Eppu – Page 44 – Co-Geeking

A Lego Porg

October 1, 2018October 1, 2018Eppu5 Comments

Wow – there’s now an official Lego porg.

“Features authentic detailing, an opening mouth and flapping wings.

“Also includes a display stand with decorative fact plaque and an extra porg mini build.

“Porg without stand stands over 7” (19cm) high.

“Display stand measures approx. 2” (6cm) high and 1” (3cm) deep, and over 4” (11cm) wide.

“Relive fun porg adventures from Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”

Otherwise it sounds fine and dandy, but does anyone else get an odd vibe from “fun porg adventures”—like being roasted by Chewbacca?!? The marketing department didn’t quite succeed with this particular copy.

Other than that, this almost makes me wish I’d kept my old Legos. Almost—it’s a little too specialized to use inventively in other builds.

Found via File 770.

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

Visual Inspiration: Photovoltaic Facades

September 26, 2018September 16, 2018Eppu3 Comments

Solar power technologies are advanced enough that they are increasingly being integrated into buildings during construction, not just added onto existing ones. For example, there’s a way to make thin enough, light-weight enough, and transparent enough solar cells to embed them into windows. Some cells even have color, which makes inventive facades a definite possibility!

Below are some colorful glass facades and/or windows, some actually photovoltaic, others made from regular glass or other sun control materials, to illustrate just a few possibilities SFF creators might want to consider.

SwissTech Convention Center in Ecublens, Switzerland

Using dye-sensitized solar cells or DSSC (also known as Grätzel cells), the world’s first multicolored solar facade was built at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. Although the technology is 30 years old already, the building is only from 2014.

Biochemistry building at The University of Oxford in Oxford, UK

The facade is made up of glass fins that emulate the colors of the historic buildings surrounding it.

Clapham Manor Primary School in London, UK

A new wing added to an existing Victorian school. No solar glass as far as I can tell, but the combinations of solid and fritted, on one hand, and clear and colored glass, on the other, allow for some environmental control.

Environmental education center El Captivador in Alicante, Spain

Designed by CrystalZoo, the roof tiles of the sustainably built environmental education center flow from bright reds via oranges to yellows.

Xicui entertainment complex in Beijing, China

GreenPix, a photovoltaic Zero Energy Media Wall, built for the Xicui entertainment center before the 2008 Beijing olympics, was the largest color LED display in the world at the time.

Gare de Perpignan in Perpignan, France

An atrium with semi-translucent photovoltaic ceiling panels plus regular colorful glass (as far as I can tell).

Kuggen building, Chalmers tekniska högskola in Gothenburg, Sweden

Designed by Winngårdh Arkitektkontor for the Chalmers University of Technology, Kuggen has a movable sunscreen and six floors, each shielding the floor below.

At the moment, it seems that next to cost, fairly low efficiency is the biggest problem with building-integrated photovoltaics. (Although, the efficiency problem might soon be solved.) Fortunately, both are something that SFF writers can easily deal with. 🙂

Images: External EPLF facade by Chris Blaser via Flickr, internal EPLF facade by RDR_FernandoGuerra via Flickr. Biochemistry building at U of Oxford by Andy Matthews on Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). Clapham Manor school by Jonas Lencer / Philip Marsh Alex de Rijke via de Rijke Marsh Morgan. El Captivador by CrystalZoo on Twitter. GreenPix by Simone Giostra & Partners. Gare de Perpignan by Laurent Lacombe / Issolsa via Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0). Kuggen by magro_kr on Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?

Quotes: To End That Was to End Their History, Their Present, Their Future

September 19, 2018September 16, 2018Eppu2 Comments

“All that was left of a person’s life was recorded on paper, in annals, in almanacs, in the physical items they produced. To end that was to end their history, their present, their future.”

– Aster Grey in An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

…Which is why the attitudes and words of those writing our world’s history matter; why social sciences, humanities, and languages matter (and not just STEM); why diversity, inclusion, and empathy matter.

Solomon, Rivers. An Unkindness of Ghosts. Brooklyn, NY: Akashic Books, 2017, p. 327.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

First Captain Marvel Trailer

September 18, 2018January 27, 2019Eppu3 Comments

The first official Captain Marvel trailer just dropped today, and it’s AWESOME!

