Post AkPpTIIc04ukW5KEAi by twobiscuits@graz.social
(DIR) More posts by twobiscuits@graz.social
(DIR) Post #AkPElNiCux4uDF3i0O by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-07-29T00:32:32Z
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It feels almost...sacrilegious to find such books just sitting on an ordinary library shelf. Over 100 years old. Never scanned or cataloged. Totally offline knowledge. And you'll never find any reviews to help you to decide what to make of these books.You could easily be the only person to read it in 40 or more years. This is the most likely description of The Most Obscure Book in the World.An honor that will move to another book... the moment you tell another soul that it exists.
(DIR) Post #AkPEsLZHHscdaeCg40 by Wharrrrrrgarbl@an.errant.cloud
2024-07-29T00:33:45Z
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@futurebird the honor moved to another book the moment you laid eyes on it
(DIR) Post #AkPFGSWT57g46rO2k4 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-07-29T00:38:08Z
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@Wharrrrrrgarbl I am imagining that "the most obscure book in the world" is needed for some magic spell, and so you have to locate it, get it, but without ever seeing too much about it... perhaps splitting the duties between people who only know a little about what they are doing. Sneak up on it with a towel and cover it, then abscond.
(DIR) Post #AkPFNargSpHE0eiEAy by Wharrrrrrgarbl@an.errant.cloud
2024-07-29T00:39:24Z
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@futurebird this has strong antimemetics energy. In some ways you'd need to like... Put several in towels in a crate or something
(DIR) Post #AkPFs92pwra0hiUsVs by Wharrrrrrgarbl@an.errant.cloud
2024-07-29T00:44:56Z
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@futurebird #microfictionHe startled when the phone rang, pushed his glasses up his nose, and took a deep breath. "He's dead? Good. No, don't open the crate! Just bring it to the altar. No, I can't tell you what's in it, and I'm not telling John, either. We're taking a gamble with me knowing even as much as I do. Stephen gave his life for this, so don't you dare fuck it up."The most obscure book in the world. He had no idea if they had gotten their hands on it, and it had to stay that way.
(DIR) Post #AkPGHlfNUVyFj6k53Y by puercomal@sfba.social
2024-07-29T00:49:35Z
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@futurebird @Wharrrrrrgarbl look what happened when Gul Dukat tried to skip safety procedures to read the Book of the Kosst Amojan
(DIR) Post #AkPMclZ9euqNDnEACm by belehaa@wandering.shop
2024-07-29T02:00:26Z
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@futurebird @Wharrrrrrgarbl Sounds like part of the Scholomance series https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-deadly-education-naomi-novik/14143485
(DIR) Post #AkPN0ZfDYwhtG1PqZk by indigoparadox@mastodon.social
2024-07-29T02:04:55Z
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@futurebird @Wharrrrrrgarbl Couldn't you just write a book by yourself by hand and not tell anybody about it? That's how I've been doing it...Oh shoot...
(DIR) Post #AkPOqaXrdA6J0HLI2K by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-07-29T02:25:31Z
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@indigoparadox @Wharrrrrrgarbl A book must be made public, in some sense "published" to be a candidate. Otherwise every little journal and notebook would be a candidate. No, to be a candidate for "most obscure book" the author, or author's must give the book to the world with the intent that it be read. I can't be kept secret intentionally. I must rather be ignored, overlooked, and forgotten.
(DIR) Post #AkPPSpDzV80jXFHOjo by indigoparadox@mastodon.social
2024-07-29T02:32:21Z
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@futurebird @Wharrrrrrgarbl Loading AI-generated novels and books written by Mikkelson Twins followers off Amazon's self-published section into my Outlaw-Star-style Caster gun and rapid firing.
(DIR) Post #AkPS0et6dhyVEKltp2 by qurlyjoe@mstdn.social
2024-07-29T03:00:57Z
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@futurebird Around 1970 or so I was browsing the stacks of the University of Michigan graduate library. Not looking for anything. Just looking. I found a book in Spanish, published in 1847, that appeared to be a history of the Spanish colonization of Central America. It had a checkout card. The last date, handwritten in beautiful script, was October 12, 1872. Coulda walked out with it, but instead I checked it out, forcing it into the 20th century and a computerized circulation system.
(DIR) Post #AkPXzsVV7KnUuAk2S0 by llewelly@sauropods.win
2024-07-29T04:08:02Z
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@futurebird once I was in a library looking at old calculus textbooks. 2 or 3 were over 100 years old, and described calculus in terms of fluents and fluxions and so forth.
(DIR) Post #AkPitc0wciE1VmfDRg by steve@discuss.systems
2024-07-29T03:09:27Z
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@qurlyjoe @futurebird a friend in college and I had an ongoing competition to find the book that had gone the longest without being checked out. Some of the most interesting things I read came out of that competition.
(DIR) Post #AkPjOEqentLgdnSJYe by BioGeek23@hachyderm.io
2024-07-29T06:15:41Z
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@futurebird true but you can't trust the plant phylogeneticists ... all those flora are recategorized every few decades or so.
(DIR) Post #AkPl3XejsiYQnc8jia by KanaMauna@sauropods.win
2024-07-29T06:34:21Z
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@futurebird When I was in college 40ish years ago I had 4 hours to kill between classes and I came across a small conspiracy book from the early 19th century. The book claimed that the execution of Michel Ney, Napoleon's Marshal of the French Empire, had been staged and he was still alive somewhere. It went through inconsistencies between eyewitnesses and irregularities in the execution. Was an eyeopener to me on the timeless popularity of conspiracy theories.
(DIR) Post #AkPpTIIc04ukW5KEAi by twobiscuits@graz.social
2024-07-29T07:23:49Z
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@futurebird I feel the same with every headline "Archaeologists discover umpteen-1000-year-old untouched tomb" or whatever and I want to scream BLOODY TOUCHED IT NOW HAVEN'T YOU 😅
(DIR) Post #AkQ0qaJcHW88Y66Tho by NatureMC@mastodon.online
2024-07-29T09:31:18Z
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@futurebird A village nearby wrote oil history. There, during the 18th c, everything began before they exported the knowledge to the USA. A Denver-like clan with a castle owned everything and they had an renowned library. People like Humboldt or Georg Forster (the guy with Cook) visited them and discussed books. One of their sons, a famous scientist of the 19th c who nearly got the Nobel prize, herited it, moved books to Paris but the rest was lost. His sisters sold everything inside the castle.
(DIR) Post #AkRVrMBpZpuilYGnZ2 by pdkoenig@mstdn.social
2024-07-30T02:53:30Z
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@futurebird I’ve stumbled upon a few books that a past librarian purchased for their own needs and never got checked out by anyone before I did. There was a book on budget exhibit design that only I checked out over a period of years as student and alum.