Overheard: Any platform sufficiently experienced results in a herd of hairless yaks.

“A century ago, where restaurants existed, they were crucial for feeding the many new citydwellers who lived in one-room studios or boarding houses.” Rebecca Spang on restaurant culture amid the 1918 pandemic. https://lithub.com/why-did-so-many-restaurants-stay-open-during-the-1918-pandemic/

I was so terrible at these. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/622658/when-magic-eye-pictures-ruled-world

J.K. Rowling is publishing a new children’s book, The Ickabog, online. https://www.jkrowling.com/j-k-rowling-introduces-the-ickabog/

Princeton University’s Shakespeare and Company Project has digitized hundreds of the library’s lending cards and logbooks, and has made the data available to explore and download. https://shakespeareandco.princeton.edu

Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin is part of a group buying the historic Santa Fe Southern Railroad. https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/george-rr-martin-to-buy-railway

Commodity coffee companies can weather small rises in production costs or a short lack of demand. But for small specialty coffee importers and roasters, the lack of demand might not only sink their businesses but irreversibly impact the communities that grow high-end beans. https://modernfarmer.com/2020/05/covid-19-causes-supply-chain-headaches-for-coffee-growers/

George Lucas' Scrapped 'Star Wars: Underworld' TV Series Had Dozens of Finished Scripts and a Massive Scope https://collider.com/star-wars-underworld-live-action-series-details-ronald-d-moore-george-lucas/

Researchers claim new internet speed record of 44.2 Tbps https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/22/21267321/broadband-internet-speed-record-australia-researchers-micro-comb-fiber

How do you design a Proof of Concept project for a new dev/test tool?

I'm aiming to write an article to help developers, devops, and testers determine if a given vendor's application meets the company's needs. Tell me how you'd go about it.

(I have a much longer explanation of what I'm looking for -- such as "assume it's expensive" -- but that's the crux of it.)

Merriam-Webster challenges foodie wordsmiths to "test your knowledge of food vocabulary!" (I missed two.) https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-games/name-more-food

The history of Working Out from Home for Women, From Jack Lalance to Yoga Youtube. https://theattic.jezebel.com/get-in-shape-girl-a-century-of-working-out-from-home-1843416457

Smaller retailers are benefiting from the way the big guns have changed the field in recent years, operating vast out-of-town fulfillment centers filled with thousands of robots, managed by a central AI. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/05/25/1002168/retail-robots-save-local-store-business-lockdown-pandemic-coronavirus-economic-crisis/

Here's a look at what each state is binge watching during quarantine. https://www.cabletv.com/blog/what-the-us-is-watching-during-covid-19

The Carouser and the Great Astronomer
http://nautil.us/issue/84/outbreak/the-carouser-and-the-great-astronomer

Charleston Chew commercial with William H Macy (1983) https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=20&v=xX_BF1IJ4CE&feature=emb_logo

In this professor’s class, there are no calculators. Instead, students learn advanced math by drawing pictures, playing with beach balls—and knitting
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/what-knitting-can-teach-you-about-math-180969637/

Half a dozen guitars from Kurt Cobain, Prince and Bill Wyman will sell over the next few months, with two or three capable of cracking the million dollar barrier, most notably Cobain’s MTV Unplugged Martin D-18 and Prince’s Purple Rain guitar. https://newatlas.com/prince-kurt-cobain-bill-wyman-brian-jones-guitars-auction

People largely confined to their homes have been cooking more and buying more garlic to cook with https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/05/20/garlic-shortage-hits-a-side-effect-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic/

1973 IBM Selectric typeball recorded dancers' body movements https://www.ibm.com/blogs/industries/selectric-typewriter-dancers/