by m. geven
The International Journal Of Open Thread:
[Via Balloon Juice]
An online teaser in this week&’s Science:
A 47-year study of great tits in Britain
Disappointingly, the paper turned out to be about birds and climate change.
Report your own studies here.
But I read Science every week so I knew that is was probably not what I thought ;-)
Technorati Tags: Environment, Knowledge Creation, Science
by Noël Zia Lee
OH RLY? Steampunk as a way of life :
[Via Amygdala]
OH RLY? Steampunk as a way of life:
[...] First appearing in the late 1980s and early ’90s, steampunk has picked up momentum in recent months, making a transition from what used to be mainly a literary taste to a Web-propagated way of life.
Or is it just a goddamn hobby?
[...] and Paul Di Filippo, the author of “The Steampunk Trilogy,” the historical science fiction novellas that lent the culture its name.
Yeah, that’s complete crap. K. W. Jeter and Tim Powers and James Blaylock should be calling. Paul’s Steampunk Trilogy didn’t come out until 1995. The earliest story in it, “Victoria,” appeared in 1991.
But steampunk had long been on everyone’s lips before Bill Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s The Difference Engine came out in 1991, of course; we’d all been referring to the steampunk genre for more than a decade by then, after Jeter coined “steampunk” in an April 1987 issue of Locus.
Paul’s trilogy was named for the genre, not vice versa.
Apparently on top of being completely incompetent at basic research, the writer, Ruth La Ferla, couldn’t even spare two seconds to glance at Wikipedia.
Your New York Times in action: getting the simplest facts completely wrong.
In other news from the same article, who knew that Tony Stark was a robot?
[...] Contemporary fictional parallels in film include the wildly ingenious scientist played by Robert Downey Jr. in “Iron Man,” who hopes to save the world by retooling himself as a flame-throwing robot made of unwieldy scrap metal parts.
Equally accurate.
…how some people get their job? Are there any editors anymore or fact checkers or do they just write whatever comes into their heads? Bloggers do that but we are not the NYT nor do we usually get paid by an organization.
And how anyone can see Iron Man and see the high tech as somehow retro, pseudo-Victorian ? Seems like a lazy writer.
I did not realize that an astrolabe or a sextant was a Steampunk item. People have interesting hobbies but according to this article Steampunk restores the sense of wonder, offers a coping device, expresses formality, and is ‘an enticing marketing hook.’ Its a desert topping and a floor wax!
