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The Book of Kells, now digitized and available online
- jeffbee 2y agoInstead of the popup and affiliate-link-laden article, you could go right to it: https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/concern/works/hm50tr726?locale=en https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/concern/works/hm50tr726?lo...
- senko 2y ago... and be forced to complete a captcha before getting 503 service unavailable.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mepian 2y ago"The requested URL was rejected. Please consult with your administrator. Error 503 - Service Unavailable"
- mywacaday 2y agoHaven't seen a hug of death in a while.
- secondcoming 2y agoSomeone's Sunday just got ruined
- g40694 2y agothe indignity of the entire experience is comedic, and we've come to accept it. the op article is empty aggregation, a little superficial bit of dopamine noise, that's exclusively parasitizing on actual content. the direct link is probably better, but it throws a CAPCHA for me, where I need to click on Indian men on motorcycles to teach an AI what a motorcycle is. sister comment is reporting that the underlying site is down anyway, despite the "protection" provided by the internet muscle services. which makes one wonder, why even go looking at the book of kells, like, who among the hackernews readership will sit down with an iPad or other high resolution device to peruse the entirety of the book at leisure, inspecting the subtle details of the illumination, taking notes etc.
- mistrial9 2y agoit is a treasure of culture, available to the general public. Support your local library.
- g40694 2y agoI don't understand the point you're trying to make and how it relates to what I said. the book of kell is available both as a facsimile from specialist publishers (/my/ local library has it in extended rotation) and as a 2006 dvd from trinity college library. but I'm not even talking about that
- mistrial9 2y ago> why even go looking at the book of kells ... etc
- g40694 2y agowhy even go looking at the book of kells is the sentiment about the deliberate versus knee jerk information consumption, which was prompted by the reflection on the levels of ugliness and indignity supporting the knew jerk consumption. it wasn't a comment on the value of book of kells, or the effort of making it available to the public.
- hackernewds 2y agoI think you're being purposefully obtuse now. the Internet is a free resource
- rldjbpin 2y agobetter yet, direct to the pdf - https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/pdf/false/eng/2/url/hm50tr726?locale=en https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/pdf/false/eng/2/url/hm50tr...
- CalRobert 2y agoThe book of Kells is gorgeous and well worth a visit. If you are in Dublin and enjoy this sort of thing, _please_ also take the very short walk over to the Chester Beatty Library (https://chesterbeatty.ie/ https://chesterbeatty.ie/) as well. It's free and has an absolutely fantastic collection of ancient and sacred manuscripts. I was lucky enough to live across the street from it for several years and it remains one of my favourite museums in the world.
- grujicd 2y agoChester Beatty is a gem. I went into it not expecting much from "museum of books". But it's also in a way a museum of world's religions, which are tightly connected to writing and books. As an atheist who has low opinion on value of religion because of all the deaths they were and still are responsible for, it reminded me of their positive role in history. When you see all those ancient religious books you begin to question whether we would have writing at all without them? Who would go through a painstaking process of duplicating books before Gutenberg if not men devoting their lives to God? Thus carrying light of civilization and creating basis and tools for science to progress later. I know this is not some great revelation, but I felt enlightened a bit after leaving Chester Beatty.
- noufalibrahim 2y agoYour post reminded me of the story "A canticle for leibowitz". It explores many of the ideas you've mentioned. I recommend reading it if you haven't already. I think you'd enjoy it.
- grujicd 2y agoThanks for the recommendation, looks like the kind of book I'd enjoy.
- stogot 2y agoThe idea that religion causes more deaths than non-religion is absurd in the 21st history (hitler, Stalin, mao) and is a myth when you take in full world history. An index of all known wars in history indicated 93% of wars were not religious. https://apholt.com/2023/01/03/the-myth-of-religion-as-the-cause-of-most-wars/ https://apholt.com/2023/01/03/the-myth-of-religion-as-the-ca...
