Recommended Links of the Week (No. 726)

Smurfs, Commandos, shunga, atomic batteries, and adventure cinema. Something for everyone, among many other things. Only in the Recommended Links of the Week. Enjoy!

The World Against the Clock – Philip K. Dick: Philip K Dick was an exceptional writer, not only because of his fertile imagination but because of the pace at which he produced. In just two years, between 1963 and 1965, he wrote a dozen novels, which for anyone else would have been an unattainable effort. “El Mundo Contra Reloj” usually appears listed as the thirteenth of that frantic period, although in reality it originated as a story titled “Su Cita Será Ayer”, published in the August 1966 issue of the magazine “Amazing Stories”. The expansion of that story into a novel, already with the title we know, appeared a year later.

The True History of the Smurfs: In the 1980s they were very famous, stores were full of dolls, keychains, t-shirts, plates, glasses, stuffed animals, clothing and all kinds of merchandise. From a distance it seems these beings were not as innocent as they were painted: the Smurfs had to be under the constant care of Papa Smurf, who had to teach them to prevent the goblins from lying, stealing, cheating and even killing. Around the figure of these beings many legends developed, some suggested that the dolls and stuffed animals inspired by the characters moved, others even said that these beings were responsible for some murders.

The Fascinating World of Shogi, Between Reality and Manga Fiction: In Japan, the board game par excellence is shogi. In the case of chess, the International Chess Federation publishes world rankings, but in the case of shogi there is a professional system and holders of the rank of fourth dan or higher, recognized by the Japan Shogi Federation, are considered professionals and called kishi. It is also said that in sumo, the Japanese national sport, there is a big difference in level between professionals and amateurs, but also in shogi professionals have a lot of talent.

Commandos, the First Spanish Best-Selling Video Game, Turns 25 with Tens of Millions of Copies Sold: This is the first installment of the Commandos saga and it was developed by the Spanish company Pyro Studios, founded in 1996 by Ignacio Pérez Dolset. Thus, it presents a game set in World War II and requires the user to manage real-time strategy to overcome the different missions. Commandos was released in June 1998 and since then it has achieved a notable level of success on the Spanish video game scene. So much so that it has become the best-selling Spanish game.

Shunga: The Japanese Pornography Great-Grandfather of Hentai and Samurai Protector: Being a samurai and walking around Japan with pornographic drawings next to the katana in the backpack was officially illegal at a certain time in the Edo period. The funny thing is that what went against the laws was not presenting yourself in society as a walking killing machine, but collecting dirty drawings. At the same time, carrying porn in the luggage during longer trips was considered by samurai as a good luck charm, a talisman that helped those warriors dodge death in dangerous situations.

The Reckless Dives from 52 Meters to Break the Height Record in 1983: In March 1983, the Guinness Book of Records and the International Swimming Hall of Fame organized a peculiar competition at SeaWorld in San Diego (United States) that stood out both for its danger and for the spectacular images it left for history. The objective was simple: to set a new high jump record from the springboard. In addition to jumping into the water from a springboard placed as high as possible, the requirements established for the height record to be considered valid were that the contestants perform at least a somersault and subsequently emerge from the water without anyone's help.

Russia Found the Key to Bringing Cheap Energy to Isolated Areas. Now There Are Hundreds of Deadly Atomic Batteries Abandoned: Nuclear energy and not investing enough should never go hand in hand. The great example is found in the USSR, with the terrifying Chernobyl accident as epicenter: the fourth reactor of the famous thermal plant lacked a containment building. And for its construction they used some cheap materials, another addition to the chain of errors that caused its explosion. The disastrous consequences, with tons of radioactive material released, we already know.

Kathleen Booth, the Pioneer Mathematician in Programming Who Created the First Assembly Language: Kathleen and Andrew collaborated on the construction and programming of three computers. As a physicist and electronic engineer, he was in charge of the design and she, with a deep mathematical background, of the programming part. Booth designed between 1947 and 1948 an electromechanical computer, the ARC (Automatic Relay Calculator). It was not a general-purpose computer; it was specifically designed to do Fourier synthesis, one of the essential steps to determine the structure of a crystal.

The Bridge That Crossed an Ocean to Settle in the Middle of the Desert: Actually, London Bridge is a visually quite dull and ordinary concrete thing, 800 meters up the Thames from Tower Bridge. But the current bridge is not the first with that name. There have been bridges since Roman times at the site, a succession of structures over the millennia of which the current one, opened to traffic in 1973, is the last. And what was done with the bridge that bore the name London Bridge until then? That's what we're talking about: today on Fronteras, the London Bridge that ended up in Arizona.

Adventure Cinema, Everything You Need to Know: If we had to summarize what we all agree on about adventure cinema, it would be enough to repeat what Omar Sharif said in Lawrence of Arabia (1962): "For certain men, nothing is written if they do not write it." Living an adventure is, after all, going off script, facing a destiny that was not planned. That is the key: the reason why this type of film will never cease to fascinate us. Virtues such as courage, passion or curiosity are joined here by other liberating experiences, which make us feel nostalgia for times that were terrible and also great.

Only 200 km Away, BepiColombo Spacecraft Achieves Incredible Images of Planet Mercury: Approaching the night side of the planet, some features began to appear out of the shadows about 12 minutes after the closest approach, when BepiColombo was already about 1,800 km from the surface. The planet's surface lit up more optimally for imaging from about 20 minutes after the close approach onwards, which corresponds to a distance of approximately 3,500 km and beyond. In these closest images, a large number of geological features are seen, including a newly named crater.

The Double Edge of Dubbing: In my country, Serbia, nothing is dubbed. For this reason, one of the biggest surprises for me the first time I set foot in Spain was dubbed cinema. It seemed false and artificial to me, I was unable to understand how people could settle for that, with the loss of all the nuances and expressions of the original language, in addition to the true voice of the actors. However, paradoxically, over the years I ended up working for the dubbing industry. I do it for popular American, Canadian and Australian programs, that is, makeover shows, reality shows, documentaries and crime investigations.

Videos: Myhouse.wad, turtle laying eggs, the harvest dance, a different kind of math, World War I cartoons, video game with real strollers, an open-source and "cheap" robot dog, why the peanut "dances" in beer, a printer as big as a pickup truck, Dana Kunze's record dive, the first expandable battle axe, Gregor MacGregor's scam in America, two magnets colliding in super slow motion, the impossible object, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles roller coaster, the world's largest iPhone, expert in angle grinders, James Cameron on the imploded submarine, Roger Rabbit Test, escape from Pompeii, bear climbing second-floor window, a gaming PC in China, Boda (Pantomima Full), techniques for stop motion videos, how to escape a bloodhound, a zoetrope in the middle of the street, how Super Mario Bros should have ended, and the shorts: Cenizas, Some Kind of Intimacy, Moon Dog, Survivers and unreleased material from the filming of The Shining (including interviews, by Jun'ichi Yaoi)

Galleries: The terrifying Michelin Man of the past, strange designs, the real cyberpunk, Mimi Choi's illusions, ceramic lips, impossible animal hybrids, abandoned places, the Animated Dump and the Visual Dump of the Week. I didn't find much more worth it.