Spanish artist Manel de Aguas doesn’t consider himself human but, something else. A founding member of the Trans-Species Society (a now defunct website), he uses technological implants to experience the world differently than the rest of humanity. Twenty-four-year-old Manel […] first made international news headlines in August of 2017 when he built the first prototype of a device that allowed him to feel atmospheric vibrations. At the time, it was nothing more than an exposed circuit board that hung on a headband at the back of his head. The following year, he started attaching a pair of fins to the sides of his head and announced his intention to have them implanted into his skull. Earlier this year, de Aguas did just that, turning those decorative fins into functional organs that perceive the temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure and, send sounds to Manel’s brain via bone conduction.
In June of 2019, the […] artist sat down with VICE Magazine and explained his intention to have [the] artificial [organs] […] implanted:
“The atmosphere will sound inside my head, and depending on the atmospheric conditions in any given moment, I will have the experience of being submerged in one type of medium or another. As for the outer part, the organ will have an appearance inspired by the fins of flying fish and I will implant a fin on each side of my head, at the same level as the temple bone in my skull.”
“I have always felt a special connection to the rain, so when I found out that there was a way to feel this sense within me, I thought it would be good to create [an organ] that would connect me even more to rain, as well as other atmospheric phenomena. As for the shape of the organ, I have always been interested in marine species, both real and mythological, so the idea of creating a fin-shaped organ simply came from within.”
“I will be exploring the weather through this new sensory organ,” […] de Aguas posted on Instagram, where his new look has been getting a lot of attention.
Manel described himself as a propioespecie, or his own species, his response to the anthropocentrism of today’s society, which puts human beings on the highest echelon of a false hierarchy of species. In January of this year, [he] was finally able to make his dream a reality. He had the artificial fins implanted into his skull at a clinic in Japan, after being refused by several doctors in Spain. The fins weigh 500 grams, can be recharged with solar energy and can connect to various devices via WiFi.
A 25-year-old man clad in “Joker” makeup “menacingly waved” a pocketknife at several teenagers as he drove past them Tuesday in Haddon Township, authorities said. Assoumou Diby was stopped a short time [after] cruising past the group on the 400 block of West Crystal Lake Avenue on Tuesday, the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office and Haddon Township police said in a statement Wednesday.
It’s blurry but, here’s a visual…a man in joker makeup arrested by Haddon Twp, NJ, police after allegedly waving a pocketknife at children. The arrest followed days of sightings, scares and calls to police, who say, until last night, the behavior wasn’t criminal. @FOX29philly
Diby, of Haddon Township, was charged with unlawful possession of a weapon following his arrest. Earlier in the week, police said they received multiple reports from people who saw a man in Joker makeup walking around town, noting it’s not a crime [to] simply do that.
Diby is due to make a first appearance in municipal court July 16.
In looking thru odd stories, this caught my attention. From Oddity Central:
A Creepy Art Installation Freaking People Out on Google Maps
By Spooky on May 15th, 2020
An eerie art installation located in a barren field in the Finnish countryside recently went viral after someone accidentally stumbled upon it while searching on Google Maps. With quarantine and isolation measures still in place in many countries around the world, people are spending a lot of time online looking for cool places to visit once they can travel again. Many are using free tools, like Google Maps, and end [up] going deeper down the rabbit hole than they originally anticipated. That’s probably how some people recently discovered The Silent People, […] creepy-looking [figures] that left them scratching their heads about why anyone would fill a field with hundreds of scarecrows and dress them as real people.
Seen from afar, The Silent People [site] looks like a perfectly still army of people all facing the same way. It’s only when you take a closer look that you realize it’s made up of wooden frames covered in human clothes and heads made of [peat], which does a surprisingly good job of emulating human hair. Even knowing that it’s an art installation, you still feel uneasy looking at the almost one thousand still [bodies] but, knowing absolutely nothing about it and [suddenly] finding it on Google Maps can really freak a person out.
Hiljainen Kansa: The Silent People of Suomussalmi, Finland
By Kaushik Patowary on March 28, 2015
Motorists driving along Highway 5, about 30 km north of the small town of Suomussalmi, in north-eastern Finland, are greeted by a peculiar sight. A crowd of almost a thousand figures stand silently on a field near the road. In the morning with light behind them, this motionless army appears morose, even menacing. But, when a light breeze picks up their colorful dresses and blows them around their still bodies, they appear to have sprung into life.
