Hello Wonderful Readers!
This is January’s haul of interesting stuff from the World Wide Web (and from whatever you call that “offline” place outside the computer, I dunno):
I read the online series “There Is No Antimemetics Division” by qntm. I’m a little late to the SCP phenomenon, but I really liked the concept of ideas that prevent themselves from spreading and a war that’s fought in a way that you can’t remember it. I’ll write down my thoughts about antimemetics soon in a separate post.
“It’s Getting Late Yo” – I’ve always been curious about the books Julius Caesar wrote about his own accomplishments. They’re fantastic! But… did he have a ghost writer? How did they make so many copies of his book? Did they have bookstores in Roman times?
Anonymous redditor XenophonTheAthenian answers all these questions!
Did you know that there is a huge online archive of ANSI and ASCII art?
This was an interesting read about the “first web comic” (incl. an interview with the creator):
Alpha Sausage is a font that lets you be the Alpha Man you know you are:
The same creator has some good ornamental fonts. (Paisleycaps is especially neat.)
I saw Prokaryote Season at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival last year and regretted not buying it. In January, I read it online through “hoopla”. It’s so beautifully illustrated. Many of the characters are wearing neo-medieval outfits.
I also recommend The Chromatic Fantasy by H.A. for the beautiful illustrations (also neo-medieval!). I’m surprised it only took a year to create this book. Interview with the author.
Some favourite images from The Chromatic Fantasy:
Did you know that you could brew a really strong tea and hallucinate off your rocker like a Russian prisoner? If you’re interested, read up on Chifir. There is a lot of debate here (in Russian) about the actual recipe: http://useful-food.ru/chifir/ . I wouldn’t be surprised if brewing in an aluminium cup played a key role, seeing that aluminium reacts with acid.
I think there is some truth to the claims about Chifir. Personally, the very first time I bought quality loose-leaf tea I put way too many leaves into my brew (it was at around 7pm). As I was falling asleep that night, I fell into a half-awake zone where I saw my friends’ faces appear in front of me and other mild hallucinations.
The saddest fishboy at the Toronto aquarium:
Didja know that Awesome Albrecht Durer drew a lot of doodles in his patron’s prayer book? They’re quite playful and not well known. Check out Prayer Book of Emperor Maximilian I from 1515.
This long twitter thread of a visit to Japan had me stuck to my phone. Fascinating: https://aresluna.org/japan-design-details
