DEAR READER
Today's Document
taylor price
No title available
Peter Solarz

❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
TVSTRANGERTHINGS

Kaledo Art
Sweet Seals For You, Always
sheepfilms
RMH
Three Goblin Art
dirt enthusiast

Origami Around
Acquired Stardust

★
tumblr dot com

shark vs the universe
NASA

ellievsbear

seen from United States
seen from Venezuela

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from T1
seen from Morocco
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
@cybercedd
“The Driver” by Jordan Bolton
My first book ‘Blue Sky Through the Window of a Moving Car’ is out now! Order it here - https://smarturl.it/BlueSky
FILMS WATCHED IN 2025: 09. Bottoms (2023)
Something I find incredibly cool is that they’ve found neandertal bone tools made from polished rib bones, and they couldn’t figure out what they were for for the life of them.
Until, of course, they showed it to a traditional leatherworker and she took one look at it and said “Oh yeah sure that’s a leather burnisher, you use it to close the pores of leather and work oil into the hide to make it waterproof. Mine looks just the same.”
“Wait you’re still using the exact same fucking thing 50,000 years later???”
“Well, yeah. We’ve tried other things. Metal scratches up and damages the hide. Wood splinters and wears out. Bone lasts forever and gives the best polish. There are new, cheaper plastic ones, but they crack and break after a couple years. A bone polisher is nearly indestructible, and only gets better with age. The more you use a bone polisher the better it works.”
It’s just.
50,000 years. 50,000. And over that huge arc of time, we’ve been quietly using the exact same thing, unchanged, because we simply haven’t found anything better to do the job.
i also like that this is a “ask craftspeople” thing, it reminds me of when art historians were all “the fuck” about someone’s ear “deformity” in a portrait and couldn’t work out what the symbolism was until someone who’d also worked as a piercer was like “uhm, he’s fucked up a piercing there”. interdisciplinary shit also needs to include non-academic approaches because crafts & trades people know shit ok
One of my professors often tells us about a time he, as and Egyptian Archaeologist, came down upon a ring of bricks one brick high. In the middle of a house. He and his fellow researchers could not fpr the life of them figure out what tf it could possibly have been for. Until he decided to as a laborer, who doesnt even speak English, what it was. The guy gestures for my prof to follow him, and shows him the same ring of bricks in a nearby modern house. Said ring is filled with baby chicks, while momma hen is out in the yard having a snack. The chicks can’t get over the single brick, but mom can step right over. Over 2000 years and their still corraling chicks with brick circles. If it aint broke, dont fix it and always ask the locals.
I read something a while back about how pre-columbian Americans had obsidian blades they stored in the rafters of their houses. The archaeologists who discovered them came to the conclusion that the primitive civilizations believed keeping them closer to the sun would keep the blades sharper.
Then a mother looked at their findings and said “yeah, they stored their knives in the rafters to keep them out of reach of the children.”
Omg the ancient child proofing add on tho lol
I remember years ago on a forum (email list, that’s how old) a woman talking about going to a museum, and seeing among the women’s household objects a number of fired clay items referred to as “prayer objects”. (Apparently this sort of labeling is not uncommon when you have something that every house has and appears to be important, but no-one knows what it is.) She found a docent and said, “Excuse me, but I think those are drop spindles.” “Why would you think that, ma’am?” “Because they look just like the ones my husband makes for me. See?” They got all excited, took tons of pictures and video of her spinning with her spindle. When she was back in the area a few years later, they were still on display, but labeled as drop spindles.
So ancient Roman statues have some really weird hairstyles. Archaeologists just couldn’t figure them out. They didn’t have hairspray or modern hair bands, or elastic at all, but some of these things defied gravity better than Marge Simpson’s beehive.
Eventually they decided, wigs. Must be wigs. Or maybe hats. Definitely not real hair.
A hairdresser comes a long, looks at a few and is like, “Yeah, they’re sewn.”
“Don’t be silly!” the archaeologists cry. “How foolish, sewn hair indeed! LOL!”
So she went away and recreated them on real people using a needle and thread and the mystery of Roman hairstyles was solved.
