Ectoplasmosis!

koboldfacedlie: “One of the most fascinating archeological...

3liza — Sat, 11 May 2013 14:10:39 -0700

1. Onfim the Warrior

2. Onfim the Beast

3. Onfim's Friends and Family

4. People

5. More people

6. Battle Scenes

7. Yet more battle scenes

8. More people

9. Onfin and his badass dad

koboldfacedlie:

“One of the most fascinating archeological finds in Russia has been the discovery of hundreds of “birchbark documents” (messages written on the bark of birch trees with a sharp stylus) that were created from the 11th to the 15th century.

The birchbark documents of Novgorod are a major source for information about life in Medieval Novgorod because they are not the writings of church theologians or political leaders, but rather, personal messages, IOUs, love letters, shopping lists, and so on. One of the most fascinating items, in my mind, is a collection of children’s drawings that have been unearthed.

Children’s drawings in the Middle Ages?! Even if such things were created in period, how could they have survived to the present day? After all, finger paints, magic markers, and crayons were not yet in use, paper was far too valuable of a commodity to waste on children, and refrigerator doors were unavailable for the display of Junior’s artistic genius. Most of the products of childhood inspiration probably were expressed on the ephemeral canvas of dirt or sand.

But birchbark was a different story. The bark was widely available (although there are indications that excessive use of the medium caused a decline in the local birch population) and easily cultivated. Anyone could use it. When one was finished with the message, it was simply thrown into the mud, where the presence of water and clay created an unusually bacteria-free environment which preserved the documents. So, we have the ideal medium: cheap, easy to come by, and (thanks to unique geology) preserved for hundreds of years.

The drawings from Novgorod that we have found appear to all come from a Russian boy named Onfim, who lived at the end of the twelfth century or beginning of the thirteenth century in the city of Novgorod. By the estimate of the archaeologists who unearthed his works, he was around seven years old at the time that he made these drawings.

Onfim was being taught to write, but he was obviously restless with his lessons and when he could get away with it, he intermixed his assignments with doodlings. In this first example, he started to write out the first eleven letters of the alphabet in the upper right corner, but got bored and drew a picture of himself as a grown-up warrior impaling an enemy with his spear. To remove any doubt about the identity of the warrior, he even labeled the person on the horse as “Onfim.”

Fantasies of becoming a mighty warrior were not the only things that Onfim thought up though. In another example, he took the piece of bark that he was practicing on (left), turned it over (right), and drew a picture of himself disguised as a wild beast (which he identified by writing “I am a wild beast” [Ia zver’] over it). The beast, with its long tongue (or fiery breath), is apparently still a friendly beast as it is carrying a sign that reads “Greetings from Onfim to Danilo” [Poklon ot Onfima ko Danile]. Danilo (i.e., Daniel) was probably a friend, perhaps even a schoolmate sitting next to Onfim.

Onfim liked to draw people and while his artistic aptitude may have been lacking, he was prolific.”

source: http://www.goldschp.net/SIG/onfim/onfim.html

Martin van Meytens - “Kneeling Nun”, c. 1731

3liza — Wed, 01 May 2013 22:57:51 -0700

Martin van Meytens - “Kneeling Nun”, c. 1731

ensemblestudiotheatrela: Lost In Space

3liza — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 11:34:41 -0700

ensemblestudiotheatrela:

Lost In Space

lilitudracul: ohnoproblems: YOUR LIFE WITH ＯＲＢ my fucking god...

3liza — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 20:22:34 -0700

lilitudracul:

ohnoproblems:

YOUR LIFE WITH ＯＲＢ

my fucking god this was amazing

"I believe anything is possible with technology now. I was reading how old dumped computers are rich..."

3liza — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 17:30:31 -0700

“I believe anything is possible with technology now. I was reading how old dumped computers are rich pickings for thieves. I knew that any online transaction or banking details would be available on the hard drive, but I didn’t realise that it is stored somehow on laptop screens. So even wiping a hard drive is not enough to stop anyone wanting your financial details.”

- i found a forum thread full of old people talking about the girl with the dragon tattoo and getting upset about hackers (via ghostbongweedofthesamurai)

Video

3liza — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:30:23 -0700

ghostbongweedofthesamurai: The Cadaver Synod (also called the...

3liza — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 12:21:01 -0700

ghostbongweedofthesamurai:

The Cadaver Synod (also called the Cadaver Trial or, in Latin, the Synodus Horrenda) is the name commonly given to the posthumous ecclesiastical trial of Catholic Pope Formosus, held in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome during January of 897 The trial was conducted by Formosus’s successor, Pope Stephen (VI) VII. Stephen accused Formosus of perjury and of having acceded to the papacy illegally. At the end of the trial, Formosus was pronounced guilty and his papacy retroactively declared null.

vondell-swain: (a video of jehovah witnesses telling deaf...

3liza — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 21:18:29 -0700

vondell-swain:

(a video of jehovah witnesses telling deaf people to stop masturbating, with 50 cent’s “in da club” dubbed over it)

Hacking the Universe

3liza — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 23:27:17 -0700

pleimert:

When I was a kid, I used to get bored and sit around hacking game files. Now, before you get any ideas, I’m not a programmer by any stretch of the definition, so when I say “hacking,” it mostly amounted to opening game files in hex editors to see if I could replace the in-game text with my own perversions. Usually, it just made the game corrupt and refuse to start.

But occasionally, I’d get lucky. And I don’t know if it was me trying to express myself creatively or destructively, but few times have I experienced more personal glee than the times when I could bend a game to my will and make it behave the way I wanted it to. Even if it just meant forcing the game to play the wrong opening movie or replacing the protagonist’s name with something sophomoric, often of a phallic nature.

