On Labor Day weekend in 1995, computer programmer Pierre Omidyar wrote the code for what he called an “experiment.” He wanted to know what would happen if everyone in the world had access to a single global marketplace. To test his idea, he came up with an auction website, where he listed a broken laser pointer that he was going to throw away. A collector bought it for $14.83. Among the other items sold just a week after Omidyar launched eBay were autographed Marky Mark underwear for $400, a Superman metal lunchbox for $22, and a Toyota Tercel for $3,200.
Outbreak of mass hysteria – or mass psychogenic illness (MPI) – rumored to have occurred in 1962 near the village of Kashasha on the western coast of Lake Victoria in the modern nation of Tanzania (formerly Tanganyika) near the border with Uganda.
Visual Essay
Visual Essay
Evander Holyfield vs. Mike Tyson II, billed as “The Sound and the Fury” and afterwards infamously referred to as “The Bite Fight”, was a professional boxing match contested on June 28, 1997, for the WBA Heavyweight Championship. It achieved notoriety as one of the most bizarre fights in boxing history, after Tyson bit off part of Holyfield’s ear. Tyson was disqualified from the match and lost his boxing license, though it was later reinstated.
Blue Marlin and her sister ship MV Black Marlin comprise the Marlin class of semi-submersible heavy lift ships operated by Dockwise Shipping of the Netherlands. Designed to transport very large semi-submersible drilling rigs above the transport ship’s deck, it is equipped with 38 cabins to accommodate 60 people, a workout room, sauna and swimming facilities, and a secure citadel for protection against pirate attacks.
In the late ’90s, while clearing new grazing land on his ranch, Jimmie Luecke bulldozed his name, making it the biggest signature in human history. Since the Luecke ranch is located directly along major flight paths, including most westbound flights out of Houston, this giant signature quickly became a landmark for commercial pilots. NASA scientists are able to use the 2.5-mile-long name for evaluating spatial resolution of astronaut photographs since Luecke’s handwriting.
Tamu Massif is an extinct submarine shield volcano in the northwest Pacific Ocean, with the characteristics of a hybrid between a mid-ocean ridge and a shield volcano. On 5 September 2013, researchers announced that it could be a single volcano which, if corroborated, would make Tamu Massif the largest known volcano on Earth.
Audio Engeneering Society report by Alan Fierstein, 1977.
A Molotov cocktail, also known as a petrol bomb, gasoline bomb (United States), bottle bomb, poor man’s grenade, Molotovin koktaili (Finnish), polttopullo (Finnish), fire bomb (not to be confused with an actual fire bomb), fire bottle or just Molotov, sometimes shortened as Molly, is a generic name used for a variety of bottle-based improvised incendiary weapons.
Recreational design piece conceived by artist Verynicensleazy in a joint effort with Slam Jam. A symbiotic multi functional object that merges a harp with a bong and celebrates the harmony between marijuana and melodies.
Fugazi, performing “Waiting Room“ live. 1989.
Acellular slime mold or myxomycete, is a protist with diverse cellular forms and broad geographic distribution. The “acellular” moniker derives from the plasmodial stage of the life cycle: the plasmodium is a bright yellow macroscopic multinucleate syncytium shaped in a network of interlaced tubes.
Surgical intervention in which a hole is drilled or scraped into the human skull, exposing the dura mater, to treat health problems related to intracranial diseases or release pressured blood buildup from an injury. It may also refer to any “burr” hole created through other body surfaces, including nail beds. It is often used to relieve pressure beneath a surface. A trephine is an instrument used for cutting out a round piece of skull bone.
New car smell is the odor that comes from the combination of materials found in new automobiles, as well as other vehicles like buses or trucks. Although the scent is described as pleasant by some, there is some question about the possibility that these chemicals pose a health risk.
“Ventolin” is a 1995 EP by Aphex Twin, the alias of Richard D. James. James recorded numerous versions of the piece under his Aphex Twin alias. The piece is named after a trade name for the drug Salbutamol, which is prescribed for the treatment of asthma. A reported side effect of this drug is tinnitus, a high pitched ringing in the ears. James utilised this effect in “Ventolin”, incorporating a piercing high-pitched ringing sound throughout the track. The music also incorporates heavily distorted techno beats. The resulting effect has been cited as “one of the harshest singles ever recorded”.
World’s first ultra-realistic robot artist. Completed in 2019, Ai-Da is an artificial intelligence robot who makes drawings, painting, and sculptures. She is named after Ada Lovelace.
Visual Essay
Richard Leonard Kuklinski (April 11, 1935 – March 5, 2006) was an American hitman. In 1988, he was sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of killing two members of his burglary gang and two other associates. In 2003, he received an additional 30-year sentence after confessing to the murder of a mob-connected police officer. He was given the nickname The Iceman by authorities after they discovered that he had frozen the body of one of his victims in an attempt to disguise the time of death. Among his associates, Kuklinski was known as “the one-man army” or “the Devil himself”.
A sinkhole, also known as a cenote, sink, sink-hole, swallet, swallow hole, or doline, is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. Most are caused by karst processes – the chemical dissolution of carbonate rocks or suffosion processes. Sinkholes vary in size from 1 to 600 m (3.3 to 2,000 ft) both in diameter and depth, and vary in form from soil-lined bowls to bedrock-edged chasms.
Most water in the Earth’s atmosphere and crust comes from the world ocean’s saline seawater, while freshwater accounts for only 2.5% of the total. Because the oceans that cover roughly 71% of the area of the Earth reflect blue light, the Earth appears blue from space, and is often referred to as the blue planet and the Pale Blue Dot. An estimated 1.5 to 11 times the amount of water in the oceans may be found hundreds of miles deep within the Earth’s interior, although not in liquid form.
Wonderland was a never completed amusement park project located in Chenzhuang Village (陈庄村), Nankou Town (南口地区), Changping District, China, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) outside of Beijing. Originally proposed by the Thailand-based property developer Reignwood Group, and designed to be the largest amusement park in Asia (to have covered 120 acres (49 ha)), construction stopped in 1998 following financial problems with local officials, while a 2008 attempt to start construction again also failed.
Memory of every day events such as (times, location geography, associated emotions, and other contextual who, what, when, where, why knowledge) that can be explicitly stated or conjured. It is the collection of past personal experiences that occurred at a particular time and place. For example, if one remembers the party on their 7th birthday, this is an episodic memory. They allow an individual to figuratively travel back in time to remember the event that took place at that particular time and place.
