I cannot find the actual file I was talking about, but I did find my WEG Death Star Technical Manual. I am still trying to find the laptop that has the technical readouts of the Death Star.
It's a speculative evolution book from 1990 about how mankind might evolve in the next 5 million years. Basically the premise is that due to climate change, new species of humans are engineered to survive in a more hostile world. And then it follows these new species and their further evolutions.
The creatures in the picture above are both descended from humans.
It's weird, bleak and very far fetched.
:::spoiler A small gallery of the various species:
Question about the years if someone knows: is "years hence" a fancy british way of saying "years in the future" or is it some antiquated large non-SI unit of time since I find any of the species described in shorter timeframes, the Vacuumorph beimg an egregious example ("200 years hence") very hard to imagine "evolving" only 200 years in the future, even with the 90s outlook on technology (since it seems they said these earlier examples at least are engineered species in the book).
I wouldn't know about the hence part, but I always read it as "years from now". A bit like the opposite from "years since".
As for the other thing, it started out with deliberately engineered beings for specific tasks like the vacuumorph.
About a hundred years later the remaining people would create new humans with the specific goal of being able to survive the harsher environment of a ravaged earth. It was these that evolved further into different creatures.
It's a pretty far fetched story either way, I just like it for the weird pictures :)
I posted a link in one of the other replies. You can read the whole thing there if you're interested, there's a timeline on page 20 if you just want a quick overview.
Germanic-sphere countries historically liked to kill people for stealing bread, so I guess it's not too disproportional. You have to think the person going "yes please" would make the whole lynchmob atmosphere hard to keep going, though.
Do share if you find it, I've mostly turned up works by critics with a quick search.
I have the working draft of this year's List of Items for the Official University of Chicago Official Scavenger Hunt, the world's largest -and probably weirdest- annual scavenger hunt.
The Death report for Kurt Cobain. Mostly from morbid curiosity and a love for Nirvana. I don’t do that for everyone or anything like that. That’s the weirdest one. 😅
Let's see, The CIA's Simple Sabotage Field Manual, some paper on MKultra, some paper about The Hum, Some scientific paper on the longevity of recordable optical media, and a paper about crows.
I write, so there's a ton of stuff on decomposition, forensics, and related subject matter that are weird by some standards.
I've got stuff on niche mythology too, for the same reason. Along with that is stuff on modern paganism, syncretic religions, and related subjects. Again, weird by some standards.
But I tend to think the morbid stuff is what would catch most people by surprise.
I came in here to post about having a copy of Titus Burkhardt's Alchemy tome and DKMU Assault On Reality but I think yours might take the cake instead, as well as possibly including both of those texts.
Ahh, probably the one that gave visuals of bloat and skin slippage.
I've seen plenty of dead bodies (did some hospice work, ran across a suicide in the woods, and a few accidents), but I'd never seen that segment of decomp.
It's both worse than I expected, and somehow not as bad.
Mine is this report by the central bank where they tested the insurance sector at-large for resillience to financial shocks. ^(Although after reading some books by nassim nicholas taleb, I realize that testing using the worst imaginable shocks isn't sufficient as black swan events are by their nature unpredictable)
I think if i dig through my records I can find a federal subpoena from 2016. A LEO had to formally come to my door to confirm I received it but the prosecutor sent it to me via email.
Hmm, it probably depends what you think is weird, but I have one in their on the feasibility of extracting ammonia from biomass. There's also one on early steam turbines by a fellow named Geoff Horseman, which is a fun name.
Edit: Oh, I also have a professional critique of my dating profile photos. That's weird in a different way, since I actually got that done, and it unexpectedly came as a PDF.
It's a beast too - 202 pages. From the part I read, I could probably make one that kinda works, but that's it. Unfortunately the author didn't go into the details I was hoping for, like why exactly steam turbine airfoils are hook-shaped. One neat thing is that they have a nice little formula for comparing totally different turbines over time to show how they gradually do more with less.
The ammonia paper is weird because it's a super impractical and difficult idea - normally you fix nitrogen in a big Haber-Bosch plant and turn it into biomass. Both came up because they're applicable to primitive tech stuff.
I have more and probably weirder, but the things I care about tend to be moved out of the download folder.
I can definitely relate. I have several PDFs of advanced textbooks from when I wanted to learn some very niche skill. The latest one is an economics textbook from when I wanted to learn about different types of auctions and the maths/game theory behind each.
Oh hell yeah. As originally a maths person, the Vickrey-GSP-VCG auction continuum is great; very satisfying. Have you looked into fair cake cutting algorithms as well?
Yeah, it came with ghostwriting for the text section.
