#053/ ∞ — [random Egypt Photos]

reasons.

Le Manoir du Diable (1896)

Considered the earliest horror film ever made, Le Manoir du Diable, French for House of the Devil, is an 1896 silent film by George Méliès about two wandering cavaliers and how the Devil played tricks on them.

Far from being terror-inducing, the entire 3-minute short film (quite ambitious at the time) was actually a comic sketch meant to evoke laughter and amusement from its audience, rather than fear. It was presumed lost until the late 1980s when a copy was found again and restored by the New Zealand Film Archives.

Apparently there's an evolutionary theory that the reason why Africa has so much wild big-ass megafauna while the big-ass megafauna on all the other continents went extinct is because they evolved right beside humans, and knew us well enough to not get hunted into extinction.

So while everything from giant koalas to giant sloths barely had the time to think "what the fuck is that" before getting pierced by a spear and getting their bone marrow gently fed to babies and the toothless elderly, Africa had elephants who had all the time in the world to learn to tell apart human languages and teach the next generations of their herd which human sounds mean that this tribe won't hurt you, but humans who make this kind of sounds are a danger. And hippos learned to conclude "I think I'll fuck up this two-legged weird shit on sight."

Encounter 

by Felix Riano

Cantao ocellatus

If you love the multitude of horrors found at the SCP wiki, you'll enjoy this short horror comic by Azam Raharjo, inspired by our resident strangler, SCP-173 him/her/itself (??). You can check the comic out and his other works here. His Twitter link is also available here for a follow.

A physicist, a mathematician, and an engineer are all found guilty of treason and sentenced to death by guillotine.

The priest reads them their last rites, then the king orders the executioner to kill the physicist.

The executioner offers the physicist two choices: would he like a hood on or off, and would he like to be executed face up or face down. The physicist replies, “I spent my whole life studying the heavens. I would like to face the sky, with the hood on like night!”

The executioner positions the physicist and drops the blade… … and it stops inches from the physicists’ neck.

The priest cries, “It’s a sign from God! This man is innocent! Set him free!”, so the king pardons him, and orders the mathematician executed next.

The executioner offers the mathematician the same choices: would he like a hood on or off, and would he like to be executed face up or face down. The mathematician replies, “They all result in an equivalent state, but hood off face down is the most elegant solution!”

The executioner positions the mathematician and drops the blade… … and it stops inches from the mathematician’s neck.

The priest cries, “It’s a sign from God! This man is innocent! Set him free!”, so the king pardons him, and orders the engineer executed next.

The executioner offers the engineer the same choices: would he like a hood on or off, and would he like to be executed face up or face down. The engineer replies, “I have always loved machines, and there is no more elegant a killing machine than the guillotine. I will spend my final moments marveling in its beauty!”

The executioner positions the engineer and, as he’s about to drop the blade, the engineer shouts:

“I see the problem!”

Imagine you're a writer, and there are people scribbling in the margins of your books, underlining their favorite passages, leaving makeshift bookmarks between the pages (subway tickets, library receipts, handwritten notes), reading excerpts out loud to their friends and lovers or to themselves just to feel the words on their tongue, memorizing quotes and then copying them in their notebooks, daydreaming about your characters and excitingly speculating about what's going to happen to them in the sequel, writing reviews in their school newspaper.

“Superstition is a part of the very being of humanity; and when we fancy that we are banishing it altogether, it takes refuge in the strangest nooks and corners, and then suddenly comes forth again, as soon as it believes itself at all safe.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Maxims and Reflections