Recommended Links of the Week (No. 656)

Humanity as an invasive species, the origin of evil, global dimming, Jules Verne, and the birth of the compatible PC are just five of the dozens of experiences waiting for you in this palindromic edition of the Recommended Links of the Week. Don't miss them!

Is the human being an invasive species?: “When we talk about invasions in reference to the human species, Christopher Columbus, Genghis Khan, or Napoleon are invoked by our memory. But in this case we are referring to the ecological aspect of biological invasions, and we set aside other definitions of the term invasion, of a military, economic, or sociopolitical nature. With reference to this ecological definition of invasion, some ecologists go so far as to the most visceral misanthropy and firmly state that yes, without going into nuances or possible exceptions.”

Global dimming: “Global warming continues to advance without precedent. It is creating a new scientific dilemma worldwide known as global dimming. It should be noted that global warming is affected by the increase in greenhouse gases, which in turn retain more heat in the atmosphere. In this article we are going to tell you what global dimming consists of and what its consequences are.”

The year when Evil changed its origin: “But how to define Evil in the first place? Is it not a subjective and constantly fluctuating construction? Evil has been seen –or personified– in various ways throughout history and in different cultures. Our most modern conception resembles little of classical conceptions. Let's look at a little of its surprising history and an essential point that changed forever a fundamental point: its origin.”

The Clean Room, a curious story about the birth of the PC compatible: “The only component of the PC that was actually from IBM was the BIOS, all those most basic routines necessary for the system's startup and check; the BIOS was the fundamental element for the PC's operation. And with the BIOS, IBM guaranteed itself total control over the PC architecture... until the Clean Room arrived...”

A generation eternally distracted - “I can't do anything for more than fifteen minutes without looking at my phone”: “The four interviewees agree that these distractions have consequences in their work. Although there are no dramatic situations, they are more than they would like. No one has been fired for it, but they do tend to work more hours than necessary to compensate for those slips, or to stretch deadlines to the maximum fixed. 'I find it very hard to stay focused for more than fifteen minutes.'”

I asked for a 7-day trial of Adobe CC and got trapped in a 12-month contract with cancellation penalties: “Imagine you request a free trial period of a service, but instead of just assuming the risk that you might forget to cancel before it ends and end up paying a month you didn't want, you end up paying a surprise 'fine' of hundreds of euros in exchange for canceling and stopping using the product. This is the story of day-to-day life in Adobe CC plans and how they have taken more than one by surprise who doesn't know how to escape them.”

Okuda Hiroko, the creator of the Sleng Teng rhythm that revolutionized reggae: “Today, more than 35 years after its birth, the creation of Sleng Teng is attributed to Wayne Smith and the record label that released his record, Jammys. However, its origin lies in a rhythm pattern built into the Casiotone MT-40 keyboard, which hit the market in 1981. Smith and Davy composed their song based on that preset tone generator.”

Journey to the origins of Playmobil, the story of the toy that doesn't age: “A pirate ship, a medieval castle, a farm, swimming pools, beaches, amusement parks... From prehistory to the present. The world of toys crossed space and time in the 1970s. Until then, imagination had not acquired its real form on a small scale to recreate such large dimensions, until those miniature beings arrived in sets that expanded more and more. Since its presentation to the world, 4,659 figure models have been created and around 3 billion of these little characters have been manufactured.”

Kropfenstein, the castle built on a cliff wall: “The Swiss commune of Waltensburg, located in the canton of Grisons in the central-east of the country and which today has barely 300 inhabitants, was during the Middle Ages important enough to house four castles: Jörgenberg, Grünenfels, Vogelberg, and Kropfenstein. Of them, only ruins remain. However, Kropfenstein is especially interesting because it was built on the wall of a high cliff at 1,130 meters above sea level.”

Dune - Lynch's cursed film: “When it hit theaters, its intellectual nature, its lack of a clear tone, and its markedly personal style did not work with the public, being a box office failure and almost destroying Lynch's career. It would not be until several years later, with its DVD reissue, when a group of science fiction fans would rescue this film, making it a strong candidate for a cult classic.”

Why are most jeans blue?: “By the end of the 17th century, denim had become a crucial textile for working-class workers in northern Italy. In fact, there are paintings showing workers with blue jeans, although with the material 'Genoese jean' because it was cheaper. Genoese merchants dyed the cloth of the pants with a blue pigment, cheaper and more abundant, from indigo extracted from a legume from Java and India.”

Jules Verne and the dream of sustainable scientific progress: “To begin with, the one who usually appears on every list of fathers of science fiction never had or pursued scientific studies. Many of the founders and most prominent figures of this genre had a direct relationship with science, such as Wells, Asimov, and Clarke, or with technology, such as Heinlein and Gernsback. Verne studied law, his father's profession, although he never practiced it. But at the same time, he remained very attentive to the advances of his time and meticulously documented them for his novels.”

VIDEOS: A blind woman and a blindfolded man fly a plane, Sebastian Stan as Luke Skywalker (DeepFake), the Matsuri 2021 cosplay, the sound of a Japanese arrow, the operating systems of 1984, compressed air kills, XSenses park in Mexico, pass the ball, boy, Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Cyberpunk, Imagine Dragons & JID - Enemy, Earthrise from the Moon, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket falling into the atmosphere, nobody wants this part of Europe, robot that hands towels, the eruption of Etna, marble machine, Toy Story shadow box, geometric patterns of soapy water freezing, space debris over Puerto Rico, flying over Victoria Falls, La Diversión de Satán (1907), The Book of Boba Fett (1985), the surface of Venus, the best works of John Williams, and a playlist called "Now That's What a Call Dad Rock".

GALLERIES: Silhouettes at sunset, Welcome to Mars, Astro2021 photos, Budapest photos, photography with realistic dolls, Ferrari 166 S, AI creates book covers for 70s science fiction, women and coffins, daguerreotype of blind people, miniatures of TV sets from popular series, Native American women in the 1800s, more photos of Tina Louise, Daria Pirojenko's brilliant tattoos, the Animated Dump of the Week and the Visual Dump.

We're done. That's it. Thanks and see you next time.