The Derby of the eternal rivals (Greek: Ντέρμπι των αιωνίων αντιπάλων), also called Mother of all battles (Greek: Μητέρα των μαχών), is a football local derby in the Athens urban area between the most successful clubs of Greece, Olympiacos and Panathinaikos. The rivalry between the clubs and their fans is intense, thus this derby has always been a classic for the Greek capital, as well as the whole of Greece, the most prestigious in the country.
Group of termite species that live in mounds. These termites live in Africa, Australia and South America. The mounds sometimes have a diameter of 30 metres (98 ft). Most of the mounds are in well-drained areas. Termite mounds usually outlive the colonies themselves. If the inner tunnels of the nest are exposed it is usually dead. Sometimes other colonies, of the same or different species, occupy a mound after the original builders’ deaths.
Testing medium scientifically correlated to swine muscle tissue, in which the effects of bullet wounds can be simulated. It was developed and improved by Martin Fackler and others in the field of wound ballistics.
Home movie by Charlie Ahearn shot between 1981 and 1983 from his apartment window on 43rd St and Eighth Ave.
An air-gap flash is a photographic light source capable of producing sub-microsecond light flashes, allowing for (ultra) high-speed photography. This is achieved by a high-voltage (20 kV typically) electric discharge between two electrodes over the surface of a quartz (or glass) tube. The distance between the electrodes is such that a spontaneous discharge does not occur. To start the discharge a high-voltage pulse (70 kV for example) is applied on an electrode inside the quartz tube.
Burden of Dreams is a 1982 “making-of” documentary film directed by Les Blank, shot during and about the chaotic production of Werner Herzog’s 1982 film Fitzcarraldo, and filmed on location in the jungles of Peru.
Scientists have revealed the oldest known scorpion—and arachnid—on Earth: a mysterious species more than 430 million years old uncovered near Waukesha, Wisconsin, about 29 kilometers west of Milwaukee.
A flail is a weapon consisting of a striking head attached to a handle by a flexible rope, strap, or chain. The chief tactical virtue of the flail was its capacity to strike around a defender’s shield or parry. Its chief liability was a lack of precision and the difficulty of using it in close combat, or closely ranked formations.
The shape of the universe, in physical cosmology, is the local and global geometry of the universe. The local features of the geometry of the universe are primarily described by its curvature, whereas the topology of the universe describes general global properties of its shape as of a continuous object.
Cizia Zykë (1949 – 2011) was a French writer and adventurer born in Morocco. He wrote numerous books on exploring dangerous corners of the world. His first published book, Oro, which earned him international attention, narrates his adventures searching for gold in Costa Rica.
The Swiss National Redoubt was a defensive plan developed by the Swiss government beginning in the 1880s to respond to foreign invasion. In the opening years of the Second World War the plan was expanded and refined to deal with a potential German invasion. The term “National Redoubt” primarily refers to the fortifications begun in the 1880s that secured the mountainous central part of Switzerland, providing a defended refuge for a retreating Swiss Army.
This collection from The University of Houston library includes photographs, handwritten rap lyrics and song lists for “screw tapes,” and flyers related to the late DJ Screw and his rap collective the Screwed Up Click. These materials document how DJ Screw developed the production technique known as “chopped and screwed,” which is closely associated with Houston hip hop. The collection also includes obituaries (memorial service programs) for DJ Screw.
The ancient Egyptian units of measurement are those used by the dynasties of ancient Egypt prior to its incorporation in the Roman Empire and general adoption of Roman, Greek, and Byzantine units of measurement. The units of length seem to have originally been anthropic, based on various parts of the human body, although these were standardized using cubit rods, strands of rope, and official measures maintained at some temples.
The Kingdome was a multi-purpose stadium in Seattle’s SoDo neighborhood. Controlled Demolition, Inc. demolished the Kingdome by implosion on March 26, 2000 (approximately the 24th anniversary of the Kingdome’s opening), setting a record recognized by Guinness World Records for the largest building, by volume, ever demolished by implosion.
On the Art of the Cinema is a 1973 treatise by the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. It is considered the most authoritative work on North Korean filmmaking.
Research facility in Antarctica on the Brunt Ice Shelf operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). The base was established in 1956 to study the Earth’s atmosphere. Measurements from Halley led to the discovery of the ozone hole in 1985. The current base is the sixth in a line of designs to overcome the challenges of building on a floating ice shelf where they become buried and crushed by snow. Despite moving the buildings 23 km “inland”, concern over the propagation of an ice crack resulted in the base being left unmanned for the winters of 2017, 2018 and 2019.
The largest hiking boot measures 7.14 m (23 ft 5 in) long, 2.50 m (8 ft 2 in) wide and 4.2 m (13 ft 9 in) tall and was made by Schuh Marke (Germany). It was presented in Hauenstein, Germany, on 30 September 2006.
666 is called the “Number of the Beast” in (most manuscripts of) chapter 13 of the Book of Revelation, of the New Testament, and also in popular culture, for example the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden’s third studio album The Number of the Beast and American hip hop group from Memphis, Triple 6 Mafia.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switching network with distributed control and the first network to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical foundation of the Internet. The ARPANET was established by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the United States Department of Defense.
The miracle pine is a tree that survived 2011 japanese tsunami which then started dying six months ago, it has now been rebuilt as statue in honor of the 19,000 victims of the disaster
For over 30 years Gleis has provided exclusive photographs of private jets for such original equipment manufacturers like Gulfstream, Boeing, Falcon Jet, Cessna, Bombardier, Eclipse, Lear, and others. He has photographed over 800 private jets receiving assignments from presidents, dictators or royalty.
Extraterrestrial real estate refers to claims of land ownership on other planets, natural satellites, or parts of space by certain organizations or individuals. Previous claims are not recognized by any authority, and have no legal standing. Nevertheless, some private individuals and organizations have claimed ownership of celestial bodies, such as the Moon, and are actively involved in “selling” parts of them through certificates of ownership termed “Lunar deeds”, “Martian deeds” or similar.
Photography book by Adrienne Salinger published in 1995 and depicting the private lives of forty-three teens.
Unexplained atmospheric electrical phenomenon described as luminescent, spherical objects that vary from pea-sized to several meters in diameter. Though usually associated with thunderstorms, the phenomenon is said to last considerably longer than the split-second flash of a lightning bolt.
Visual Essay
May 1, 1996, a 505 by 255 foot American Flag was flown from the downstream face of Hoover Dam. The flag itself weighed 3,000 pounds and was hoisted by 3 separate cables located at the top of the Dam. The flying of the flag was part of a ceremony in which the 1996 Summer Olympic torch was carrried across Hoover Dam. The photograph is a vertical view taken downstream from the dam.
