Decoding the weird and fictive comedy of archive-quality linkspam

I thought this was funny, though I haven't yet made my way through all the parts: Facebook Newsfeed History of the World

While I take Robert McCrum's point about the perniciousness of fiction written to a formula (assuming it to be at all true that the current wisdom is "A new novel should be summarised in a single sentence, and should stop dinner conversation for at least 10 minutes"), surely shome mishtake here: Mass culture has always been banal and high culture its redemption. I would even invert that and say that high art always tends to become inbred and etiolated until infused once more with demotic vigour coming from popular culture.

The degree of risk involved is often not particularly accurately calibrated: Stewart Lee, Does comic 'bravery' go hand in hand with being offensive and stupid?

Interview with Gloria Steinem at 70, including misogynist harassment in pre-internet days (involving billboards), but the interviewer is a bit irritating.

Europe's archived trove of rare Great War documents goes online. Libraries across Europe are collaborating to make 400,000 documents available to the public. I am not sure the British Library would be my own first port of call for this topic (The National Archives? Imperial War Museum?) and I can mention at least one UK archive with significant WWI holdings they don't seem to have spoken to... but still, points for a good effort here and it may well extend.

How Revolutionary Tools Cracked a 1700s Code

[A] team of Swedish and American linguists has applied statistics-based translation techniques to crack one of the most stubborn of codes: the Copiale Cipher, a hand-lettered 105-page manuscript that appears to date from the late 18th century.

Yes, but how about that Voynich Manuscript, hmmmm? Next up?

Culinary

Saturday breakfast rolls: basic buttermilk with buckwheat.

Today's lunch: dab fillets brushed with milk, dipped in cornmeal + medium oatmeal + Aleppo spice mix and then panfried in butter, and cut limes to squeeze over (delicious - dab fillets are quite a discovery, the whole fish are terribly bony but the fillets are lovely, even if they do tend to break up while cooking), served with leeks healthy-grilled in olive oil and drizzled with black mulberry vinegar, and samphire stirfried with star anise. (Slightly frantic timing issue since both the fish and the samphire were last-minute cooking items.)

No bread today as I made some during the past week.