1. Good:
A professor at the University of Bedfordshire has deciphered the Voynich Manuscript, a fifteenth-century illuminated manuscript that was long believed to be indecipherable. The partial decoding puts to rest theories that the manuscript was a hoax, or was written by aliens as some have speculated. Rather, Linguistics professor Stephen Bax believes it is “a treatise on nature, perhaps in a near Eastern or Asian language.”
(I don’t mean to knock, because it’s so easy to knock, and also because I have done nothing of comparable usefulness with my life, but he has deciphered ten words in two years, which, you know, insert your own joke about G.R.R. Martin’s writing pace here. Stephen! Good for you but get moving! I want to read the Voynich before I die!)
2. Better:
Turns out the manuscript was actually a guide to siege warfare, and those be-backpacked kitties are meant to burn down hard-to-access castles and the like, dying in the process. Considering, for example, the section titled “To set fire to a castle or city which you can’t get at otherwise’:
“This section details how to use doves and cats loaded with flammable devices to set fire to enemy positions.
On cats the text paints a grisly picture of attaching lit sacks of incendiaries onto the animals to have them return to their homes and set fire to them.
‘Create a small sack like a fire-arrow … if you would like to get at a town or castle, seek to obtain a cat from that place.
‘And bind the sack to the back of the cat, ignite it, let it glow well and thereafter let the cat go, so it runs to the nearest castle or town, and out of fear it thinks to hide itself where it ends up in barn hay or straw it will be ignited.’”
(All together now: Rocket cat/Burning out of his fuse up here alone.)
3. Best:
“You’re never going to get a genetic clone of a mammoth,” she said. “What’s going to happen, I imagine, is that someone, maybe George Church, is going to insert some genes into the Asian-elephant genome that make it slightly hairier. That would be just a tiny portion of the genome manipulated, but a few years later, you have a thing born that is an elephant, only hairier, and the press will write, ‘George Church has cloned a mammoth!’ ” Church, though he plans to do more than just alter the gene for hairiness, concedes the point. “I would like to have an elephant that likes the cold weather,” he told me. “Whether you call it a ‘mammoth’ or not, I don’t care.”
Not strictly about illuminated manuscripts, I’ll grant you, but splitting hairs isn’t a good look for you.
Tags: animals, de-extinction, history, illuminated manuscripts, rocket cats, science, the voynich manuscript
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But really, why do people find it easier to believe that aliens wrote things like this? There are so many languages going extinct all the time, and our knowledge of non-European history is so limited comparatively…….
The Toast is seriously hitting all of the Things I Like today. Way to be.
OMG the cat article!!
I’M A ROCKET CAAAT
And I think it’s going to be a long long time / til impact brings me around again to find /I’m not the pet they think I am at home / Oh no no no / I’m a rocket-cat / Rocket-cat / burning up his tail up here alone …
I mean, who HASN’T looked around and thought, “My life is pretty good, but I would like to have an elephant that likes the cold weather.”
Screw that – who hasn’t looked around and thought, “My life’s fine, but would be better if I could use my annoying neighbor’s cat to set fire to her home via a backpack incendiary device.”
I mean, we have TECH now! It could be far subtler than the illuminated manuscripts. Just a little fizz-bang on the collar; what fire inspector’s going to notice that?
Clearly the old ways are not just in need of revival, but synthesis. Think about it: murder by rocket-propelled extinct-megafauna trampling. The perfect crime.
(the mammoth’s hairy pelt erases all fingerprints)
My favorite part of the whole article was how they just TOTALLY CASUALLY mentioned that a dude is trying to start a Pleistocene Park in Siberia. Where is the ten-page story on that???
Well, definitely no one who’s ever read that Madeleine L’Engle book where it’s Noah’s ark and THEY ALL HAVE PET MAMMOTHS THE SIZE OF SCHNAUZERS
I am so into that cat article.
Rocket Cat!!!!
And dammmnnnn. Spending your entire career basically to translate 10 words. That’s dedication.
Oh my god, it’s like the feeling when you’ve spent ALL MORNING trying to figure out the last two crossword clues, except FOREVER
It’s gotta take a very special person to deal with the sheer, continuous, compounded frustration that he must face every day.
The Voynich thing has fascinated me for YEARS and I would attend the shit out of that conference. But honestly? Deep down I think it’s a hoax. OR the 17th-century equivalent of one of those coffee-table art books that look beautiful but mean nothing. “Lorem ipsum.” I WANT TO BELIEVE but there are all kinds of weird people out there with too much time on their hands to create nonsense languages, so.
Yes, but, Lorem Ipsum is a real text, despite us using it as pretty filler when designing. I saw a translation somewhere.
Apparently it’s latin for “this is filler text”. That might not be exactly it but it’s definitely real words that mean something.
It’s taken from Cicero’s De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, but it’s been scrambled and turned pretty much into nonsense.
Between the vet article, the cat bite piece, and the rocket cats, the Toast is just full of hilariously fucked-up shit re: cats and it’s making me laugh so hard
A rocket-propelled cat can inflict sepsis at a range of 400 yards and bite through 2″ of plate steel.
Still not as bad as global warming.
“I would like to have an elephant that likes the cold weather,” he told me.
Would that we could all speak so openly of our mad, impossible, beautiful dreams.
Is this a good place to leave one of my favorite wikipedia categories? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Military_an…
I mean, the concept of animal soldiers is ethically troubling, but awwww the little tiny sailors’ uniforms for the ships’ cats
William “Billy” Windsor I is a kashmere goat who served as a lance corporal in the 1st Battalion, the Royal Welsh, an infantry battalion of the British Army. He served as a lance corporal from 2001 until 2009, except for a three-month period in 2006 when he was demoted to fusilier, after inappropriate behaviour during the Queen’s Official Birthday celebrations while deployed on active duty with the battalion on Cyprus. He retired to Whipsnade Zoo in May 2009.
