Reading

Digital Photocopiers Loaded with Secrets. A piece where the author finds all sorts of material on second-hand photocopiers. I had no idea this was a thing:

Nearly every digital copier built since 2002 contains a hard drive – like the one on your personal computer – storing an image of every document copied, scanned, or emailed by the machine.

I have been stung by 150 species of insect. This man has a strange job, where getting stung by a range of arthropods is apparently normal. What I liked about it though, was his glorious descriptions of the pain, which makes it sound like a wine tasting session.

The Oral History of DMX’s It’s Dark and Hell is Hot. I’ll be honest, GQ magazine is not a place I thought a piece like this would appear, but they do a great job (even without being able to get DMX himself). I loved this album when it came out, it’s an absolute monster of a debut, and I’ll happily accept any prompt to re-visit it. Apologies to my neighbours this week, but X is coming.

This fantastic thread on twitter about the sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion.

One of the world’s most remarkable ruined places is the sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion.

Once a thriving hub of the ancient world, the city was devastated by a series of environmental disasters, & now lies 6.5km off the coast in the blue waters of the Egyptian sea. pic.twitter.com/okeCmXtCiv

— Paul ?? Cooper (@PaulMMCooper) May 11, 2018

I’ve read about Thonis before, but this is a great series of posts which really brings it to life. As I said when I RT’d it, it’s insane to me that a major city can vanish (& people forget where it even *was*) within a couple of centuries. Babylon, Muziris, Mohenjo-daro, Cahokia, Merv, Xanadu… The amount of MEGA cities that were left with little trace is amazing. It’s inconceivable that it could happen again right(?) Imagine London or NY being consigned to myth and lore. Loco. But it *will* happen. Steel and glass won’t stand the test of time.

I think I’ve posted about another thing Paul Cooper posted before… expect more, he’s one of my favourite people on twitter.

Listening to

99% Invisible 306: Breaking Bad News. Dr Rob Buckman (who I’d not heard of before) did doctor stuff at the same time as hanging out with Monty Python and doing tv comedy, then he got ill, and eventually wrote a book which drew from all those experiences called I Don’t Know What To Say: How to Help and Support Someone Who is Dying. This is a fascinating episode which covers the detail to those things, and while it’s a sad story, it’s ultimately positive and always interesting. Quite a coup getting John Cleese on the show too.