an incredible amount of illuminated medieval manuscripts have been scanned at the colombia university digital scriptorium. they have highlights, and search function, and high res scans. above is the only entry marked "alchemy" though...
if anyone is interested, i have some information regarding the sufi connection to european alchemy, but i wont jump the gun with that...
via metafilter
spectacular card trick by shawn farquhar (haha.nu)
name generator hit refresh for more (metafilter.com)
the "duh" history of cat domestication (popurls.com)
9 detainees released from guantanamo bay (dailykos.com)
pittsburghers! gear up for local burn, wickerman! (laura's site)
working bike with shoes for wheels (boingboing.net)
clinton will work for barrack obama (drudgereport.com)
awesome amazonian blow gun skills video (nytimes.com)
so i'll get to the moleskines eventually, but you have to start with the image below...
after making a grid of vesicas (precisely overlapping circles), you can use various intersections of the grid to create the first ten regular polygons. you can do most of it with just a compass and a straight edge, but i actually found (using adobe illustrator) that one of the classic methods for constructing a pentagon was inaccurate. so i just used the computer to make perfect versions of the odd-number polygons with all of these polygons sides being equal.
i then extrapolated and itterated my ass off with lines between the vertices forming exponentially more polygons (using only equal-weight lines, no fills or gradients, also all the shapes arise naturally, i didn't pick what looked "best") it starts off looking like a few quite simple stars in the pentagon, but by the time you get to the 12-sided dodecahedron, it is a lot of shapes. i then placed the polygons back into a rough mockup of the golden spiral, inverted it and voila! (click on the picture for a much bigger version... also note i increased the line weight for printing, the original has tons of tiny detail at huge sizes.)
so then i submitted it to custom engraved moleskin notebooks to see if they would feature it in their artist series. they would give me 15% of the price, but i would just be psyched to earn enough to get a moleskine with this free. we'll see. note that you can also just submit your design and get it printed on a full size moleskine for like $35...
below is a picture contrasting virign rainforest to a palmoil plantation encroaching on it...
greenpeace got dove to halt palm oil productions in indonesia's rainforest after only a week-long campaign. the story is here. now granted, they are a large organization, with a decent budget, but it's good to know that a little pressure can go a long way. the problem of palm oil production isn't completely solved, but the orangutans can sleep a litle easier tonight.
some of it's a bit hipster, some's a bit rave-flyer circa 1999, but then again, how bad is that? his site is shinybinary.com. some nice attention to detail. i like the piece for national geographic.
via a real old post in the haha.nu art archives.
pt. 1 is here for context...
also, from the great post "where helmets make no sense"...
empire state building:
and a classic free-climb from dan osman (r.i.p.). it's short, watch it... this guy is amazing... and mind the metal.
omar souleyman. he's apparently huge in syria, having released OVER 500 cassettes. his album last year, highway to hassake is awesome. i heard a lot of synth-pop infused traditional arabic music like this when i was in morroco and turkey. i've really enjoyed this album. i found it by reading the forcedexposure.com employee top ten lists, a decent source of interesting music. the video and mp3 of the big hit are below. the video is amazing, hilarious, and surprising. the synth player is awesome. if anyone can translate the lyrics, i'd love to know what the song is about... i assume from the video it is a love story.
(mp3) omar souleyman - "leh jani (when i found out)" from "highway to hassake"
I'm sure of it. I predicted it before this story went viral, just ask my wife.deborah jeane palfrey served a lot of high-level clients in d.c. (which isn't at all in dispute, even the corporate media is reporting that) she has indicated that dick cheney might be involved (through wayne madson's claims, although i haven't found any transcript with her saying that...
below is a quote from the alex jones story. now i know alex jones is a paleoconservative, and a religious nut sometimes, but just try to focus on HER WORDS... don't let his wonkiness (however correct or entertaining at times) distract from the real facts here.
