Objects and things designed with hidden meanings and intentions

[APAK]

This thread is all about things or objects we are familiar with and use everyday although ignorant or blind to their design, meaning and origin and even purpose.

I'm sure there are numerous items in our lives that we do not know how they got there and why and for what purpose.

Take a deck of cards for example. It is amazing to know how they were designed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Original meaning of a deck of playing cards:

52 cards for 52 weeks in the year.

2 colors for day and night

4 suits for the 4 seasons and 13 weeks per season.

12 court cards representing the 12 months.

If we add each of the cards (ace + ace + ace + ace + two + two + three + seven + eight etc.) of the game we will get 364.

Jokers were used in leap year.
----------------------------------------------------

Is your mind blown yet?

Please add to this thread with new ideas as they come to mind. Whatever they may be....

Have a blessed day and year(s) to come

APAK

 

[APAK]

Well another example: of the modern day football/soccer design...and why it is was it is today.

Historically, the ball was an inflated pig's bladder that was not really spherical - oval/spherical like. Very hard to control etc. Then came the leather lace up balls.

Since the 1960s, the design was set in stone for the future. Today they have even fancier designs with different artistic patterns and colors (see below).

Because of vulcanized rubber invented many decades before, by Goodyear, researchers began tinkering with a paneled designs and found through experimentation using geometrical mathematics, that to control the ball much better, predictability, and more aerodynamically sound, with more accurate headings, shots and passes, and to maintain its integrity, and for visual effects on the field/pitch and on TV it was designed this way:

- 12 regular/common pentagons and 20 regular/common hexagons, arranged in a specific pattern.
- Black and white panels
- for official major tournaments and matches today, they have to meet specifications of size, and air pressure.

According the 'American Science, The Topology and Combinatorics of Soccer Balls

"An official soccer ball, to be approved by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), must be a sphere with a circumference between 68 and 70 centimeters, with at most a 1.5 percent deviation from sphericity when inflated to a pressure of 0.8 atmospheres."

Pictures of the development of the football.....Pig bladder to leather to the modern ball that does not have the classic pentagons and hexagons patterns...:



I used to play football with the leather ball at school....

 

[Wrangler]

Thanks for starting this thread APAK. Great topic!

The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler delves deeply into the subject of symbology. His insight is that art is the leading indicator of cultural evolution, noting that the meaning of the symbols change over time. A great example in our time is the meaning of the Confederate flag. A headline yesterday was that a Confederate statue was removed from Arlington National Cemetery, aka General Lee's back yard.

The question we have to ask ourselves is what did the symbol mean to those who adopted its use? The Confederate flag meant a symbol of freedom to those who created it, liberty from a tyrannical far off capital. The symbol has been co-opted by cultural appropriators - who hate cultural appropriation - to mean the opposite. They lamely claim it is a symbol of oppression. See 1984.

The Swastika is another great example. Existing for 1,000's of years in Asia, it meant good luck.

 

[APAK]

Thanks for starting this thread APAK. Great topic!

The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler delves deeply into the subject of symbology. His insight is that art is the leading indicator of cultural evolution, noting that the meaning of the symbols change over time. A great example in our time is the meaning of the Confederate flag. A headline yesterday was that a Confederate statue was removed from Arlington National Cemetery, aka General Lee's back yard.

The question we have to ask ourselves is what did the symbol mean to those who adopted its use? The Confederate flag meant a symbol of freedom to those who created it, liberty from a tyrannical far off capital. The symbol has been co-opted by cultural appropriators - who hate cultural appropriation - to mean the opposite. They lamely claim it is a symbol of oppression. See 1984.

The Swastika is another great example. Existing for 1,000's of years in Asia, it meant good luck.

View attachment 38661

Most do not know that the swastika did not originate with German socialist political party symbol. Even the Czechoslovakian Jewish Temples/synagogues affixed this symbol atop of their temples in the middle ages.

From the BBC, The ancient symbol that was hijacked by evil

"The word swastika comes from the Sanskrit roots su (good) and asti (to prevail), meaning wellbeing, prosperity or good fortune, and has been used in the prayers of the Rig Veda, the oldest of Hindu scriptures. In Hindu philosophy it is said to represent various things that come in fours – the four yugas or cyclical times, the four aims or objectives of life, four stages of life, the four Vedas. Swastika is even a girl's name in certain parts of India."

 

[Wrangler]

The cross is a great Christian example of symbology. The Romans used it as the ultimate form of torture. Our great God turned it into the ultimate symbol of hope for all humanity.

 

[APAK]

The cross is a great Christian example of symbology. The Romans used it as the ultimate form of torture. Our great God turned it into the ultimate symbol of hope for all humanity.

in the face of his enemies for all to see....Amen