NB! · Books · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour

In essence, ChatGPT and Tom Riddle's diary are phenomena of one and the same demonic nature

NB! · Geography · Maps · Observations

I wonder when the map will be updated

Art · Observations

Comparing the figure by the water in paintings by Caravaggio and Waterhouse

Caravaggio's Narcissus and Waterhouse's Narcissus. Caravaggio's is stern and sombre, set against an abstract landscape in dramatic light. No stream, no wood: only black emptiness and a reflection. Waterhouse's is poetic and dreamy. Wrapped in a red cloak and crowned with green,

NB! · Books · Observations · People · Humour

Jean Baudrillard and His Mad Bookcase

Jean Baudrillard and his mad bookcase. Or rather, not a bookcase at all, but some sort of book-trap. Just try reading without being buried under an avalanche of books.

NB! · Observations · Nature

Kernels of maize that look like precious stones

Art · Monarchies · Observations · Society

Arthur Drummond's Allegory of the British Empire, 1901

Arthur Drummond's allegory of the British Empire, 1901. Queen Victoria, already dead by the time the picture was painted, is seated on a heavenly throne, surrounded by aristocrats, bureaucracy and native subjects from the colonies. On earth are Edward VII, the Prince of Wales, and other members of

NB! · Books · Observations · Humour

And in literature this is called a romantic attachment

Books · Observations

Yuri Levitansky on the transience of life and a role that is played only once

Everything passes in this world, snow gives way to rain, Everything passes, everything passes, we came, and we shall go. Everything comes and goes into nowhere out of nothing. Everything passes, but nothing passes without trace. And, taking part in the plot, I watch from the side How my moments

Archive · Books · Observations

Dmitri Shostakovich in a 1955 letter to Isaak Glikman on the performance of Bach's music

Fine music will sound well however it is played. Any Bach prelude and fugue can be played at any tempo, with any dynamic shading or none at all, and it will still be beautiful. That is how music ought to be written, so that not a single scoundrel can spoil

A man cleans a mosaic floor at an excavation; below, a close-up of the mosaic with a skeleton, an amphora and a Greek inscription on a dark ground.

NB! · Archaeology · The East · Observations

Greek mosaic inscribed Ευφροσυνος found in Turkey in 2016

In 2016 a Greek mosaic inscribed Ευφροσυνος, denoting a man rejoicing, was found in Turkey. The find most probably belongs to the later period, the 2nd to 4th centuries AD. Joy, at any rate, has lost none of its meaning since

NB! · Observations

Don't

Observations · Science · People

I, a universe of atoms, an atom in the universe

Richard Feynman