Recommended Links of the Week (No. 644)

Whiteout, glass delusion, audios to frighten FBI agents and evil according to Dostoevsky. Nothing less, but without a doubt much more, in these Recommended Links of the Week. All seasoned with the good videos and the best galleries. Enjoy!

Featured links this week

Why do vampires need to be invited in?: "In the Middle Ages, especially in the regions of Eastern Europe where Vampire legends proliferated, there was the belief that the threshold of a house's main door was a kind of protective barrier that gave security to the home. If a Vampire tried to enter without being invited, it would weaken, or even lose its powers; which basically put it at the mercy of its prey. In other words, the Vampire could enter without being invited, but stripped of its powers."

He started making Age of Empires weapon replicas as a hobby and now sells them worldwide: "There are video games that, over time, manage to be much more than a virtual pastime. In fact, some titles have become movies and others physical products. In that sense, the historical strategy saga Age of Empires, which these days returns with version IV, motivated the Guatemalan Manolo Paredes Castillo to discover a new hobby: creating replicas of the classic weapons inspired by the game."

Whiteout, the meteorological and optical phenomenon in which everything disappears within the light: "Everyone knows what a blackout is, the sudden absence of light in which everything seems plunged into darkness and obscurity. But the case is that its opposite also exists, the whiteout (in English whiteout, in French blanc dehors), in Spanish more frequently called tormenta blanca (although this term is applied mainly to storms at sea)."

The "Glass Delusion", the mental illness that made people believe they were made of glass: "During the 15th and 17th centuries there existed a psychiatric phenomenon called "Glass Delusion", and although there is very little information, it was a phenomenon that revolutionized the medical world of that time. Glass delusion mainly struck Europe, where many people believed and claimed to be made of glass, which is why they lived a limited life full of fears and deprivations."

What the world would be like if we had never evolved as a species: "Although today there are still virgin territories where the human hand, eyes or feet have not been present, one wonders what the world would be like if we had not evolved and had had to settle for being simple primates fighting to survive in a vast and dangerous environment. The first thing that might occur to one is that, indeed, life on Earth would be much richer and with a great quantity of species."

Norris-Bittaker, the horrifying audio the FBI uses to test the limits of its agents: "One of them is among the most dramatic in the history of the United States, not so much for the acts (torture, rape, murder of young women: the daily bread of extreme criminology) but for the graphic and auditory material that the killers left behind after their crimes. They broke the mental limits of many people. Or rather, of many agents enlisted in the FBI."

Evil according to Dostoevsky: "If we did not have freedom to decide how we are, there would be no evil, nor virtue. In Dostoevsky's characters, the bloody inner struggle that is born from the capacity to choose our destiny is waged. And sometimes infamy is chosen, even if only to break the routine. Perhaps it is that need to break with monotony that leads us to fight with others. Perhaps that justifies our tendency to reject rest and tranquility. Perhaps because a great part of evil is born of boredom, because we prefer the occasion to do evil to that of doing nothing."

Thirty comedies to vindicate laughter, the most undervalued and difficult thing in cinema: "Perhaps the headline sounds exaggerated to you, but if we look back and examine the record with the Oscar, Goya and other award winners, we observe how comedy has always been relegated to the background, rewarding dramas or other genres far above comedies, as if making people laugh were not much more difficult than making them cry or impressing with special effects."

Daruma, the origin of the Japanese amulet par excellence: "The daruma is associated with achieving a real goal, not so much an impossible desire, but an achievable, measurable, tangible purpose, something that can be achieved thanks to effort and dedication such as, for example, quitting smoking, losing or gaining so many kilos, passing the driving test, saving enough money for the down payment on a house or simply opening that cake account on Instagram. For the Japanese, success always comes when a goal has been set and one has worked hard for it, with determination and perseverance."

Why is the dragon the quintessential medieval mythical animal?: "The dragon resting on its shiny treasure, when the brave knight arrives, ready to rescue his damsel from the beast. This image has been associated over the years with the European Middle Ages. However, to be honest, the most likely thing is that no one ever saw a winged monster spewing fire in their life. That has not prevented these creatures from lurking in the shadows in medieval tales and stories and, through the centuries, they have remained in the collective imagination to the present day."

The attraction that women felt for gladiators: The virility they showed in their confrontations and their numerous victories brought them social recognition and the admiration of the public, although not all achieved glory. Where gladiators awakened true passions was among the female public, according to testimonials of the time. In some graffiti from Pompeii, the admiration they had among women is reflected. In several of them, a famous Thracian named Celadus is defined as "the sigh of all the girls" (suspirium puellarum) or as "the glory of all the girls" (puellarum decus).

The Mole Men, a journey into the bowels of Vienna (1902-1908): In the winter of 1902, journalist Max Winter followed the footsteps of that unknown man he baptized as Kanalstrotter, a name that would come to designate those who, like him, survived by collecting garbage from the canals: "Today I know better the harsh existence of this guild. I know life in the sewers and the laborious search for the remains that the shipwreck of Vienna leaves behind. Lost coins, objects and metal pieces that find their grave in the canals, next to the bones and filth that the city discards."

Videos

Alicia (1971 anti-drug short that made you want to take LSD), multicolor fire tornado, plankton as you've never seen it, Battlestar Galactica toys from the 70s, homeopathy, the beauty of mathematical constants, 1976 mobile phone, Irakli's lantern, the 3D printers of the 90s, a month of the Sun, a mini gasoline engine, record for a dog catching the farthest frisbee, buffet for an otter, the Swiss air force, falling into a crack in the snow, the fastest electric airplane, Pope Leo XIII on video, record of a 105-year-old lady in the 100-meter race and the shorts: A Future Begins, What on Earth! (animated, from 1967) and Automaton, an experimental Pixar short.

Galleries

Microscopic sculptures of little birds, H.R. Giger + Debbie Harry, gallery of finalists of the Monash Art Gallery, finalists of the Nature Photography Library, a giant three-headed fire-breathing dragon monument, illustrations of edible mushrooms, Lovecraft according to Sebastien Ecosse, Comedy in Wildlife 2021, the German poster of "Clash of Titans", more beautiful photos of Meg Ryan in the 90s, the symmetry of Tokyo, the Animated Dump of the Week and the Visual Dump.

Hey, thank you for visiting and reaching the end. I hope you had a great time and see you next week!