This army of scarecrow-like figures called “The Silent People” or “Hiljainen Kansa” in Finnish, were the creation of local artist Reijo Kela. They were first displayed in 1988 in a field in Lassila, a neighbourhood of Helsinki. Later in 1994, these were on display in the Market Place of Helsinki’s Senate Square, then on the banks of the river Jalonuoma, Ämmänsaari and finally moved to this location in 1994 itself.
Photo Credit: Palm Beach County
Water Utilities Department
Facebook Post
I haven’t done one of these since 2013. I read a lot and sometimes I come across some strange things. This is an article from United Press International:
Wet Wipes Clog All Four Pumps At Florida Wastewater Facility
April 15, 2020 (UPI) Utility officials in a Florida county are reminding residents not to flush wet wipes down the toilet after all four of the wastewater facility’s pumps clogged at the same time.
The Palm Beach County Water Utilities Department said in a Facebook post that all four pumps at the organization’s wastewater pumping facility in Boca Raton ended up clogged at the same time “for the first time ever.” The post blamed the clogs on increased use of wet wipes.
“It took a team of three utility mechanics to dissemble and reassemble the pumps in order to remove the compacted wipes,” the post said. The department said residents who find themselves “low on toilet paper” amid shortages from the COVID-19 pandemic should remember that all wet wipes, including those labeled “flushable,” should be thrown in the trash and not disposed of in the toilet.
Wait a minute. Are these folks insinuating that “residents who find themselves low on toilet paper” are using Clorox and/or Lysol wet wipes in lieu of TP? Or, are we talking baby wipes here? The article isn’t all that clear. Either way…just…DAMN. ~Vic
An ancient Egyptian statue appears to have started moving on its own, much to the amazement of scientists and museum curators. The statue of Neb-Senu, believed to date to 1800 B.C., is housed in the Manchester Museum in England, at least for now. But, if the statue keeps moving, there’s no telling where it will end up. “I noticed one day that it had turned around,” museum curator Campbell Price told the Manchester Evening News. “I thought it was strange because it is in a case and I am the only one who has a key. I put it back but, then, the next day, it had moved again […]. We set up a time-lapse video and, although the naked eye can’t see it, you can clearly see it rotate.”
The [10in. (25cm)] statue was acquired by the museum in 1933, according to the New York Daily News. The video clearly shows the artifact slowly turning counterclockwise during the day but, remaining stationary at night. This daytime movement led British physicist Brian Cox to believe the statue’s movement is due to the vibration created by museum visitors’ footsteps. “Brian thinks it’s differential friction, where two surfaces, the stone of the statuette and glass shelf it is on, cause a subtle vibration, which is making the statuette turn […]. But, it has been on those surfaces since we have had it and it has never moved before […]. And, why would it go around in a perfect circle?” said Price.
On his blog, Price […] speculates that the statue “was carved of steatite and, then, fired [which] may imply that it is now vulnerable to magnetic forces.” Steatite, also known as soapstone, is a soft stone often used for carving. Oddly, the statue turns 180 degrees to face [backwards], then turns no more. This led some observers to wonder if the statue moves to show visitors the inscription on its back which asks for sacrificial offerings consisting of bread, beer, oxen and fowl.
None of the proposed explanations satisfies Price. “It would be great if someone could solve the mystery,” he said. But, Paul Doherty (d. 2017), senior scientist at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, believes the statue’s movement isn’t caused by any supernatural force but, by something quite ordinary…vibrational, stick-slip friction, sometimes called stick-slip vibration. As Doherty told LiveScience, “[If] the glass shelf, on which the statue rests, vibrates even slightly, […] the vibrating glass moves the statue in the same direction, […] causing it to turn around.” An everyday example can occur when someone uses an electric blender on a kitchen countertop […]. The vibration of the blender can cause a nearby coffee cup to walk across the countertop.
But, why would the statue stop moving after turning 180 degrees? Doherty believes the statue stops turning because it’s asymmetrically weighted […]. “One side of the statue has more weight than the other side,” [Doherty said]. After turning around on the shelf, the statue’s uneven bottom reaches a more stable position and stops turning. Besides the footsteps of passing museum visitors, the source of the stick-slip vibration “…could be some trolley that goes by during the day or a train that passes during the day,” Doherty said.