Marvel Studios’ Captain Marvel – Official Trailer by Marvel Entertainment on YouTube

The below reaction is pretty accurate:

Okay, granted, it doesn’t show much yet beyond glimpses. I know nothing of the comic book version of Carol Danvers to begin with, nor do I know whether a rumor saying the movie won’t be dealing with her origin story is true or not. What impressed me, though, is how much the trailer highlighted her determination, standing up time and again after falling down.

It was also great to see younger, sprightlier Nick Fury. Not to mention Coulsooooon!

(As an aside and half-serious at that: as someone who’s going to turn into a little old lady at some point, I hope there’s a darned good reason for Danvers’s punch!)

Last, a LOUD-AS-HELL YAY for no boob armor, nor sexy boob-butt-thigh poses. Frickin’ finally!

The movie opens March 8, 2019. Can’t wait!

Images: Tom Hiddleston as Loki whee gif via a comment on io9.com. Gifs of Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill from The Avengers’ blooper reel via The Playlist on Tumblr. Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne screencapped from one of the stingers at the end of Ant-Man.

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.

WoW’s Dalaran Cupola Library vs. Real Round Libraries

September 12, 2018September 11, 2018Eppu7 Comments

I was browsing my WoW screencaps for something entirely different when my eye fell on two shots from the Dalaran inscription trainer’s place. (This is in the Legion version of Dalaran.) Both are actually from inside the book-filled cupola: the first looks up towards the impossibly high ceiling, the second down towards the trainers’ room floor.

Neat, right? Well, I wondered whether anyone’s actually done anything similar for real and hit the Internet. And I found some!

Stockholm Public Library in Stockholm, Sweden

The functionalist stadsbibliotek was designed by Gunnar Asplund and opened in 1928.

Round Reading Room in the Maughan Library, King’s College London in London, UK

The Round Reading Room of Maughan Library, the main university library of King’s College London, can be found on the Strand Campus.

Picton Reading Room in Liverpool, UK

The Picton Reading Room, completed in 1879, is now part of the Liverpool Central Library.

A home in Toronto, Ontario

Designed by Katherine Newman and Peter Cebulak, this two-level library is in a private residence in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The Octagon Room, Islamic Studies Library at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada

The library is situated in the neo-Gothic Morrice Hall building that previously housed the Presbyterian College of Montreal from 1871 to 1961.

None of them are exactly the same as the game library cupola, of course: apart from the the scale of the rooms, the scale and direction of the bookcases might differ. But apparently it isn’t terribly far-fetched to make a round multi-storey library and pack it chock-full. 😀

Images: Stockholm Public Library by Marcus Hansson on Flickr (CC BY 2.0). Round Reading Room of Maughan Library by Colin via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Picton Reading Room by Terry Kearney on Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0). Toronto home by Tony Soluri via Architectural Digest. Islamic Studies Library at McGill by Klaus Fiedler, McGill Library.

Out There is an occasional feature highlighting intriguing art, spaces, places, phenomena, flora, and fauna.

Oldest Surviving Maya Codex Declared Authentic

September 5, 2018October 11, 2020Eppu

According to CBC News, a thousand-year-old Maya text has been authenticated by scholars at Mexico’s National Institute of History and Anthropology (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, or INAH).

The pictographic calendar-style text was made between 1021 and 1154 CE, and is the oldest known pre-Hispanic manuscript from the Americas. It was made from three layers of amate paper (bark paper). Only 10 pages of a conjectured set of at least 20 sheets currently survive.

The document’s authenticity was questioned on the basis of two main concerns: missing archaeological records of its original context (due to it having been looted and traded), and its differing style compared to other authenticated Mayan codices.

According to Sofia Martínez del Campo from the National Coordination of Museums and Exhibitions (Coordinación Nacional de Museos y Exposiciones del instituto, or CNME, at INAH), quoted in the INAH announcement, the current analysis included making a detailed photographic record, as well as examining the dating, materials, entomology, iconography, chemical-mineralogical characterization, morphometry, chronology, style, and symbolism, among others.

