Everything That Ever Was, Available Forever.
During my childhood, this book was treasured unobtainium. And now it's a click away. This post-informational-scarcity world is weird.
Codex Seraphinianus now online.
Tags: art, mad science, mutants, the future
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27 Responses:
You sure had a weird childhood!
Oh awesome! It's like a modern-day Voynich Manuscript!
Wow, that really reminds me of "Fantastic Planet". This trailer doesn't even begin to do justice to the weird images in the movie...
It is really a lot like Fantastic Planet, yes.
Are we taking bets that this is one of those situations where some random person scanned Serafini's work and then, unethically, slapped a Creative Commons license on it? Because I'd lay that bet.
You may collect your winnings, sir.
> Yup... this is the scan I made in 2005.
He comments again later in the thread with more detail.
> My original plan was to admire the book a bit when I was finished scanning, but midway I was reasonably frightened of the thing and only finished the job out of sheer determination, which is why the quality is universally poor. When I was done I returned it to where I took it from immediately.
Not meaning to mislead...
What happened was the person I linked to scanned it and put the files online a few years ago. Somebody else posted it on archive.org.
This is Truly Wonderful.
(And even if the PDFs and EPUBs and what-have-you are all online, the actual printed artifact is still a remarkable treasure.)
It's under a CC-NC-ND license, so there's not going to be an above-the-boards coughcoughwhocares TrueType font of the Codex script anytime soon. What's the unicode code page for this again?
Surprisingly, it's not in the ConScript Unicode Registry. Yet.
Is it just me or everyone gets this:
The item is not available due to issues with the item's content.
I guess you can't handle the truth!
Yes, I'm getting "The item is not available due to issues with the item's content." as well. Probably they didn't really have the rights to post it on the internet, so it's been taken down, or else they're making sure it's allowed to be up.
Sadly archive.org doesn't archive itself in the wayback machine. Russell's paradox be damned!
In the early 80s I bought this book from a publisher's remainder house for $25. Still have it
Damn! So close! But no cigar. Is it possible to get it from you soehow JWZ? I am much interested.
A number of different editions are available online at Amazon. The Franco Maria Ricci edition in particular is worth owning merely as an object in itself - no scan is going to be able to compare.
On the principle that jwz's notification-by-email is threaded, so you may not have seen the subsequent... conversation, here you go: http://www.wuala.com/Ed2kmagazine/Documents/Codex%20Seraphinianus.pdf
For those of us who are late to the party: It appears that this search produces the same document.
Which of those urls do you believe produces the full Codex? Because none of them appear to, other than unseeded Torrents.
Maybe you meant this one? If so, why didn't you just say so?
(That link's still good, and has apparently been there since 2008. I am now capable of mirroring if desired.)
Because (dammit) I'm trying to teach you to fish.
Yassuh, Missuh Adolf Osborne, please do ed-yoo-mah-cate me.
Atlernately: eat a box of cocks, fuck off, and die, douchebag.
Your call.
As an ordained man of the cloth who was once legitimately (and amusingly) confused by a toddler as actually being Jesus, I find your prose to be insulting.
But at the same time: If you do not like my fishing instructions, then please feel free to fish as you see fit.
Meanwhile, you've got the etymology all wrong:
It was 1991, and someone told me I should use a fictitious handle when using BBSs.
"Why?"
"Because everyone else does."
"Hmm." Fiction? Me? Meh.
But I found an MS-DOS-based "random" freeware DND character name generator, pressed enter a bunch of times to get rid of the chaff and the obvious nonsense, and eventually landed at "Adolf Osborne" as an output.
Meanwhile, the name has simply stuck. And while the vast majority of folks ignore it (it's just a name), I've found it useful over the years as a means to further separate the chaff: Those who find themselves afraid of the name simply have very thin skin, which is ok. Those who poke fun of it have thicker skin and perhaps a sense of humor, which is even better. Those who actively take offense of it are simply weak, and are worthy of no praise from any person at any time for any deed, ever.
I think that you're in the latter of those three groups, given your most recent verbiage.
But it's your call.
(I do find it a bit amusing that your fishing has improved a bit given my meager lesson, though, whatever the case.)
So, you're going with the box of cocks option, then? Right away, sir.
Cocks are neat.