Tom Goskar

Archaeologist, researcher, curator and folklorist

Blog

I write about technology and its uses in the varied world of heritage, from 3D scanning prehistoric petroglyphs to the use of ChatGPT in museums and archives.

  • Sony create a competitor to Second Life?

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    Tom Goskar
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    The graphics in this trailer for Sony’s metaverse, named “Home”, are simply stunning. Unfortunately it’s for PlayStation 3 users only, but it certainly raises the bar for purveyors of other virtual worlds. Compare this to Second Life, for example.

  • On NewsFire an other feed readers

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    Tom Goskar
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    My feedreader of choice is, and has been for some 2 years, the excellent NetNewsWire Lite on a Mac. It handles my 244 feeds very well, and they’re all nicely categorised into groups. But I’ve had a bit of trouble recently in that NetNewsWire Lite has begun to randomly jumble up individual posts. Rather than…

  • Google Metaverse?

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    Tom Goskar
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    GigaOM reports that more evidence is turning up that Google are developing their own metaverse, i.e. a virtual 3D world like Second Life. Google themselves have said nothing about it themselves, so this is pure rumour/wishful thinking. What with Google’s acquisition of SketchUp and Keyhole which demonstrates their keenness in 3D, it wouldn’t surprise me…

  • Get A First Life

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    Tom Goskar
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    I’ve been using Linden Lab‘s Second Life for a few months now, not obsessively as some have, but just to see what all the fuss is about. It’s an interesting system, renowned for being full of porn and men masquerading as virtual women (and vice-versa), as well as virtual museums, an internal economy etc. You…

  • Apple’s iPhone will be a closed platform?

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    Tom Goskar
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    I’ve been a Mac user for over 3 years now, and like most Mac users, I was excited when Steve Jobs announced the iPhone at Macworld San Francisco on Tuesday. Apart from the device looking utterly amazing in every way, it was revealed that it actually runs a version of OSX. Wow. Or so I…

  • Podshow+ Profiles

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    Tom Goskar
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    I’ve spent a while messing about with my BTpodshow (or Podshow+ or whatever it end up being called!) profile, and for ages I haven’t been able to work out how to edit the “About Me” text. I’ve been pulling my hair out over it (well, metaphorically at least). At last I’ve worked out how. You…

  • MacHeist

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    Tom Goskar
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    Having just moved house, and having just packed all my books and CDs, I decided that I really ought to catalogue them. I’ve been tempted by Delicious Library for a while now and thought it an excellent time to buy it. Luckily, I heard about MacHeist, who, at the time of writing, are offering Delicious…

  • Naples and Herculaneum

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    Tom Goskar
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    .flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Casa Bottega, Herculaneum, originally uploaded by T.A.G. This photo of the Poseidon and Amphitrite mosaic in Casa Bottega, Herculaneum, Italy, was taken with a Sony Ericsson k750i camera phone. I took…

  • Hosting

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    Tom Goskar
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    This website, and most of the others that I run, are now happily sitting on Dreamhost servers. I’ve been using them since February, and they’ve been great so far. It took me a while to get the Windows hosting paradigm out of my head, and I haven’t looked back. I’ve used their support via email…

  • Antiquarian Bookshops

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    Tom Goskar
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    Who’d have thought that life in an antiquarian bookshop “in a cathedral city in the south of England” would be so interesting? I’ve been frequenting such bookshops for most of my life, and have even worked in one, and trust me – never think that these are dry and dusty places where nothing happens… Every…