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http://cuteoverload.com/?p=29371

Hi guys! (long time viewer, not-often poster)

As mentioned a few weeks ago, Australian magazine "Fiend" has a Steampunk theme this issue, and I co-ordinated the Sydney fashion shoot. (More Victorian, with a hint of steam, admittedly) I haven't got scans of the mag pages, but here is a mock-up of my original proposed photos and storyline. In the end, the story wasn't used, but you may find it amusing.


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Adventures in Steam

All pictures are property of Fiend Magazine and Katie Sheppard of Dollface Productions, www.dollface.net.au; not to be reproduced without credit.

Models: Danica Lee, Debzillah, Matt Davis and Luke Markham.

I was at Polaris (a local sci-fi/media convention) this weekend and didn't have the time or energy to get really kitted up so I pulled a bunch of stuff from my closet and put together a casual outfit. The skirt is one I wear regularly, the boots I got awhile back before I even got into steampunk but have become my default steamy boots because they're just awesome. The vest I had serendipitously fallen in love with at the mall, of all places, the day before.

The hat I made for my Steampunk Lolita costume; it's a bit much for this outfit but I wore it because I haven't gotten around to making another steamy headpiece yet. Hair was a bit flat at the end of the day; I just swept it up into a quick n' dirty Gibson-girl type swirl and didn't have any rats.

The blouse is a funny story - it's silk satin, really well made. I used to work for an employment agency where we'd help create business opportunities for immigrant women, and one previous project had been a costume shop. There were all these costumes left over that nobody wanted, so I acquired a bunch of them. That was over 10 years ago and most of the stuff (some of it involved...questionable colour choices) has since been given away through successive moves, but for some reason I managed to keep the 1890s blouse despite not knowing what on earth to do with it. And then Friday came around and I thought "Hm I need a blouse that's more Victorian-looking...wait..." LOL



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Climate change: Steve Fielding says Al Gore is wrong | The Courier-Mail:

Senator Fielding has promised to clear his schedule for any chance to meet the former US vice-president and Nobel Prize-winning environmental campaigner.  "The ball's in his court," a spokesman for the senator said.

I hope Fielding wears his bottle suit for the occasion.

He's an engineer, you know.

http://failatlife.blogspot.com/2009/07/been-trying-to-get-back-into-coloring.html

It's workin' out okay.

http://failatlife.blogspot.com/2009/07/quickie.html

I asked Aaron what to draw, and he said dragon. So- I drew a sea dragon. If you don't know what they are, look 'em up. If you live in or near Massachusetts the aquarium in Boston has a bunch of them. They're really cool.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Sultanablog/~3/Uw0y_HN2oB4/

http://redsultana.com/?p=2340

Found under a bush at Dunsborough.  July 4, 2009.

About 18 cm tall.

Pterostylis vittata

More about this orchid.

Of course my orchid hunter (Hugamuga) found it.

It was the first time we’ve seen a greenhood on this site.

http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/-wSJU2pQP-w/Pandora-Wants-Radio-Stations-To-Pay-For-Music-Too

suraj.sun sends along an Ars writeup of the lobbying Pandora is doing now that it has secured its future, royalties-wise. Some might think it odd that Pandora is weighing in on the side of the record labels in their fight to get radio stations to pay more for the music they broadcast. "US radio stations don't pay performers and producers for the music they play, but the recording industry hopes to change that with a new performance rights bill in Congress. Webcaster Pandora has jumped into the fray on the side of the artists and labels, asking why radio gets a free ride when Pandora does not. ... With revenues from recorded music sales declining, rights-holders have turned their eyes in recent years to commercial US radio, which currently pays songwriters (but not performers or record labels)... With its own future secure for the next few years, Pandora is now turning its attention to the public performance debate here in the US, saying that the issue is a simple matter of fairness: why should webcasters have to pay more for music than traditional radio does? ... [But] the 'fairness' argument could clearly go either way. Radio might start paying a performance right; on the other hand, perhaps webcasters and satellite radio companies should simply stop paying one, relying on the old argument about promotion."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Вот, навели меня на интересный веб-семинар, а почему бы и нет. Бесплатно, однако... к тому же сейчас сижу и потихоньку скучаю, с делами и проектами не густо, может научусь чего-нибудь полезному. :)

http://stanuspeshnoy.ru/blog/2009-6-23-8-0-27

Inspired by Colin's recent musings on combining Dr.Who with the Muppets, here's a picture of Sam the Eagle as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
Safest not to ask really...

Saturday being, as it was, ridiculous, began in the early hours of the afternoon with me waking up. From there, it was public transport ahoy as I wended my way to The Abbey.
The Abbey was fun, though I must confess, I ran into fewer people than I expected considering the crowds at the place... I really do miss the old BUMFAT days. I mean, I know the Abbey is far better in terms of historical re-enactment, but seriously, some of us are only there for the beer and corsetry.
I said hello to a great many people (wakes and grins like an eedjit) before settling down to the Stag Inn and drinking a lot.
Finally, though, it was time to leave, and I managed to cadge a lift with Steven (Stephen?) and Cat (Kat?) back to Brisbane for the final night of 'Prognosis Death: Relapse'.