Man, I have no idea what people are looking for from dating profiles, and what I got back from the seasoned pros just reinforces that. Left to my own devices, I went terse and impartial. What they wrote seems cheesy and boastful to me, but I guess comes across as confidence to others. Which just means it's money well spent, I suppose, because I haven't gotten any complaints since.
It’s an interesting concept and seems plausible enough (same as with Planet X, Nemesis.. ok some of that Nibiru stuff is ridiculous) but like, the evidence just isn’t there to support it. Feels like we should have found SOME evidence for this kind of interstellar disaster by now. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong.
Nothing too weird. Multiple manuals of objects that I own, probably the weirdest of which is a German manual for my Canon EOS 300 (I'm not German). And some machine learning papers, among which a paper from 1987, by Quinlan & Rivest, about decision trees (which is older than I am).
EDIT: Oh and another document older than me, a manual for the Minolta XG-9 that I'm lending from my dad.
It's a really short PDF and it's not as technical as it seems, but gives a good lesson on how programs evolve, and what exactly trust means in the software world
Acute toxins fact sheet, guide to identifying snipe flies, several issues of Computer Gaming World from 1987, and 2 separate copies of the schematics for a Kenmore 148-1937.1 sewing machine.
85 Comments
kindenough@kbin.earth · 68 pts · 1y
In my mailbox...My arrest warrant from the Dutch police.
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 24 pts · 1y
Ok, this is definitely the winning comment. I'm crossing my fingers for you bro
AdamEatsAss@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 1y
What are the charges?
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 43 pts · 1y
i_am_hiding@aussie.zone · 12 pts · 1y
Get your hands off my penis!
kindenough@kbin.earth · 9 pts · 1y
Ah so you send me that .pdf, tuff luck
mukt@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1y
For burning kuran ?
over_clox@lemmy.world · 37 pts · 1y
I found the Cunt Coloring Book from the 1970's. Yes, scanned in as PDF. Yes, a few pages were already colored in, mostly psychedelic colors though.
And yes, it's exactly what it sounds like, a bunch of hand drawn lady parts to be colored in.
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 1y
Ah I didn't think to look into that part of my downloads for PDFs
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 1y
I’m so curious
over_clox@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1y
Nothing special enough to share, nor would I even share such works, especially with all the pages stuck together..
ruk_n_rul@monyet.cc · 32 pts · 1y
doom.pdf
Corno@lemm.ee · 29 pts · 1y
I find this segment to be particularly insightful:
HereIAm@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1y
That's the one I was gonna post! I think the text file containing ASCII 0s and 1s for an image of the Mona Lisa comes second.
LemoineFairclough@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1y
I think this is relevant: https://news.cs.washington.edu/2013/08/14/chicken-chicken-chicken-chicken-chicken/
nokturne213@sopuli.xyz · 21 pts · 1y
The technical plans for the Death Star.
nebm51@drlemmy.net · 8 pts · 1y
Are there any vulnerabilities? Asking for a friend
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 1y
Ooh! Link? ^^
nokturne213@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 1y
I cannot find the actual file I was talking about, but I did find my WEG Death Star Technical Manual. I am still trying to find the laptop that has the technical readouts of the Death Star.
thelsim@sh.itjust.works · 15 pts · 1y
A copy of Man after Man:
This is such a weird book. It has leech people, underwater people, blind psychic baby people, meat mountain people, etc.
TribblesBestFriend@startrek.website · 2 pts · 1y
I’ll need more details on this
thelsim@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1y
It's a speculative evolution book from 1990 about how mankind might evolve in the next 5 million years. Basically the premise is that due to climate change, new species of humans are engineered to survive in a more hostile world. And then it follows these new species and their further evolutions.
The creatures in the picture above are both descended from humans.
It's weird, bleak and very far fetched.
:::spoiler A small gallery of the various species:
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 1y
I was going to say the illustrations look very 90s
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1y
Truly morbid looking
TribblesBestFriend@startrek.website · 2 pts · 1y
Incredible ! I love it ! Will try to find it
thelsim@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 1y
There's a copy of it in the internet archive
TribblesBestFriend@startrek.website · 2 pts · 1y
Yeah I found it, thanks for the reply
HipsterTenZero@dormi.zone · 2 pts · 1y
Some days i feel like the engineered food creature.
unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1y
Question about the years if someone knows: is "years hence" a fancy british way of saying "years in the future" or is it some antiquated large non-SI unit of time since I find any of the species described in shorter timeframes, the Vacuumorph beimg an egregious example ("200 years hence") very hard to imagine "evolving" only 200 years in the future, even with the 90s outlook on technology (since it seems they said these earlier examples at least are engineered species in the book).
thelsim@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 1y
I wouldn't know about the hence part, but I always read it as "years from now". A bit like the opposite from "years since".
