It's Thursday. Ergo, short post.

Bill Lucey posts about presidents and baseball. Woo!

Are you good with puzzles and codes? The FBI could use your help.

Tomorrow: much more!

Did you know that the average UK citizen carries around three "mysterious keys" with them? It's probably a higher number for US citizens. We could have dozens of keys to different dimensions, and we don't even know it!

Er. In not really related news, here's a fascinating collection of blueprints from insane asylums. This led me to a site on Kirkbridge buildings, which is even more fascinating. There's even a weblog!

I was willing to go along with this theory that organized religion will "go extinct" in various countries...except that the article lists Ireland as one of the countries, and I can't imagine religion ever leaving that nation completely.

Italy is having a huge science and sci-fi convention called Levantecon, and I wish I could read Italian because it looks like it's going to be a great time!

Meanwhile, here in America this weekend, we celebrate Mule Day. Yay, mules.

Also Opening Day! We have parades in this town. We're kind of silly that way.

Hello! The book review and giveaway got pushed back a bit; it looks as if we may be doing several of them in April, so get ready to enter many contests!

I found a wonderful instance of steampunk influencing modern design; Adaptive Path discusses a "steampunk" design for cell phones in rural India as a more intuitive concept. This is really fascinating stuff.

The Victoria & Albert Museum opens an exhibit this weekend titled "The Cult of Beauty: the Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900" which looks fantastic. Many thanks to Cassandra for sending this to me!

True Victorian-era science in action: Professor Angelo Sismonda was an Italian geologist who designed a "prospecting kit" to take on expeditions. It looks like one of the vampire hunting kits you see these days, but it's authentic and amazing.

Attention, Coilhouse readers: they're running a special right now where you can purchase back issues in PDF.

Attention, pirate fans: consider this as a bedroom design for your child. (Wow.)

And finally, for those of us who are H.G. Wells fans, David Lodge writes about his "bio-fiction" novel describing the wildly varied life of the writer.

Photos from the weekend at HorrorHound are up at Flickr! A good time was had by all.

Not up on Flickr are our attempted photos of the SuperMoon; they ended up pretty blurry. Other photographers did a much better job.

How good are you at identifying objects from classic movies? I did better than I thought I would!

Candy Chang's "Before I Die" project in New Orleans is fascinating. It's interesting to see so many different goals in life.

Making books the old-fashioned way was, actually, sort of a pain.

And finally, an archaeology/art link -- an amazing story of "darkzone" cave art in Tennessee and the surrounding states' cave systems. Some art is as recent as the 1500s, other pieces might be six thousand years old.

Happy Friday! Many thanks to everyone who sent in links.

From Nicole: The Gendered Advertising Remixer. This is fantastic.

From Jere: The Fordham Follies cast performs "Libraria" in a library, of course. (Man, Fordham has some hot law students.)

From Zazoo: Pet disco in Brooklyn!

From Tim: A Cthulhu birthday cake, for the Lovecraftian devotees.

From Julie: Communication, ancient Welsh style.

From Satori: Remembering the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, one hundred years later.

From Cassandra: After the recession, is a new concept of personal wealth emerging?

Have a spiffy weekend, everyone! See you next week.

Hey, did you know it's the year of the librarian? SXSW says so, anyway!

Even though law firms are doing better than last year, it is still not the year of the law librarian. Look at the (accumulating?) deadpool of firms.

One week till Opening Day! To get you properly in the mood, MLB has dug up a film from 1924 or thereabouts, featuring Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Walter Johnson.

RIP, Liz.

Even though snow is still in the forecast, the festival schedule for spring has begun! Here's a quick whirlwind tour.

In England, the Oxford and Cambridge boat race occurs this weekend, as does the World Pooh Sticks Championships. Go to both if you can!

Meanwhile, on the continent, it is apparently European Gay Ski Week. So you can still pretend it's winter.

In the United States, cherry blossoms and kites fill the air in both Nashville and Washington DC this weekend. (Not sure if there will be kites in Nashville, actually. Bring one and start a trend.) Going up the east coast,  it's Maine Maple Sunday, yum.

Farther north, Quebec finally gets around to celebrating St. Patrick's Day this weekend.

