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Lots
of children love Disney princesses, but most of them kind of grow out
of it. But not Annfaye Kao, 27, of Taichung, Taiwan.
Annfaye loves Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs so much that she got the entire cast tattooed on her back.
'As a child I used to imagine I was Snow White in a fairytale so it seemed like a good thing to have tattooed on my back.
'Snow White is a part of my childhood and therefore me, so I’m happy I will have it on me forever - it reminds me of my princess dream.'
The Daily Mail has more photos (some NSFW): Link
What Disney movie would you have tattooed on your back? Sadly, I think only Dumbo would have enough heft to fill my backside.
Ryan Carney and his colleagues at Brown University released a scientific paper on the feathers of the Archaeopteryx today. Carney celebrated by having an Archaeopteryx feather tattooed on his arm, thereby gaining himself an entry in Carl Zimmer’s science tattoo collection. But what about the Archaeopteryx?
The first fossil of Archaeopteryx was a single feather–the one that Carney has turned into a tattoo. It was discovered in 1861 in a limestone quarry near the town of Solnhofen and brought to Hermann von Meyer, one of Germany’s leading paleontologists at the time. As scientists would later determine, this exceptional feather was 145 million years old. Despite its antiquity, the feather looked much like the feathers on the wings of living birds.
The fossil was so extraordinary that Von Meyer wondered if some forger had etched it. After all, Solnhofen limestone was prized for making finely detailed lithographic prints. But then von Meyer compared the slab and the counterslab and found them to be identical.
Now 150 years later, we know a lot more about the Archaeopteryx and how it fits in the evolution of dinosaurs to birds. Read how many of these discoveries came about at The Loom. Link
I’ve only read through Fellowship and halfway through Two Towers, so I assume that this scene takes place later in the trilogy. But then why wasn’t it featured in the movies?
Link -via Fashionably Geek
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Have you ever wanted a particular font used on a website for yourself? A new app, called Fount, is here to help you identify these fonts, and it works like a charm!
After dragging the Fount button to your bookmarks bar as instructed, it sits there waiting for you to call it to action. Click the Fount button, then use the crosshair to click and identify any font on any webpage (except for text being used as a link, for some reason). It even tells you the size, style and character weight.
Now you can complete your collection of fonts, or figure out which fonts a website is using, and gain some style points at the same time.
Link –via DesignTAXI
When the proud father of 8 year old twins Eloy and Oraibi wanted a new tattoo, he didn’t get all liquored up and head to a parlor down by the docks. Instead, he let his kids take a crack at inking up their old man, and from the looks of it they had a blast!
Isaiah Toothtaker has been a professional tattoo artist for around 10 years, and he’s apparently decided to pass the tradition on to his little ones.
The results, as expected, are a bit shaky and very painful. I just hope his kids don’t take to covering themselves up with ink at such an early age.
(NSFW for one moment, when Isaiah curses due to the pain).
–via AnimalNY
[Photo deleted by request of owner]
What’s most impressive is the shading of the background (assuming that’s not just back hair). The husband of Boards.ie member whoopsadaisydoodles acquired this tattoo, no doubt to impress him/her.
Link -via Geekologie
As part of a continuing series, Geeks Are Sexy posted a roundup of tattoos sent in by their readers. Kristina contributed her tattoo of Nikola Tesla. There are lots more, including many that are so geeky I don’t recognize them, but you might! Link
Bobby of Cast Iron Tattoos in Orlando, Florida inked this excellent mashup. Now he’ll be even more dangerous when he accesses power sockets.
Link -via Fashionably Geek | Cast Iron Tattoos
As Chewbacca once put it “Grrraaaaawhh wahhr!” Combining these two characters increases their cuteness exponentially. Fashionably Geek reader Jodi chose her design well.
Link | Previously: Hello Kitty Darth Vader Tattoo
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Foot binding was a tradition among Chinese women from around a thousand years ago to less than 100 years ago. Billions of women endured the crippling tradition, although many died trying to achieve the goal of “lotus feet.” The process of deforming a girl’s feet was started when she was between two and five years old.
To begin the foot binding process, the foot binder would gently soak the child’s feet in a solution of animal blood and herbs. Her toenails were trimmed and groomed, and her feet were thoroughly massaged. Once the skin was softened and the muscles were relaxed, the foot binder would curl the child’s toes down towards the sole of the foot as far as the bones would allow. The binder would then curl the toes farther than the bones would allow, snapping the toddler’s phalanges and forming a kind of twisted foot-fist. No manner of pain relief was employed during this process, so the binder was required to disregard any agonized screams. Next, the arch was broken.
