Recommended Links of the Week (No. 685)

Want recommendations? Here you go! Black hole mergers, evil dwarves, first science photographs, a story written by artificial intelligence, and 100,000 historical maps, among tons of other things, all to satisfy your curiosity. Welcome to the Recommended Links of the Week!

The first 20 photographs in history in different fields: "Photography, since its invention in the early 19th century, has been a medium that has allowed us to contemplate the world around us (and ourselves) from another perspective and also to visualize the past events that marked a before and after. Today, we have set out to pay tribute to it by gathering the 20 first photographs in history in different fields."

The black hole of copyright for DALL-E AI images: "All the images in this article are now flying around the internet without intellectual property rights and, even if I wanted to, I couldn't make any economic profit from their creation. The reason? It's simple. They are not considered works (generated by a human, in this case), so the intellectual property law of any country does not protect them."

Hero Quest – Sword and Sorcery on Amstrad CPC: "Hero Quest is a game for the Amstrad CPC and other platforms based on the successful board game of the same name. Both were released around 1990 and are role-playing games set in an epic fantasy world. We are presented with a scenario full of dungeons and dangers, where medieval weapons and magic spells will be the true protagonists."

The evil past of dwarves: "Robust bearers of thick beards and battle axes, dwarves are a short humanoid race that lives in the mountains, extracting minerals and working the land's products. Although there may be examples with some differences, all fantasy dwarves start from the same base, unlike what happens with elves and even more so with trolls. But what if I told you they also had a diffuse beginning?"

This Curistoria was written by an AI; it seems true, but it's all false: "This Curistoria post is written by an artificial intelligence. Specifically, everything in italics. And not just written, but the topics, the content, the text... everything has been generated by that AI. My contribution in this case has been minimal. I just asked copy.ai for a blog post about history curiosities."

Two black holes will collide imminently and we'll see it for the first time: "Scientists are rubbing their hands over what could be one of the most anticipated events in modern astronomy. Researchers have observed a fluctuation in a galaxy about 1,110 million light-years away that could correspond to two black holes with a combined mass equivalent to 200 million suns. If confirmed, astronomers believe it will merge into an even larger black hole."

This collection of over 100,000 historical maps can be downloaded in HD... and viewed overlaid on current maps: "David Rumsey has been collecting historical maps for over 30 years; he has more than 100,000 atlases, wall and pocket maps, nautical charts, and globes from around the world from the 1550s onward. But, and this is the relevant part, in 1996 he also began to digitize and freely publish this collection on the Internet."

The cookie thing is a real shame, everyone knows it and nobody does anything: "This ordeal began as a result of changes in European regulations and subsequently in the United States and other countries. In fact, if you've come to this blog for the first time, or haven't visited in a while, you'll have seen the classic little message to Accept or Reject cookies. Today it's something ubiquitous in various presentation formats on every website you visit and practically inevitable due to fear of sanctions."

The curious case of the moving trees: "To trace our moving trees, we have turned to literary sources and popular tradition, through which we will try to explain some examples in chronological order. For this, we have chosen six illustrative examples: the poem Câd Goddeu, medieval travel books, Macbeth, children's tales, the imaginary world of J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Marvel universe. Without further ado, we proceed here to bring the trees to life through the recovery of these stories."

James Webb Telescope detects carbon dioxide on an exoplanet: "The planet, called WASP-39 b, is a gas giant orbiting a Sun-like star about 700 light-years away. Although the planet was first discovered in 2011, Webb's sensitive infrared instruments allowed researchers to analyze it in detail. To better understand exoplanets, researchers train their telescopes to measure the chemical composition of their atmospheres."

Why has Japan stopped innovating?: "It has been a long time since China and South Korea left behind Japanese electronics manufacturers, who used to dominate world markets as the country's main industry. Innovation (as technical development), one of their specialties, also seems to be conspicuously absent. Miyazawa Kazumasa, who participated as a Sony engineer in the development of the PC VAIO and the launch of Edy, tells us about the problems Japanese companies face."

History of Lighthouses: "As trade increased, and it became necessary to venture further distances, the existing marks became insufficient. For this, bonfires were used at points that were easy to locate at night. To gain elevation and preserve them from storms, artificial structures were built, which improved as navigation did. Later, reflective surfaces were placed to amplify the light so it could be seen from greater distances."

VIDEOS: Kitten obsessed with almonds, the advantages of extremism (John Cleese), The Dark Crystal (all the music), how women dressed in the 19th century, pouring 9,000 kilos of sodium into the sea, a rainbow scarf over China, people living in the tunnels under New York, building a giant heart, a life simulator in 100 lines of code, undetectable spider camouflage, "licking" 92 instruments, the arctic fox, making steel from sand, the robot that jumps highest, little evil bird, what happened to the flying wings, they blow up a doll with a hose, a little motorcycle with its own soundtrack, what happens when you go through a portal, the original Resident Evil actors, F1 drivers going backwards around a professional circuit, baby goat that thinks it's a cat, Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns N' Roses with AI images, portable shepherd's cabin and animated short Kayak.

GALLERIES: The center of the Ghost Galaxy, rude passengers, bad CGI in movies, the 'devandalized' Ecco Homo, drone lighting the Tower of the English, dogs with jobs, speech bubble stories, fireflies interacting with the world, video game covers in history, the Animated Dump of the Week and the Visual Dump.

There you go! I've run out of links. See you next time!