And finally, it's only six months or so till Halloween, so why not go to Horrorhound Weekend in Indianapolis? If you peruse the guest lists, you may see some familiar faces. (Joan even got her own little square!) Stop by and say hi to Meet Cleaver Theatre!

Hello. It's an insanely busy day here, so this is much shorter than usual. Stay tuned for a book review and giveaway contest over at the Steampunk Librarian later this week, though!

My current interest (obsession?): hauntology.

My fun find of the day: Farmpunk. Agrarian anarchists, woo!

XKCD has a helpful chart on radiation levels, including the amount you get from eating a banana!

I linked to David Malki's great post on Victorian-era photo retouching last week; he continues the topic and gets into philosophical territory, too.

Imagine comic books...er, graphic novels...as paperbacks published in the '60s and '70s. Now see the covers, as imagined by artist Fonografiks. These are fantastic.

The Pet Shop Boys talk about scoring a ballet of a Hans Christian Andersen fairytale. I think Neil Tennant is morphing into William S. Burroughs, incidentally.

Meanwhile, Duran Duran is collaborating with David Lynch. You know the results are going to be memorable.

And finally, while Charlie Sheen is making all the headlines, his father and brother have been in Spain making what sounds like a beautiful film about family relationships. Interesting, isn't it?

Happy Friday, everyone. Many thanks for reading and sending in links!

Artist Signalnoise has created a beautiful and heartbreaking poster encouraging aid for Japan.

From Zazoo: The Supermoon will be here Saturday night! Let's hope the theories about wacky tides and other mayhem are, um, exaggerated wildly.

Also from Zazoo: Williamsburg is losing its artists to Bushwick and Gowanus; there are hipster traps lurking in the city (hee), and some scientists believe they've discovered Atlantis, wiped out by a tsunami off the coast of Spain long ago.

From Julie: a library book is checked out, then travels the world and returns 30 years later. I bet the other books are jealous.

From Josie: gorgeous haute macabre fashion!

From Cassandra: psychotherapists are having big arguments about attachment theory. Fascinating stuff.

And finally, from Danny: Matryoshka dolls or theremins? They're both! And they're called matromyns!

Have a spiffy (and safe) weekend, everyone. See you next week!

Hi there. Sorry for the missed day yesterday -- we are having exciting times during this Month of Dental Surgery in our household!

For updated information on what's happening in Japan, NHK is streaming an English broadcast of their news; the BBC also has a constantly refreshing page on the situation.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all -- here's a great ad for Library Ireland Week (as seen on librarian.net), as well as a roundup of Irish-American journalists.

Happy law school library news -- Monty the dog is now really, truly available for brief checkout periods at Yale! (I posted about this before, but it turned out to be sort of a joke...and then people got serious.)

Has anyone tried Discovereads yet? It looks interesting.

Hear ye, artists of a steampunk bent: you're needed for an upcoming gallery in Foxboro connected to a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea exhibit!

In other artistic happenings, Tom Hardwidge creates robotic insects from decommissioned ammunition, and David Malki discusses Victorian-era retouching of photographs. (A lot of those retouchers were very talented. Hoaxes are nothing new.)

Nelson Illusions is a family magic act with a decidedly steampunky angle. Huzzah!

Trial By Steam is my latest steampunk weblog discovery.

And finally, prepare yourselves for the Steampunk Bible, coming to you in May from the good VandeerMeer people!

Introverts rejoice: being alone is good for you!

A new book on Modigliani celebrates his crazy lifestyle.

I'm not a big fan of the 2012 Olympics logo, but even with my ridiculously high pareidolia levels I didn't notice that it apparently spells out "Zion."

I agree with those who would love to see Jill Thompson do a Wonder Woman story. This image is great.

Also great is the work of Trevor Basset; I especially like this portrait of his cats.

Watching terrifying footage of Japan right now -- earthquakes, tsunamis, and now whirlpools. Stay safe, everyone. If you're in Japan or know someone who is, Google has made a "people finder" page where you can check in.

In America, meanwhile: if you thought what's going on in Wisconsin is bad, take a look at what they're doing in Michigan. Wow. (Thanks to Bunny for the link.)

