James' World 2

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Harvard University’s CS50 is one of the most popular beginner computer science courses in the world.

We just released the entire CS50 course–all 25 hours–on the freeCodeCamp.org YouTube channel.

David J. Malan is widely considered to be one of the best computer science instructors. He teaches this course.

This course provides an introduction to the intellectual enterprises of computer science and the art of programming. This course teaches students how to think algorithmically and solve problems efficiently.

Topics include abstraction, algorithms, data structures, encapsulation, resource management, security, software engineering, and web programming. Languages include C, Python, and SQL plus HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

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On 27 August 1883, the Earth let out a noise louder than any it has made since.

It was 10:02 a.m. local time when the sound emerged from the island of Krakatoa, which sits between Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. It was heard 1,300 miles away in the Andaman and Nicobar islands (“extraordinary sounds were heard, as of guns firing”); 2,000 miles away in New Guinea and Western Australia (“a series of loud reports, resembling those of artillery in a north-westerly direction”); and even 3,000 miles away in the Indian Ocean island of Rodrigues, near Mauritius* (“coming from the eastward, like the distant roar of heavy guns.” ¹) In all, it was heard by people in over 50 different geographical locations, together spanning an area covering a thirteenth of the globe.

Think, for a moment, just how crazy this is. If you’re in Boston and someone tells you that they heard a sound coming from New York City, you’re probably going to give them a funny look. But Boston is a mere 200 miles from New York. What we’re talking about here is like being in Boston and clearly hearing a noise coming from Dublin, Ireland. Traveling at the speed of sound (766 miles or 1,233 kilometers per hour), it takes a noise about 4 hours to cover that distance. This is the most distant sound that has ever been heard in recorded history.

So what could possibly create such an earth-shatteringly loud bang? A volcano on Krakatoa had just erupted with a force so great that it tore the island apart, emitting a plume of smoke that reached 17 miles into the atmosphere, according to a geologist who witnessed it¹. You could use this observation to calculate that stuff spewed out of the volcano at over 1,600 miles per hour—or nearly half a mile per second. That’s more than twice the speed of sound.

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A lithograph of the massive 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. From The eruption of Krakatoa, and subsequent phenomena, 1888; Parker & Coward; via Wikipedia.

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Cities are unpredictable places. Not just in the hustle and bustle of dusty street corners, but across the sweep of time itself. Take Leipzig for example. Once the fifth largest city in Germany, it tumbled into steep decline after German reunification in 1990. Residents left the city in droves, decamping to new developments outside the city boundaries. By the year 2000, one in five homes within the city stood empty.

And then everything changed. In the new millennium, the German economy started gathering steam and jobs flowed back to the center of Leipzig. Those once-vacant properties were demolished to make way for new housing developments. As new immigrants chose to make their homes closer to the heart of the city, Leipzig’s suburban sprawl started to contract again. Today it is one of the fastest-growing cities in Germany, adding around 2 percent to its population every year.

Leipzig’s riches-to-rags-to-riches transformation has been dramatic, but it is just one sign of an urban renaissance taking place across the continent. After decades of slowly creeping outward with the creation of new suburban commuter belts, Europe’s cities are growing denser once more—and providing a potential boon for the environment and our well-being in the process. American cities, take note.

Between the 1970s and early 21st century, most cities went through a period of what urban planners call de-densification. Think of it as middle-aged spread: As societies became more affluent and car-based, low-density housing developments on the outskirts of cities provided larger homes for people who wanted more space but to still be within driving distance of jobs and shops. The growth of suburbia was the predominant trend for most cities all over the world in the second half of the 20th century, says Chiara Cortinovis, an urban planning researcher at Humboldt University of Berlin.

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Photograph: Michael Schöne/Getty Images

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Our story begins in the middle of a wheat field, in the heart of Italy, in the comune, or municipality, of Monte San Pietrangeli, where there’s a pasta factory owned by Massimo Mancini, a son, and grandson of wheat farmers.

It’s a matter of pride for Mancini and his colleagues that they grow the durum wheat they use to make spaghetti, macaroni, and other noodles bound for sale in Italy and abroad, including in Canada. So his factory is actually in the middle of a field.

Mancini was explaining to me why he is so intent on working with his own semolina when he said something in passing about Canadian wheat that caught me by surprise. Over there, he said, referring to our immense country, they sometimes use pesticides in the fields right before harvest, which risks leaving residue in the grains. Do we really want to work with that kind of primary material?

The claim and the question caught me by surprise. I’d always believed Canadian one of the best in the world, that we were culinary peacekeepers, always ready to feed the planet thanks to the endless, golden fields of our Prairies.

I knew our oil industry was the butt of accusations by environmentalists, and that our treatment of First Nations was nothing to be proud of when it came to talk about Canada abroad. But our wheat? Really? This I had to investigate.

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Wheat

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Travel inspiration is everywhere you look. The question is where to go next. Here’s our annual list of superlative destinations for the year ahead—places filled with wonder, rewarding to travelers of all ages, and supportive of local communities and ecosystems. Reported by our global editors and framed by five categories (Community, Nature, Culture, Family, and Adventure), these 25 destinations for 2023 are under the radar, ahead of the curve, and ready for you to start exploring.

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Janice Chung for The New York Times

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