Geoff Hudspith’s Steam-Powered Bicycle.

Geoff Hudspith created a steam-powered bicycle: Link - via BloggerFodder

Foot Binding and Other Fashion Blunders in History.

From Radar Online, here’s a top 10 list of History’s Biggest Fashion Fouls. Coming in at number 5 is Chinese Bound Feet:
"According to one of several versions of the story, the Chinese fetish for foot-binding (pictured, above), designed literally to keep women in their place, dates from the thirteenth century with the Empress Taki, who was born with a clubfoot. Her courtiers took to binding their own feet in cloth in imitation, and soon small, tightly bound designer feet became highly desirable in Chinese women, even though bound toes were likely to become gangrenous. Chinese husbands, meanwhile, encouraged foot-binding because their crippled wives were less likely to run off. Foot-binding was officially abolished by Chairman Mao in 1949."
Link - via Gorilla Mask

Aleksandr Aksinin - Russian Graphic Art

These 3 etchings are © the estate of Russian graphic artist, Aleksandr Aksinin (1949-1985), killed in a plane crash on his way to an exhibition in Tallin.

Galleries: one, two, three, four. [Toronto Slavic Quarterly article]

18th Century Obstetrical Models.

The Anatomical Museum in Modena, Italy, has a very cool collection of obstetrical models made by Giovan Battista Manfredini in 1775.
Link [warning: teratology section at the bottom of the page is gross and distrubing, but now that I told you this, can you resist? Of course not you sick puppy.]

Jan Švankmajer - Rakvickarna

Images of the Day

UFO's in Ancient Artwork?

"In a time when there were no airplanes, weather balloons, or experimental military crafts, classic silvery discs, emanating beams of light appear in many famous Renaissance Era paintings, also religious text from China and India. Athough not always obvious, the resemblance is uncanny. Reports of unidentified flying objects appear even in our most ancient historical records. For anyone looking at the most ancient primitive cave drawings and petraglyphs it seems impossible now to take them for anything other than technology." Siriusly has brought togather an amazing collection of Artwork displaying what seems to be - well UFO's. Link below after some of my favorite images.

~ "The Baptism of Christ" ~ Fitzwilliam Musuem, Cambridge, England Painted in 1710 by Flemish artist Aert De Gelder

~ "The Madonna with Saint Giovannino" ~ Above Mary's left shoulder is a shining, or glowing, disk shaped object. A man and his dog can clearly be seen looking up at the floating object. Painted in the 15th century, Palazzo Vecchio lists the artist as unknown ~ although attributed to the Lippi school.

"La Tebaide" ~ Academy of Florence, painted c.1460-1465 by Paolo Uccello The close-up (right)

Haratonohama, Hitachi, Japan ~ 1803 The book "Ume No Chiri" (Dust of Apricot) tells us that a "foreign ship and crew" was once witnessed at Haratonohama (Haratono Seashore) in Hitachi no Kuni (Ibaragi Prefecture), Japan. The outer shell was made of iron and glass ~ and strange letters were seen inside the ship. Notice also four examples of alien heiroglyphs.

Many more images at - Siriusly

TDG - The Best of This Week

The best links and stories from TDG (The Daily Grail) in the past week.

BBC was half an hour too early reporting WTC7 collapse. More here. BBC responds. Further analysis.

A look inside an ancient computer: the Antikythera Mechanism.

Huge underground ocean found beneath Asia.

Joe Rogan talks about his DMT experiences (psychedelic video - which begins loading when you click - with audio overlay, which includes an abundance of expletives). Transcript and MP3.

Printable Cold Sores - Vandalism At Its Creative Best

Ah, vandalism at its creative best: printable cold sores. Link with a step by step guide - via Wooster Collective

Video of the Day - MS Paint Master

We have all sat at our PC and screwed with MS Paint at one time or another. Drawing to our hearts desires, but this guy is a MS Paint master. Reminds me of some of the stuff my buddy Ronnie would do back in the day before getting Paintshop. Amazing stuff.