From Zazoo: Lady Gaga has terminated her partnership with Target, due to Target not supporting same-sex partnerships. Good on Gaga.

And finally, here's some more cheerful stuff this Friday. Ohio University asked its alumni to post any weblogs; from the ensuing list, I found Stats with Cats (detailed statistics explained with the help of cats) and Flags Can Kill, a weblog exploring the (irrational?) fear of giant flags.

Have a spiffy weekend, everyone, and stay safe. See you Monday!

Today we are all about the past being rediscovered! Well, sort of.

Russia has found nearly 200 silent films that U.S. studios thought were lost forever. Evidently the Soviets were good at preservation!

In Rome's state archives, meanwhile, police reports against Caravaggio prove that he was one of the temperamental celebrities of his day.

A volunteer at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History found what may be the only 3-D color photos of San Francisco, taken right after the earthquake of 1906. (Hooray for volunteers!)

Linguistics geeks will like this one: is the name "Hamlet" taken from an ancient Gaelic story? (Hamlet does act pretty stereotypically Irish, now that I think about it...)

Potential bad news for horror hosts like us: the Supreme Court is going to decide if public domain works can be "recopyrighted."

Tomorrow: links from others!

(Can you tell that this is a crazy week? And that the weblog entries are short as a result?)

The big event starting this weekend is SXSW; the links there could keep you occupied for quite a while. But if that is not your thing, there is always the Dead Rat Ball in Belgium. Yes, really!

Happy Mardi Gras to all (see how they did it back in the day), and happy International Women's Day as well. You can see the modern Bondian celebration (thanks, Cassandra!), or look at Beyond Victoriana's history of the event.

Looking for reading material? OnlineClasses has gotten into the steampunk spirit and has a list of 25 novels for discussion/argument!

New weblogs on the neovictorian appear constantly -- Gnostalgia is the latest I've noticed. Go and explore!

Hi! I am back, more or less, but am starting the week off with a Friday-like "links from others" day as I get caught up on everything.

From Cassandra: the beauty of cemeteries. Not just for the dead!

From Bunny: Alien life, finally discovered?

From Julie: a 17th-century witch trial notebook goes online; Oetzi the iceman gets a new "face" as he goes on tour; and a Picasso painting, the most expensive ever sold, is also going on display.

From Josie: the work of Henrik Vibskov, as seen during Copenhagen Fashion Week!

Happy drunken revelry weekend! That seems to be the theme of the current festivals, anyway. There's Mardi Gras getting underway in New Orleans, Bockfest here in Cincinnati, the Magic Hat Mardi Gras in Vermont, and, er, Frozen Dead Guy Days in Colorado. (Not sure about the drunken revelry quotient at that last event, but hot toddies certainly couldn't hurt.)

The rest of the week will be a little iffy in terms of updating, as I get to go through some more dental-related fun today and tomorrow. (Teeth: more trouble than they're worth. Bionics can't come soon enough.) We should be back to normal by Monday, though. So have a good weekend, just in case!

Remember last year when we reviewed Mark Hodder's book, Burton & Swinburne in the Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack? I am currently reading the sequel, The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man, and it's just as good! A proper review will follow shortly. In the meantime, I highly recommend it -- if you've got some knowledge of British and European history, so much the better, as the connections and inside jokes (oh, what they've done to scarabs) only improve with familiarity. Also, the cover is gorgeous.

Helena Bonham Carter's look at the Oscars has been labeled steampunk! I would like to label it beautiful as well.

Dr. Fabre has further extended his empire to include the Steampunk Shipyard. Go and be enlightened!

The SyFy [sic] network proposes a series partnering Harry Houdini with Arthur Conan Doyle. Extremely cautious optimism is the pervading feeling at this time.

And finally, the Way Station in Brooklyn is now open! We may even have some spies who are willing to investigate and report back; keep watching this space. The timeliness of the review may depend on whether our spies get into the TARDIS in the corner (yes, look at the photos, it's there).

And speaking of this space, Sir Reginald has been agitating for more screen time. We may do some general "if you like steampunk, you may also like..." reviews in the future, if the audience is willing. (If you are, please say so -- or if you'd rather we stick to writing, say so as well!)