Back up at its original URL courtesy of CERN: "Twenty years of a free, open web."
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7:13 am Tue
Apr 30, 2013
The world's first website
The weird history of magical ways to protect your home
Last month, I posted about “witch bottles” — containers of curious items like human teeth, fish hooks, glass shards, and undetermined liquid — sometimes found in chimneys or inside walls of old buildings where they were placed to ward off evil spells, spirits, and curses. Turns out that there’s a new book — “Magical House […]
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Public cemeteries as a precondition for the sale of land
Writing at Metropole, Sarah Balakrishnan describes the development of cemeteries in a city in Ghana. As of the 1800’s, the general practice in the seaside city of Accra was to bury the dead underneath the family’s home. Around 1888, British colonists began forcing the populace to bury the dead in public cemeteries. The requirement served […]
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The devastating 200-year-old tradition of running along a greasy pole in Malta
Presumably coming soon to ESPN’s “The Ocho” is some version of this 200-year old tradition in Malta held in honor of St Julian the Hospitaller: In the tournament, known as Gostra to the Maltese, a 16 meter-pole is covered by 15 liters of lard and fixed at an angle from the promenade into the sea. […]
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10 gifts you can get now that don't need shipping
This holiday season, give the delivery man a break. Who needs the extra cost and uncertainty of shipping anyway? Here are 10-holiday gifts that cut out the middleman and go straight to the nicest ones on your Christmas list. Winc Wine Delivery Okay, we might be cheating a little with this first one, but a […]
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This smart notebook saves your scribbles with a simple scan of your SmartPhone
For some folks, writing notes by hand is just plain easier, but having to re-type them later can be a huge bore, not to mention time-sink. The guys from Rocketbook successfully merged the best parts of analog and digital note-taking with their Everlast notebook awhile back. And now, that tech just got a lot more […]
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Save 40% on this innovative desktop toy and card game
There are fast-paced card games, and some of them even require enough dexterity for a mini-workout (like Skip-Bo or Snap). But there’s nothing quite like the Mokuru® Card Game, which uses an already addictive fidget toy as the centerpiece for a cutthroat game of tabletop challenges. The game is named for the toy that gets […]