As for the other thing, it started out with deliberately engineered beings for specific tasks like the vacuumorph.
About a hundred years later the remaining people would create new humans with the specific goal of being able to survive the harsher environment of a ravaged earth. It was these that evolved further into different creatures.
It's a pretty far fetched story either way, I just like it for the weird pictures :)
I posted a link in one of the other replies. You can read the whole thing there if you're interested, there's a timeline on page 20 if you just want a quick overview.
Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 1y
Kenshi mentioned!
Hellstormy@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 13 pts · 1y
"Countries where suicide is outlawed.pdf"
brygphilomena@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1y
What the fuck, Bahamas? Life imprisonment?
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org · 5 pts · 1y
Well, if they went for the death penalty it'd be obviously ironic.
unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1y
Historically, I have a vague memory of knowing the fact that some places did actually do that, although I should check.
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org · 1 pts · 1y
Germanic-sphere countries historically liked to kill people for stealing bread, so I guess it's not too disproportional. You have to think the person going "yes please" would make the whole lynchmob atmosphere hard to keep going, though.
Do share if you find it, I've mostly turned up works by critics with a quick search.
kate@lemmy.uhhoh.com · 3 pts · 1y
Usually it’s a placeholder punishment so that the police can break in and stop you committing a crime
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1y
Nice.
2ugly2live@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 1y
CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net · 12 pts · 1y
This feels pretty niche...
Nemo@slrpnk.net · 12 pts · 1y
I have the working draft of this year's List of Items for the Official University of Chicago Official Scavenger Hunt, the world's largest -and probably weirdest- annual scavenger hunt.
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 1y
That sounds fun!
brygphilomena@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y
I didn't know they did this. Where can I learn more?
b3an@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 1y
The Death report for Kurt Cobain. Mostly from morbid curiosity and a love for Nirvana. I don’t do that for everyone or anything like that. That’s the weirdest one. 😅
daggermoon@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1y
Let's see, The CIA's Simple Sabotage Field Manual, some paper on MKultra, some paper about The Hum, Some scientific paper on the longevity of recordable optical media, and a paper about crows.
psyspoop@lemm.ee · 9 pts · 1y
A key to mushrooms that grow on other mushrooms
ouRKaoS@lemmy.today · 10 pts · 1y
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1y
The graphics alone make this look worth reading
tetris11@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1y
I have a key to tree identification in winter. It's surprisingly useful
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 1y
Depends on your weird.
I write, so there's a ton of stuff on decomposition, forensics, and related subject matter that are weird by some standards.
I've got stuff on niche mythology too, for the same reason. Along with that is stuff on modern paganism, syncretic religions, and related subjects. Again, weird by some standards.
But I tend to think the morbid stuff is what would catch most people by surprise.
skulblaka@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1y
Nice.
I came in here to post about having a copy of Titus Burkhardt's Alchemy tome and DKMU Assault On Reality but I think yours might take the cake instead, as well as possibly including both of those texts.
AnarchistArtificer@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y
What's a pdf that most surprised you?
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 1y
Ahh, probably the one that gave visuals of bloat and skin slippage.
I've seen plenty of dead bodies (did some hospice work, ran across a suicide in the woods, and a few accidents), but I'd never seen that segment of decomp.
It's both worse than I expected, and somehow not as bad.
Inf_V@kbin.earth · 1 pts · 1y
Where do you usually find it at? I'm a horror writer and that sort of thing would be handy to have for my work.
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1y
It used to be Google scholar. It was pretty easy to find good stuff when I was digging into it. Not sure if it's still a reliable place though
Godort@lemm.ee · 7 pts · 1y
I just cleaned up my downloads so I no longer have it, but a couple weeks ago it was a copy of Maid: The Role-Playing Game
GuyDudeman@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1y
CIA sabotage handbook.
brygphilomena@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y
Should add the poor man's James bond. The anarchist cookbook. The army survival manual. There is an old army improvised munitions manual.
There are lots of fun reads that should probably be held onto.
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1y
Ooh could you link me to the above?
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 1y
Mine is this report by the central bank where they tested the insurance sector at-large for resillience to financial shocks. ^(Although after reading some books by nassim nicholas taleb, I realize that testing using the worst imaginable shocks isn't sufficient as black swan events are by their nature unpredictable)
beercupcake@sopuli.xyz · 5 pts · 1y
Pdf version of doom from hackernews not so long ago.
vitrola06@lemmy.eco.br · 4 pts · 1y
A mock dictionary of Portuguese gay slang and vocabulary. It's pretty fun.