An illegal number is a number that represents information which is illegal to possess, utter, propagate, or otherwise transmit in some legal jurisdiction. Any piece of digital information is representable as a number; consequently, if communicating a specific set of information is illegal in some way, then the number may be illegal as well.
Me at the zoo is the first video that was uploaded to YouTube. It was uploaded on April 23, 2005 at 20:27:12 PDT (April 24, 2005 at 2:17:12 UTC) by the site’s co-founder Jawed Karim, with the username “jawed” and recorded by his high school friend Yakov Lapitsky.
Aircraft built for Stratolaunch Systems by Scaled Composites to carry air-launch-to-orbit rockets. It was announced in December 2011 and rolled out in May 2017. The twin-fuselage design is the aircraft with the longest wingspan ever flown at 385 feet (117 m), surpassing the Hughes H-4 Hercules flying boat’s of 320 feet 11 inches (97.82 m). The Stratolaunch is intended to carry a 550,000-pound (250,000 kg) payload and has a 1,300,000-pound (590,000 kg) maximum takeoff weight.
Wasp-76b is what astronomers call an exoplanet, one that orbits a star outside our solar system. Scientists have discovered that the local weather conditions include 2,400C temperatures, winds in excess of 10,000mph and a steady pelting of iron rain.
Illustrative digestive for the general practitioner of psychiatry. The collection digitized at McGovern Historical Center spanned between 1950-1959 and was published out of Houston, Texas. The publisher was the Medical Arts Publishing Foundation and is the parent collection for the Bulletin.
Swarm behaviour, or swarming, is a collective behaviour exhibited by entities, particularly animals, of similar size which aggregate together, perhaps milling about the same spot or perhaps moving en masse or migrating in some direction. It is a highly interdisciplinary topic.
In philosophy, transcendence conveys the basic ground concept from the word’s literal meaning (from Latin), of climbing or going beyond, albeit with varying connotations in its different historical and cultural stages. It includes philosophies, systems, and approaches that describe the fundamental structures of being, not as an ontology (theory of being), but as the framework of emergence and validation of knowledge of being.
Visual Essay
When the work began on the High Aswan Dam in Upper Egypt, the two temples of Abu Simbel, carved in the living rock which rises from the banks of the Nile, were threatened with complete destruction. In following the course of the International Campaign launched by UNESCO in 1960, the film reveals the archeological significance of the temples and shows how they were dissected and removed stone by stone to higher ground where, reconstructed, they now stand in all their grandeur orientated as before towards river and sun.
Aerogel is a synthetic porous ultralight material derived from a gel, in which the liquid component for the gel has been replaced with a gas. The result is a solid with extremely low density and extremely low thermal conductivity. Nicknames include frozen smoke, solid smoke, solid air, solid cloud, blue smoke owing to its translucent nature and the way light scatters in the material.
Documentary film directed by German film director Wim Wenders. During the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, Wenders set up a static camera in room 666 of the Hotel Martinez and provided selected film directors a list of questions to answer concerning the future of cinema.
This map shows one of the world’s longest uninterrupted walks from Cape Town, South Africa to Magadan, Russia a distance of 22,387km (13,910 miles). Google Maps estimates it would take 4,492 hours to walk it, which translates into 187 days of non-stop walking. If instead you decided to walk a more sensible 8 hours a day, it would take you 562 days to complete the whole walk.
Lengthy series of work by Peter Fischli (born 1952) and David Weiss (1946-2012), comprising 1,010 photographs.
Scientific study of algorithms and statistical models that computer systems use to perform a specific task without using explicit instructions, relying on patterns and inference instead. It is seen as a subset of artificial intelligence. Machine learning algorithms build a mathematical model based on sample data, known as “training data”, in order to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to perform the task.
Also called the mark test, mirror self-recognition test (MSR), red spot technique, or rouge test—is a behavioural technique developed in 1970 by psychologist Gordon Gallup Jr. as an attempt to determine whether an animal possesses the ability of visual self-recognition.
The Zodiak Free Arts Lab, sometimes known as the “Zodiak Club” or “Zodiac Club”, was a short-lived but highly influential experimental live music venue, founded in the then West Berlin in spring 1968 by German artists/musicians Conrad Schnitzler (1937–2011) and Hans-Joachim Roedelius (born 1934), together with Boris Schaak (1942–2012).
On June 3, 1997, Roberto Carlos impressed the world with one of the most spectacular free kicks in football history. The former left-back scored the most famous goal of his career: a beautiful free kick for Brazil in a 1-1 tie against France in the opening game of the 1997 Tournoi de France.
Pickpocket is a 1959 French film directed by Robert Bresson. It stars the young Uruguayan Martin LaSalle, who was a nonprofessional actor at the time, in the title role, with Marika Green as the ingénue. It was the first film for which Bresson wrote an original screenplay rather than “adapting it from an existing text.
Hydra-Shok is a type of hollow point projectile made by Federal Premium Ammunition. It was originally patented by ammunition designer Tom Burczynski. Hydra-Shok was debuted in 1988 after the FBI requested a bullet with better terminal ballistics than traditional cup and core projectiles.
Project Grizzly is a 1996 documentary about Canadian inventor Troy Hurtubise. The film follows Hurtubise’s obsession with researching the Canadian grizzly bear up close ever since surviving an early encounter with such a bear. The film was directed by Peter Lynch and produced by the National Film Board of Canada who approached Hurtubise after reading his 1990 book White Tape: An Authentic Behind the Scenes Look at Project Grizzly.
We Can’t Be Stopped is the third studio album by Geto Boys, released on July 9, 1991. The album cover is a graphic picture of member Bushwick Bill in the hospital. Bill was shot in the eye as he and his girlfriend tussled over a gun. Bushwick Bill wanted her to kill him and during the altercation he was shot as both hands were on the gun.
Name of organised supporters’ groups of football teams in Latin America that provide fanatical support to their clubs in stadiums and provoke violence against rival fans and eventually the police.
Attacus atlas, the Atlas moth, is a large saturniid moth endemic to the forests of Asia. The species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae.
A hoverbike (or hovercycle) is a vehicle that can hover, but that otherwise resembles a motorbike, mainly by having at least two propulsive portions - one in front of and one behind the driver.
The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian code of law of ancient Mesopotamia, dated to about 1754 BC (Middle Chronology). It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code. A partial copy exists on a 2.25-metre-tall (7.4 ft) stone stele. It consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (lex talionis) as graded based on social stratification depending on social status and gender, of slave versus free, man versus woman.
