Things that fascinate me

hugleikurdagsson: anarchy in the uk.

Tue, 03 May 2011 14:01:10 +0200

hugleikurdagsson:

anarchy in the uk.

Fruity Cube, you complete me.

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:34:54 +0200

Fruity Cube, you complete me.:

Kinkless Desktop Leopard icons.

Space stasis: What the strange persistence of rockets can teach us about innovation. - By Neal Stephenson - Slate Magazine

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:28:36 +0100

Space stasis: What the strange persistence of rockets can teach us about innovation. - By Neal Stephenson - Slate Magazine:

How playing with gunpowder in China, plus a couple of far fetched coincidences, allow us to send SMSes. Fascinating read.

(via Instapaper)

"Ah! I wish I had never seen you!” cried d’Artagnan, with that ingenuous roughness which..."

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 13:06:00 +0100

““Ah! I wish I had never seen you!” cried d’Artagnan, with that ingenuous roughness which women often prefer to the affectations of politeness, because it betrays the depths of the thought and proves that feeling prevails over reason.”

Gregory of Tours' declaration of faith

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 12:09:00 +0100

I stumbled upon Gregory of Tours’ History of the Franks while reading The Inheritance of Rome, and find his opening declaration of faith fascinating.

Some background is necessary, but I won’t go into that too much right now.

Suffice it to say that at the time he was writing two of the main thoughts of Christianity were Catholicism (in the west) and Arianism (in the east), and their main point of dispute was whether Jesus, as the son of God, was separate from the Heavenly Father, came later, and was somehow therefore inferior (Arians), or whether he along with the Holy ghost had always existed and all three of them were one and equal (Catholics).

To establish himself firmly in the Catholic camp, Gregory firmly opposes anyone who disagrees with him on this hot topic.

But as for those who say: “There was a time when he was not,” I reject them with curses, and call men to witness that they are separated from the church.

He goes on to say that the end-times are surely coming, but no one knows when. He quotes a passage from the bible that seems to directly contradict everything he has said. The amount of semantic wiggling is extraordinary:

“But of that day and that hour knoweth no one not even the anger in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father alone.” Moreover we shall here make answer to the heretics who attack us, asserting that the Son is inferior to the Father since he is ignorant of this day. Let them learn then that Son here is the name applied to the Christian people, of whom God says: “I shall be to them a father and they shall be to me for sons.” For if he had spoken these words of the onlybegotten Son he would never have given the angels first place. For he uses these words: “Not even the angels in heaven nor the Son,” showing that he spoke these words not of the only-begotten but of the people of adoption.

This is from the relative infancy of christianity, written in the mid-500s, and already they’re debating the undebatable. Nice to see how well the “Us-vs-them” attitude has survived, though.

jonathaneunice: (via theunconsciousimpulse : 9gag.com)

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 17:21:11 +0100

jonathaneunice:

(via theunconsciousimpulse : 9gag.com)

"Since Dutch traders had been coming to Japan for centuries, a number of educated Japanese spoke that..."

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 14:40:47 +0100

“Since Dutch traders had been coming to Japan for centuries, a number of educated Japanese spoke that language – so communications with English-speakers usually required two interpreters: one of them Japanese-to-Dutch, the other Dutch-to-English.”

- Return of the Samurai.

From the great Disunion series from the New York Times.

merlin: I Bleed (by Bridget Franckowiak)

Sat, 23 Oct 2010 09:55:27 +0200

merlin:

I Bleed (by Bridget Franckowiak)

Photo

Sun, 17 Oct 2010 01:57:51 +0200

Photo

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 12:21:59 +0200

Photo

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 09:55:20 +0200

annesonsouza: foto auto-explicativa =) All that’s...

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:21:35 +0200

annesonsouza:

foto auto-explicativa =)

All that’s missing is a pencil with CTRL-P

#651; Those Volatile Menu Options I wish Belgacom’s was...

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:09:00 +0200

#651; Those Volatile Menu Options

I wish Belgacom’s was this easy

"Exactly what is a “safe distance” to put a Mosque away from a place so that it..."

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:47:23 +0200

“Exactly what is a “safe distance” to put a Mosque away from a place so that it doesn’t have some imaginary effect on it?”

- Overcompensating

baileygenine: Whatever, I was just adding shadows to shit...

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:59:31 +0200

baileygenine:

Whatever, I was just adding shadows to shit anyway.

Photo

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:13:40 +0200

Learn to sound like an Icelander

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 11:06:11 +0200

Learn to sound like an Icelander:

Focusing on those weird unexpected sounds that come out where “l” is supposed to be in words like “Eyjafjallajökull”. However, I like this caveat:

“something else is going on here” […] seems to be a sentiment frequently encountered in examining Icelandic phonetics.

A localisation horror story

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:56:44 +0200

A localisation horror story

curvedwhite: Minimalist Movie Posters by Eduardo Prox These...

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:48:58 +0100

curvedwhite:

Minimalist Movie Posters by Eduardo Prox

These make excellent iPhone backgrounds.

Some years ago I was in Ibiza for two weeks. That’s about 13 days too many. Anyway, one night...

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:50:00 +0100

Some years ago I was in Ibiza for two weeks. That’s about 13 days too many.

Anyway, one night I woke up to the Brits downstairs coming come and at least one of them fell asleep on the terrace. But not before turning on the radio and playing My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion first.

I somehow managed to fall asleep before the song finished, but woke up to the final notes, about two hours later. “How is this possible?” I thought to myself, as the song died out with the last of the Irish flutes, simultaneously bringing to mind rolling green hills, icy waves and violently spewing vomit. And before I could think of an answer, those same flutes started again, bringing the rolling, vomiting, icy wave of realisation flowing over me as I lay sweating in my hung over, sun-burnt stupor: the bastards had left it on repeat.

——-

No real point or moral to the story, but somehow I thought of it now after noticing my unattended tumblr account flooded with broken last.fm messages over the last few weeks, and unlike those Brits downstairs, I’m sorry.