Welcome!
What?
What is this site? I've always been a geek and am fascinated by almost everything (I started college as a physics major). If there is anything more human than curiousity and attempting to find answers, I don't know what it is. The thing is that we've used a lot of different techniques to find answers. Even when we've been wrong, we've still made the attempt.
Whether religion, philosophy, astrology, alchemy, or science, we keep striving.
There are things from history that have helped move us forward in understanding and (once again) being a geek, some of these have just struck me as intrinsically cool.
That's what this site is about.
The Wall
I joke about it being the "WoKE Wall" -- The Wall of Knowledge and Everything Wall. It's a collection of things that I find to be cool from all different realms.
Science is cool. History is cool, but it's SO much more than "Such-and-such battle, took place in the year blah blah blah. I read a LOT and in all different realms, but a lot is fantasy. This is what I've collected.
How did it start?
I've always been fascinated by the Rosetta Stone. The idea that this one stone allowed us to understand another language is kind of amazing to me. I've always thought it would be cool to have a reproduction.
I started a new job in 2019 which didn't have a lot of vacation... and even fewer sick days. This meant that I wasn't going to be able to travel much, and that's before Covid hit. The one good part of this is that I wasn't spending as much. So when I saw a reproduction of the Rosetta Stone, I figured "why not?"
After that I discovered that there were a whole bunch of fun reproductions on eBay. So I started collecting.
Science
It turned out that there were also a huge number of science-geek toys and things that demonstrated scientific principles. Related to physics, magnetism, electricity, but also paleontology, optics, antropology, etc...
I found out about the Antikytheria Mechanism which is an mechanical Greek computer used to predict dates of eclipses and planetary alignments. That's neat. It was discovered in a shipwreck in 1902. Huh. Sounds like the plot to a Indiana Jones film. (It was.)
Oh, and it was created around 100 BCE.
WTF????
This is the only thing I've ever seen that I considered to be a true anacronism. Nothing of similar complexity appeared for 1500 years.
Yeah, I wanted a reproduction of this.
Magic
I've been reading Science Fiction and Fantasty since I was seven or so which is *cough* years ago. Like everyone, I also enjoy television and movies. Reading various novels and watching shows like Supernatural, there have always been things that made me wonder "why don't you do X? Wouldn't that just make your life easier?"
I've always thought it would be cool to have something multipurpose to deal with magical creatures and beings. Fae don't like iron. Weres (and some vampires) don't like silver. Spirits and ghosts don't like salt. Wouldn't it just make things easier to have a mix of these?
Next thing I know I'm on Amazon and ordering salt, and powdered iron and sliver. Mix them together and I have a substance that will ruin the day of most supernatural beings.
It seems to work — I haven't had any issues with any of them since I made it.
Then there are all sorts of cool herbs and other witchy things to collect.
Elements and Compounds
So. Kryptonite is real. (Sort of).
In the movie "Superman Returns," Lex Luthor breaks into a museum to steal some Kryptonite for a nefarious purpose. The label shows the meteorite and the formula "sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide with fluorine." Two years later, a mineral called Jadarite was discovered that matched the compound minus the Flourine.
I was curious. Could I actually buy some Kryptonite?
As you probably guessed, the answer is yes.
Next thing you know, I'm totally rabbit-holing and working on getting a fairly complete table of elements as well as cool compounds (some of which aren't the safest).
Iconography
Being me (and a designer) I discovered that alchemists had cool symbols to use as shorthand for various elements and compounds. Given that Alchemy was superceeded by Chemistry in the 1800s there were a lot of those elements that did NOT have symbols...
Did I mention I'm a designer?
If they didn't have symbols before, they do now.
Alchemy & Steampunk
Somewhere in this process, I had the thought of "what would you find in the lab of a modern alchemist?"
I've always liked the Steampunk Aesthetic, and I had been using Ikea picture-shelves to store my stuff on the wall... but it wasn't quite the vibe I wanted.
Then I saw some steampunk-style iron-pipe shelving on Instagram.
You do see where this is going, right?
Combine some basic woodworking skills, something of an eye for color, and knowledge of basic electronics and the next thing you know, I'm out in 100° Texas heat sawing and staining.
Magic Potions
What would you call a potion that could resurrect someone who was nearly dead? How about one that could prevent beasts from going homicidal? A potion that could save the lives of other people?
How about one that is brewed over the course of a full day using ice to extract the essence from magic beans?
Cold-brew coffee, duh.
But what if you had a cold brew maker that looked like it was from an alchemist's laboratory?
Well... here you go.
Other history
As I mentioned, I love history, but not the military and poltical that most people think of. What fascinates me are how people lived and what they used.
Old telephones, movie cameras, anything people actually used.
And if it was used for questionable purposes, such as "dealing with hysteria," so much the better.
(Yes, it's a hand-cranked vibrator from 1904)
Maybe not the best idea...
Some of the old medicines were... interesting. They had ingredients that wouldn't go over so well today. Mercury compounds and the like were always fun, but for REALLY fun, how about medicines with opium derivitives, heroin, marijuana, etc.?
Or some of the compounds used to color glass and ceramics would be problematic. Specifically uranium. Orange Fiestaware and Vasaline glass both used uranium.
Oops.
The More You Know...
Dragons, and unicorns, and cyclopses, oh my!
None are real, but they kind of are.
Dragons may not be real, but paleontologists are geeks and fantasy fans. J. K. Rowling may be problematic, but a reproduction of a skull of "Draconex Hogwartsia" ("The Dragon King of Hogwarts") is pretty cool.
Or a unicorn horn? (Reproduction of a Narwhal Horn.)
Or a cyclops skull? (Reproduction of a Dwarf Elephant skull.)