Some random links from last month:
- I read less news and more long-form articles these days, so here are a couple of the more politically-oriented ones that I found insightful:- “Why we’re underestimating American collapse”
- This month’s “art pick” are sketches by Alexey Feodosievich Wangenheim, who was the first head of the Soviet Union’s weather bureau in the 1930s, and drew these while spending the rest of his life in the Gulag.
- Bemoaning the decline of “hard SF” (but surely, things aren’t that bad?)
- The Maya civilization was way more extensive than ever previously imagined
Some amazing quotes:
Maya civilisation, at its peak some 1,500 years ago, covered an area about twice the size of medieval England, with an estimated population of around five million.
”With this new data it’s no longer unreasonable to think that there were 10 to 15 million people there,” said Mr Estrada-Belli, “including many living in low-lying, swampy areas that many of us had thought uninhabitable.”
The archaeologists were struck by the “incredible defensive features”, which included walls, fortresses and moats.
They showed that the Maya invested more resources into defending themselves than previously thought, Mr Garrison said.
One of the hidden finds is a seven-storey pyramid so covered in vegetation that it practically melts into the jungle.
The game-changing technology here appears to be Lidar.
- Finally, continuing the trend of “YouTube recordings of old songs performed live”, here’s Bob Dylan playing Tambourine Man in 1964
Abacus Noir 