The cast and crew at the Brisbane Arts Theatre really outdid themselves with this one. I admit I missed all of season 1 of 'Prognosis Death' and it really isn't anything I'm going to do in the future. I had an absolute blast at all four shows I attended this time around and I'd love to see it back next year.
Huge and lively crowd, great performances from everyone, and a fantastic end-of-season cliffhanger.

From there, M'sieu Lefiend, GavCore and I split for Prime which was a big ol' fun sammich. My only gripe would have to be that the thing ended at 2. I could gladly have kept on until dawn. Great people, excellent music and fine conversations.
That said, if I'd done that, I would've missde the 'Prognosos: Death' afterparty, which was jolly lovely. It's always great to catch up with Greg and Nat and I must confess, I felt a great fondness for all concerned for entertaining me so thoroughly over the last few weekends.

Unfortunately, on arriving home, I realized I had very little money in my pocket, which led to me missing the first Dr.Sketchy's at B Confidential on Monday night. Which was kind of okay, because I REALLY needed to sleep. That said, there'll be another next fortnight.

Next weekend, PWAQ Wrasslin'! Woo!!!

Oh, and for those who missed it... I did up another robot pic for Prime at the last minute. Basically, the message was, "Not going to Prime because you'll be at Abbey? Why not do both? What other nightclub will you be able to wear your new viking hat and wizard's robe at?"
And here he is...

So myself and my partner in crime, missdeth , have come up with some new fun pieces and wanted to share!




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http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/vFiiGZGrlR0/Tomorrows-Science-Heroes

An anonymous reader writes "As a kid I was (and still am) heavily influenced by Carl Sagan, and a little later by Stephen Hawking. Now as I have started a family with two kids, currently age 5 and 2, I am wondering who out there is popularizing science. Currently, my wife and I can get the kids excited about the world around them, but I'd like to find someone inspiring from outside the family as they get older. Sure, we'll always have 'Cosmos,' but are there any contemporaries who are trying to bring science into the public view in such a fun and intriguing way? Someone the kids can look up to and be inspired by? Where is the next Science Hero?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Yowzers. End of an era. Locus Magazine publisher, editor, and co-founder Charles N. Brown has passed away at the age of 72. Condolences to his family and friends.

(h/t Elektra in e-mail)

http://www.sydneyobservatory.com.au/astronomy/upcoming_sky_events.asp

Next week in India there is going to be a full solar eclipse lasting an unusually long six minutes. Excitement! I wish I could go.

HOWEVER, I am comforted by the thought that in November 2012, there will be a full eclipse just after sunrise up in Cairns, in North Queensland. I shall be in attendance!

On top of that, at 2pm on the 22nd of July 2028, something truly amazing is going to happen. There will be a total solar eclipse DIRECTLY over Sydney. Eclipses over major cities are rare; this one carves a line literally through the CBD. The crowds are going to be absolutely epic. It's going to pass, in fact, directly over the Disney studio where I used to work. However, I'll be a couple of kilometers down the road at the waterfront with everyone else, trying to get a snap of the Harbour Bridge or the Opera House in the eerie darkness of totality.

It's going to look like the end of the world.

I am being interviewed shortly on the aesthetic of Steampunk for the SMH and the Age's Weekend Magazine, "Good Weekend". The journalist involved was also interested in interviewing someone involved in the maker side of Steampunk. If you feel you've done some interesting mods and can show off your creations, please email me at phantompowersource [at] gmail dot com.

Don't be tardy with your replies, I need responses in the next 24 hours :)

http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/bFdNkwj9-i8/NASA-Has-the-Lost-Tapes

The Shuttle launch may have been delayed by two days, but NASA has better news to report. caffiend666 writes "As speculated a few weeks ago, NASA has found and is starting to restore the lost Apollo 11 tapes. A Briefing will be held July 16th at the Newseum in Washington to 'release greatly improved video imagery from the July 1969 live broadcast of the Apollo 11 moonwalk... The original signals were recorded on high quality slow-scan TV (SSTV) tapes. What was released to the TV networks was reduced to lower quality commercial TV standards.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The doll is made of a leather. The gun is made of a brass and mahogany.
Height of a doll is 70 centimeters or 27,5 inches.


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http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/bjG3gz5PQVE/Sequencing-a-Human-Genome-In-a-Week

blackbearnh writes "The Human Genome Project took 13 years to sequence a single human's genetic information in full. At Washington University's Genome Center, they can now do one in a week. But when you're generating that much data, just keeping track of it can become a major challenge. David Dooling is in charge of managing the massive output of the Center's herd of gene sequencing machines, and making it available to researchers inside the Center and around the world. He'll be talking about his work at OSCON, and gave O'Reilly Radar a sense of where the state of the art in genome sequencing is heading. 'Now we can run these instruments. We can generate a lot of data. We can align it to the human reference. We can detect the variance. We can determine which variance exists in one genome versus another genome. Those variances that are cancerous, specific to the cancer genome, we can annotate those and say these are in genes. ... Now the difficulty is following up on all of those and figuring out what they mean for the cancer. ... We know that they exist in the cancer genome, but which ones are drivers and which ones are passengers? ... [F]inding which ones are actually causative is becoming more and more the challenge now.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.