Category: Interesting links

An article in the Washington Post describes how the US Postal Service is tackling problems similar to those that Royal Mail is facing.

In London and want to avoid pollution? Walk – but whatever you do, don’t take a taxi.

Tim Harford in Slate reports on how you can get a good coffee in Starbucks – a previously unknown phenomenon.

Exit Mundi looks at all the ways the world could end – right now!

Wikipedia is available in many languages, including Igbo (Nigerian language, 18m speakers, 2 articles), Muscogee (1 article), Venetian – the local language of Venice (33 articles), Cornish (600+ articles), and Catalan (23,000+ articles).

My favourite: Latin!, which astonishingly has more articles (4,000) than either Welsh or Irish.

An interesting article on A Fistful of Euros discusses how some Spaniards are boycotting Catalan cava, as the row over Catalunya‘s autonomy statute rumbles on.

A torture-related link I posted atMetaFilter.

Incompetent design – why God is not as clever as you think he is.

A District line station supervisor grumbles, rightly, about the performance measure that requires him to keep ticket gates closed and the manual barrier locked, even when the station is closed, and contractors need access.

Kokogiak, a user on Flickr, has posted a few photos of Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever.

The photos (here) show the differences between Kokogiak’s own 1963 edition, and the 1991 reissue he bought for his kids. Firemen are no longer brave heroes. Pretty stewardesses are just flight attendants, and cowboy is no longer a job (instead, you can be a judge).