Ordinal's Cabinet of Ephemera
A selection of steampunk, Victoriana and Second Life news about which I do not really wish to write at length.
For longer nonsense, please see An Engine Fit For My Proceeding, and for shorter, see my Twitterings.
Nov 30
Sep 10
“ Terry Pratchett is to make an appearance in the virtual world Second Life. Pratchett will feature in a sim version of a South Pacific tropical island, modelled on the island Nation which features in Pratchett’s new novel, NATION.
Sep 03
“ The short version: It does a lot less than you’d hope, and setup of the whole show is far clunkier than you’d like. On with the show…
Aug 30
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Virtual Transgender Suit, avatar termination and other online world tales - we make money not art
A virtual transgender suit, and Second Death.
Aug 27
» Digital Edition - The Edison Papers
Archive of a subset of Edison’s five million pages of recorded paper. Rather confusing to navigate, mind you.
“ Famous inventor Thomas Edison is probably the most experienced note-taker in the world. His diary which is still maintained as an important part of the United States historical record contains five million (5,000,000) pages. Important developments such as his work on perfecting the light bulb and electric lighting systems are captured in great detail. He never met a sheet of paper he didn’t like.
What lessons can we take from his work today, a century later? How did his note-taking help him to become the world’s most famous inventor with over a thousand (1093) U.S. patents in his name for a wide range of technologies from movie cameras and phonographs to cement making and electric lighting? In short, what made his note-taking and filing system so great?
Edison’s system was developed to support his life work and was very successful in doing so. The main elements of his system are as follows:
What lessons can we take from his work today, a century later? How did his note-taking help him to become the world’s most famous inventor with over a thousand (1093) U.S. patents in his name for a wide range of technologies from movie cameras and phonographs to cement making and electric lighting? In short, what made his note-taking and filing system so great?
Edison’s system was developed to support his life work and was very successful in doing so. The main elements of his system are as follows:
Aug 21
“Idea Pad lets you easily draw a diagram - mind map, concept map, or flow chart - and convert it to a text outline, and vice versa. Diagrams can be exported to any desktop graphics program, and Outlines can be exported to any word processor via the Memo Pad. Use Idea Pad to brainstorm new ideas, illustrate concepts, plan presentations, and create organizational charts.”
Jul 30
Jul 17
“ WebFlock is an application for private-labeled, Web-based virtual experiences. It provides a visually immersive environment for social interaction, media consumption and game play.
Jul 10
New Babbage - A Steampunk City in Second Life (via Lokiboy)
Jun 29
“ Endorsement for resident help groups is an effort to allow good-standing resident-run resident help groups within Second Life to become endorsed by Linden Lab and be a part of the Resident Help Network. Groups with emphasis on helping new or experienced residents with Second Life related learning or immersion without charge are eligible. The desired outcome of the Resident Help Network is to stretch the boundaries of group efforts by uniting and collaborating in a network. For more details, see below!
Jun 15
Jun 12
“ Shoshana Epsilon’s latest post backs up this account, and further reveals that Dusty Linden is attempting to block any image with a child and adult in the same picture, or any image of a child on or near a bed — even completely nonsexual, family-oriented pictures. Shoshana describes it as a blanket policy (no pun intended), not a case-by-case review to screen out images which are or could be construed as erotic images of children (or child-like avatars).
May 26
“ In the 1930s, after his historic flight over the Atlantic, Lindbergh hooked up with Alexis Carrel, a brilliant surgeon born in France but who worked in a laboratory at the Rockefeller Institute in Manhattan. Carrel - who was a mystic as well as a scientist - had already won a Nobel Prize for his pioneering work on the transplantation of blood vessels. But his real dream was a future in which the human body would become, in Friedman’s words, “a machine with constantly reparable or replaceable parts”.
This is where Lindbergh entered the frame. Carrel hoped that his own scientific nous combined with Lindbergh’s machine-making proficiency (Lindbergh had, after all, already built a plane that flew non-stop to Paris) would make his fantasy about immortal machine-enabled human beings a reality.
This is where Lindbergh entered the frame. Carrel hoped that his own scientific nous combined with Lindbergh’s machine-making proficiency (Lindbergh had, after all, already built a plane that flew non-stop to Paris) would make his fantasy about immortal machine-enabled human beings a reality.
