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Forgotten Futures News
Below are the 25 most recent journal entries.
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2012.05.25 15.59
A Little Light Reading...
Queen Victoria's diaries have been put on line - all 40,000+ pages of them!
http://www.queenvictoriasjournals.org/home.do
The pages are scans, mostly of the Queen's writing or copies made by Princess Beatrice, although some entries were apparently typed up by Lord Esher - all extant versions are included. This sometimes means that some apparently boring days exist in several versions, while e.g. the first assassination attempt (june 10th 1840) is only in Princess Beatrice's copy, and is occasionally difficult to read. But it's a staggeringly complete record of the period from a unique viewpoint, and well worth a look if the period interests you.
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2012.02.22 01.37
forgottenfutures.co.uk problem
There is currently a problem with forgottenfutures.co.uk - some direct links to files won't work. I think that this may be a domain registration foulup, or something wrong with the way that forgottenfutures.co.uk is hosted - I won't have time to do much about it before the weekend. In the meantime you can access all files by going to the front page of forgottenfutures.co.uk and using the links in that page.
Hope this doesn't cause problems for anyone
Update 24th February - now fixed
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2012.02.04 16.50
Sir Howard Vincent's Police Code
I've put the complete text of Sir Howard Vincent's Police Code on my web site. It's the 15th (1912) edition of a compact guide to law, conduct, etc. for London policeman, by the man who founded Scotland Yard's CID (Criminal Investigation Department). It was used as a reference by all of the UK's police forces, and adapted to many Commonwealth forces. It should be useful to anyone researching or writing about the UK police or gaming in this period, and much of it undoubtedly applies to British police forces from the Victorian era well into the 1920s-30s. To make it easier to use I've adapted the index which now has several THOUSAND links to entries, and put several hundred links into the text.
http://www.forgottenfutures.co.uk/policecode/code0.htm
I've had a lot of help correcting this, but undoubtedly some OCR and formatting errors etc. remain, if you spot anything that looks wrong please let me know.
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2012.01.04 22.21
An interesting early interplanetary voyage.
Someone recently brought an 1847 pamphlet to my attention:
ORRIN LINDSAY'S
PLAN OF
AERIAL NAVIGATION,
WITH A NARRATIVE OF HIS EXPLORATIONS IN THE
HIGHER REGIONS OF THE ATMOSPHERE,
AND HIS WONDERFUL
VOYAGE ROUND THE MOON!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edited by J. L. RIDDELL, M.D.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Which is basically a "serious scientific paper" about experiments with something that sounds a lot like Cavorite, which pre-dates Wells by 54 years.
I've put it on line here.
http://www.forgottenfutures.co.uk/lindsay/moon.htm
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2011.11.01 23.31
Dragonmeet Games
These are the games I'm planning to run at Dragonmeet 2011 on November 26th
Forgotten Futures XII - Empire of Earth
Playtest of a new setting
Frog Day Afternoon
2240 AD - With the 450th anniversary of Bastille Day approaching, and the Anglo-Saxon Empire still recovering from its war with Sirius, the government fears that French terrorists will take advantage of perceived weaknesses to make another attempt to revive the "glories" of their long-dead nation. Your mission, should you choose to accept...
4-6 players, 3 hours(ish)
Fanfic The Role Playing Game
Diana Warrior Princess rules, Playtest
Jellystone!
The season's premiere of an exciting new action-adventure series: when poachers kill Jellystone Park's mascot and several park rangers, an elite team must be found to replace them. But there may be bigger problems than poachers...
4-6 players, 3 hours(ish)
Hope I'll see some of you there
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2011.10.14 23.21
Science Fiction Encyclopaedia 3rd Edition
The third (web) edition of the Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction (Clute etc.), possibly the most authoritative general-purpose source on SF, went on line in beta text earlier this week. Currently roughly 3.2 out of 4.2 million words are accessible, the rest is being uploaded as it's completed. For example, I'm referenced in a few entries, most notably one about Forgotten Futures, but there isn't an article called "Marcus Rowland" yet, and there are still a lot of articles that haven't yet been updated from the second edition, acting as place-holders for their eventual replacements.
http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/
Estimated completion date is the end of next year, but enough is already on line to be VERY useful, and the gaming content has been expanded immensely.