But that’s just the beginning of the process. Read the rest of it, and how foot binding finally fell out of style, at Damn Interesting. Link
Tattoos have gone from subculture badge to trendy enough to be considered a societal norm. Geeks who were once afraid of their bodies, and getting tattoos on them, are now some of the most enthusiastic sporters of embedded ink.
Scientists are no exception, and they’ve joined the geek nation in adorning themselves with symbols of their passions in life, choosing imagery with a scientific edge in their body art compositions.
Check out the particularly good examples at the Popsci gallery link below, maybe you’ll be inspired to get some ink of your own.
Link –image from SCIENCE INK by Carl Zimmer. Published by Sterling Publishing © 2011
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In 2007, science writer Carl Zimmer wondered how common science tattoos were. He said this on his blog, and the response was massive and ongoing. That grew into a completely new blog, and Zimmer became known as the guy who collected science tattoos. Now he has a book of science tattoos called Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed. The New York Times has a slide show featuring some awesome examples from the book. The tattoo shown belongs to a Princeton graduate student in molecular biology. Link -via The Loom
(Image credit: Science Ink by Carl Zimmer/Sterling Publishing)
Praying Hands is an iconic drawing by the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer. Ross Turpin, a tattoo artist who works in Hong Kong, gave our second-favorite droid a reason to pray by ripping his hands off his body.
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Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.
Tattoos. Nowadays, we see them everywhere we look. Movie stars, athletes, singers, and even (albeit rarely) the occasional politician proudly sports his or her special “tats.”
In 1862, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), the son of Queen Victoria, became the first “famous” person to receive a tattoo. The prince’s tattoo was a Jerusalem Cross he got when he visited Jerusalem. It is rumored that even Queen Victoria may have had one (heaven forbid!).
Even some of our US presidents have been tattooed. Although no president has been “officially verified,” both Franklin Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt reputedly had tattoos of the Roosevelt family crest on their respective persons. Various sources say George W. Bush has a tattoo, either on his arm or his back.
Probably the most popular tattoo for Hollywood celebrities (especially women) is the “star” tattoo. Drew Barrymore, Lindsay Lohan, Kate Hudson, Pink, Kelly Osbourne, and Britney Spears all have stars (Bruce Willis has one, too). OK, let’s take a look at 16 other people who had or have tattoos
Thomas Edison
“The Wizard of Menlo Park” had three dots tattooed on his right hand, in the form of the dots on the face of a die. Edison also invented electric tattoo pens in 1876, under the official name “Stencil-Pens.” It was the predecessor to the later “tattoo machine.”
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston proudly sported an anchor tattoo on his right arm. And why not? His mother, Jennie Churchill, had a snake tattoo encircling her wrist.
John Wilkes Booth
When John Wilkes Booth was a young man, he gave himself a homemade tattoo. Young John drew his initials “J.W.B.” on his right hand with a strong Indian ink. The initials remained on his hand for the rest of his life. When Booth was shot on April 26, 1865 after assassinating president Abraham Lincoln, his body was identified and verified by the tattooed initials.
more …
Here’s a disturbing trend: Between 1996 and 2010 the number of teenagers aged 13-19 having elective cosmetic surgery has increased by 548% – from around 14,000 procedures to 76,841 last year, according to American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). The vast majority of these surgeries are rhinoplasty, followed by octoplasty (ear-pinning, typically), breast augmentation, asymmetry correction and reduction, and liposuction.
Why would so many kids go under the knife?
Almost without exception, the surgeries are performed in response to teasing, bullying and low self-esteem. The ASPS says that teens “tend to have plastic surgery to fit in with peers, to look similar,” by “improv[ing] physical characteristics they feel are awkward or flawed, that if left uncorrected, may affect them well into adulthood.” Thirteen-year-old Nicolette Taylor (shown above) had a nose job after kids at school teased her; the “Hey, big nose,” comments followed her to Facebook before her parents stepped in and opted to have Nicolette’s nose reconstructed. She’s not alone, either — ABC reports that at least 90,000 such surgeries were performed last year “to avoid being bullied.”