She now works as a hair archaeologist and I believe she has a YouTube channel now where she recreates forgotten hairstyles, using only what they had available at the time.
Okay, I greatly appreciate the discussion here about the need for interdisciplinary work in academia, and the need to reach outside of academia and talk to specialists when looking at the uses of tools, but somehow people always have to turn this into a “gotcha!” where the stuffy academics get shown up (even though this very thread shows some archeologists reaching out to craftspeople to ask about how tools are used because they recognize the need for that knowledge and expertise).
“A hairdresser comes a long, looks at a few and is like, “Yeah, they’re sewn.”
“Don’t be silly!” the archaeologists cry. “How foolish, sewn hair indeed! LOL!”
So she went away and recreated them on real people using a needle and thread and the mystery of Roman hairstyles was solved.”
Did they? Did they really? The archeologists all laughed at the plucky hairdresser and then she proved her theory by simply recreating the styles?
See, what actually happened is that Janet Stephens (the hairdresser/hair archeologist in this post), who published an article about her theory in The Journal of Roman Archeology in 2008, spent about 6 years of research pursuing her idea that perhaps Roman hairstyles were sewn hair and not wigs. She did both hands-on experimentation sewing the actual hair, and more traditional research reading through a ton of sources. This is coming from an interview done with Stephens herself:
“Lots and lots of reading, poring over exhibition catalogs, back searching the footnotes to the reading and reading some more! It helped that I am fluent in Italian and, in 2006, I took a German for reading class. Working in my spare time, the research took 6 years.”
“I am an independent researcher, but my husband is a professor of Italian at the Johns Hopkins University, so I have library privileges there. We are friendly with colleagues in the Classics/Archaeology department and at the Walters Art Museum. They were kind enough to send me articles and clippings, read drafts and help with some picky Latin, though I try not to impose.”
(Source: http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/14729)
Wow, so people in the Classics/Archeology department and at the art museum sent her articles and clippings and HELPED her with her research as opposed to laughing at her in their gentleman’s club! It’s almost like people working the archeology/art history these days aren’t all stuffy old white guys from the 1950’s!
Stephens also presented her work at the Archeological Institute of America Conference, and according to the interview I cited above, it was apparently well received: “It seemed to create a a lot of buzz and people said they enjoyed it. It’s not every conference where you go to the poster session and see “heads on pikestaffs”!”
Like, there’s plenty to be said about the ivory tower and the need for interdisciplinary work, and the racism/sexism etc. that newer researchers are working against, but framing this story as “hairdresser totally shows up the archeologists with her common sense!” is needlessly shitting on the academics involved here (and the humanities in general have been struggling to maintain funding at many universities in the US, they don’t need to be further attacked), as well as greatly over-simplifying and downplaying Janet Stephens’ achievement. I think it’s more respectful to acknowledge the six years of work that she put into the project than to tell the story like she just sewed some hair and then all the archeologists’ monocles popped out.
I cannot stand the parodies of modern major general, they're overdone and simply not as good as the original. They've done them about everything, whatever topic, big or small.
And when i notice one of them my eyes will always start to roll.
The diction's always slurry when they rush the complicated words, and adding many fricatives will turn it so cacophonous. The slanted rhymes are silly and they keep just making more and more, please someone stop the parodies of modern major general.
The scanning of the lyrics in the meter is unbearable, they emphazise the syllables in ways that are untenable, in short in matters musical, prosodic and ephemeral, i cannot stand the parodies of modern major general!
What you think Pokémon was 20 years ago vs Pokémon 20 years ago.
What you think Sonic was 20 years ago vs Sonic 20 years ago
What you think Mario was 20 years ago vs. Mario 20 years ago
This post is nearly 4 years old
Source: Sex Ed Books Don't "Groom" Kids and Teens. They Protect Them.