- s_dev 2y agoThe animated film 'The Secret of Kells' is great and well worth a watch. Far more accessible/relatable to modern audiences than this historical Bible that was dug up in a field in Kells. I'm glad it got a mention but the other guy is right -- the link should have been to the digitized book.
- CalRobert 2y agoThat studio is amazingly good. The Breadwinner is harrowing but fantastic.
- lemming 2y agoThe others in the Irish mythology series are really great too - Song of the Sea is my favourite. Great to watch with kids, but also can be enjoyed with no embarrassment by adults!
- tzs 2y agoAdd Wolfwalkers to the list. It probably would have won the academy award for Best Animated Feature if that category wasn't a total joke. (It's a joke category because all Academy members get to vote. There's no requirement that they have seen all the nominees, or that they have seen any of them. A few years ago some animation trade magazine (I don't remember which one) surveyed Academy members after a year where a movie that most animation professionals thought would easily win lost to a movie they thought was good but clearly not as good. What they found was that a significant fraction of voters don't watch animation, considering it to be just for kids. If they have young kids they vote for whatever movie the kids watched over and over. If they didn't have young kids they'd ask their young nieces or nephews or grandkids what cartoon they liked that year and vote for it. Or they would vote for the one they remembered seeing ads for).
- bdz 2y agoContrary to everyone I think it was pretty mediocre. The significance of the book is barely covered and the contents of it are not mentioned at all. The story itself is dancing around the “message of the book” and how it prevails over everything (see the allegory with the abbey’s wall) but somehow they just never say it’s the four Gospels of the New Testament which are the most important texts of Christianity. If you don’t know what the Book of Kells _really is_ then what’s left from the film itself? Not so much just a generic fantasy story.
- Brajeshwar 2y agoIs this a different one from the one I found at Global Grey’s Collection https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/book-of-kells-ebook.html https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/book-of-kells-ebook.html Global Grey was popular on HN a few years back, and I bought the whole collection.
- g40694 2y agothe og scan of book of kells was done by a Swiss publisher in the early 90s. since you can't copyright a scan, and the book itself is in public domain, anyone can then take the scans (if they can get hands on the high dpi originals or whatever, or do a high dpi scan of the reproduction) and publish them as whatever they want. "the complete encyclopedia of human knowledge (only $99.99 if you call now)" "the illuminated authoritative book of kells (comes with your own one of a kind handmade Irish cross)" etc. you can get the scans themselves (afaiu its at matching dpi, if not the same format) from a 2006 trinity college dvd of book of kells. the op is an announcement of the completed rescan effort, with modern technologies and modern dpis. with a companion iPad app and a website that have consumer grade renditions of those modern research grade scans.
- oliwarner 2y ago> you can't copyright a scan Why not? It's derivative but it's still work.
- luma 2y agoPresumably, because it isn’t transformative enough to constitute a derivative work. Otherwise, making a copy of free works would allow one to put those works back under copyright.
- KyleBrandt 2y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Cor.... https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reuse_of_PD-Art_photographs https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reuse_of_PD-Art...
- chrisweekly 2y agoThe animated film (same prod crew that made Song of the Sea) is excellent.
- CosmicShadow 2y agoI saw the real life Book of Kells earlier this year and it was so pristine and high quality it didn't look real, like seriously looked like a modern fancy reprint, it was a bit confusing!
- hackernewds 2y agoanyone have a link? I couldn't find a good quality photo
- spl757 2y agoThe error message "The requested URL was rejected. Please consult with your administrator." is from an F5 Networks Application Security Manager firewall and can usually be addessed by clearing certain cookies in your browser. I was able to get it to load using Chrome with all cookies cleared, but it does appear to be getting the "hug of death" as well as mywacaday says in another comment.
- calibas 2y agoI only see one cookie, for the captcha, and removing that just forces me to solve the captcha again. The 503 error itself doesn't seem to be cookie related, looks like the site can't keep up with the kind of traffic they're getting. Also, if clearing cookies prevents errors, it's likely related to caching. Depending on the server configuration, things like authentication cookies will cause the session to bypass caches for certain resources.
