User:Texture

Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. (Invictus)

"abandoning leap seconds would break sundials"

Catherine Grand (1761–1835) was a French courtesan and noblewoman. Born in India as the daughter of a French East India Company officer, she married George Grand, an officer of the English East India Company. After her marriage, she had a scandalous liaison with Bengal councillor Philip Francis in Calcutta. Her husband sent her to Paris, where she became a popular courtesan, having relationships with several powerful men, and was known as Madame Grand. She became the mistress and later the wife of French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, the first prime minister of France. This 1783 oil-on-canvas portrait of Grand was painted by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. It was exhibited at the Salon of the Royal Academy in Paris the same year, as one of at least ten portraits submitted by Le Brun, and was favourably received. The painting is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.Painting credit: Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

Archive – More featured pictures...

After I die I promise not to perform any miracles

Did you know...

Sukuma mask from Tanzania

... that the catalogue for Tanzania. Masterworks of African Sculpture highlighted traditional artworks such as a Sukuma mask (pictured)?
... that Ankarette Twynho's hanging for poisoning a duchess was a cause célèbre, and has been described by one modern historian as "judicial murder"?
... that China has sanctioned more than 100 foreign individuals and entities with asset freezes and other restrictions?
... that technical issues in the minute before their November 2024 BBC Radio 1 performance meant that South Arcade had to set up while the presenter was announcing them?
... that Kasey Morlock was one of five NCAA Division II women's basketball players selected for the 25th-anniversary team?
... that Doctor Who series 13 told only a single story, the first time for the show since 1986?
... that the scientific name of a species of crustacean is in honor of ambassador Lamtiur Andaliah Panggabean and her two children?
... that Milton Nascimento did not enter himself into the second edition of the Festival Internacional da Canção, yet placed second?
... that one-dollar pizza slices, a unique part of the culture of New York City, were originally sold near homeless shelters?

Favorite Books:

The Time Traveler's Wife

Favorite Wikipedia articles:

I met a man who wasn't there

"Yesterday upon the stair I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today. I wish that man would go away." Hughes Mearns (1875-1965)

What is Texture reading?

Empress Orchid (audiobook on audible.com)

Newsweek, Wired, National Geographic, Hawaii...

Books based in Japan:
- Cloud of Sparrows
- Autumn Bridge
- Accross the Nightingale Floor

Fun new words

Mokusatsu

Looking at:

Theo van Gogh (film director)

The problem of Hell - Cool article

Strange attractors (constantly vandalized articles):

What is Texture watching?

Time altering/paradox movies:
Question reality movies:
- The Matrix
- The Thirteenth Floor (better than the Matrix in plot and concept)
- Existenz
Mind movies
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
God and the Devil

The Kizilbash (red-heads) were Turkmen tribes

http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif

Standard diving dress - grandpa's picture (on the right)
Codd's 12 rules - of RDBMS

The following is a JOKE

This Wikipedia page is considered semi-tractor-trailer-policy. Semi-tractor-trailer-policy pages are an attempt to jack-knife any real policies and present herculean efforts in codification to questionable purpose. These long-standing unwritten unapproved unthought unrules have widespread support since no actual vote ever becomes real. They should be treated as law, unless they do not support your flame war.

It is so terribly sad that I have to explain that the above is a JOKE

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

For unique design and interesting content, I present you with this Excellent User Page Award. –**Frater5** (talk/con) 16:12, 29 May 2006 (UTC)