American engineer and entrepreneur, most widely known as the first space tourist to fund his own trip into space. In mid-2001, he spent nearly eight days in orbit as a crew member of ISS EP-1, a visiting mission to the International Space Station.
Enclosure used to block electromagnetic fields. A Faraday shield may be formed by a continuous covering of conductive material, or in the case of a Faraday cage, by a mesh of such materials. Faraday cages are named after scientist Michael Faraday, who invented them in 1836.
Vast visual compendium of America’s jails and prisons, comprising more than 5,300 aerial images that offer a compelling metaphor for the rapid expansion of the American prison system created by Josh Begley, a graduate student studying Interactive Telecommunications at New York University by using Google Maps API.
Pollination is the transfer of pollen from a male part of a plant to a female part of a plant, later enabling fertilisation and the production of seeds, most often by an animal or by wind. Pollinating agents are animals such as insects, birds, and bats; water; wind; and even plants themselves, when self-pollination occurs within a closed flower. Pollination often occurs within a species. When pollination occurs between species it can produce hybrid offspring in nature and in plant breeding work.
In ancient Greece, Pythagoras (495 BCE) and his followers thought that celestial bodies made music. This diagram attempts to represent such theories about the earth’s relationship to other planets—an idea, based in physical truths and metaphysical beliefs, that the divine and poetic order of the universe could be known.
One-eyed giant son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclopes described in Homer’s Odyssey. His name means “abounding in songs and legends”. Polyphemus first appeared as a savage man-eating giant in the ninth book of the Odyssey.
Cadillac Ranch is a public art installation and sculpture in Amarillo, Texas, USA. It was created in 1974 by Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and Doug Michels, who were a part of the art group Ant Farm. The installation front half of the cadillac was buried in dirt. Ten Cadillacs (1949-1963) nose-first in the ground. Installed in 1974, the cars were either older running, used or junk cars — together spanning the successive generations of the car line — and the defining evolution of their tailfins.
Acéphale is the name of a public review created by Georges Bataille (which numbered five issues, from 1936 to 1939) and a secret society formed by Bataille and others who had sworn to keep silent. Its name is derived from the Greek ἀκέφαλος (akephalos, literally “headless”).
Product brand made by the TG Gold-Super-Markt corporation designed to dispense items made of pure gold from automated banking vending machines. The first gold-plated vending machine was located in the lobby of the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi, dispensed 320 items made of gold, including 10-gram gold bars and customized gold coins.
American mathematician (born Creola Katherine Coleman; August 26, 1918 – February 24, 2020) whose calculations of orbital mechanics as a NASA employee were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights. During her 35-year career at NASA and its predecessor, she earned a reputation for mastering complex manual calculations and helped pioneer the use of computers to perform the tasks. The space agency noted her “historical role as one of the first African-American women to work as a NASA scientist.”
Eye tracking is the process of measuring either the point of gaze (where one is looking) or the motion of an eye relative to the head. An eye tracker is a device for measuring eye positions and eye movement.
The Universal Numbering System also called the “American System”, is a dental notation system for associating information to a specific tooth[1], commonly used in the United States.
In audio engineering, electronics, physics, and many other fields, the color of noise refers to the power spectrum of a noise signal (a signal produced by a stochastic process). Different colors of noise have significantly different properties: for example, as audio signals they will sound different to human ears, and as images they will have a visibly different texture. Therefore, each application typically requires noise of a specific color.
Den is the name of two identical sword and planet fictional characters created by Richard Corben. The first appeared in the 1968 animated short film Neverwhere. The second has been appearing in the medium of comics since 1973, and in short stories that have been collected for the most part in trade paperbacks. The second Den also appeared in the animated film Heavy Metal.
Visual Essay
St. Elmo’s fire is a weather phenomenon in which luminous plasma is created by a corona discharge from a sharp or pointed object in a strong electric field in the atmosphere (such as those generated by thunderstorms or created by a volcanic eruption).
Fictional island mentioned within an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato’s works Timaeus and Critias, where it represents the antagonist naval power that besieges “Ancient Athens”, the pseudo-historic embodiment of Plato’s ideal state in The Republic. In the story, Athens repels the Atlantean attack unlike any other nation of the known world, supposedly giving testament to the superiority of Plato’s concept of a state. The story concludes with Atlantis falling out of favor with the deities and submerging into the Atlantic Ocean.
Also named Garden of Bomarzo, is a Mannerist monumental complex located in Bomarzo, in the province of Viterbo, in northern Lazio, Italy.The garden was created during the 16th century. Situated in a wooded valley bottom beneath the castle of Orsini, it is populated by grotesque sculptures and small buildings located among the natural vegetation.
Visual Essay
In 1984 Serge Gainsbourg protested the French economy by burning 500 Francs on national TV.
Systema Naturae (originally in Latin written Systema Naturæ with the ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the system, now known as binomial nomenclature, was partially developed by the Bauhin brothers, Gaspard and Johann, 200 years earlier, Linnaeus was first to use it consistently throughout his book.
During the 80s and 90s Laurent Melki designed most of horror movies sleeves to be adapted to the french video rental market.
The Giuseppe Meazza Stadium, commonly known as San Siro, is a football stadium in the San Siro district of Milan, which is the home of AC Milan and Internazionale. It has a seating capacity of 75,923, making it one of the largest stadiums in Europe, and the largest in Italy.
Performance Notes
It has been observed that being in Earth’s orbit has an effect on the structure of spider webs in space. Spider webs were spun in low earth orbit in 1973 aboard Skylab, involving two female European garden spiders (cross spiders) called Arabella and Anita, as part of an experiment on the Skylab 3 mission.
Marianne Wex is a German feminist photographer, author and self-healer. Wex began her artistic career as a painter. She eventually became interested in photography and body language. She started taking photographs around Hamburg. Eventually, these photographs developed into a collection of over 3,000 and would develop into her most notable work: “Let’s Take Back our Space”: ‘Female’ and ‘Male’ Body Language. The work is a collection of over 5,000 photographs that display different and similar forms of male and female body language in public, including public art in her examples.
Improvised weapon made of a manipulated newspaper, used as a small club. It was named after supporters of Millwall F.C., who had a reputation for football hooliganism. The Millwall brick was allegedly used as a stealth weapon at football matches in England during the 1960s and 1970s. The weapon’s popularity appears to have been due to the wide availability of newspapers, the difficulty in restricting newspapers being brought into football grounds, and the ease of its construction.
