My thoughts on Armistice Day, with poem.

Just got back last week from a trip to Washington DC, which as you no doubt know, is full of museums, galleries and history. We were staying in Alexandria, Virginia, fairly close to the Old Town area which is quite nice and an easy Metro ride away from the heart of DC.

( Details of where we went and what we saw behind the cut )

Ada Lovelace Day celebrates the achievement of women in the fields of science and technology.

As I see the origin of the field of science (and thus technology) in philosophy, here are some interesting philosophers from the Ancient world:

Aesara of Lucania, a Pythagorean philosopher, of whom only a page of her work survives (referenced by a Roman ( Read more... )

My occasional collection of interesting and inspiring articles from various places on the web. For this time we have a wide ranging mix of subjects:

For SF gamers, a beautiful display of our Solar system and nearby stars from Exosolar and a more humous look at our place in the galaxy.

Interesting things from our modern world: The Essentials of ( Read more... )

Just some thoughts over here.

Spiegel Online has an article on Touring the Horrible, various site in Germany where terrible things happened or that symbolize such. Naturally the majority are Nazi oriented but some tie to the Cold War and one to just a serial killer. Some good building blocks for modern occult or superhero games there.

In Russia, there are the Stone Trees of ( Read more... )

It has been pointed out to me that tonight is the 45th anniversary of the premier of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. series (on NBC). The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was a spy series, an action series and a hope for a better world. A series known to me only through reruns and novels. But it was ground breaking in its time ( Read more... )

Ending up with a lot of interesting links to share, figured that I had better do so before they got lost.

Using trees to build structures, proves to be a more interesting technical challenge than you would think.

Medieval records of British soldiers who served in the Hundred Years War go online. Such fascinating resources are becoming available ( Read more... )

Spectacular papercrafting from Wataru Itou, really quite amazing.

The British Library has partly opened its archive of 19th C newspapers to the public. Sadly, much of it requires a fee to access but still very cool.

Mostly been working on the Sea of Stars RPG Project, have several new posts up at the Design Journal and trying to get people to ( Read more... )

Been a fairly quiet week but very hot, no day in the last week has failed to reach the 90s (30s for my centigrade using friends) and with high humidity too. Thank goodness for air conditioning.

The University of Edinburgh has recreated the Lituus, a horn last used in the 18th C.. Technology is doing such fun things with history these days. A ( Read more... )