You should read this for 7/19/2020:
Art, Music, and Film
Carl Reiner’s final performance is a fitting goodbye and instant tear-jerker
The comedy legend (and father of fellow Hollywood great, Rob Reiner) died on June 29 at the age of 98. But there’s at least one more chance to see him perform, thanks to a clip that was shot just a few days before Reiner left this world behind.
The clip is the cap-off scene in Quibi’s weird, socially distanced remake of The Princess Bride. And it’s just perfect.
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Where are the bones of Hans Holbein? I spent lockdown solving art’s grisliest mystery “He was a star of the Renaissance, an unflinching painter of death and horror in a time of rampant plague. Yet he ended up in an unmarked grave in London. Or so it has always been believed . . .”
Books, Libraries, Writing, and Language
Via Google: Unravel the symbols of ancient Egypt
Languages Will Change Significantly on Interstellar Flights
Coronavirus | COVID-19
Covid-19 outbreaks up to 20 times more likely in large care homes, study finds
High footfall of staff – including agency workers, cooks and maintenance engineers, going in and out of the largest homes – is thought to be a key factor for infecting elderly residents.
In Japan wearing a mask is habitual – can the UK follow suit?
The mass wearing of masks is habitual in Japan, beginning with the arrival of the flu season and continuing through the spring among the country’s legions of hay fever sufferers. In the case of flu, the logic is the same as that now being applied to Covid-19: not only does a mask hide runny, sore noses, it helps prevent the sufferer from spreading their germs, especially on packed commuter trains.
We ran the CDC. No president ever politicized its science the way Trump has. Four previous CDC directors push back.
Russian hackers are targeting vaccine development, officials say “Hackers from Russian intelligence services are targeting organizations that are involved in COVID-19 vaccine development, according to US, UK, and Canadian authorities.”
Education
How to Start Your Own Learning ‘Co-Op’ at Home
This year, we’re scared for everyone’s physical health if the kids go to school, and we’re scared for their mental health (and ours) if they don’t. But there’s another option, a nice little compromise, that many families are starting to explore—forming their own small learning “co-op.”
Food and Drink
Rachel Roddy: my favourite recipe for chicken and tomato curry “Mallika Basu’s murgh masala can be tweaked to your heart’s content so it changes to suit you – wherever you are”
Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake
There are cakes that can be made without turning on (or having to clean) the food processor or electric mixer. This is one of them. The recipe, inspired by Dorie Greenspan’s extra-virgin olive oil cake, uses blood oranges, which leave the cut loaf dappled with ruby dots. It’s a lovely presentation, but regular oranges could be used, too.
History and Archaeology
Vast neolithic circle of deep shafts found near Stonehenge
Four thousand five hundred years ago, the Neolithic peoples who constructed Stonehenge, a masterpiece of engineering, also dug a series of shafts aligned to form a circle spanning 1.2 miles (2km) in diameter. The structure appears to have been a boundary guiding people to a sacred area because Durrington Walls, one of Britain’s largest henge monuments, is located precisely at its centre. The site is 1.9 miles north-east of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain, near Amesbury, Wiltshire.
Science and Nature
Curiosity Is Going To Spend Its Summer Driving Around a Dangerous Sandy Region on Mars
The rover will be moving between two “units” of Gale Crater, where it has been exploring since 2014. It’s wrapping up experiments in the “clay-bearing unit”, which resulted in the highest concentrations of clay found during the mission. It’s now moving to the “sulfate-bearing unit”, which is expected to contain an abundance of sulfates, such as gypsum and Epsom salts.
See the link for pictures, and maps.
Technology
Don’t keep your Mac laptop charged to 100 percent all the time. Here’s why
Twitter says passwords were spared in yesterday’s attack, but it’s still working to restore locked accounts
The massive Twitter hack could be a global security crisis
Read Twitter’s update on the huge hack — 8 accounts may have had private messages stolen
More than just a Twitter hack
Women’s Work
TikTok users create fake ‘safety calls’ to help protect each other IRL
Judy Dyble obituary “Singer-songwriter with Fairport Convention who went on to success in the duo Trader Horne”
💩🔥💰 Trumpery 💩🔥💰
💩🔥💰 administration strips some COVID-19 data from CDC website
Experts are alarmed by the change, saying that removing the data from public view indicates that the 🤥🤥👖🔥 administration may restrict and politicize health information. Throughout the pandemic, 🤥🤥👖🔥’s stance has been to downplay the disease that has so far killed some 138,000 Americans. Despite a current surge in cases, Trump is currently pushing to re-open schools in the fall, even though his own health experts strongly advise against it.
Josh Marshall: Into the Abyss
My best guess is that it is simply to maintain a tighter hold on information and keep it out of the hands of the CDC, which even under its stalwartly Trumpian current leadership has shown some recent signs of bucking the President’s demands for COVID denial and no-holds-barred school reopenings.
White House: ‘The science should not stand in the way’ of reopening schools
Pay It Forward and Make It Better
WindowSwap lets you cycle through picturesque views from all over the world
Via NPR: Isle Of Calm: Stream 6 Hours Of Soothing Music
So when someone asked us to list the songs we turn to when we need calm, a huge playlist poured out. Encompassing classical, folk, jazz, ambient, pop, blues, soul, hip-hop, indie-rock and more, the block of music we’re calling “Isle of Calm” is there to help settle your jangled nerves, slow your heart rate and string up a little hammock for your soul.
You can stream for free via Spotify, or listen on Apple Music.
SetApp: A Suite of macOS Apps for a Single Price Affiliate link for a great collection of 75+ apps for a single price.
Something Wonderful
Cat discovering that it has EARS !
Super images of comet Neowise over Stonehenge, among other places, and advice for taking your own photos: A Beginner’s Guide To Photographing Comet Neowise And more images here.
