Some interesting items from various sites . . .
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Some cat snapchats:
Bored Panda
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Lockdown in London lets Abbey Road get a fresh coat of paint:
Authorities in London have used the lockdown and resultant lack of traffic to give the iconic pedestrian crossing in Abbey Road a repaint. In 2010, the site was declared a national landmark. More than 300,000 fans visit the crossing every year according to the Guardian.
The cover for Abbey Road was shot at 11.35am on 8 August 1969, as John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr took a break from completing I Want You (She’s So Heavy) and The End, and Paul McCartney paused work on Oh! Darling. Standing on a step ladder in the middle of the road, photographer Iain Macmillan only had time to shoot six photographs on his Hasselblad camera given the oncoming traffic. McCartney selected the fourth image as the cover shot.
Twisted Sifter
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Some images that show the effect of COVID-19:
The world has gone mostly silent and empty . . .
The Great Mosque And Kaaba In Mecca, Saudi Arabia
Mobile morgues In refrigerated trucks holding bodies In New York City
Homeless in Las Vegas sleeping in social distancing grids
USNS Comfort and the Statue of Liberty
ListVerse
By the way, here is a photograph of the street next to my office, taken when I was leaving for home the other night. Usually every kerbside spot is taken by people attending the gym opposite.
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US doctors paste photos of themselves smiling on their protective suits to reassure COVID-19 patients:
Masks make it impossible for doctors to show positive non-verbal signs like smiling, which is vital to patients. A respiratory therapist named Robertino at he Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego came up with the idea of printing out a color photograph of himself with a charming smile on his face, laminating it, and sticking it on his protective suit to reassure patients.
A number of other doctors were inspired by this move and did the same soon after.
Bored Panda
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The Great Barrier Reef is now facing the most widespread bleaching event yet:
The severity of this year’s bleaching is second only to 2016, during which a third of the reef’s corals died
Great barrier reef. A survey of 1,036 reefs in the Great Barrier Reef over the last two weeks of March revealed the most widespread bleaching event on record. The last two bleaching events, in 2016 and 2017, decimated about half of the natural wonder's coral reefs.
The March survey shows that all regions of the reef are suffering from the bleaching event, unlike previous events when only the north and central areas were affected. About a quarter of the reef has been severely affected, meaning more than 60 percent of the coral lost its colour, and another 35 percent underwent mild bleaching. The news follows a difficult Australian summer of drought, wildfire and flooding.
“They are just getting hammered by these repetitive, destructive heat waves,” says coral reefs expert Australia Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of the University of Queensland in Brisbane to Science News’ John Pickerell. “If this continues over the next 10 years or so, there won’t be much of a Great Barrier Reef left.”
Smithsonian Magazine
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The earliest written F word:
The world's earliest recorded use of the F-word lies in a Scottish manuscript penned by a bored student who was in lockdown due to the plague. It is in the Bannatyne Manuscript, which dates back to 1568 and is kept under lock and key in the National Library of Scotland.
The Bannatyne Manuscript is a collection of poems written by George Bannatyne, while he was a bored student locked in his Edinburgh home due to the plague. The manuscript contains William Dunbar's epic poem The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie, in which two poets trade insults with one another. As the pair trade blows, Kennedy brands Dunbar a 'wan fukkit funling' (“an ill-conceived foundling”).
In a BBC documentary, Dr Joanna Kopaczyk, a historical linguistics professor at Glasgow University, tells viewers: 'In the Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy, when Kennedy addresses Dunbar, there is the earliest surviving record of the word 'f***' in the world. It might never quite make the tourist trail, but here in the National Library we have the first written f***' in the world. I think that's something to be proud of.’
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The fork was once considered immoral, unhygienic and a tool of the devil:
In fact, the word "fork" is derived from the Latin furca, which means pitchfork. The first dining forks were used by the ruling class in the Middle East and the Byzantine Empire. In 1004, Maria Argyropoulina, niece of the Byzantine emperors Basil II and Constantine VIII, was married to the son of the Doge of Venice. She brought with her a little case of two-pronged golden forks, which she used at her wedding feast. The Venetians were shocked, and when Maria died three years later of the plague, Saint Peter Damian proclaimed it was God’s punishment. And with that, Saint Peter Damian closed the book on the fork in Europe for the next four hundred years.
Smithsonian Magazine
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Photos of people having a worse quarantine than you:
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Went Into My Attic Looking For A Water Leak Coming Into My Living Room And It Appears That I'm Also In Quarantine With This Whatever Monstrosity Left This Behind. Its Soft To The Touch So I'm Assuming It's Still Around
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Governor Just Ordered All “Non Life Sustaining” Businesses To Close, Including Construction And Contractors. This Is The Current State Of My Only Bathroom
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So My Fridge Doors Just Fell Off
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1st Day Of Family Quarantine. TV Dies
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Girlfriend's Grad Cancelled Due To The Virus So She’s Picking Up Her Degree From The Student Desk
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Bought 60 Doughnuts For The Office Today To Celebrate My 20th Birthday, Only To Be Told I Need To Self Isolate/ Work From Home For The Next Week
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We Were Getting Our Kitchen Redone When The Corona Virus Happened. We Currently Are Living Through This With A Toaster Oven And A Sink
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