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1y
Lol
ace_garp@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y
The Bible 2.0
An older text, reinterpreted by Meaty McMeat.
NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 1y
I think if i dig through my records I can find a federal subpoena from 2016. A LEO had to formally come to my door to confirm I received it but the prosecutor sent it to me via email.
pushECX@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y
The Airplane Flying Handbook, I guess.
DirigibleProtein@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 1y
Guidelines for a Space Propulsion Device Based on Heim’s Quantum Theory
I thought it sounded interesting, but the mathematics was beyond me.
Deconceptualist@lemm.ee · 3 pts · 1y
Probably Grontar: The Frutang, circa 2003.
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1y
This looks legendary
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org · 3 pts · 1y
Hmm, it probably depends what you think is weird, but I have one in their on the feasibility of extracting ammonia from biomass. There's also one on early steam turbines by a fellow named Geoff Horseman, which is a fun name.
Edit: Oh, I also have a professional critique of my dating profile photos. That's weird in a different way, since I actually got that done, and it unexpectedly came as a PDF.
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1y
Ok, the second one is definitely a wierd(ly specific) PDF and I dig it!
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org · 1 pts · 1y
It's a beast too - 202 pages. From the part I read, I could probably make one that kinda works, but that's it. Unfortunately the author didn't go into the details I was hoping for, like why exactly steam turbine airfoils are hook-shaped. One neat thing is that they have a nice little formula for comparing totally different turbines over time to show how they gradually do more with less.
The ammonia paper is weird because it's a super impractical and difficult idea - normally you fix nitrogen in a big Haber-Bosch plant and turn it into biomass. Both came up because they're applicable to primitive tech stuff.
I have more and probably weirder, but the things I care about tend to be moved out of the download folder.
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1y
I can definitely relate. I have several PDFs of advanced textbooks from when I wanted to learn some very niche skill. The latest one is an economics textbook from when I wanted to learn about different types of auctions and the maths/game theory behind each.
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org · 1 pts · 1y
Oh hell yeah. As originally a maths person, the Vickrey-GSP-VCG auction continuum is great; very satisfying. Have you looked into fair cake cutting algorithms as well?
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1y
You got your dating photos critiqued? And it exists as a paid service?? You fascinate me Sir.
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org · 1 pts · 1y
Yeah, it came with ghostwriting for the text section.
Man, I have no idea what people are looking for from dating profiles, and what I got back from the seasoned pros just reinforces that. Left to my own devices, I went terse and impartial. What they wrote seems cheesy and boastful to me, but I guess comes across as confidence to others. Which just means it's money well spent, I suppose, because I haven't gotten any complaints since.
Arghblarg@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 1y
Hercolobus Or Red Planet, by V. M. Rabolou... it's 'interesting'.
https://archive.org/details/en-hercolubus-or-red-planet
FrostyCaveman@lemm.ee · 1 pts · 1y
It’s an interesting concept and seems plausible enough (same as with Planet X, Nemesis.. ok some of that Nibiru stuff is ridiculous) but like, the evidence just isn’t there to support it. Feels like we should have found SOME evidence for this kind of interstellar disaster by now. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong.
mrmacduggan@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1y
I've got the Pokemon Quartz pokedex. It's pretty cursed.
gerryflap@feddit.nl · 2 pts · 1y
Nothing too weird. Multiple manuals of objects that I own, probably the weirdest of which is a German manual for my Canon EOS 300 (I'm not German). And some machine learning papers, among which a paper from 1987, by Quinlan & Rivest, about decision trees (which is older than I am).
EDIT: Oh and another document older than me, a manual for the Minolta XG-9 that I'm lending from my dad.
SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1y
I agree it feels weird to come across files that've been around for longer than you have.
tetris11@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1y
(1984) Reflections of Trusting Trust by Ken Thompson
It's a really short PDF and it's not as technical as it seems, but gives a good lesson on how programs evolve, and what exactly trust means in the software world
RebekahWSD@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
Boringly, the only thing in there currently is the guide from the dmv (mvc, sorry) for nj to review cause I'm feeling old and need a refresher.
CulturedLout@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 1y
Acute toxins fact sheet, guide to identifying snipe flies, several issues of Computer Gaming World from 1987, and 2 separate copies of the schematics for a Kenmore 148-1937.1 sewing machine.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1y
The multi orgasmic man
QuiteQuickQum@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y
260 pages!??
TheBrideWoreCrimson@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 1y