Castanet: Spot the historical photos: Summerland historical photos decorate electrical boxes around town. “The Summerland Museum & Archives Society and the District of Summerland teamed up to decorate electrical boxes around town with photos from the Museum’s collection.” This is cool!
Mashable: Ig Nobel Prize winners include scientists who cleared blocked noses with sex. “This year the 31st First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony (not a typo) was again held via live stream due to the COVID-19 pandemic, though that definitely didn’t stop scientists from getting silly. In addition to the awards, the stream featured a series of 24/7 lectures wherein speakers had 27 seconds then seven words to convey their thoughts on a topic. There was also a bridge-themed “mini-opera,” because scientists like singing too.”
Boing Boing: “Free Blockbuster” boxes let you drop off, or take, a VHS movie. “‘Free Blockbuster’ is like a chain of ‘little free libraries’, except it circulates that noble medium of the home-video era: The VHS tape. You can drop one off or take one. The movement was started in 2018 by Brian Morrison, who noticed all the abandoned newspaper boxes around and wondered if they could be put to a new use.”
Inside Edition: Retired Flight Attendant Walks From Boston to New York City to Honor 9/11 Victims While Pushing Cart. “A retired flight attendant is currently walking from Boston to New York City to honor his fallen colleagues and the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks while pushing a beverage cart in the process.”
HuffPost: Film Archive Releases Colorized Footage Of Last Known Tasmanian Tiger. “An Australian film archive released colorized footage of the last known Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, this week ― 85 years after the species went extinct. The short video was filmed at a zoo in Hobart, Tasmania in 1933 and shows the thylacine, named Benjamin, padding around a small enclosure. Benjamin died in captivity three years later and the Tasmanian tiger was declared extinct.”
Engadget: NASA says the Mars Perseverance rover has collected its first sample. “After initially failing to capture a rock sample, NASA has confirmed that Perseverance succeeded in its second attempt. The space agency has verified that a pencil-width core of rust-colored rock is safely trapped in the rover’s sample tube tube, ready to be processed and sent back to Earth, CNET has reported.”
BBC: Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2021 finalists revealed. “A seal that appears to be giggling, a baboon that looks like it’s singing and a very angry starling – this year’s finalists show animals in comedy moments snapped by photographers from around the world. The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards were founded by Paul Joynson-Hicks and Tom Sullam, both professional photographers and passionate conservationists.”
AP: Georgia Teens Start Program to Teach Telugu, Tamil Languages. “From a young age, South Forsyth High School students Suhaas Bonkur, Krithika Kasireddy, Ritika Vemulapalli and Vinay Polaku began learning Telugu and Tamil, which are south Indian languages. When the four friends began hanging out, their speaking and comprehension skills strengthened, as well as their bonds with each other. In March, Bonkur began to develop an idea for a free tutoring service that would offer students of any age the opportunity to learn Telugu and Tamil. It wasn’t until his three friends jumped on board that the program started to take off.”
Hackaday: IRC Server For MS-DOS . “The recent flurry of projects based around Internet Relay Chat (IRC) should be a fair indication that the beloved protocol is not going anywhere. Now, thanks to [Mike Chambers], you can add to the IRC ecosystem by hosting your very own MS-DOS based IRC server.” I had a PC XT that I had to use with a black and white TV because I couldn’t afford a real monitor. Sunday nostalgia: it’s real.
Gizmodo: A Determined Hacker Has Brought Google Maps to the NES. “Almost a decade before the world finally realized how tedious April Fool’s Day pranks are, Google revealed a farcical 8-bit port of Google Maps for the iconic Nintendo Entertainment System. The prank was quickly forgotten, but not by one maker, who, nine years later, has made the NES version of Google Maps a reality.”
Penn State News: New tool could help authors bust writer’s block in novel-length works. “Authors experiencing writer’s block could soon have a new way to help develop the next section of their story. Researchers at the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology recently introduced a new technology that forecasts the future development of an ongoing written story.”
BBC: JMW Turner painting goes on display for first time since 1833. “A Turner painting of Malmesbury Abbey in Wiltshire has gone on public display for the first time in nearly 200 years. The watercolour is being shown at the town’s local museum, as part of a scheme to encourage people back to small museums and heritage sites. Other objects going on display around the UK include a 160-million-year-old crocodile, a rare Bronze Age sword and the original Jolly Fisherman painting.”
San Antonio Express-News: Wash and Learn: Libraries Without Borders uses laundromats to expand internet access in San Antonio. “When Lisa Alvarenga was a child, she spent weekends lugging plastic bags filled with clothes to and from the laundromat with her mother….Alvarenga, the San Antonio project coordinator for Libraries Without Borders, is now a part of the Wash and Learn Initiative. Through the program, laundromats are equipped with tablets and pre-loaded computers with educational portals and curated databases for all ages.”
CNET: NASA rover marks nine years on Mars with glorious 360-degree panorama. “Congratulations, Curiosity, you’ve survived and thrived for over nine years on another planet. NASA’s older Martian rover captured a gorgeous 360-degree panorama in early July and the space agency released it on Tuesday to celebrate the vehicle’s August land-iversary.”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The Diversity Story aims to ‘extend valuable cultural education to more people’. “Eleanor Park, 16, of McCandless launched The Diversity Story a year ago. People can apply to be staff writers, be interviewed to have an article written about them, or submit writing, artwork, photography and recipes. So far, the site has published more than 60 personal stories and interviews, as well as more than 20 snippets, or short reads, which usually discuss a current holiday or issue.”
