Wikipedia: ruining my fun since 2001
‘The Aztec skull whistle is a unique and unsettling instrument that has fascinated historians and archaeologists for centuries. These whistles, typically shaped like human skulls, produce a blood-curdling, high-pitched sound that has been described as a “scream of death.”’
So says Brave AI. Just listen to these recordings. Spooky, neh?
You can even buy one from Amazon.
Then along comes Wikipedia:
“The whistle was discovered after the 1999 excavation of an Aztec temple at the Tlatelolco site, in Mexico City by archaeologists, revealed the remains of a 20-year-old sacrificial victim clutching various musical instruments, among them a small ceramic skull-shaped whistle. This artifact, later dubbed the “Aztec death whistle,” gathered public interest.”
Wait, there’s only the one? And it was discovered 25 years ago?
“The whistle’s sounds, analyzed through its functioning mechanism, have been noted to resemble the sound of wind and fall within the human hearing sensitivity range.”
It was dug up in the temple of the wind god Ehecatl, so that makes sense. But, I mean, the screaming?
“A common misconception is that this whistle produced a sharp shriek-like sound. However, these sounds credited as the Aztec death whistle are actually produced by much larger reproductions of the whistle.”
Larger reproductions and, apparently, blown with some kind of intense hydraulic mechanisms. I mean, you could blow a giant whoopee cushion with a foghorn and it would probably sound pretty scary.
I got played :(
November 26, 2024 — 5:41 pm
Comments: 8
You can have it if you want
At auction: “oil on canvas by Muriel A Jackson, framed woodland cottage scene, with witch tentatively walking towards.” Muriel was a strange lass.
Today I bumped into someone I haven’t seen in a while. I asked him how it was going and he said his big brother died last week. He died alone.
“It’s his own fault,” he said, “he was a womanizer his whole life. We think he took up drinking toward the end. And, of course, he was a chain smoker.”
I’m like, “Wait! His life was filled with women and booze and cigarettes and he died at 81 in his own bed in his sleep? Your brother is MY HERO!”
November 25, 2024 — 5:15 pm
Comments: 3
You don’t look so good, Punkin’
Actually, it’s worse. I put him at the end of the drive, in the traditional post-Halloween position, and after our recent cold weather he’s about three inches tall. I don’t think he’s going to make it.
Tonight’s the last of the cold ones. After this, warm, wet and windy. Like 40+ mph alllll weekend long. It’s Storm Bert.
Who the hell names a storm Bert? And how is it late November and we’re only on B? This must be some newfangled storm naming regime.
Two days of howling wind! I shall go mad! You have a good weekend, though.
November 22, 2024 — 7:31 pm
Comments: 13
Uh-uh. Ain’t coming out.
We’re having our first cold snap of the season – three nights below freezing. That doesn’t sound much, but we’re ill prepared for it here. This is an ancient, damp house with sputtering central heating.
When I was a novice chicken keeper, I was puzzled to see my chickens hadn’t drunk up their water in three days. That’s when I realized it was frozen solid. Poor things – imagine them pecking at their rock hard water in amazement and distress.
Just a skim of ice on the chicken water today, but it’s cold enough in here that I’ve taken to my electric blanket and I ain’t coming out until he’s got a proper fire in the stove. I am typing this with one exposed finger.
I can hear it’s lit…
November 21, 2024 — 6:46 pm
Comments: 8
First, find your skull
In the Troo Crime thread below, Some Veg linked to a facial recreation of a Viking Shield-Maiden and said he was always fascinated by the reconstruction process. Me too.
In the early days, they would take the actual skull and cut bits of pencil eraser to the correct size for the average depth of skin at that part of the face, glue the bits to the skull and then slowly build a layer of clay until it just covers the erasers.
That gives the basic face. After that, it’s largely artistic license. It’s far from perfect. If you’ve got a completely de-fleshed head, you have no indication of full or thin lips or chubby cheeks. The result was often dead-eyed and creepy. Still, it did sometimes lead to a real life identification.
In the local art club I belong to, a very elderly man applied for membership a couple of years ago. I knew the name. I knew I knew it. I searched until I found a book in my collection from the Eighties which described this very man as the “foremost forensic facial reconstruction artist in the world.”
Well! Naturally, I buttonholed him about it and we had a high old time. He said he hasn’t been that – if he ever was – in a very long time. It’s all done with scanned skulls and 3D models now.
His work these days is rather nice écorché portrait sculptures.
I can never remember the word écorché, so I Google variations of “without flesh” and get some wild answers.
Like this free 3D facial reconstruction software. The catch is, you have to have a 3D scan of your skull first. If you happen to have a skull on hand, there are lots of free programs that will take a series of snapshots and turn them into a mesh model.
Just saying.