- squiffsquiff 2y agoError 503 - Service Unavailable
- patrickdavey 2y agoI went to college in Trinity and the Book of Kells is housed in the old library. Once you've finished seeing the book, you head upstairs through the Long Room, and that place is just special (they used it as the hall of the jedi) As a student there you could visit for free. I used to just go up and hang in the library for 10 mins or so a few times a year. Loved it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Trinity_College_Dublin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Trinity_College_D... Edit: fix link
- TRiG_Ireland 2y agoI once had a class in a room just off the old library. I had to go into the Long Room and step over a rope at the end. Very cool.
- SEJeff 2y agoFirst name checks out :) I promised a coworker up north a bit in Meath that one day I’d come visit him and got that chance about seven years ago. Along the way we did the tourist in Dublin thing and part of it was the trinity long room and book of kells. Amusingly, a cabbie was asking me what I loved about Dublin and I said the history. He asked what in specific and I told him that there is probably chewing gum on the ground older than the founding of the United States. He got super offended and told me they clean the streets in Ireland, but then I mentioned the Aran Islands, Newgrange, and the Drombeg Stone Circle… What is “old” in Ireland is 3000-5000 years old. What is “old” in the USA is a few hundred years old at best. Such a lovely place and people.
- lihaciudaniel 2y agoIf you want more like these drawings , check wikisource https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Apocalypse_of_Saint_John_WDL368.pdf&page=2 https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Apoca...
- Jordan-117 2y agoThis is a cool resource, but I'm side-eyeing them characterizing it as some new thing when this scan was uploaded more than ten years ago (as their own link to the college's archived blog post on it shows).
- pbhjpbhj 2y agoGlad you said this as it saved me checking my memory. I first came across the Book of Kells over 20 years ago and I swear photos/scans were available online of some pages even back then (one of the 'Xp' at least). But certainly thought it had already been made available online before (albeit in one of those annoying interfaces where it's all tiles to try and stop you downloading any of it).
- Jordan-117 2y agoI think there was a black-and-white photocopy from the early 90s, but the full-color digital one (with an iPad app!) is circa 2013.
- fudged71 2y ago> The pages, originally captured in 1990, “have recently been rescanned,” Trinity College Library writes, using state-of-the-art imaging technology. These new digital images offer the most accurate high-resolution images to date, providing an experience second only to viewing the book in person.”
- UberFly 2y agoI believe the book was stolen at one point and the gold covers were ripped off. It was eventually found buried. Close to being gone for good like so many other remarkable items.
- hackernewds 2y agoHow does it still look so modern and pristine then?
- TechDebtDevin 2y agoThe science behind restoration is pretty intense. It's almost certainly had a bunch of work done on it.
- brcmthrowaway 2y agoWhats the status on Voynich in 2024?
- Suppafly 2y agoWas it not before? I had thought I had seen scanned pages of it online before.
- Modified3019 2y agoNote the PDF file is ~414MB and 682 pages, so you’ll want to just download and then view, rather than try to load it in the browser for a quick look.
- einpoklum 2y agoWhy does the book begin with many pages which have long lists of what looks like Roman numbering but in another alphabet? i.e. same word but with more i's at the end? It's not actually text. Only later does any actual text begin. Is it some form of a table of contents?
- badcppdev 2y agoWhat do people think about the Copyright notices on the images? Can someone with knowledge of Irish law comment on how something so old can still be considered copyright? Is there separate rules for images of art in galleries?
- lionkor 2y agoNo knowledge on irish law, but the photo itself has copyright separate from the thing photographed
- criddell 2y agoA simple photo of a page might not be copyrightable if it doesn't show a modicum of creativity.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y agoI think they're alot like adding raw sewage to the soup at the salad bar, so that people don't steal soup. It probably works, and the most important thing about soup is that no one steals it. You wouldn't steal a medieval manuscript would you? It belongs to the world as a cultural treasure, but it doesn't belong to anyone IN the world.