Visual Essay
Balkan sworn virgins (in Albanian: Burrnesha) are women who take a vow of chastity and wear male clothing in order to live as men in patriarchal northern Albanian society, Kosovo and Montenegro. To a lesser extent, the practice exists, or has existed, in other parts of the western Balkans, including Bosnia, Dalmatia (Croatia), Serbia and Northern Macedonia. National Geographic’s Taboo (2002) estimated that there were fewer than 102 Albanian sworn virgins left.
Sheikh Hamad bin Hamdan Al Nahyan (also known as The Rainbow Sheikh) is a member of the Emirates royal family who owns pyramid-shaped structure built especially to display his car collection to the general public. The nickname Rainbow Sheikh is given to Sheikh Hamad because of his collection of Mercedes S Class all in 7 different colours.
Camouflage that adapts, often rapidly, to the surroundings of an object such as an animal or military vehicle. In theory, active camouflage could provide perfect concealment from visual detection.
A snakebot, also known as snake robot, is a biomorphic hyper-redundant robot that resembles a biological snake. Snake robots come in many shapes and sizes, from the four stories long, earth quake snakebot developed by SINTEF, to a medical snakebot developed at Carnegie Mellon University that is thin enough to maneuver around organs inside a human chest cavity.
Césarée is a short film directed by Marguerite Duras in 1979.
Jouko Antero Lehtola (1963-2010) was a Finnish photography artist who graduated as Master of Arts from the University of Art and Design Helsinki, Finland in 1993. Among the artist’s best known works are those portraying Finnish youth culture.
Sharp peak (2,930 m) in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. It was first climbed in February 1994. The mountain was first discovered by the German Artic expedition in 1938 and named after the Swiss mountain Matterhorn because of his similar form. Later the mountain was renamed by the Norwegians in Ulvetanna Peak.
Martial arts technique that is used in competition, demonstration and testing. Breaking is an action where a martial artist uses a striking surface to break one or more objects using the skills honed in their art form. The striking surface is usually a hand or a foot, but may also be a fingertip, toe, head, elbow, knuckle, or knee. The most common object is a piece of wood or brick, though it is also common to break cinder blocks, glass, or even a piece of metal such as steel bars. Glass is usually discouraged, since its shards may cause injury when broken.
First published in 1949 (this edition in 1968), this book is a dictionary of the past, exploring the language of the criminal and near-criminal worlds. It includes entries from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa, as well as from Britain and America and offers a fascinating and unique study of language.
Melting point is the temperature at which a substance changes from solid to liquid state. Here are temperatures in Fahrenheit and Celsius for most common metals.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released additional materials recovered in the 2 May 2011 raid on Usama Bin Ladin’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Here’s a look at some of the viewing material found among audio, document, image, video, and software operating system files.
Historical footage of snake charmer Saya Hnin-Mahla dancing with a king cobra in Burma between the 18th and 19th centuries recorded by the British field exploration photography group.
Visual Essay
Samuel Little (June 7, 1940 – December 30, 2020) was an American serial killer who was convicted in 2012 of the murders of three women in California between 1987 and 1989 as well as in 2018 of the murder of one woman in Texas in 1994. He claimed to have killed as many as 93 women, and investigators have linked him to over 60 murders. Little had drawn portraits of many women he killed. These portraits were released by the FBI in hopes of someone identifying the women. At least one portrait has solved a cold case in Akron, Ohio.
Cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts during spaceflight, often while viewing the Earth from outer space. It is the experience of seeing firsthand the reality of the Earth in space, which is immediately understood to be a tiny, fragile ball of life, “hanging in the void”, shielded and nourished by a paper-thin atmosphere.
Group of residential buildings located in Nanterre, in the inner suburbs of Paris, France.
In 2009, remote control of the flight movements of the Cotinus texana and the much larger Mecynorrhina torquata beetles has been achieved during experiments funded by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The weight of the electronics and battery meant that only Mecynorrhina was strong enough to fly freely under radio control. A specific series of pulses sent to the optic lobes of the insect encouraged it to take flight.
Visual Essay
Paintings of distorted automobiles by Peter Cain in the early 90s. Rendered with precision, their gleaming surfaces intensified the seductiveness of the advertisements on which they were based, leading one critic at the time to call them “literal and figurative icons of autoeroticism.”
The autobiography of french mountaineer Lionel Terray stands among the “100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time”, according to National Geographic Adventure magazine. Following World War II, when France desperately needed successes to heal its wounds, Terray emerged as a national hero, conquering summits atop the planet’s highest mountains.
Doom is a 1993 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed by id Software for MS-DOS. Players assume the role of a space marine, popularly known as Doomguy, fighting his way through hordes of invading demons from Hell. Its graphic violence and hellish imagery made it one of the top video game controversies in history.
Instrument that focus exclusively on the psycho-social situation of school-age youth, and refer specifically to the cultural and historical traditions of Japan.
Three-movement composition by American experimental composer John Cage (1912–1992). It was composed in 1952, for any instrument or combination of instruments, and the score instructs the performer(s) not to play their instrument(s) during the entire duration of the piece throughout the three movements.
The cone of plausibility is meant to graphically represent the relationship between the present moment in time and the certainty of our knowledge about future events. It provides a useful visual heuristic for planners looking into the future. But as the diagram depicts, the further into the future we seek to plan, the greater the number of possible events.
The following is a list of hybrid entities from the folklore record grouped morphologically based on their constituent species.
The “Axis of Evil” is a name given to an anomaly in astronomical observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). The anomaly appears to give the plane of the Solar System and hence the location of Earth a greater significance than might be expected by chance. A result which has been claimed to be evidence of a departure from the Copernican principle.
United States Air Force aircraft and missile storage and maintenance facility in Tucson, Arizona, located on Davis–Monthan Air Force Base. The 309th AMARG was previously Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center, and the Military Aircraft Storage and Disposition Center, and its predecessor was established after World War II as the 3040th Aircraft Storage Group.
Ato Jabari Boldon OLY (born 30 December 1973) is a former track and field athlete and politician from Trinidad and Tobago and four-time Olympic medal winner. He holds the Trinidad and Tobago national record in the 50, 60 and 200 metres events with times of 5.64, 6.49 and 19.77 seconds respectively, and also the Commonwealth Games record in the 100 m. He also held the 100m national record at 9.86s, having run it four times until Richard Thompson ran 9.85s on 13 August 2011.
Fingerprints can be captured as graphical ridge and valley patterns. Because of their uniqueness and permanence, fingerprints emerged as the most widely used biometric identifier in the 2000s. Automated fingerprint verification systems were developed to meet the needs of law enforcement and their use became more widespread in civilian applications. Despite being deployed more widely, reliable automated fingerprint verification remained a challenge and was extensively researched in the context of pattern recognition and image processing.
