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FORA.tv - Neal Stephenson: Science Fiction as a Literary Gen

2008 Jul 14, 4:37"Neal Stephenson delivered a talk entitled The Fork: Science Fiction versus Mundane Culture at Gresham College." Talk is sort of pop analysis of geeky entertainment. Lots of annecdotal evidence but interesting ideas anyway.PermalinkCommentsgeek history neal-stephenson scifi fiction literature culture video

RPS Interview: Valve's Erik Wolpaw | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

2008 Jun 30, 5:45Erik on writing for games vs books: "Even worse for game writers, the 98% garbage part of a game isn't even usually garbage because instead of reading something boring about the history of Belgium, the "reader" probably gets to jump a Camaro over a dinoPermalinkCommentsgame humor interview valve portal article erik-wolpaw

Phil Factor's Phrenetic Phoughts : Microsoft Boy announces his School Homework

2008 Jun 30, 11:13"Scene: The History lesson in school. The teacher wearily calls Microsoft Boy to his desk to try to discover where his homework is."PermalinkCommentshumor business article microsoft satire marketing via:oldnewthing

NANPA : North American Numbering Plan Adminstration - About Us

2008 Jun 26, 5:43A bit of history on US phone numbers from the source: "AT&T developed the North American Numbering Plan in 1947 to simplify and facilitate direct dialing of long distance calls. Implementation of the plan began in 1951."PermalinkCommentsphone att phone-numbers reference

Mao (game) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2008 Jun 2, 12:57A card game where 'new players are often told only "the only rule you may be told is this one."'. '...the game being a parody of life in the People's Republic of China during the Cultural Revolution, where the laws changed secretly..."PermalinkCommentscard history politics game legal parody

Richard Feynman and the Connection Machine

2008 May 30, 10:52'"Richard Feynman reporting for duty. OK, boss, what's my assignment?" The assembled group of not-quite-graduated MIT students was astounded.... So we sent him out to buy some office supplies.'PermalinkCommentshistory richard-feynman programming computer article essay technology physics science via:swannman

This may look like a fake Mona Lisa. It isn't. It's a fake of a fake Mona Lisa - Times Online

2008 May 19, 12:28"Were he alive, Konrad Kujau, the man who forged...countless paintings, would no doubt feel a tingle of pride for his great-niece...being prosecuted for forging his signature on hundreds of cheap, Asian-made copies of works such as the Mona Lisa..."PermalinkCommentsart history fraud

Hitler's Diary and Hermann Goering's Yacht - FRONT PAGE - How Markus makes $15k a day from free dating site Plentyoffish

2008 May 19, 11:54Forged fake art: "After being released from prison in 1988, Kujau opened a gallery in Stuttgart where he sold 'authentic fakes'... In fact, his work became so popular that other forgers began to create forged copies of Kujau's forgeries."PermalinkCommentsart fraud history via:boingboing.comments konrad-kujau

Finally finished Baroque Cycle Novels

2008 May 2, 10:20
[The cover of Cryptonomicon][The cover of Quicksilver][The cover of The Confusion][The cover of The System of the World]

I've finally finished the Baroque Cycle, a historical fiction series set in the 17th and 18th centuries by Neal Stephenson whose work I always enjoy. There were often delays where I'd forget about the books until I had to take plane somewhere, or get discouraged reading about the character's thoughts on economics, or have difficulty finding the next volume, or become more engrossed in other books, projects or video games, and leave the Baroque Cycle books untouched for many months at a time. Consequently, my reading of this series has, I'm ashamed to say, spanned years. After finishing some books which I enjoy I end up hungry for just a bit more to read. For this series I don't need a bit more to read, I'm done with that, but I do want a badge or maybe a medal. Or barring that, college credit in European History and Macro Economics. I can recommend this book to anyone who has enjoyed Neal Stephenson's other work and has a few years of free time to kill.

PermalinkCommentshistory neal stephenson baroque cycle book nontechnical

Tech support from the 1930s: How to use a phone

2008 Apr 30, 12:03"But once upon a time telephones were fiendishly complicated devices that required instructional videos like these!"PermalinkCommentshistory video education phone

DNA/How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Internet

2008 Apr 30, 10:48"anything that gets invented after you're thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it's been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really."PermalinkCommentsvia:ethan_t_hein history internet douglas-adams article essay

Gin, Television, and Social Surplus - Here Comes Everybody

2008 Apr 28, 12:55Clay Shirky talks about the surplus of thought that TV occupies.PermalinkCommentsarticle clay-shirky culture internet tv technology collaboration community history

Milliways: Infocom's Unreleased Sequel to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Waxy.org

2008 Apr 18, 12:58"I found myself in possession of the "Infocom Drive" - a complete backup of Infocom's shared network drive from 1989." He posts emails from that backup w/o consulting those involved who show up for luke warm debate in the comments.PermalinkCommentsif interactive-fiction infocom hhgttg history scifi videogame article

Solving the Enigma - History of the Cryptanalytic Bombe

2008 Apr 9, 2:36History of Enigma in WW2: "One particular German code clerk continually used his girlfriend's name, Cillie, for his messages, and so these easy-to-guess indicators became known as "Cillies.""PermalinkCommentshistory encryption cryptography article security nsa enigma

Wired 14.04: The Culture War

2008 Apr 8, 1:52"The Culture War: How new media keeps corrupting our children." Article snippets condemning novels in 1700s, the Waltz 1800s, Movies, Telephone, etc etc. for corrupting the youthPermalinkCommentsarticle wired videogames culture youth media censorship comic politics history humor

Paleo-Future: The Internet? Bah! (1995)

2008 Apr 1, 11:21'95 article on the Internet fad: "So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet--which there isn't--the network is missing a mPermalinkCommentshumor article internet news history future

Abyss & Apex : Fourth Quarter 2007: Wikihistory

2008 Mar 19, 2:25A short story expressed as a forum for time travelers: "At 18:06:59, BigChill wrote: Take it easy on the kid, SilverFox316; everybody kills Hitler on their first trip. I did. It always gets fixed within a few minutes, what's the harm?"PermalinkCommentshumor fiction wiki timetravel forum via:boingboing

Martian Headsets - Joel on Software

2008 Mar 19, 11:30Excellent rant on the history and state of IE8's decision to default to super-standards mode vs IE7 mode.PermalinkCommentsbrowser internet browser-war ie microsoft history w3c standard standards html css joel-on-software

Waxy.org: Internet Power, Volume 1: Flashback to the VHS-Era Web

2008 Mar 18, 1:33A 1990s VHS video on the Internet and World Wide Web.PermalinkCommentsinternet history video humor via:boingboing

frontline: secret history of the credit card: watch online | PBS

2008 Mar 3, 4:18PBS documentary on the history of the credit card. Looks interesting.PermalinkCommentsvia:mattalyst documentary credit-card credit card economics education history tv video
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