And then, every once in a while, you’d get a surprise of your own as you were trawling around garbage characters looking for something resembling English language text.

One such surprise was the little-known British adventure game Universe, which my brother had picked up on a whim, played the first couple of screens of, and quickly resigned to the shelf in his room where mistaken purchases went to collect dust.

Seriously. What is that?

Universe was one of those spectacularly flawed games where the controls were so broken you’d often get stuck on a clipping sprite and the puzzles were so fantastically obtuse that getting anywhere quickly became a frustrating exercise in trial and error.

The spinning asteroid in the first part of the game comes hauntingly to mind. The game had no opening cinematic or anything; it just spat you onto an asteroid in outer space and sat back, waiting for you to collect a dizzying array of meaningless objects that had been left on the surface and somehow figure out that you were supposed to jump onto a passing asteroid — using inhuman timing, thanks to the bewilderingly complicated interface — and jump off onto a bridge suspended in space leading to some sort of space city.

Once you got that far, everything started running on a timer punishable by insta-death and I quickly gave up in exasperation, never getting any further than the next couple of screens.

So, naturally, a gaming experience of that caliber deserves some tinkering with. Imagine my surprise when I opened up the game’s .exe file and found this little gem hiding in the code:

Click to read full size

Seems I wasn’t the only one disgruntled by working with Universe.

I have no idea who wrote the above message, but he deserves my everlasting thanks for leaving that piece of commiseration behind for future generations to find.

lisiseriksson: Naomi & Johanna by me, from many moons ago!

3liza — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 21:24:33 -0700

lisiseriksson:

Naomi & Johanna by me, from many moons ago!

cosmictuesdays: ohbradley: inframen by Nir Arieli For Cyan on...

3liza — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:30:31 -0700

cosmictuesdays:

ohbradley:

inframen by Nir Arieli

For Cyan on a rough afternoon.

iajk: Going Mads (obsession) by Patrizio DiRenzo

3liza — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:30:36 -0700

iajk:

Going Mads (obsession)

by

Patrizio DiRenzo

Maude Adams as Duke of Reichstadt in L’Aiglon, c.1900. (via...

3liza — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 17:30:42 -0700

Maude Adams as Duke of Reichstadt in L’Aiglon, c.1900. (via NYPL Digital Library & Bookmice)

Photo

3liza — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 18:30:17 -0700

mustafasabbagh: self-portrait

3liza — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 17:30:32 -0800

mustafasabbagh:

self-portrait

misterjoeblack: some previews from yesterdays shoot in london...

3liza — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 17:30:42 -0800

misterjoeblack:

some previews from yesterdays shoot in london with lauren wright.

PHOTOGRAPHY - www.facebook.com/LaurenMichelleWrightPhotography

MODEL - www.facebook.com/misterjoeblackmusic - www.misterjoeblack.com - www.twitter.com/misterjoeblack

Konstantin Somov (Russian, 1869-1939), The Boxer, 1933

3liza — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:30:23 -0800

Konstantin Somov (Russian, 1869-1939), The Boxer, 1933

aydinal: Kay: They’re beautiful, aren’t they? Jay: What? Kay:...

3liza — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:30:17 -0800

aydinal:

Kay: They’re beautiful, aren’t they?
Jay: What?
Kay: The stars.
Jay: K, you’re frightening your partner…

circusbones: blacknoonajade: karkles-the-adorabloodthirsty: so...

3liza — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:30:40 -0800

circusbones:

blacknoonajade:

karkles-the-adorabloodthirsty:

sonofbaldwin:

I got dressed in my traditional Indian regalia, but there was a man, he was the producer of the whole show. He took that speech away from me and he warned me very sternly. “I’ll give you 60 seconds or less. And if you go over that 60 seconds, I’ll have you arrested. I’ll have you put in handcuffs.”

- Sacheen Littlefeather in Reel Injun (2009), dir. Neil Diamond.

They were MAD, CONFUSED AND PRESSED that Marlon Brando would betray White Supremacy in this way.

To this very day, they are TWISTED over this.

And when Littlefeather got up there and READ THEM FOR FILTH, they GAGGED. For eons.

So I imagine there are people like me out there who’ve never even heard of Marlon Brando and are extremely confused over why this is important.

Marlon Brando was the Don in The Godfather, and in 1973, he was nominated for and won an Academy Award for it. However, he was also a huge Natives rights activist, and boycotted the ceremony because he felt that Hollywood’s depictions of Native Americans in the media led to the Wounded Knee Incident (which I was always taught as “the second massacre at Wounded Knee” but apparently that’s not the real name). He sent Sacheen Littlefeather, an Apache Native rights activist, in his stead. Wikipedia’s article on her explains the rest:

Brando had written a 15-page speech for Littlefeather to give at the ceremony, but when the producer met her backstage he threatened to physically remove her or have her arrested if she spoke on stage for more than 60 seconds.^[5] Her on-stage comments were therefore improvised. She then went backstage and read the entire speech to the press. In his autobiography My Word is My Bond, Roger Moore (who presented the award) claims he took the Oscar home with him and kept it in his possession until it was collected by an armed guard sent by the Academy.

That is what this gifset is about.

You have GOT to read up on this. The Wounded Knee Incident, Marlon Brando and Sacheen Littlefeather, Anna Mae Aquash. ALL OF IT.

Her name was known in my house, I hope it’s known in many, many more in the future.

Woodkid - Run Boy Run (Official Video HD) (by WOODKID)

3liza — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:30:36 -0800

Woodkid - Run Boy Run (Official Video HD) (by WOODKID)