This must be the best introductory wikipedia paragraph in existence.
I’m going to spend the whole afternoon imagining Billy’s disciplinary hearing and quietly cackling.
I was CRYING with laughter. Then I showed some co-workers, and half of them cried with me, the other half just looked on bemusedly.
He’s a full member of the regiment, not just a mascot!
He received a daily ration of 2 cigarettes (which he ate) and Guiness “to keep the iron up!”
THIS GOAT IS GREAT.
I laughed so hard it turned to that hacking laughcough that leaves you scrambling for a slug of water.
” Billy regained his rank during the Alma Day parade which celebrates the Royal Welsh victory in the Crimean War.[10] Captain Simon Clarke said, “Billy performed exceptionally well, he has had all summer to reflect on his behaviour at the Queen’s birthday and clearly earned the rank he deserves”.”
!!!!
also the person who takes care of him is called the Goat Major
GOAT MAJOR
“There are many legends out there about the origins of the oozlefinch…”
TELL ME ALL OF THEM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oozlefinch
Edit: ahhhh, this is amazing. The majority of this article is devoted to heraldry. “On a wreath of the colors (Or and Gules) an oozlefinch Vert, armed, capped and collared on the legs.”
” A Captain H. M. Merriam, no doubt under the effects of alcohol, first reported seeing a large-eyed, flight-challenged bird outside the officer’s club. . .”
ABLE SEACAT SIMON, ALWAYS AND FOREVER!!
(Also, man, carrier pigeons are utter badasses.)
Rocket Cat has always been one of my favorite manuscript images. (My sister works with this stuff, so I usually get forwarded the most hilarious images.)
I think either this site or the Hairpin introduced me to it, but I’m posting the Discarded Image tumblr here. More illuminated goofy animals and illuminated inappropriate penises than you can shake a stick at!
You had me at “illuminated inappropriate penises.”
Do I think it’s terrible that cats (and other animals) are used as bombs? Yes. Did I chuckle throatily to myself when I read “Rocket cat/Burning out of his fuse up here alone”? Also yes.
Everyone’s heard of the Orvillecopter, right?
Trigger warning: flying stuffed dead cat.
That’s a Firecat and a Phoenix. The eleventh and twelfth words make that clear
Maybe this is why cats are trying to murder us, per that New Yorker article from earlier today.
Also how did you know I started following all the illuminated manuscripts Twitter accounts this week, Mallory? Are you spying on me?
It’s called “market research,” chill.
Still not as bad as global warming.
the boston globe has an in-depth article about the voynich manuscript, and addresses dr. bax’s findings. it appears that the manuscript is still very much a mystery and new breakthroughs, including dr. bax’s, are greeted with skepticism. according to the globe article, studying the manuscript is so daunting that it’s often considered “academic suicide.” it’s pretty fascinating stuff.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/02/23/why-s…
My suggestion to decode the Voynich Manuscript is in the fact that each of its individual pages encodes some other information . Encryption is not just a written form . There’s a whole spectrum of gnosis , which, because of the limited capabilities (eg letter runicze – oldest inscriptions are from the second and third century AD, before the Egyptian hieratic writing , etc.) were also encoded in a different form – for example, by means of signs and symbols : see semiotics – from the Greek : ” semasticos ” – significant , ” semasia ” – meaning “,” semeion ” – a sign of ” sema ” – a sign , the image signal . And in such a manner is encoded Voynich manuscript – it is not my task , classic cipher written , only symbolic rebus – ideogram . Below to better illustrate the time- historical continuum in brief , a summary of the earlier descriptions of each manuscript illustration . ( From 1R to 19R ) http://gloriaolivae.pl/
1R – Big Bang and Kolaps – cyclical nature of the universe.
1V – Approximately 4.5 – 5 billion years ago – the formation of the Earth’s crust.
2R – About 3.5 billion years ago – the first organisms .
2V – About a billion years ago – the first single-celled organisms ( eukaryotes ) .
3R – Approximately 900 – 700 million years ago – the first multi-cellular organisms .
3V – approximately 700 – 600 million years ago – the first invertebrates .
4R – 500 million years ago – the first vertebrates .
4V – 400 million years ago – vertebrates came out of the water.
5R – 220 million years ago – the beginning of the reign of the dinosaurs.
5V – 65 million years ago – extinction of the dinosaurs , evolution of mammals .
6R – About 65 – 30 million years ago – carnivores .
6V – About 30 – 7 million years ago – the formation of plants and animals.
7R – About 12 million years ago – the first hominids .
7V – About 7 – 5 million years ago – the appearance of man .
8R – About 100 thousand . years ago – the emergence of modern man .
8V – Approximately 15-12 thousand . years ago – man hiking – “bridge” Bering .
9R – Approximately 11.5 thousand . years ago – the end of the last ice age.
9V – About 10 thousand . years ago – hunter -gatherers , the birth of agriculture.
10R – Around 4000 , the BC – Development of urban community Mesopotamia.
10V – Around 3000 , the BC – The beginnings of civilization of ancient Egypt.
11R – The turn of the second and first millennium BC – Judaism , Jerusalem.
11V – turn of the century – Christianity . Rome .
12R – None. According to me – Ancient Greece .
12 V – None. According to me – the Empire of Alexander the Great .
13R – The Roman Empire .
13V – Persian Empire .
14R – Huns . Mongol Empire .
14V – Byzantine Empire .
15R – The State of the Franks.
15V – The spread of Islam.
16R – Vikings .
16V – Slavs .
17R – The Crusades .
17V – The Hundred Years War .
18R – Ottoman Empire .
18V – War of the Roses .
19R – The Order of the Teutonic Knights .