Visual Essay
First European Sex Paper was founded in Amsterdam in 1969 by William Levy, Heathcote Williams, Germaine Greer, Willem de Ridder, Susan Janssen and Lynne Tillman.
A 24-meter stone statue of Soong Ching Ling (1893-1981) in Zhengzhou, capital of Central China’s Henan province. Soong Ching Ling is former vice-president of China and wife of Sun Yat-sen, the leader of the 1911 Revolution that toppled the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), China’s last dynasty. The statue’s base since then was designed as a meeting hall with an area of 800 square meters. It has been mysteriously destroyed in 2015.
A vapor cone, also known as shock collar or shock egg, is a visible cloud of condensed water that can sometimes form around an object moving at high speed through moist air, for example, an aircraft flying at transonic speeds. When the localized air pressure around the object drops, so does the air temperature. If the temperature drops below the saturation temperature, a cloud forms.
The Helmut Lang FW-1999 presentation revolutionized the structure of the traditional fashion show by being the first to present his collection exclusively online. Guests were invited to attend the virtual show via CD-ROM.
In August 2016, an official expert group of scientists presented the declaration of the dawn of a new human-influenced age to the International Geological Congress in Cape Town.
“Humanity’s impact on the Earth is now so profound that a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene – needs to be declared. (…)
World Industries Skateboard video (1994). Starring Jason Dill, Clyde Singleton, Gino Iannucci, Billy Valdes, Eric Pupecki, Joey Suriel, Fabian Alomar, Chris Lambert, Jason Maxwell, Shin Okada, Caine Gayle, Mike Santarossa, Mike Crum, Quy Nguyen, Kris Markovich, Marcelle Johnson, Sam Devlin, Maurice Key, Shiloh Greathouse, Daewon Song, Kareem Campbell, Henry Sanchez, Keenan Milton, Lavar McBride and Ronnie Creager.
Ambitious project attempting to create a universal repository of all the world’s recorded knowledge. It was developed at the turn of the 20th century by Belgian lawyers and bibliographers Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine. The Mundaneum institution aimed to classify knowledge according to a system called the Universal Decimal Classification. In 1895, Otlet and La Fontaine established the International Institute of Bibliography and announced plans to create a Universal Bibliographic Repertory that would serve as a global clearinghouse for bibliographical data.
Lee Smolin, The Emergence of Space, in Time Reborn. From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston – New York, 2013.
Compendium-like text by French semiotician Roland Barthes, originally published under the title of “Éléments de Sémiologie” in the French review Communications. In the slightly expanded introduction to the book, Barthes suggests that although linguist Ferdinand de Saussure conceived of linguistics as a branch of semiology, semiology should rather be seen as a branch of linguistics.
These drone-hunting birds of prey are being trained at a French Air Force base in Southwestern France. They’re literally born on top of drones, and kept there during early stages of feeding. When they’re ready to fly, they’re brought to a field to intercept drones. In turn, they’re rewarded with meat.
Bruce Weber, 1987
A set of rather uncanny diagrams from Die Heilgymnastik in der Gynaekologie: und die mechanische Behandlung von Erkrankungen des Uterus und seiner Adnexe nach Thure Brandt (1895), translated from German as “The physiotherapy in gynecology and the mechanical treatment of diseases of the uterus and its appendages by Thure Brandt”.
The United States presidential state car nicknamed “The Beast”, “Cadillac One”, “First Car”; code named “Stagecoach” is the official state car of the president of the United States. The current model of presidential state car is a unique Cadillac that debuted on September 24, 2018.
Binaural recording is a method of recording sound that uses two microphones, arranged with the intent to create a 3-D stereo sound sensation for the listener of actually being in the room with the performers or instruments. This effect is often created using a technique known as “dummy head recording”, wherein a mannequin head is outfitted with a microphone in each ear.
Visual Essay
Kukeri (Bulgarian: кукери) are elaborately costumed Bulgarian men, and sometimes women, who perform traditional rituals intended to scare away evil spirits.
Japanese artist who gained notoriety in the 1970’s for his avant garde approach, connecting traditional Japanese art styles such as Shunga (erotica) and Yokaiga (mythology) with postmodern radical pop art culture.
Also known as freak waves, monster waves, episodic waves, killer waves, extreme waves, and abnormal waves are unusually large, unexpected and suddenly appearing surface waves that can be extremely dangerous, even to large ships such as ocean liners.
Coming For Your Soul, 1996
The Ryugyong Hotel (Korean: 류경려관; sometimes spelled as Ryu-Gyong Hotel), or Yu-Kyung Hotel, is an unfinished 105-story, 330-metre-tall (1,080 ft) pyramid-shaped skyscraper in Pyongyang, North Korea. Its name (“capital of willows”) is also one of the historical names for Pyongyang. The building is also known as the 105 Building, a reference to its number of floors. The building has been planned as a mixed-use development, which would include a hotel. The building is currently listed by Guinness World Records as being the tallest unoccupied building in the world.
Japanese jazz pianist Yōsuke Yamashita revisits his 1973 recital on a burning piano (famously made into a short by director Kiyoshi Awazu) with a repeat performance on a beach in Shika-machi, Japan.
Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Edgar Allan Poe) is the debut studio album by British rock band The Alan Parsons Project. It was released on 1 May 1976 in the United States by 20th Century Fox Records and on 1 June 1976 in the United Kingdom by Charisma Records. The lyrical and musical themes of the album, which are retellings of horror stories and poetry by Edgar Allan Poe, attracted a cult audience. The title of the album is taken from the title of a collection of Poe’s macabre stories of the same name.
Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) is equal to the maximum ground acceleration that occurred during earthquake shaking at a location. PGA is equal to the amplitude of the largest absolute acceleration recorded on an accelerogram at a site during a particular earthquake. Earthquake shaking generally occurs in all three directions. Therefore, PGA is often split into the horizontal and vertical components.
Back in the late eighties when acid house found it’s way into UK club culture a group of like minded friends and associates, who disenchanted by the lack of scene and dominance of commercial nightclubs in their hometown decided to put on their own events, mainly in disused warehouses and units around the industrial backdrop of Blackburn.
The Planetary Society is an American internationally active, non-governmental, nonprofit foundation. It is involved in research, public outreach, and political advocacy for engineering projects related to astronomy, planetary science, and space exploration. It was founded in 1980 by Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray, and Louis Friedman, and has about 60,000 members from more than 100 countries around the world.
There’s no known record of anything like a passport existing in ancient Egypt. But in 1974, when the mummy of Ramses II (died 1213 B.C.) had to be flown to Paris for restoration, it was issued a valid Egyptian passport, including a photo of the pharaoh’s ancient face. His occupation was listed as “King (deceased).”
