Notices by Jerry Orr (jerryorr@fosstodon.org)

@anildash I thought your post “You have to start with the principle” was really powerful https://www.anildash.com/2022/01/31/you-have-to-start-with-the-principle/

I’d love to know if you’ve seen any movements recently that embody that well, whether well-known or under the radar

Good post from @anildash about writing better documents ("resumes or reports, budgets or broadsides"). This part spoke to me:

"Very often, people feel a lot of anxiety about the need to preface their big dramatic point with lots of build-up. But you almost never want to be building dramatic tension in a professional context; this isn't a thriller where you're trying to surprise them with twists and turns."

I'm a bit of a storyteller, and always need to fight this urge!

https://www.anildash.com//2024/03/10/make-better-documents

@killyourfm I hope you keep publishing your mix-tapes in some format... a fair amount of that music ended up on my personal playlist!

Then Chapter 1 starts, as many novels do, with God riding the Earth like a bicycle. Possibly bowling over some angels on the way.

#SciFi #SteamPunk #art

But open this baby up, and it gets intense fast! The caption for this is perfect: "L'Electricité (la grande Esclave)", or “Electricity (The Great Slave)”

#SciFi #SteamPunk #art

Robida was eerily prescient here. Cavalry has indeed become obsolete in modern warfare, replaced by “Charge de Bicyclistes”, with support from cannons-with-helmets.

#SciFi #SteamPunk #art

Who wants to go sailing on “Les Donjons Flottants” (Floating Dungeons)?

(@DreadShips have you seen this one?)

#SciFi #SteamPunk #art

Robida may not have been a fan of the Industrial Revolution: “Our Rivers Carry the Most Dangerous Bacilli”

#SciFi #SteamPunk #art

There’s quite a lot in this book about chemical warfare, but I noticed something different later in the book: "The Miasmatic War - Manoeuvres of the Artillery of the Offensive Medical Corps"

Miasma was a popular theory at the time of how disease was spread. Perhaps he envisioned biological warfare in the future? And are those soldiers protecting themselves with surgical facemasks?

#SciFi #SteamPunk #art

In the "Défilé du 8e Chimistes" (Parade of the 8th Chemists), Robida describes chemical warfare 15 years before WW1 would see it deployed on a horrific level:

"On the modern battlefields, these cumbersome instruments [swords] are hardly used. Do we not possess the series of asphyxiating or paralyzing gases, convenient to send by tubes at short distances or by light shells, simple cylinders easily directed 30 or 40 kilometers from our electric guns!"

#SciFi #SteamPunk #art #ww1

Yeah, definitely wasn’t a fan: "Our Rivers and Our Atmosphere - Multiplication of Pathogenic Ferments, of the Various Microbes and Bacilli"

#SciFi #SteamPunk #art

Despite my highlighting of some of the thematically darker images, La Vie Électrique isn’t all dystopic doom and warfare. I’ll end this thread as Robida finished his novel, with a nice view of the airships above Paris.

#SciFi #SteamPunk #art

On the lighter side, who hasn’t wanted to chuck a chair at their monitor during a tense Zoom call?

#SciFi #SteamPunk #art #RemoteWork

There are some awesome illustrations in the 1890 sci-fi novel "Le Vingtième siècle. La vie électrique" ("The Twentieth Century. The Electric Life") by Albert Robida. The novel is in French, so I’ve just used Google to translate a few snippets. But the illustrations are killer.

First is the cover, which has a pretty chill steampunk vibe.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/35103/35103-h/35103-h.htm

#SciFi #SteamPunk #art

@aaribaud clever angle!