Friday links

Apocalypse alert: supermoon, solar eclipse and Friday the 13th. Paraskavedekatriaphobia: Why is Friday the 13th Considered Unlucky?

July 14 is Bastille Day. Here's Jonah Goldberg's classic article on the subject: The French are Revolting.

A Brief History of Trial by Combat.

Supercut: 100 Greatest One-Liners Before The Kill.

Mozart’s Much Less Family Friendly Works (Some NSFW language - apparently his sense of humor had a scatological component).

Secret Policing: How Local Authorities Surveil Americans.

ICYMI, Thursday's links are here, and include the 19th century fight over Sunday mail delivery, the art and science of creating ice in the desert 2,000 years ago, sporting pastimes from the Georgian era, and some male contraceptive advice (just wear a polyester sling, and let the heat and electrostatics do all the work), with bonus Monty Python.

Monday links

Here's a 1985 list of Western musical groups banned on Soviet radio.

The strange history of the “King-Pine”, aka the pineapple.

That time Thomas Jefferson sent a moose to Paris.

June 4 is the anniversary of the 1872 issue of U.S. patent for Vaseline.

What is li-fi? The new alternative to wi-fi transmits data through lamps, streetlights, and more. Sounds like a potential new surveillance problem to me - the article Inside the Brotherhood of the Ad Blockers, contained this:

"The developers have discovered spying by internet-connected TVs (which collect data for ad targeting), lightbulbs (users have reported some LED bulbs mysteriously connecting with the manufacturer’s server every 2 seconds), and printers (including one that sent out 34 million queries in a day)."

The Science Behind Florida’s Sinkhole Epidemic.

ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include Europe's oldest tree, a selection of poorly translated English language T-shirts spotted In Asia, a history of the stoplight, using AI in the Vatican's secret archives, and the anniversary of the evacuation of Dunkirk by a flotilla of small boats (the occasion of Churchill's "We shall fight on the beaches...we shall never surrender") speech.