Each week I read through a crazy amount of content. Who knows what will catch my eye. Some times I may devote an entire post to something, other times it may just be little mind worms that either inspire me, make me mad or even laugh. You never know what I may put here. I have an eclectic collection of interests in life. Items are posted in no particular order, and I will provide the full link to the articles in case anyone is interested in checking them out.
TL;DR? This week we cover a quick set of links covering :
- WTF – Foo Fraggles?
- Lost Signals Found? – Finding the OG Bluetooth
- Math and Magic – Bitwise Operations in Magic tricks
- Destination: Los Angeles and The Lost Lizard Treasure
- Vim and Vigor : VIM 9 has released
WTF – Foo Fraggles?
In a world of bizarre musical covers I discovered that the Foo Fighters have recently covered a Fraggle Rock song. You heard me right. Fraggle Rock. The children’s show from the late 1980s / early 1990s. Dave Grohl and Company have definitely rocked it up a bit. The original (also below) isn’t that bad either. Chase your Fears away, worries for another day – let the music play – here’s your Fraggle Rock! (You will hate me for planting that ear worm later today).
…And now the original version….
Lost Signal Found? – Finding the OG Bluetooth
Many people know that the popular wireless connection technology and protocol called Bluetooth is named after the 10th century Viking King Harald Gormsson Bluetooth. The Bluetooth symbol is actually the runic representation of his name. This week we discovered that archeologists may be closing in on his final resting place in Poland! Some interesting info here that is sure to make you the star of your Fourth of July Parties… The story can be found here.
Math and Magic – Bitwise Operations in Magic tricks
I am by birth a skeptic. About just about everything. If you were to ask me my most common statement at work it is -“Let’s get all of the liars in a room and agree which lie we like the best”. Maybe its because of where or how I grew up. Trust No one. Still… I love me a good magic trick. I always try and figure out how a trick has been done. Whether physics, slight of hand… or complicated bitwise operations in your brain. Wait… What? I came across this article that highlights how the de Bruijn card trick works. I find stuff like this fascinating. As ingenious as it is elegant. I also clearly don’t give some magicians the intellectual credit they deserve in some cases. To be honest, I am not sure I could do this fast enough in my head to make any money being a magician… but once you read it.. you will have a peek at the inside of the magical universe. Which coincidentally is based in math….
Destination: Los Angeles and The Lost Lizard Treasure
Deep under Los Angeles is a lost city built the Lizard People. A race of people who lived there 5000 years ago. City Engineers in 1934 allegedly opened a vault into the tunnels of this lost civilization. The maps produced and the details of the city, its people, and its design is crazy. Almost as crazy as the people who concocted this story in the first place. Just proves that back then, just as today, sensationalism sells more than facts. Still its kind of fun to think about Indiana Jones and Lizard People. Of course he should only attempt it after he has defeated aliens, nazis, cold-war russians, and whatever he is fighting in the yet to be released movie.
Vim and Vigor : Vim 9 has been released
I’m still a Vi guy. I dont call it Vim. Does anyone? I still have a double-sided print of the Vi quick reference commands that I laminated back when I was a university student working on the ‘BIG’ Unix machines. Of course I can use the modern editors such as nano and others, but the keyboard shortcuts allow me a comfortable and incredibly speedy way to navigate any document. All that being said, its not like I am a crazy nut about it. I dont follow the latest advancements or if I am being honest if there actually had been any advancements. Its just something that is always out there. Its the default of defaults on almost any machine or distro you come across. I caught this article that they are now at version 9 with speed improvements for VimScript. Sounds great. If I used VimScript. I dont. But I am happy that there is still active development and work going into an old standby.
\Mm