At the moment what they mainly need is bug reports; not so much omissions, which are only to be expected at this stage, but things like links that go to the wrong entry, weird behaviour, etc. But before sending anything in. PLEASE read the information on the news page etc. so that you know what the current issues are.
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2011.08.09 20.12
Another Victorian Story
I've added another Victorian story to my web site. Within an Ace of the End of the World By Robert Barr is another exciting story of the end of the world, this time a man-made disaster, with some very nice illustrations. This story will be added to the next release of the FF CD-ROM.
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2011.07.24 22.49
Farewell NTLworld
Over the next few weeks I will be changing my personal ISP; this means, amongst other things, that my current NTLworld email address will no longer work.
The address I will be using for most things can be found on this page (Open in a separate window)
http://forgottenfutures.co.uk/resume.htm
Please note that to deter spambots the mailto link is obfuscated and can only be read if you have javascript enabled.
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2011.06.19 23.24
Consternation Adventures
These are the adventures I should be running at Consternation, the RPG etc. convention at New Hall Cambridge on August 19th-21st.
Fanfic The Role Playing Game (Diana Warrior Princess rules, Playtest)
They Saved Milton Keynes
When disaster threatens, the Hacker government calls in a top team of experts to save Britain (and just possibly the world). After all, how hard can it be?
Please note - this is the same adventure I ran at Dragonmeet, with some rules modifications, and I've discussed it on Livejournal (and written the fanfic!) - please don't sign up if you know the plot!
Forgotten Futures XII - Empire of Earth (Playtest of a new setting)
Manifest Destiny
2150 AD - As the Anglo-Saxon Empire expands into space, a group of patriotic Americans decides that it's time to restore the full glory of the Stars and Stripes on another world. As the "Wagon train to the stars" assembles, will the Empire be supportive - or try to ensure that their brave new world never gets off the ground?
Forgotten Futures XII - Empire of Earth (Playtest of a new setting)
Frog Day Afternoon
2240 AD - With the 450th anniversary of Bastille Day approaching, and the Anglo-Saxon Empire still recovering from its war with Sirius, the government fears that French terrorists will take advantage of perceived weaknesses to make another attempt to revive the "glories" of their long-dead nation. Your mission, should you choose to accept...
Apologies if you see this more than once, I'm posting it to my web site and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) ffutures_news too.
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2011.03.15 00.55
Postal Prices revisited
Royal Mail prices will be rising on April 4th. For several years the extra price I've charged for customers overseas (£1.00) has been well below the actual cost of postage. Unfortunately this is now reaching a point where I must either raise prices or reduce the contribution I give to charity.
As of April I'll be applying the following charges for postal customers.
Forgotten Futures first registration or FF CD-ROM (two mailings)
UK - no change
Europe - £1.50 (up £0.50)
USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, etc. - £2.00 (up £1.00)
FF Charity CD-ROM or FF registration renewal (one mailing)
UK - no change
Europe - £1.00 (no change)
USA - £1.50 (up 50p)
Please note that none of these charges apply to downloads, which are cheaper for everyone!
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2011.02.24 18.35
Another Charity Games Bundle
Drivethru RPG are selling another charity games bundle in aid of Doctors Without Borders and the New Zealand earthquake.
I'm not in this one since I don't currently have any products that haven't been included in previous charity bundles, but it's a worthy cause and they're offering $320 worth of games PDFs for a $20 purchase. Last time they raised $178,900.00 - The total for this one is already nearly $11,000! it'd be nice if this time they raised even more, so buy it before the offer ends.
https://www.drivethrustuff.com
Later: Apologies - this is in aid of the Red Cross, not Doctors Without Borders
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2011.01.10 21.33
Final charity update - Doctors Without Borders
I've now sorted out my accounts on the Flatland RPG; after taking off the percentage that goes to e23 and Drivethru RPG I've ended up with just over £50, which I've rounded up to £55. There will be gift aid on that, which ought to take the final total to £68.75.
Ignoring gift aid, this takes the total amount raised for Doctors Without Borders from this project to date to £215; this is less than I'd hoped, but not as bad as I'd feared.