Surgical diagram which first appeared in European medical manuscripts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The illustration acted as an annotated table of contents to guide the reader through various injuries and diseases whose related cures could be found on the text’s nearby pages. The image first appeared in a printed book in 1491 when it was included in the Venetian Fasciculus medicinae, likely Europe’s first printed medical miscellany.
Meaning: A process of entropic acceptance and false belief in a clearly broken polity and the myths that undergird it. The term was coined by Alexei Yurchak in his book “Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation” (2005) to describe the atmosphere during the final days of Russian communism.
In chemistry, absorbance or decadic absorbance is the common logarithm of the ratio of incident to transmitted radiant power through a material, and spectral absorbance or spectral decadic absorbance is the common logarithm of the ratio of incident to transmitted spectral radiant power through a material.
US soldiers enter Saddam’s palace (April, 2003)
1983 Canadian science fiction body horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring James Woods, Sonja Smits, and Debbie Harry. Set in Toronto during the early 1980s, it follows the CEO of a small UHF television station who stumbles upon a broadcast signal featuring extreme violence and torture. The layers of deception and mind-control conspiracy unfold as he uncovers the signal’s source, and loses touch with reality in a series of increasingly bizarre and violent organic hallucinations.
The posthumous book “Swiss Rebels” catalogues Swiss-German photographer Karlheinz Weinberger’s journeys into the alternate universe of 1950s and 60s Switzerland. “My real life began on Friday evening. And it ended every Monday morning,” he said during his first major exhibition in 2000.
Passive device used to reflect and focus (concentrate) sound waves. Parabolic acoustic mirrors are widely used in parabolic microphones to pick up sound from great distances, employed in surveillance and reporting of outdoor sporting events. Between the World Wars, before the invention of radar, parabolic sound mirrors were used experimentally as early-warning devices by military air defence forces to detect incoming enemy aircraft by listening for the sound of their engines.
Richard Long & Associates designed many of the top clubs during the disco era, notably New York’s Studio 54 and Paradise Garage, and Ministry of Sound in London. RLA is broadly credited for making discos the immersive audiotopias that they were.
The Olmec colossal heads are stone representations of human heads sculpted from large basalt boulders. They range in height from 1.17 to 3.4 metres. The heads date from at least 900 BC and are a distinctive feature of the Olmec civilization of ancient Mesoamerica. All portray mature individuals with fleshy cheeks, flat noses, and slightly crossed eyes; their physical characteristics correspond to a type that is still common among the inhabitants of Tabasco and Veracruz.
Robotic surgical system made by the American company Intuitive Surgical. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2000, it is designed to facilitate surgery using a minimally invasive approach, and is controlled by a surgeon from a console. The system is used for prostatectomies, and increasingly for cardiac valve repair and gynecologic surgical procedures. According to the manufacturer, the da Vinci System is called “da Vinci” in part because Leonardo da Vinci’s “study of human anatomy eventually led to the design of the first known robot in history.”
Fresco, Capella della Madonna di S. Brizio, Orvieto Cathedral.
Inside a deteriorating hangar at the Baikonur Cosmodrome sit a pair of derelict spacecraft, built by the Soviet Union as part of a bold challenge to the U.S. manned space program.
From “The Critique of Judgement” by Immanuel Kant, published in 1790. The term “sublime” is used to designate natural objects that inspire a kind of awed terror through sheer immensity. Kant defines “The Sublime” as that which is beyond all comparison, that is absolutely great, either mathematically in terms of limitless magnitude, or dynamically in terms of limitless power.
Meaning: excessive sleepiness. A disorder of sleep that is characterized by prolonged nocturnal sleep periods and by the presence of excessive daytime sleepiness.
The stadium effect is a phenomenon observed in strong tropical cyclones. It is a fairly common event, where the clouds of the eyewall curve outward from the surface with height. This gives the eye an appearance resembling an open dome from the air, akin to a sports stadium. An eye is always larger at the top of the storm, and smallest at the bottom of the storm because the rising air in the eyewall follows isolines of equal angular momentum, which also slope outward with height.
A dancer filming an exercise routine in front of Myanmar’s parliament has gained global fame after she unwittingly captured the first moments of a dramatic coup in the background of her video on the morning of 1 February 2021.
Poison dart frog (also known as dart-poison frog, poison frog or formerly known as poison arrow frog) is the common name of a group of frogs in the family Dendrobatidae which are native to tropical Central and South America. These species are diurnal and often have brightly colored bodies.
Gabrielle d’Estrées and one of her sisters is a painting by an unknown artist circa 1594. It now hangs at the Louvre in Paris and is usually thought to be the work of a painter from the Fontainebleau School.The painting portrays Gabrielle d’Estrées, mistress of King Henry IV of France, sitting nude in a bath, holding a ring. Her sister sits nude beside her and pinches d’Estrées’ right nipple.
“The Blair Witch Project” is a 1999 supernatural horror film. The film is composed of the fictional “found footage” of a group of student filmmakers, who enter the woods in hopes of tracking down the local legend of the Blair Witch. The trio disappear, and their footage is found in the forest a year later. The film premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 1999 and subsequently grossed 250 million US dollars globally while having been created on a budget of 60,000 US dollars. It is one of the most successful independent films of all time.
Empire is a 1964 black-and-white silent art film by Andy Warhol. When projected according to Warhol’s specifications, it consists of eight hours and five minutes of slow motion footage of an unchanging view of the Empire State Building. The film does not have conventional narrative or characters, and largely reduces the experience of cinema to the passing of time. Warhol stated that the purpose of the film was “to see time go by.”
The O. J. Simpson murder case was a criminal trial held in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Former National Football League (NFL) player, broadcaster and actor O. J. Simpson was tried and acquitted on two counts of murder for the June 12, 1994, slashing deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman.
Sea Shadow (IX-529) was an experimental stealth ship built by Lockheed for the United States Navy to determine how a low radar profile might be achieved and to test high stability hull configurations that have been used in oceanographic ships.
Meaning: drawing something absent-mindedly. Artwork by Sigmar Polke (1975).
Coveted catalogue that displays 440 pages of teenage iconography, including film stills, fashion shoots, art works, and more.
As described in “Get Tough! How to Win in Hand-to-Hand Fighting, as Taught to the British Commandos and US Armed Forces” by Major W.E. Fairbairn (1979):
The Secret Intelligence Services (SIS) building, also known as the MI6 Building, is the headquarters of the British Secret Intelligence Service situated on n the River Thames in London. Terry Farrell, the building’s architect, was met with criticism for his Mayan- and Aztec-esque temple design, which translated into a post-modern style. The Secret Service structure was completed and inaugurated in 1994 and is, ironically, recognized as one of London’s most distinctive buildings.
