gnostek1 / 34Plate 34: Por una navaja ( For a clasp knife ). A garroted priest grasps a crucifix in his hands. Pinned to his chest is a description of the crime for which he was killed—possession of a knife.
01Goya kept the 82 copper plates hidden during his lifetime; publication came 35 years after his 1828 death.
02Plate 39 shows a castrated male torso hung from a tree, limbs severed and rearranged — titled 'Great Deeds! Against the Dead!'
03He witnessed the Peninsular War atrocities firsthand near Madrid between 1808 and 1814, drawing from direct observation.
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01Owner Bill Veeck hid Gaedel inside a papier-mâché birthday cake before wheeling him onto the field.
02The American League president voided Gaedel's contract the very next morning.
03Gaedel's strike zone was measured at 1.5 inches; pitcher Bob Cain laughed so hard he could barely throw.
gnostek
01Wasendorf intercepted paper bank statements by rerouting his firm's mail to a personal P.O. box he controlled for two decades.
02The fraud totaled $215 million stolen from roughly 13,000 customers — discovered only when an automated ACH check failed.
03His 2012 suicide attempt failed; he was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison at age 64.
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01Garriott's prompt was a letter from a mother saying her son used Ultima to practice being evil.
02Ultima IV has no final villain — the only enemy is the player's own moral inconsistency across eight virtues.
03The game shipped in 1985 and is still distributed free by EA, who acquired Origin Systems in 1992.
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01Court painter Mao Yanshou allegedly sold flattering portraits to concubines who bribed him; Zhaojun refused and was painted plain.
02She was gifted to Huhanye, the Xiongnu khan, in 33 BCE and bore him two sons before his death.
03After Huhanye died, steppe custom required her to marry his son by another wife; Chinese sources record she appealed to be allowed to return home and was refused.
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01Hanson's 1998 paper listed nine developmental steps from dead matter to star-colonizing civilization; each step is a candidate filter.
02Finding microbial life on Mars, Hanson argues, would be the worst possible news — it suggests the filter lies ahead, not in abiogenesis.
03Hanson also developed 'futarchy,' a governance system where policy is decided by prediction markets rather than elected officials.
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01Collins reportedly consumed enough laudanum daily by the 1880s that his doctor considered the volume medically unsurvivable long-term.
02He dictated 'Blind Love' (1890) during his final illness in doses of lucidity he could not later recall.
03Collins maintained two separate households — a wife and a mistress — running in parallel, managed on the same laudanum schedule.
gnostek
01The larvae of Piophila casei jump up to 15 cm when threatened; eye protection is recommended while eating.
02Eating it after maggots have died is considered unsafe — the living state signals the cheese is still 'good.'
03The EU banned casu martzu; Sardinians got it listed as a traditional food product to sidestep the ruling.
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01The Black Mesa Research Facility was designed as a structurally plausible underground complex spanning multiple biomes.
02Half-Life won over 50 'Game of the Year' awards in 1998, more than any title before it.
03Valve's follow-up Half-Life 2 in 2004 shipped with the Source engine, revolutionizing physics simulation in games.