Shorts Sunday 081017

I really must get up to the Faroe / Faeroe archipelago, The Blob has only looked at the islands from afar. Despite the isolation and windy weather, some 65,000 people are hanging in there with their own distinct language and culture. They are making an effort to bring a cascade of $$$s and €€€s into the island by giving the region a higher profile. If you want a sentence translated into Faroese you type it in here, wait a few seconds and you call will be routed to a real islander who will say it back  in her/his native language. How cool is that? Don't, like me, try "Let us kill more whales" though, they are fed up with that old cliché and a nice lady will refer you to whaling.fo where you will be lectured about regulation and sustainability. via MeFi where some interesting commentary about bandwidth and infrastructural support in Faroes vs Shetland and other remote parts of the UK

• Tom Scott on reaction ferries which cross rivers without power.
• Half as Interesting does the UPU which reckons the cost of postal delivery worldwide.
• Eccentric weights and measures section
• The Smoot
• Eccentric old buffers section
• Irving Finkel on the Lewis Chess-pieces.
• On cuneiform
• Michael Poliakoff on Periodic Elements
• I have written about the virtues of communal music
• drums [prev]
• singing [prev] Turns out that, in the UK, more people sing in choirs than do amateur soccer: infographic on the rise and rise of singing together
• I wrote about Educating Yorkshire this time last year. Here is the formerly stammering Musharaf all grown up and dating. And the daft bugger is now vlogging.
• Sporty people cheating
• in camera
• On the Appalachian Trail [prevlier]
• on the Pacific Crest Trail
• In case you haven't read enough about the virtues of the Finnish school system. Here is a piece on the issue from Smithsonian.
• How to live to be 100+. Advice from those who made that far.  The best advice I have heard came from a centenarian who was asked 
• "To what do you attribute your longevity?"
• "I never drank, smoked, or went with a woman; until I was eight"