"If taken into custody, my physical safety and most probably my very life would be jeopardized," she wrote in August 1991 following an attempt to bring her to trial, "Rape, beating, maiming, disfigurement and more than likely murder disguised in the form of just another jailhouse accident or suicide would await me..." she also stated in a radio interview in march with alex that she was not planning on committing suicide.
here is her saying that (4 min)
here is the whole interview (hour +)
dino 5 is a children's hip-hop group made up of prince paul, chali tuna (low-voice guy from jurassic 5), lady bug mecca (the lady from digable planets), scratch from the roots and wordsworth. the have some short videos up at babyloveshiphop.com. i guess it's a cartoon and a stage show, too... can't wait for the candy raver for kids movement!
(mp3) dino5 - "what about 10"
insane in the mccain brain here:
two great whistle blower stories:
morris davis was the "defense" department's former chief prosecutor for terrorism cases. he argued ON BEHALF of plantiffs from guantanamo bay monday with this bombshell:
"Mr. Davis said that Defense Department general counsel William J. Haynes II, who announced his retirement in February, once bristled at the suggestion that some defendants could be acquitted, an outcome that Davis said would give the process (of trying the 275 guantanamo prisoners) added legitimacy. Haynes said, 'We can't have acquittals,' Davis said under questioning from Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, the military counsel who represents Hamdan. 'We've been holding these guys for years. How can we explain acquittals? We have to have convictions.' "
i guess since we already illegally held and tortured these people for several years, we might as well convict them illegally and put the to death or throw them in jail for what morris davis quoted top pentagon officials, including deputy defense secretary gordon r. england, made it clear to him that charging some of the highest-profile detainees before elections this year could have "strategic political value." the whole dirty story here. remember folks, these are the patriots! i guess that makes us...? oh, and obama, when you are president, give morris davis a medal of honor!
also, via wordsoup:
"General Smedley D. Butler not only won two Congressional Medals of Honor and served in the Marines extensively, but he exposed a plot for a fascist coup that originated on Wall Street aimed at giving American industry total control of government (it involved George Dubya's grandfather). The man should be a hero included in every child's textbook, and his speech "War is a Racket," (given in 1933 & based on his book) should be required reading. Instead, he was demonized by industry and the media, marginalized by history, and our trillion-dollar-war-debt ass now belongs to Halliburton, Exxon, and the epically incompetent grandson of a fascist shitheel."
full text of the book in the link above, or just click on the cover below. a quote follows. remember, this is from 1935...
"Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This was the "war to end all wars." This was the "war to make the world safe for democracy." No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United States patents. They were just told it was to be a "glorious adventure."
and finally, an incredibly well-researched timeline of the manipulation of terror threats by the increasingly awesome, erudite, anit-o'reilly of the REAL no-spin zone, keith olbermann. it's 17 minutes, but you'll be amazed at the audacity of the bush spin machine...
it's mayday. (link to funny part of the may day wiki!)
may 1st is famous for being a pagan and labor holiday.
from a labor perspective, may day is a chance to fight for the rights of workers... let's not forget that the workers in this country are still getting fucked over at every chance, even by democrats. on the republican side both bush and mccain are ignorant (willfuly or otherwise) of the facts. remember that this is the government that bailed out the big boys like bear stearns with $30billion and left the forclosed homeowners out to dry with $0... i thought hard-line capitalists didn't interfere with the magic "market forces", i guess they changed the motto to "survival of the fittest and unfit corporations as needed" at the last lobbyist meeting. BTW, mccain is full of shit. don't believe the hype.
from a pagan perspective, may day was often associated with the fertility of the land (and the humans), so you could celebrate by planting some seeds or conceiving a child! if you aren't feeling like fatherhood (or motherhood as the case may be), you could vicariously enjoy young'uns by downloading the most recent .zip file of photos of my darling baby, river.
if you can't find awesome events like the ones listed on this page, can't learn some history like this .pdf booklet put together by anarchists, make some art/music or anything that appeals to your sense of freedom.
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