discoveries, maps evolved until, in the 20th century, satellite photos and the flow of information added solidity to projections."
The worse the self-esteem, the greater the fanaticism: "The feeling of belonging that arises from being a member of a group can thus contribute to strengthening or weakening our self-esteem. Therefore, the more positive characteristics we attribute to our group, whether it is a political party, a football club, or whatever, the better we will feel about ourselves."
This was the first bird in history (according to the fossil record): "The oldest known bird with a fossil record was reconstructed from two partial skeletons found in Texas, United States, dating back 220 million years. Called Protoavis texensis in 1991, this pheasant-sized creature has raised no little controversy by advancing the age of birds by many millions of years."
The 'witch' who saved a hundred lives: "Zura was lucky to be Hutu, but she never saw the face of the enemy in her neighbors. That is why, while blood flowed in the streets from the machete blows, she decided to shelter in her house, located in the small village of Musano, all the Tutsis she could give refuge to. The rumor spread through the streets of the town until one day, a group of soldiers with their fangs sharpened, showed up at her door and demanded that she hand over the 'cockroaches' she was sheltering."
Against the cult of youth - To die old and be right: "The archetype of beauty, since the Greeks, is that of the eternal puer, in perpetual blossoming, with a happiness that time can only wither because it is tied to spring and summer, to energy and vigor that in an impermanent world cannot help but decline. Thus we chase the mirage of the fountain of youth and hide our old age and marginalize our elders -- little does the wisdom of age matter to us compared to the intensity of sensory pleasure and the fiery blush of our young years."
Videos
Videos: Toads riding a python, 2018 movies in LEGO, Toto - Africa (on potatoes and squash), how fruit would move if it could, elephant fells tree, puppy discovers bubbles, how 'Black Mirror: Bandersnatch' was made, comparison of statue sizes, R2D2 birdie, haircut with katanas, animal sounds on violin and guitar, history of the world according to cats, trees falling on the highway, little monkey hugs its adoptive 'mother', tigress drinks water with her cubs, an oyster full of pearls, baby jedi dies in battle, how a whip breaks the sound barrier, Astrochronohistory (a science fiction story), the animated short Coin Operated and "Immersion on planet Mars".
Galleries
Galleries: Photos of a model of the Moon from 1874, wire sculptures, New Year's drunks in New York in 1938, the art of Fajareka Setiawan, Russian illustrations of 'The Lord of the Rings', Dante's interactive Inferno, car shows from the seventies, beautiful cut-out octopus, animal musculatures, the most impressive space images captured in 2018, when North Americans made their clothes with food bags, show roosters, houses in tree stumps, Animated Dump of the Week and the Visual Dump of the Week.