96-minute music-theater opera composition by German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, which premiered in 1977 at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. The mystery science-fiction play tells the story of four agents from a planet orbiting the star Sirius, who are sent to earth to deliver a message.
[HOW-TO] Dress in comfortable clothing.
Enter a quiet, dim room and sit comfortable in a reclined position. Do not lie down. Do not cross your legs. Cover yourself with a blanket and wear headphones, if necessary.
Allow for 30 minutes of uninterrupted time (silence your devices and lock the door).
Choose your hypnosis goal and memorize it as a mantra or affirmation. It is important to visualize your mantra in the present tense, such as: “I am in control, and I am valuable;” “I choose to no longer smoke cigarettes;” or “I am eating healthy.”
Infamous contract created by Scientology. Sea Org is an organization within Scientology, described by Scientology as a “fraternal religious order, comprising of the church’s most dedicated members.” Sea Org members are required to make a lifetime commitment by signing a billion-year contract.
The Cerne Abbas Giant is a hill figure near the village of Cerne Abbas in Dorset, England. 55 metres (180 ft) high, it depicts a standing nude male figure with a prominent erection and wielding a large club in its right hand. Like many other hill figures it is outlined by shallow trenches cut in the turf and backfilled with chalk rubble. The figure is listed as a scheduled monument of England and the site is owned by the National Trust.
Razzle dazzle camouflage is a type of ship camouflage that was used extensively during World War I. It consists of complex patterns of geometric shapes in contrasting colors. Razzle dazzle is reminiscent of a zebra’s pelt. However, Picasso claimed that cubist artists like himself had invented it. The technique is widely credited to the British marine artist Norman Wilkinson and was then adopted by the British and the United States Navy.
The Quantum Zeno Effect, also known as the Turing paradox, is a feature of quantum-mechanical systems allowing a particle’s time evolution to be arrested by measuring it frequently enough with respect to some chosen measurement setting. Simply put, it is a phenomenon in quantum physics where observing a particle prevents it from decaying as it would in the absence of observation.
The Kuwait Water Towers are a prominent group of 31 water towers in Kuwait City, completed in 1976.
Meaning: or “object sexuality.” A form of swexual or romantic attraction focused on particular inanimate objects. Individuals with this attraction may have strong feeling of love and commitment to certain items or structures of their fixation.
Related: Animism. : sense reciprocation, based on the belief that objects have souls, intelligence, and feelings, and are able to communicate.
Magnus Hirschfeld was a German doctor and sexologist, whose practice was based in Berlin-Charlottenburg during the Weimar period (1918-1933). Hirschfeld was an outspoken advocate for sexual minorities and one of the first homosexual and transgender rights activists. He became interested in gay rights because many of his gay patients committed suicide.
Nom de plume, pseudonym, or multiple-use name informally adopted by hundreds of artists and activists all over Europe and the Americas. The name first appeared in Bologna in 1994, when multiple cultural activists used it to author their urban and media performances, which were often humorous, political pranks. The pseudonym was borrowed from real-life Luther Blissett, based purely on comic value of the name, who was a notable soccer player for AC Milan and England in the 80s.
The Challenger Deep is the deepest known point in the Earth’s seabed hydrosphere (the oceans), with a depth of 10,902 to 10,929 m (35,768 to 35,856 ft) by direct measurement from deep-diving submersibles, remotely operated vehicles and benthic landers and slightly more by sonar bathymetry.
In folklore, the witching hour or devil’s hour is a time of night associated with supernatural events. Witches, demons and ghosts are thought to appear and to be at their most powerful. Black magic is thought to be most effective at this time due to the veil between worlds being thinner. There are multiple times that can be considered the witching hour.
“Dr. Lecter could overcome his surroundings. He could make it all go away. The beeping of the computer game, the snores and farts, were nothing compared to the hellish screaming he’d known in the violent wards. The seat was no tighter than restraints. As he had done in his cell so many times, Dr. Lecter put his head back, closed his eyes and retired for relief into the quiet of his memory palace, a place that is quite beautiful for the most part.
For this little time, the metal cylinder howling eastward against the wind contains a palace of a thousand rooms. (…)
An emotional support animal, or ESA, is a type of service animal that alleviates symptoms of stress, anxiety, and psychological trauma in its owner. In recent years, the number of ESA’s accompanying owners during their travels has exploded, due to the relative ease of acquiring a therapist’s letter stating that the animal contributes to one’s psychological wellbeing.
South Korea’s speakers were first set up in the 1960s and since have blasted everything from Korean pop music to news reports across the border. Seoul has never confirmed how many speakers it has nor where they are. Their target audience are North Korean soldiers stationed in the DMZ and civilians living nearby. Sound from the speakers is known to reach up to 20 km to the north, a range that encompasses Kaesong, the location of North and South Korea’s now-defunct joint Industrial Complex.
Still from security camera footage of Columbine shooters captured during the Columbine High School massacre and attempted bombing that occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, United States.
Meaning: A set of straps placed on an animal or person, used to connect said being to something else. : decorative fetishized fashion accessory.
A novel by Aldous Huxley, published in 1932. The book presents a nightmarish vision of a future society.
Viral YouTube clip captioned as “Crying Guy from the A&E Show Intervention.” The clip’s sound (“Intervention,” Season 8, Episode 13, 2010) was sampled on the track “Everybody” by DJ Rashad & Freshmoon (2013).
Mysterious, obscure, spiritual and philosophical book by unknown author(s) that originated in Chicago sometime between 1924 and 1955. It claims to “reveal the mysteries of God, the universe, world history, Jesus, and ourselves,” and attempts to do so on 2097 pages. Notable readers of the book include Sun Ra, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Hillary Clinton, reportedly.
“Alexis Zorbas” is a black-and-white Oscar-winning film by Greek director Michael Cacoyannis, which was released in 1964 and featured actor Anthony Quinn. The film revolves around the relationship between the writer Basil, who travels to Crete, and Alexis Zorbas, whom he befriends on the island.
The most godly hour, the hour of great mercy. It is believed that Jesus Christ died at the crucifix at 3PM.
Scene from Seinfeld, season 4 episode 3: “The Pitch.”
Photo series of the nineties by Dutch artist and photographer Rineke Dijkstra. Dijkstra’s “Beach Portraits” intend to capture the vulnerability of early adulthood.