Read this episode on the web // All past episodes

The Weekend Nerdiary

Episode 16

This week is a fun one! We'll listen to music around the world (around time), watch an armed robbery in South Africa, learn some C, watch some Line Rider, learn about how the internal combustion engine (really) works, and reminisce about our dear friend Bob Ross. Onward!

(( Sound(e)scapes ))

Radiooooo (great name!): Wanna hear what music was popular in Algeria in the 1970s? Japan in the 1960s? India in the 1930s? Pick a country, pick a decade between 1900 and now, and listen away.

Play time

A Reddit classic (from 2012): I've been playing the same game of Civilization II for almost 10 years. This is the result. And oh what a result: "The world is a hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation. There are 3 remaining super nations in the year 3991 A.D, each competing for the scant resources left on the planet after dozens of nuclear wars have rendered vast swaths of the world uninhabitable wastelands." (thx to Oliver for this one!)

I did not expect to watch all 2 minutes of this incredibly satisfying replay of a Line Rider game, but I am deeply glad that I did:

Bonus! Another one, set to In the Hall of the Mountain King, one of my favorites:

?? How stuff works ??

I've shared some of Bartosz Ciechanowski's work before, and here's his latest masterpiece: Internal Combustion Engine. The deepest of (interactive!) deep-dives into exactly how the ICE works, and it's absolutely amazing.

Ever watched a street hustler (or magician) do the 'ol shell game? Every wondered how they did it (other than with "sleight of hand")?

Penn & Teller shall show you how it's actually done:

{ Code code code code code }

Check out the absolutely epic takedown of mobile phone hacking company Cellbrite from Signal's Moxie Marlinspike. Short summary: They hacked the hackers and poisoned the well so thoroughly that some convictions are already being appealed because of Signal's work. (Thx to Emil for this!)

Beej's Guide to C Programming - an incredible, very readable, free, 550-page epic guide to C. If you're curious, need to brush up, or want to dive in deep, this is awesome.

!! Truth is stranger than truth !!

Why it's nearly impossible to buy an original Bob Ross painting - A fascinating dive into the world of everyone's favorite beloved Joy of Painting host, Mr. Bob Ross.

Related: It's worth watching this great 10-minute video the New York Times put together a few years ago called Where Are All the Bob Ross Paintings? We Found Them.

Related related: Here's a guy who trained a neural network to turn your line drawings into Bob Ross-style paintings:

15 people in France volunteered to isolate themselves inside a cave for 40 days without daylight or clocks (ostensibly as part of a study on internal body clocks), and in the least surprising news for introverts ever: "Two thirds wanted to stay longer."

|| Long(ish)reads ||

From The New Yorker: The Incredible Rise of North Korean's Hacking Army - "The country’s cyber forces have raked in billions of dollars for the regime by pulling off schemes ranging from A.T.M. heists to cryptocurrency thefts. Can they be stopped?"

:: Pretty pixels ::

Australian photographer Murray Fredericks took these (actual, not CGI) photos using just a mirror placed in the middle of Lake Eyre, a desert lake 435 mi north of Adelaide. The project is called, appropriately, "Vanity"...

Russian digital artist Slava aka Thisset has some pretty awesome mixed-media stuff on both his Behance and Instagram profiles.

Check out photographer David Altrath's series called Metro, in which he photographed some of Stockholm's absolutely amazing subway stations.

.. /dev/urandom ..

Here's a 100-car demolition derby...filmed with Hot Wheels cars...on a treadmill :)

Ready to get your heart rate up? Watch this 2 1/2 minute video of actual footage from an armored car robbery in South Africa:

Bonus follow-up pictures of the aftermath!

That's it for this week! Thanks again for playing along. If you enjoyed this, feel free to forward to someone else who might as well. If you got this from a friend, subscribe here.

Until the next one,
--Noah

Not feeling it?

Unsubscribe

(No hard feelings, I promise.)