I find this segment to be particularly insightful:
this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2025
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Asklemmy
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I think this is relevant: https://news.cs.washington.edu/2013/08/14/chicken-chicken-chicken-chicken-chicken/
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.
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.
Kenshi mentioned!
Iโll need more details on this
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.
A small gallery of the various species:
I was going to say the illustrations look very 90s
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.
Some days i feel like the engineered food creature.
Truly morbid looking
Incredible ! I love it ! Will try to find it
I have a key to tree identification in winter. It's surprisingly useful
The graphics alone make this look worth reading
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.
Ok, the second one is definitely a wierd(ly specific) PDF and I dig it!
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?
You got your dating photos critiqued? And it exists as a paid service?? You fascinate me Sir.
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.
Pdf version of doom from hackernews not so long ago.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I agree it feels weird to come across files that've been around for longer than you have.
(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
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