[ID: an 8 panel digital art comic titled "Book Bans", showing the following true story.
1: a girl and her mom are in a library and smiling. Narration begins: "A 10-year-old in Delaware was visiting her local library with her mother."
2: the girl picks a book off a shelf. Narrator: "While searching the shelves, she picked up the book "It's perfectly normal" by Robie H. Harris and Michael Emberley."
3: the girl holds the book in the car with her mom. Narrator: "The book is about sex education and is one of the most banned books of the past two decades. The little girl took it home."
4: the girl points at herself while the mom is shocked. Narrator: "Later that day, the little girl showed her mom the chapter on sexual abuse and said: "This is me.""
5: the mom looks worried. Narrator: "Her father was abusing her, and it was the first time she'd spoken about it."
5: a fat black old judge in a courtroom. Narrator: "The father was convicted, and the judge said: "There were two heroes in this case. One was the child, and the other was the book.""
6: the author, an old white woman with short hair speaking. Narrator: "In an interview, the author, Robie H. Harris, said..."
"I have been called a pornographer, a child abuser — every name in the book, as the saying goes. But whenever I am called one of those names, I think of that ten-year-old girl. I wish we never had to talk with kids about any of these aberrant behaviors. But we have to do so because they already know about them to some extent and because kids have a right to have the accurate information that can keep them healthy and safe. They need to know how to get help to make any abusive behavior stop."
7: the top of a bookshelf with a ceiling. Narrator: "When right-wing groups petition and protest to get sex education books off the shelves of schools and public libraries, it stops the most vulnerable people from accessing the tools and language that can help them. It helps to shield and hide abusers. It communicates to children suffering from abuse that they are shameful and that it's not safe or polite to speak out about. Sex ed books don't "groom" kids and teens. They protect them." On the right lower corner is the source: https://bookriot.com/sex-ed-books-protect-kids/ . End of ID.]
Certified Sex Ed Post!
one of the all time posting days ever
i'm so glad goncharov happened when it did, right before prolific public use of AI. that was pure honest gaslighting straight from the heart. real human whimsicality and trickery thru blood sweat and tears. we were a family. and we all gonched, together. you cant replicate that with any machine.
Dogs have had many jobs throughout history, in this case: Revenge.
love how the king was just like nah let's see where the dog is going with this
I've seen a lot of these videos but this is the first one where I have seen an actual expression of delight on his face, not just pride.
Also that house will have taken HOURS. It is the single most impressive thing I have ever seen him make. It is MAGNIFICENT. I have done that sort of thing with paper/wood/foam board before, I can't imagine doing it in chocolate, with only one chance to get everything right.
I'm always so heavily struck
By awe when I have the good luck
To happen to see
The chocolate guy's spree
But damn, what the actual fuck
(Source)
The weirdest guy I ever met in a church was this boy who referred to “Buzz Aldrin and his husband” going to the moon. I was completely baffled, and when I asked if he’d misspoken, he got really angry and accused me of being deliberately ignorant of the facts. It turned out that he was somehow comvinced that Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were married. It took five Wikipedia articles to convince him otherwise.
The moon landing was fake: tired, passé, heard it before
The moon landing was an elaborate marriage proposal: fresh! sexy! I’m going to be thinking about this for months!
Romcom where two dudes in the 1960s fall in love and come up with an elaborate plan to become astronauts to get married in space because gay marriage is illegal everywhere but it can’t be illegal on the moon
Might make things a little awkward for Mike Collins.
He was the officiator
This is an excellent take. He officiated in orbit, and the landing was their Honey Moon.
Oh my god they were moon mates.
THEY WERE MOON MATES
...he is weaving the chocolate. Do you copy, this bitch is WEAVING CHOCOLATE
We are so damn lucky Chocolate Guy has a passion for chocolate and crafting beautiful, lifelike desserts.... because if he chose to put this level of work, dedication, and sheer determination into anything even slightly nefarious (instead of nearly breaking the laws of physics in order to create culinary masterpieces) we would be so epically fucked.