Egypt-based graphic designer Mahmoud Tammam creates simple modifications of Arabic words, transforming the language into visual representations of their meaning. The words Tammam chooses to design are often animals, turning long slopes into a llama’s neck, or a series of curves into an octopus’s tentacles. By creating these pictorial translations he allows the words to be understood by those not familiar or well-versed with the Arabic language, a minimal gesture that leads to a much greater understanding.
People talk a lot about how Harry Potter taught them about friendship and bravery and love overcoming evil etc and of course I think that’s very important but like…
Harry Potter also taught an entire generation of kids that the news media can’t always be trusted to tell the truth, that the government can often be corrupt or incompetent, that the legal system isn’t always right, that the people in power don’t always have your best interests at heart. That bad things sometimes happen to good people, that your heroes aren’t always as perfect as you think they are, that even those with the best intentions can be wrong, that everyone can make mistakes and that often in order to make things right it takes a lot of hard work and sacrifice.
…and I think in a way that’s every bit as important as the more positive messages.
Walking around towns and taking photos of their places of interest you may not see the whole picture: the view from the ground doesn’t permit you to fully appreciate the scale and geometry if architectural memorials.
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The Russian AirPano team of photographers rises to the sky to show you different places of our planet from above.
You can also see more about us in a previous post here on Bored Panda.
Thousands of years ago, somebody looked at a flock of sheep and went, “well, they aren’t cold.”
Guys. Guys.
It’s so much better than that.
So once upon a time, goats and sheep were essentially the same animal, and all of them had hair. Now, you can do some stuff with hair, but you can’t do a lot, so mostly sheep/goats were kept for meat and milk.
Except then a mutation showed up, and some of the sheep/goats had WOOL instead. And someone realized that 1. you could spin that shit, and 2. then you could WEAVE that shit, and 3. IT GREW BACK.
Generations of selective breeding ensued. Two visibly discrete species emerged, one primarily for meat and milk, and the other primarily for wool. They also have different behavioural characteristics, because independence was not helpful in a sheep, so it was bred out of them. Sheep remain one of the few non-draft animals that we farm even though they are not delicious.
The most similar part of sheep and goats that remains today is their skeleton. On an archaeological dig, you find THOUSANDS of bones and bone fragments that can only be identified as “sheep/goat”. It’s incredibly frustrating, but also kind of hilarious after you’ve spent enough time in the sun.
ANYWAY, human beings have always been smart and surprisingly good at changing nature because they want a sweater.
When cosplayers conjure up Wonder Woman’s invisible jet, they’ll usually tell you to just use your imagination. But one little girl, with the help of her professional balloonist father, brought the make-believe plane to life.
(Also, this means he can honestly say “I never said that” when people he doesn’t like fill in his blanks with the nasty things to which he’s alluding.)