• CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
    3·
    3 days ago

    Hmm, it probably depends what you think is weird, but I have one in their on the feasibility of extracting ammonia from biomass. There’s also one on early steam turbines by a fellow named Geoff Horseman, which is a fun name.

    Edit: Oh, I also have a professional critique of my dating profile photos. That’s weird in a different way, since I actually got that done, and it unexpectedly came as a PDF.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
        1·
        3 days ago

        It’s a beast too - 202 pages. From the part I read, I could probably make one that kinda works, but that’s it. Unfortunately the author didn’t go into the details I was hoping for, like why exactly steam turbine airfoils are hook-shaped. One neat thing is that they have a nice little formula for comparing totally different turbines over time to show how they gradually do more with less.

        The ammonia paper is weird because it’s a super impractical and difficult idea - normally you fix nitrogen in a big Haber-Bosch plant and turn it into biomass. Both came up because they’re applicable to primitive tech stuff.

        I have more and probably weirder, but the things I care about tend to be moved out of the download folder.

        • SubArcticTundra@lemmy.mlOP
          1·
          3 days ago

          I can definitely relate. I have several PDFs of advanced textbooks from when I wanted to learn some very niche skill. The latest one is an economics textbook from when I wanted to learn about different types of auctions and the maths/game theory behind each.

          • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
            1·
            1 day ago

            Oh hell yeah. As originally a maths person, the Vickrey-GSP-VCG auction continuum is great; very satisfying. Have you looked into fair cake cutting algorithms as well?

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
        1·
        1 day ago

        Yeah, it came with ghostwriting for the text section.

        Man, I have no idea what people are looking for from dating profiles, and what I got back from the seasoned pros just reinforces that. Left to my own devices, I went terse and impartial. What they wrote seems cheesy and boastful to me, but I guess comes across as confidence to others. Which just means it’s money well spent, I suppose, because I haven’t gotten any complaints since.

  • over_clox@lemmy.world
    37·
    5 days ago

    I found the Cunt Coloring Book from the 1970’s. Yes, scanned in as PDF. Yes, a few pages were already colored in, mostly psychedelic colors though.

    And yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like, a bunch of hand drawn lady parts to be colored in.

  • Thelsim@sh.itjust.works
    15·
    4 days ago

    A copy of Man after Man:

    This is such a weird book. It has leech people, underwater people, blind psychic baby people, meat mountain people, etc.

      • Thelsim@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        4 days ago

        It’s a speculative evolution book from 1990 about how mankind might evolve in the next 5 million years. Basically the premise is that due to climate change, new species of humans are engineered to survive in a more hostile world. And then it follows these new species and their further evolutions.
        The creatures in the picture above are both descended from humans.
        It’s weird, bleak and very far fetched.

        A small gallery of the various species:

        • unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml
          1·
          3 days ago

          Question about the years if someone knows: is “years hence” a fancy british way of saying “years in the future” or is it some antiquated large non-SI unit of time since I find any of the species described in shorter timeframes, the Vacuumorph beimg an egregious example (“200 years hence”) very hard to imagine “evolving” only 200 years in the future, even with the 90s outlook on technology (since it seems they said these earlier examples at least are engineered species in the book).

          • Thelsim@sh.itjust.works
            1·
            3 days ago

            I wouldn’t know about the hence part, but I always read it as “years from now”. A bit like the opposite from “years since”.
            As for the other thing, it started out with deliberately engineered beings for specific tasks like the vacuumorph.
            About a hundred years later the remaining people would create new humans with the specific goal of being able to survive the harsher environment of a ravaged earth. It was these that evolved further into different creatures.
            It’s a pretty far fetched story either way, I just like it for the weird pictures :)
            I posted a link in one of the other replies. You can read the whole thing there if you’re interested, there’s a timeline on page 20 if you just want a quick overview.

          • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
            1·
            1 day ago

            Germanic-sphere countries historically liked to kill people for stealing bread, so I guess it’s not too disproportional. You have to think the person going “yes please” would make the whole lynchmob atmosphere hard to keep going, though.

            Do share if you find it, I’ve mostly turned up works by critics with a quick search.

      • kate@lemmy.uhhoh.comEnglish
        3·
        4 days ago

        Usually it’s a placeholder punishment so that the police can break in and stop you committing a crime

  • bean@lemmy.world
    11·
    5 days ago

    The Death report for Kurt Cobain. Mostly from morbid curiosity and a love for Nirvana. I don’t do that for everyone or anything like that. That’s the weirdest one. 😅

  • daggermoon@lemmy.world
    10·
    5 days ago

    Let’s see, The CIA’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual, some paper on MKultra, some paper about The Hum, Some scientific paper on the longevity of recordable optical media, and a paper about crows.