A visit to the technical museum in 1937 … Today is the 80th birthday of ↑Donald Duck!—he first appeared in the animated short ‘↑The wise little hen‘ (Jackson 1934), which was released on 09 June 1934. Celebrating Donald’s birthday … Continue reading →
This is a detail of page 72 of the July 1982 issue of the magazine ↑Omni. Depicted is the beginning of ↑William Gibson‘s short story ‘↑Burning Chrome.’ It is a bit of linguistic history, because here the word ‘cyberspace’ saw … Continue reading →
There’s a fine new book: ‘Vintage Tomorrows’ (Carrott & Johnson 2013). Here’s the official description: What would today’s technology look like with Victorian-era design and materials? That’s the world steampunk envisions: a mad-inventor collection of 21st century-inspired contraptions powered … Continue reading →
No, not my humble blog here, rather the fictional element from which my humble blog here derives its name. It always bothered me, that Xirdalium—most likely an invention by Jules Verne’s son Michel—didn’t shine up in Wikipedia’s ↑list of fictional … Continue reading →
Kip W ↑unearthed the above wonderful, stunningly up-to-date ↑Punch cartoon (Williams 1955: 164) by artist ↑Lewis Baumer (1870-1963), which first was published in 1906! It’s great historical evidence for how early in the development of a given technology people not … Continue reading →
zeph’s pop culture quiz #53 Which movie is payed homage to by the scene about to commence in the screencap? Bonus question: Which other movies are cited in the movie the screencap stems from? Simply leave a comment … Continue reading →
A 1946 advertisement for the ↑Bendix Corporation, scanned and put online by Paul Malon—↑click for larger versions, in order to be able to read all of the small text, too. The slogan ‘Creative engineering makes science your obedient servant’ not … Continue reading →
Just recently we heard that ↵the mash still is safe and sound at the Smithsonian—now there’s even more comforting news. The original model of ↵Captain Nemo’s submarine ‘Nautilus’ designed by ↑Harper Goff and used in ‘↑20,000 Leagues Under The Sea‘ … Continue reading →
After the ↵infamous Stim-U-Lax [and after just recently having spoken of ↵wonderful contraptions] here’s another piece of weird technology from ↑M*A*S*H: ↑the still! Following the end of production on M*A*S*H in January of 1983, 20th Century-Fox donated the O.R. set … Continue reading →
As the faithful reader might have noticed, I am, among other things, fond of early science fiction—of course always on the hunt for elements of ↵the cyberpunk discourse, and for entries to my ↵according list, where I strive to furnish … Continue reading →