Recommended Links of the Week (No. 646)

Palindrome again! Ana washes wool! Are you wise? when Brazil trolled Nintendo, killing as art, oxygen on the moon and imagining modern life 100 years ago. Want more? Keep reading! Blue light

According to this study, seven questions suffice to know if a person is wise or not: "Researchers from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine report that a seven-item abbreviated scale can help determine a person's level of wisdom with high validity. The study researchers had previously developed the 28-item San Diego Wisdom Scale (SD-WISE-28), which has been used in large national and international studies, biological research, and clinical trials to assess wisdom."

The day Brazil trolled Nintendo with the most epic move in history: "When you put Brazil and video games in the same sentence you know things promise to be interesting. A land of immeasurable beauty and even greater controversy, the relationship of the largest country in Latin America with the world of video games is one of the biggest soap operas in the industry you can imagine. And what better way to approach it than with the most epic move ever seen, that of a Brazilian company that managed to troll Nintendo, deceiving Japanese and Americans, while becoming the first foreign factory in the history of the big N."

The Moon has enough oxygen to sustain Earth's population for 100,000 years: "Unlike the oxygen we breathe on Earth, most of the Moon's oxygen is not dispersed in its atmosphere, a thin layer formed mainly by argon and helium. Instead, the gas lies trapped within the lunar regolith, the most superficial layer of rock and dust that covers its surface. Extracting oxygen from the Moon is therefore an unprecedented technological challenge, even more so when it involves an operation that must be carried out 384,000 kilometers from the biosphere."

Why did Prometheus's liver regenerate?: "However, a problem arises here. Immortality and liver regeneration are a sine qua non condition both for enduring the torture and for extending it indefinitely. Despite this, he receives immortality from Chiron. Although the accounts of the story may vary in detail, Prometheus's immortality is mandatory, especially when thirteen generations would pass before Heracles was born. Both Chiron and Prometheus are characters distinguished by their intelligence and the lesson they suffered from an incurable pain from which they could not free themselves due to the privilege of immortality."

Yamamoto, the poker expert who destroyed Pearl Harbor: "The dream of expanding its dominions across Asia had been underway since 1894. Japan needed raw materials to supply itself and military incursions in the Pacific followed one after another. Manchuria, Continental China; Korea, Taiwan and other strategic islands... In 1940, the Japanese army and politicians saw their great opportunity: to ally with Germany and Italy. Tokyo signed the Tripartite Pact, they were the ones who would dominate the world and Japan was due a large piece of the pie."

When killing was a technological work of art, the most creative and bloody weapons in history: "Human creativity seems limitless, for both good and evil. The advances that have brought us to where we are do not hide that we have also used that talent for much less benevolent purposes. Creating weapons of destruction as powerful as possible has been a constant in human history, and our talent for screwing people over seems to have been especially spectacular."

The tragic shipwreck of the HMS Royal George and the extravagant use given to its timber: "It was a first-rate ship of the line that at the time of its launch, on February 18, 1756, was considered the largest in the world. The Spanish Santísima Trinidad would later surpass it greatly in size but that would be in 1769; until then, the Royal George led the ranking with its 54.3 meters of length, 15.8 of beam, 2,079.8 tons and a hundred artillery pieces. It entered service as a flagship during the Seven Years' War, a conflict in which Great Britain and its allies, Prussia and Hanover."

The architects who imagined modern life in the 1920s: "Clearly, the housing problem had gone beyond mere disciplinary debate to attract the attention of the common citizen. The main part of the exhibition consisted of the model houses built by sixteen prominent national and foreign architects, all defenders of modern principles: Mies van der Rohe, Hilberseimer, Poelzig, the Taut brothers from Berlin, Scharoun and Rading from Breslau, Döcker and Schneck from Stuttgart, Gropius from Dessau, Behrens and Frank from Vienna, Bourgeois from Brussels, Le Corbusier from Paris, Oud and Stam from Rotterdam."

The first helium airship and the atomic bomb: "The C-7 airship of the United States Navy was the first to successfully fly using helium as a lifting gas. Class C airships were patrol airships and were an improvement over Class B after World War I. They were larger, had two engines and greater endurance. Although the initial idea was thirty, only ten were finally built. They were delivered in 1918 and served until 1922. Since they arrived at the end of the war, their use was not truly military, but rather they became experimental airships and for training activities."

Vitis, the rod with which Roman centurions exercised their authority: "The youngest probably have never heard of it, but their parents or grandparents will surely remember how in their childhood the teacher constantly wielded a wooden stick, whose mere presence served as a deterrent when talking in class or playing pranks. It was not something new or modern. In fact, it had a very ancient origin and can be traced back to the vitis (staff or baton), the rod that gave Roman centurions their authority, and with which they effectively exercised it over their subordinates."

Felix Hoffmann created aspirin, but he also synthesized heroin: "And that is precisely what he did in 1894, when Hoffmann joined the newly established pharmaceutical research department at the Bayer Company in Elberfeld, Germany. Hoffmann belonged to a class of researchers who wanted to create new substances that could be used as medicines and not simply recreate active ingredients from natural products. According to reports, Felix Hoffmann was also motivated by the desire to relieve his father's debilitating pain."

Beer Hall Putsch, the failed "beer hall putsch" with which Hitler tried to take power 10 years before becoming the Führer: "On the night between the 8th and 9th of November 1923, a young man of Austrian origin burst into a political rally being held at the Bürgerbräukeller, one of Munich's largest beer halls. With a gun in hand, he spoke to the attendees of the crowded beer hall about the "social revolution" that would return to Germany the glory it had lost after World War I. Many of the attendees did not know this 34-year-old man who had fought in the war -where he was wounded- and who later unsuccessfully tried to become an artist."

Videos

German cat commercial, 12 years without a cleaning, an unmanageable bicycle, Super Mario Bros. on violin, screaming frogs, Castlevania - Bloody Tears (synthesizer cover), Lemming - Smile if you love Lemmings, new record in "Through the Fire and Flames", Jason Alexander on George Costanza, polite luggage line, Lazaro Salazar sings Artuditu, neodymium magnets vs copper, flamingos of Mumbai in 4K, invasion of red crabs and a bunch of shorts: Listen to me Sing (surreal stop motion), The Visit (excellent), Kitty and Mimmy's New Umbrella (Japanese retro in HD), David (Will Ferrell), Winter in the Rainforest (experimental animation), "Stay Pretty, no pity" (by Maria Ozawa) and Omicron (1963, the complete movie with its).

Galleries

Apocalypse demons, African movie art, beer-holding gloves, balloon art, Japanese homes, Wildlife Photographers of the Year 2021, humorous paintings of popular characters, Finalists of the IPF Portraits 2021, inFocus Nature Awards, up-close shark photos, Nature Conservation Photography Awards 2021, terrifying embroidered portraits, magical street photos, people at Walmart, dog pooping calendar, embroidering space, double limousine, the Animation Dump and the Visual Dump of the Week.

Thank you for reading and have a great weekend!