Ordinal's Cabinet of Ephemera

"Always obey your parents, when they are present. This is the best policy in the long run, because if..."

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:04:02 +0100

“Always obey your parents, when they are present. This is the best policy in the long run, because if you don’t, they will make you. Most parents think they know better than you do, and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting on your own better judgment.”

- pintday.org: Advice to Youth, About 1882

Desert Breath — archipedia

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:57:53 +0100

Desert Breath — archipedia

while we are on the topic of autological words...

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 07:50:05 +0100

ragbag:

here is one of my favourites (it also has great mouthfeel).

elelendish - of another land, foreign. from old english eilland (foreign land)

look at the first five letters of elelendish and tell me truthfully that the word does not describe itself. but beware of elelendish’s autological paradox: the more you use it, the less autological it becomes.

A distinctly worried cat

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:23:33 +0100

A distinctly worried cat

"The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels..."

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 14:42:59 +0100

“

The human body literally glows, emitting a visible light in extremely small quantities at levels that rise and fall with the day, scientists now reveal.

Past research has shown that the body emits visible light, 1,000 times less intense than the levels to which our naked eyes are sensitive. In fact, virtually all living creatures emit very weak light, which is thought to be a byproduct of biochemical reactions involving free radicals.

”

- Strange! Humans Glow in Visible Light - Yahoo! News

Walter Rothschild With Zebras

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:41:58 +0100

Walter Rothschild With Zebras

"1908 An English judge, fearing that their pins could be used as weapons in his court, ordered a..."

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:17:07 +0100

“1908 An English judge, fearing that their pins could be used as weapons in his court, ordered a group of suffragettes on trial to remove their hatpins and hats, an insulting request. In 1909 a bill was introduced in the Arkansas legislature which copied an Illinois law limiting the length of pins to 9 inches or making ladies take out permits to possess longer ones. The pins were considered deadly weapons. As a result ladies had to cut their pins to the shorter length if they wanted to wear them in public.”

- Brief History of Hatpins

"April 20 (Bloomberg) — Taser International Inc. filed a trademark-infringement lawsuit against..."

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:09:46 +0100

“

April 20 (Bloomberg) — Taser International Inc. filed a trademark-infringement lawsuit against the Second Life online virtual world creator over claims it sells unauthorized virtual versions of its electric stun guns.

Taser, the world’s biggest maker of stun guns, claims San Francisco-based Linden Research Inc. is damaging the company’s reputation and hurting its sales by allowing virtual weapons to be sold online under the Taser brand name, according to a 102- page complaint filed April 17 in federal court in Phoenix.

”

- Taser Sues Second Life Virtual World Creator Over Gun Sales - Bloomberg.com

Hand drawn mechanical schematic playing cards of the early 20th...

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:04:46 +0100

Hand drawn mechanical schematic playing cards of the early 20th century - Boing Boing

"I’ve never actually read Mayhew, but feel I’ve long had him, through brilliant osmosis,..."

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:43:46 +0100

“I’ve never actually read Mayhew, but feel I’ve long had him, through brilliant osmosis, with Kellow Chesney’s Victorian Underworld, which is easily one of my favorite books ever. People assume, when I tell them that, that Chesney would mainly have influenced The Difference Engine, but actually this was very consciously the basis of the criminal society of Neuromancer, et al. It was a Victorian model, as I saw what’s since come to be called neoconservatism producing a neo-Victorian world. Not a bad call, either!”

- Chesney’s “Victorian Underworld” — the secret Victorian underbelly of cyberpunk - Boing Boing

"A DWP spokesman said: “We are currently exploring the potential of using Second Life and have..."

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 19:03:20 +0000

“

A DWP spokesman said: “We are currently exploring the potential of using Second Life and have active interest from a number of government departments.

“Our new innovation centre in Second Life is a virtual area where both government and private companies can showcase technological innovations, such as low carbon footprint technology.

“We believe it could help make sharing technology more efficient and save taxpayers’ money as meetings, events and shows can be held online at a fraction of the cost and resources.”

”

- BBC NEWS | Politics | Whitehall defends ‘fantasy world’

"Browser HUD” is a small HTML web-browser widget that appears in a 400x300 pixel window in the..."

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:27:49 +0000

““Browser HUD” is a small HTML web-browser widget that appears in a 400x300 pixel window in the top-left corner of the screen. It will be used for our internal OI tutorial (replacing the attachment-based HUD).”

- LSL Browser HUD - Second Life Wiki

» Monster Mondays - Dumbo Octopus » Dapper Cadaver...

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:00:31 +0000

» Monster Mondays - Dumbo Octopus » Dapper Cadaver Blog » Gothic, Horror & Halloween Oh My!

Peculiarities of the parsing of argument files and parameters for the Second Life Client

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:19:44 +0000

Peculiarities of the parsing of argument files and parameters for the Second Life Client :

A discussion, but the summary is that the arguments.txt file on the Mac comes after command line parameters, whereas on Linux, the gridargs.dat file comes before it.

"Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in..."

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 20:07:17 +0000

“Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology.”

- Ada Lovelace Day — Bringing women in technology to the fore

found_objects: Lizard!

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:41:08 +0000

found_objects: Lizard!

"Terry Pratchett is to make an appearance in the virtual world Second Life. Pratchett will feature in..."

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:10:51 +0100

“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.”

- theBookseller.com

"The short version: It does a lot less than you’d hope, and setup of the whole show is far..."

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:37:09 +0100

“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…”

- Hands on: The Second Life SLim client is here - Massively

BBC - Liverpool - Capital of Culture - In Pictures: Spider...

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:20:13 +0100

BBC - Liverpool - Capital of Culture - In Pictures: Spider arrives

Virtual Transgender Suit, avatar termination and other online world tales - we make money not art

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:37:07 +0100

Virtual Transgender Suit, avatar termination and other online world tales - we make money not art:

A virtual transgender suit, and Second Death.