Of course, a teenager can’t just walk into a doctor’s office and request a consult. Richard D’Amico, president of the ASPS, speaking with U.S. News and World Report, says that for anyone under age 18, a parent or guardian must be present and the prospective patient must have the maturity to understand the procedure, be able to express that “the desire for surgery does not reflect what a parent, friend, or boyfriend desires” and have realistic expectations. Even so, it becomes obvious when looking at the numbers that often surgery is a knee-jerk response to what most adults would consider the norms of teenage interaction. And it seems to skip over that “it builds character” thing that previous generations admired so strongly before plastic surgery was so widespread and available. Succinctly, Sheri Reed of The Stir asks, “[Plastic surgery], in no way, attempts to deal with the emotional matters behind a bully’s behavior, nor does it teach the teen who hates herself the important life lesson of resilience.”
How do parents justify plastic surgery for their children?
There are no laws governing the minimum age for cosmetic procedures. Standard policy requires that a patient reaches a point of growth maturity beforehand, which is determined by monitoring changes in shoe size or height. There are two types of procedures: corrective and cosmetic. In the first camp, you have surgeries to repair deviated septa, cleft palates, under- and over-bites and any malformation or physical impairment that affects the quality of life.
One teenager in the news recently will be having a series of procedures to correct her severe underbite; while kids do tease her about her protruding jaw, Samantha Weichhan’s orthodontists Drs. Jerry Blum and Margo Brilliant argue that the process is not cosmetic. “It’s kind of like if you have somebody that one leg is 4 inches shorter than the other leg, and they say to straighten it out is an aesthetic thing. No, it’s not an aesthetic thing. Yeah, you will look better if you’re standing straight on both legs, but point is, it’s a functional problem.”
But those aren’t the worrying procedures. In Nicolette Taylor’s case, whose nose operates just fine, getting cosmetic surgery to change the way she looks in response to some posts on a Facebook wall (which, incidentally, are not supposed to be opened by 13-year-olds according to Facebook’s Terms of Service), the reasoning becomes a little hazier. Rob Taylor, Nicolette’s father, explains it this way to ABC: “You send them to a good school. You’d buy them shoes. You’d get them braces, which we did. It’s that kind of thing.” The parents of Kaitlyn Clemmons, who gave their 18-year-old daughter breast augmentation surgery as a Christmas gift, see the pain of the procedure as something akin to the pain after a trip to the gym. “Everything comes with a price,” her stepfather says. Tracy Carp, who had breast augmentation at 17 with her parents’ consent and recently underwent a second procedure to reshape a “slight bump” on her nose, says that “a little bit of cosmetic work” has helped his daughter “feel much better about herself . . . and healthier.”
What price hotness?
A new nose or sleeker profile aren’t free, even if the surgery is performed pro bono or paid for by insurance. The ASPS urges teenagers and their parents to remember that “plastic surgery is real surgery, with great benefits, but also carries some risks.” In 2008, Pennsylvania courts awarded $20 million to a family of an 18-year-old girl who died from what was “likely a pulmonary embolism after liposuction.” The same year, 18-year-old Stephanie Kuleba of Florida died of malignant hyperthermia, a rare reaction to anesthesia, after undergoing cosmetic breast surgery. “This is something that can happen in any surgery, on any part of the body, in any setting,” D’Amico said.
Other risks? MRSA infection, a deadly strain of staph, which killed more US patients in 2008 than AIDS. Unskilled or shady surgeons, like the man who gave Priscilla Presley injections of “industrial, low-grade silicone” after convincing her that it was a miracle fix for wrinkles. And then there are always the kids who will tease you for having a nose job or breast implants.
Given all the factors that accompany an elective procedure, would you consent to or support plastic surgery for your own kids if they were being teased about their physical appearance?
Sources:
N.B. is a common abbreviation for the Latin phrase nota bene — “note well”. It’s an old style of annotation that has sadly passed out of common use. David, the man with this tattoo, says of its meaning “that everything is better with footnotes.” This lovely sentiment so totally non-MLA standards compliant.
Krang is a villain in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. He is also hungry. Would you be so kind as to give him a cookie?
-via Geekologie | Photo: Unknown
I’m not sure what it means, but I like the idea of Star Wars characters on a totem pole. This tattoo by an artist named Chris 51 won best of show at the Norwich Body Art Festival in the UK.