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2011.01.07 17.32
Charity milestone
I forgot to say how much in total I've raised for Cancer Research UK and other cancer charities - but it's changed anyway. As of a couple of hours ago the total has edged up to £2000.70, excluding Gift Aid and funds I've raised by e.g. auctions at games cons, selling speakr2customrs graphics card on eBay, etc. I am, as you might imagine, rather pleased!
Hoping this total will rise considerably in 2011.
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2011.01.06 21.32
Forgotten Futures Charity Update, and US postal problems
Over the last couple of days I've been sorting out Forgotten Futures payments etc. for the last few months, and working out how much to give to charity. I'm pleased to say that with the help of several purchasers who added extra money for charity I was able to give £110 to Cancer Research UK today. There's an additional gift aid tax refund that goes to the charity on top of that, taking the total to £137.50
I should sort out the donation I'll be giving to Doctors Without Borders for Flatland RPG purchases over the weekend - probably about another £40 - £50, which was less than I'd hoped, but I won't know until I crunch the numbers.
Meanwhile, I've just been reminded that due to heightened security measures all mail to the USA has been flown by cargo plane since the end of November, which is leading to lengthy delays - I normally assume a week to ten days for US customers, at least 2-3 weeks is now more likely. I would really urge customers to go for a download if at all possible, it's cheaper (for you and for me) and a lot faster. It's likely that I will have to raise prices for overseas postal customers in April, the extra I charge lags far behind the prices I'm paying, so please think twice before you order.
Any customer who still hasn't received disks sent before Christmas should contact me for download details - given the current situation I'm not able to send replacement disks, since they will just be stuck in the queue.
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2011.01.03 22.50
Tooth and Claw e-text now available
Jo Walton's novel Tooth and Claw, the source for Forgotten Futures XI, is now available as an etext from various sources, most notably Macmillan, at $2.99
An absolute bargain!
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2010.12.28 22.11
Untitled mail
Apologies if you just received an untitled email from me via Drivethru RPG, advertising Forgotten Futures XI - due to a problem generally known as being an idiot I fouled up my first attempt to send it, and somehow deleted the title the second time. This is NOT going to be a frequent occurrence - I don't plan to send any more advertising mail until I launch another new product.
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2010.12.28 10.33
Postal Price Rises - April 2011
Postal prices are going to rise again in April, and it's likely that I will finally be forced to raise prices for overseas customers. Prices for UK customers should not change.
Please note that any price changes will apply to postal sales only - download prices will remain unchanged.
If you're planning to register or re-register, please think about switching to downloads; it's faster, cheaper, and better for the environment.
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2010.12.20 01.41
8 hours 22 minutes and counting
Forgotten Futures XI should be on line from about 10 AM GMT tomorrow - I've just finished setting up a directory and links to it, and updating some other stuff on my web sites, now I just have to upload the actual files. I've chosen 10 AM since I posted the disks to registered users at 10 AM a month ago.
For now all you'll find if you click on the link to FF XI is a message in large friendly letters. Tomorrow things will be different...
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2010.12.12 22.52
Web site move
Rather than mess around with the Virgin site I mentioned in a previous post, I've changed forgottenfutures.co.uk to point to a secondary domain on the web hosting server that currently handles forgottenfutures.com
This should now be working properly, apart from some minor tweaks, but if you run into problems the old page is still working - I can't access it to mess it up!
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/forgottenfutures
Sorry for any inconvenience.
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2010.12.09 23.35
Xmas Card 2010
Here's my Xmas Card for 2010 - this one uses a picture and verse from Cassell's Magazine, December 1887
( Small image and verse )
The PDF version, which has large and small versions of the image, is here (1.92mb), or you can see just the image here (1.9mb)
Open in new tabs!
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2010.12.06 20.22
Opera site blocking and the FF CD-ROM
If you use a recent version of the Opera web browser and use its "Blocked Content" feature to exclude advertising sites, you may find that some of the FF CD-ROM content, most notably the library of Victorian advertising, will no longer work. The ready-made list of sites I've seen for this blocks them completely, because directory and file names meet the parameters of some of the entries on its black list. There are also many other files with names beginning "ad" that might be affected, but I haven't tried them yet.
I'd recommend using a proxy file server instead, since most will only block external sites unless you set them to examine local files.
There isn't really much I can do about this without renaming several hundred files - I'm reluctant to do this since so far as I know I'm the only user to come across this problem!
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