Boing Boing » tattoos

Tattoo of the ARPAnet as it stood in 1971

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 03:49:00 +0000

Matt Senate has a tattoo of the ARPAnet as it stood in 1971 -- ARPAnet being the lineal ancestor of the modern Internet. The photo here is from Cyrus Farivar. Here's some relevant Wikipedia verbiage:

In March 1970, the ARPANET reached the East Coast of the United States, when an IMP at BBN in Cambridge, Massachusetts was connected to the network. Thereafter, the ARPANET grew: 9 IMPs by June 1970 and 13 IMPs by December 1970, then 18 by September 1971 (when the network included 23 university and government hosts); 29 IMPs by August 1972, and 40 by September 1973. By June 1974, there were 46 IMPs, and in July 1975, the network numbered 57 IMPs. By 1981, the number was 213 host computers, with another host connecting approximately every twenty days.[15]
In 1973 a transatlantic satellite link connected the Norwegian Seismic Array (NORSAR) to the ARPANET, making Norway the first country outside the US to be connected to the network. At about the same time a terrestrial circuit added a London IMP.[18]

Last Friday, I met @wrought at the @techliminal party. Dude has a tattoo of the 1971 ARPAnet!

Knuckles that promote literacy

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 04:09:02 +0000

Spotted today at a Toronto restaurant: a great, pro-literacy set of knuckle-tatts.

Librarian tattoos

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 03:08:21 +0000

On Mental Floss, Jill Harness's collection of librarian tattoos. Above, Elizabeth Skene's card-catalog sleeve, by Frank William of the Chicago Tattoo Company. Right, Michelle's super-librarian tattoo, chosen to represent her career as a high-school librarian, based on Mary Marvel, and done by Chris Cockrill of Avalon II Tattoo.

11 Amazing Librarian Tattoos (via Making Light)

Zombie T-Rex tattoo

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 15:43:19 +0000

Megan, a cake designer, sports her wonderful zombie/T-Rex tattoo. It was inked by Jeff Addz at Generation X in Daytona Beach, Florida, who worked freehand.

Zombie T-Rex Tattoo Shoulder Tattoo (via Geekologie)

Nacho-related tattoos

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 24 May 2012 19:16:16 +0000

Nachos NY -- a site celebrating the nacho in all its glory -- has produced three temporary nacho-related tattoos for your delectation.

Nacho Tattoos (via Craft)

Tiny, behind-the-ear R2D2 tattoo

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 01:00:14 +0000

Found on Fuck Yeah, Tattoos, an adorable behind-the-ear droid

R2D2 (via The Mary Sue)

Otzi the Iceman and life after death

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:51:18 +0000

In Science Ink, Carl Zimmer's new book collecting photos of cool science tattoos and the stories behind them, there's a photo of a guy who got tattoos to match those found on Otzi, aka The Iceman, who died more than 5,000 years ago in the Italian Alps.

Mike Goldstein, the guy who got the tattoo, said the series of 10 simple lines arranged in groups of four, three, and three served to remind him that you don't have to be incredibly important during your lifetime in order to be important. "It reminds me that I can live however I want," he says in the book. "I don't have to work in an office or wear a tie, as are the expectations of our culture. I can walk across the Alps and die in a swamp, and that's OK."

I was reminded of that quote today, while reading my news stream. There's no evidence that Otzi was a particularly important figure to his culture. But here we are, thousands of years later, still debating the minutia of how he died. Emily Sohn writes about new Otzi research for Discover News:

...new analyses have revealed that a deep cut likely led to heavy bleeding in the man's eye. In the cold, high-altitude conditions where he was found, that kind of injury would have been tough to recover from.

The official opinion remains that an arrow in his left shoulder was the cause of death for Ötzi. But the new study raises the possibility -- for some, at least -- that he fell over after being shot by an arrow. And, at higher than 10,000 feet in elevation, his alpine fall may have made the situation much worse.

"Maybe he fell down or maybe he had a fight up there, nobody knows," said Wolfgang Recheis, a physicist in the radiology department at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. "With this cut alone, at 3,250 meters, it would have been a deadly wound up there. Bleeding to death in the late afternoon when it was getting cold up there, this could be really dangerous."

Granted, most of us have a better chance of making an impact after our deaths by helping other people during our lives. Or by donating our bodies to science. But it's still interesting to think about all that could happen to you thousands of years after you're gone.

Tattoos by food lovers

Lisa Katayama — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 04:45:28 +0000

The OC Weekly has photos of a dozen individuals who love a certain type of food so much that they got tattoos of it. Here, a man whose head is covered with eggs, bacon, and hash browns.

One dozen unique food tattoos [via NotCot]