Linkdump – 11/08/11

I bookmark and instapaper a lot if things that I think might be interesting, but I never get around to reading. A regular ‘linkdump’ seemed like a good way to review and potentially share them, to stop them going to waste.

Panoramic images of Hiroshima after the nuclear bomb – Boing Boing
360 Cities has a collection of 360 degree panoramas of historic photos taken in August, 1945, after the US detonated a nuclear bomb in Hiroshima, Japan. The photos are from the Hiroshima Peace Museum’s collection, now loaded into 360 Cities’ panorama explorer.

Color video from Hiroshima – Boing Boing
In the weeks following the atomic attacks on Japan sixty-six years ago this week, and then for decades afterward, the United States engaged in airtight suppression of all film shot in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombings. This included vivid color footage shot by U.S. military crews and black-and-white Japanese newsreel film.

Hideouts or Sacred Spaces? Experts Baffled by Mysterious Underground Chambers
There are more than 700 curious tunnel networks in Bavaria, but their purpose remains a mystery. Were they built as graves for the souls of the dead, as ritual spaces or as hideaways from marauding bandits? Archeologists are now exploring the subterranean vaults to unravel their secrets.

My Summer at an Indian Call Center
I stand flush against the window of a Toyota showroom, trying to stay in a shrinking sliver of shade. We’re on the cusp of midday, which, in Delhi in June, lasts most of the day and drives everyone into a languid torpor. I am waiting for a company cab, now an hour and a half late, to drive me across town to a call center, where an Indian “culture trainer” will teach me how to act Australian.

How deep is every tube station on the Underground?
A question you have probably never ever asked yourself is what is the depth of every single tube station on the Underground, but now the question has been asked, you are probably really curious to know the answer.

SADAT’S DAT
Very few people in the west saw the present revolutions in the Arab world coming. I think one of the main reasons is that we are still locked into a simplified way of looking at the Arab countries – above all Egypt – that began in the 1970s.

Shorpy.com
And finally, a site that features huge scans of fantastic old American photos. While away the hours comparing them to their modern day equivalents on Google Street View.