November 20, 2024 — 5:57 pm
Comments: 7
A famous one
A weird footnote has been added to the Buck Ruxton murder case. Ruxton, a doctor of French/Parsi heritage, was married to this lady, Isabella. They lived in Scotland. His patients loved him, but his relationship with Bella was fiery because – get this – he was sure she was having all kinds of affairs.
He snapped and killed her one day in 1935, and also the nanny (she probably saw things) and, being a doctor, he skillfully cut them both up into 70 individual packages, wrapped them in newspaper and threw them down a ravine. Where most were found two weeks later.
He had removed any identifying characteristics – he hoped – like front teeth and fingertips and thought he had been very clever.
But it wasn’t good enough. The newspapers he wrapped the bits in were from an edition only published in his narrow locality. For the first time ever, they brought in an entomologist who precisely identified the age of various insects on the bodies to establish a time of death.
My favorite forensic pathologist, Sir Sydney Smith, (we all have a favorite forensic pathologist, I feel sure) hit on the idea of superimposing the photo on the right over the photo on the left to prove that landmarks on the two matched. There were a lot of firsts for forensics – worth looking up if you’re interested.
He was convicted and hanged.
Edinburgh University has recently realized the bones are still in their archive. They would like to give them a decent burial, because that’s what we do with medical specimens in 2024, but they don’t know what happened to the Ruxton’s three children. They’re not even sure the kids know how they became orphans.
How would that go? “Hello! Your granddad was hanged for murdering your grandmom. This is her skull. Want it?”
November 19, 2024 — 7:12 pm
Comments: 7
It was too perfect to touch
It is a blancmange or ‘white eat’. Nobody at the party touched it. I think it was too intimidating.
Do we have that? I know we have jelly molds. My grandmother used to put peas and carrots in Jell-O. I have trust issues.
My grandmother was an early champion of vitamins. She latched onto them before anybody. If you sat next to her at the table, she would stare off in the middle distance and gently nudge healthy dishes in your direction while whistling tunelessly.
The weather is absolutely vile today and I’m sulking.
November 18, 2024 — 6:54 pm
Comments: 9
Exploring…
The thought popped into my head the other day – I wonder if you can explore Mount Everest on Google Maps? The answer is yes. Although the Google Earth version is even better – it’s got the camps marked.
I was surprised to zoom in and not see evidence of human presence – I gather the camps are like giant garbage dumps. I’ve seen pictures where human beings form giant conga lines to the summit. We won’t even go into the famous bodies that have been there for decades.
I mean, you can see our car in the drive in Google Maps. That should be enough resolution to pick out a tent city.
Anyway, I gather the Nepalese government has been making an effort to clean up some of the trash and corpses in recent years, so good luck with that.
That’s it – just a quickie from me. I’m going to a party tonight! Have a good weekend…
November 15, 2024 — 3:22 pm
Comments: 8
Does that sound familiar?
If you wonder why small-time YouTube channels are now being narrated by David Attenborough or John Goodman, this is why: “You cannot copyright a voice. AI tools replicating a voice cannot be considered a copyright issue, as the original voice is not a copyrighted work.”
That’s the answer from Brave AI, so I can’t actually link to it. It goes on to say you have the right of publicity, which is a different area of IP law. What that means in terms of voice, I think, is that you only get in trouble if you claim the real David Attenborough or John Goodman narrated your videos.
I’d like to preserve my voice. Not that I like the sound of my own recorded voice – hardly anyone does – but I love the idea of my voice hanging around like a bad smell after I’m gone.
My mother got her first computer later in life, duh, but she took to it with great enthusiasm. That’s because she lived way back in the holler and she was lonely. She used the computer to build a circle of friends online. Bunch of frail old people who got together and told each other filthy jokes at night.
Anyhoo, one day when I was home for a visit, I waited until she left the house and re-recorded all the Windows system sounds. When she turned her computer on, it was my voice saying “hello, Mother.” When she turned it off, “goodbye, Mother.” Oh, I got them all. “I’m afraid something went wrong, Mother.” “Are you sure you want to do that, Mother?”
Hoo boy! She learned to undo all that in a hurry.
The image is what you get when you ask Starry AI to show you David Attenborough’s voice. Squinting at it, I think those things on the sides of his head are orphaned glasses earpieces. What those splotchy loopy things on his head are supposed to be, I have no idea. Silly AI.
November 14, 2024 — 5:17 pm
Comments: 6
Huh.
So this guy stepped down Tuesday. Covered up for a child molester (who wasn’t even a priest).
I’ve not been to many CofE services, outside funerals and Christmas services. We had to go twice when they read the banns. It was one of the least spiritual experiences of my life.
We literally sang Kumbaya.
So Uncle B and I have a side bet going. He thinks the next Archbishop of Canterbury will be a woman. I think it will be a black man (this church has seen huge growth in Africa).
What it probably won’t be (again!) is a Christian.
November 13, 2024 — 7:18 pm
Comments: 6