Michael Colombo spotted a man on a New York City train wearing this tattoo. He said that it’s a schematic for a guitar amplifier circuit. Colombo notes that such tattoos, no matter how they might look now, could be very useful to a post-apocalyptic society that needs to preserve knowledge. If you were to get a tattoo for this purpose, what information would you preserve?
Glen Robinson of Brisbane, Australia, initially didn’t want to make a formal proposal, but when he saw that this distressed his girlfriend, he decided to make a grand, romantic, and rather permanent gesture. He had the words “will you marry me” (no question mark) tattooed on his wrists:
That evening, with the new tattoo still raw, Glen bent on one knee in the couple’s living room with a ring in his open palms.
“Michelle wasn’t feeling well that night … she was lying on the couch,” he said.
“I came home and sat down beside her on the knee and said, ‘Hopefully, this will make you feel better’.”
Michelle said, “Are you going to ask me something?”
Glen tactfully replied, “Surely you can read.”
Michelle said ‘yes’.
“I said, ‘Yes! But I don’t know what I think about that [tattoo]‘.”
Video at the link.
Link | Photo: Marissa Calligeros/Brisbane Times
If you want to show the world what you’re REALLY made of, guts and all, then your wait is almost over. Thanks to Japanese researchers from RIKEN, biological tissue can be turned transparent via chemical reagent, so you can look like a superhero without the need to have powers or a cool alien back story. Unfortunately, this reagent doesn’t work on living tissue, so you’ll have to wait a while longer for your clear skin makeover. Until then, read on at PopSci and imagine all the creepy possibilities!
Tattoo by Jon L. of Big
Deluxe of Salt Lake City, Utah
I bet this won the Best Decapodian Icon tattoo of all time. Behold, the Virgin Zoidberg tattoo. Don't have one yourself? How toe-tappingly tragic! Link - via davelog
Geeky Tattoos has a roundup of some of the cleverest knuckle tattoos that geeks have acquired. Chris M. got this one in response to the common “Game Over” knuckle tattoo, writing “when it comes to video games, quitting is never an option, unless you’ve got work, a kid, or some other crap to do.” Link | Photo: Knuckle Tattoos
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It’s a simple design, but there’s something mesmerizing about this tattoo by Xed Lehead. The shading is really nice work. Link -via F-Yeah Tattoos | Photo: Needles and Sins
Who says internet memes don’t last? Some people have the most fleeting memes tattoos on their bodies. Imagine trying to explain to your grandchildren why those things were so important to you that you had them permanently inked into your skin. Ranker has a list of ten memes, some with more than one tattoo found. A couple pics are NSFW. Link
What better way to comemmorate your love of optical illusions than to get it tattooed on your back? Our own Jill Harness wrote the definitive Top 10 Optical Illusion Tattoos over at Mighty Optical Illusions blog: Link – via Rue The Day
A road crew in Dorset, England found a mass grave of Viking bodies that appear to have been slaughtered by Britons, as their heads, torsos and legs were buried in separate graves and no weapons, equipment or clothing were found. The bones showed signs of utter brutality being delivered upon the poor fellows, but more intriguing is the fact that the Vikings teeth had horizontal lines deliberately filed into them. Archaeologists feel that this was done in order to appear more fearsome in battle, and that the excruciating filing of the teeth must have been done by a master craftsman.
Is this real or just clever advertising? Ballantine’s, a brand of blended scotch whiskies, has a “leave an impression” tagline, which is just what Marco did by getting a QR code tattoo. On the heels of hoax by the woman who claimed she got tattoos of all of her Facebook friends’ profile pics, many people are doubting the authenticity of this one. What do you think?
Link via the Des Moines Egotist
Brilliant! I don’t want to see Bruce Wayne cut off his ear, but if that is the necessary price of this tattoo coming into existence, it is worth it. This inking is the work of the Dominika Gardocka i Skorpion Sosnowiec tattoo studio in Poland. Link | Previously: Gotham Starry Night
Extreme body modification has taken an interesting turn in Japan. These lovely people above have had saline pumped into their foreheads for about two hours, a process that creates a rather, um, well… it makes a lump. And if you press your thumb into your forehead while the saline is pumping in, it makes a bagel, which is awesome? I don’t get it. There’s an interview with the intrepid Ryoichi “Keroppy” Maeda, who introduced the technique to Japan over at Vice Style. Lots more pics, but probably NSF-the needle-sensitive. Link