The specialists found the presence of Maya blue color (azul maya) and pigments based on cochineal dye as well as leftover drops of a chapopote resin. (Britannica says: “[…] chapopote [was a] a native asphalt commonly applied to clay figurines as a decoration; occasionally, chapopote entirely covers the figures, while in other examples it is used to decorate only the face, mouth, or eyes.”)

In addition, INAH announced that the folding book will no longer be known by its previous name (Grolier); instead, the work will be known as Mexico Maya Codex (Códice Maya de México).

The Mexico Maya Codex will be shown to the public for one month, from September 27 to the end of October, 2018, as part of the International Book Fair of Anthropology and History (Feria Internacional del Libro de Antropología e Historia, or FILAH).

Also during the FILAH book fair the book El Códice Maya de México (The Mexico Maya Codex) will be released. It will include a facsimile edition of the pre-Hispanic text in addition to academic and scientific articles.

Only three other pre-Hispanic codices are known, called Madrid, Dresden, and Paris (for the cities where they are kept).

Visit the INAH announcement in Spanish for more details and a link to the announcement video.

Found via N. K. Jemisin on Twitter.

Apparently someone somewhere deemed an earlier analysis (reported e.g. by the Smithsonian.com in September of 2016) not conclusive enough, even though that one also authenticated the Mexico Maya Codex. (My Spanish isn’t good enough to spot any specific reasoning for the 2018 study in the INAH announcement.)

In any case, getting more information on traditional Maya religion and life before Europeans destroyed it can only be a good thing in my book—if you’ll pardon the pun. 🙂

Images of individual pages by Martirene Alcántara; laboratory analysis by Alba Barrios-Laboratorios, INAH; all via INAH.

Out There is an occasional feature highlighting intriguing art, spaces, places, phenomena, flora, and fauna.

Quotes: Hating Didn’t Change Things

August 29, 2018July 7, 2018Eppu

“Hating didn’t change things. The world went on regardless, far beyond the feeble lives of humankind. People could change only if they changed what lay in themselves.”

– Mai in Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott

I’ve been thinking of emotions this summer, especially negative ones. Partly it stemmed from having had to enforce my personal boundaries against an insistent violator and the outcomes from that, partly from the upsurge of racist and hateful behavior in the U.S.

I know hatred can feel like a driving force, but I also know how draining it is to live with such a strong emotion long term. I suppose in the end the universal “too much” rule of thumb applies: too much of one thing at the expense of others will lead to atrophy, both on small and large scale.

Elliott, Kate. Spirit Gate. New York, NY: Tor, 2006, p. 434.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

A Pompom Solar System

August 22, 2018November 16, 2025Eppu

Love this – Lisa Tilse at We Are Scout turned our solar system into a pompom mobile:

We Are Scout Lisa Tilse Pompom Solar System

So clever! The blue and green Earth is the best, closely followed by Saturn with its rings and the colorful Jupiter.

Visit her site for the tutorial.

This post has been edited.

In Making Stuff occasional feature, we share fun arts and crafts done by us and our fellow geeks and nerds.

Visual Inspiration: An Underground Fire from 1962 Is Still Burning

August 15, 2018July 29, 2018Eppu

Apparently in Pennsylvania, there’s a town—Centralia—all but abandoned due to a coal mine fire that’s been burning underground since 1962.

There is disagreement over the cause of the fire. It seems that one way or another a surface fire moved into the system of mining tunnels below the town.

The effects are indisputable and scary: unstable ground, sink holes, damaged roads, plumes of hot steam, vents of smoke and toxic gases (like lethal levels of carbon monoxide), and, finally, evictions plus abandoned and/or demolished buildings.

Speculative fiction that takes place in a post-catastrophy world of some sort immediately comes to mind, and no wonder. Even the little that I read gave me a glimpse on the variety of reactions people can have to major environmental disruptions and their aftermath. Not to mention that photos of the abandoned parts of Centralia are stunning. They remind me of Pripyat after the Chernobyl nuclear accident, which is the closest equivalent I can think of from my childhood in Finland.

Found via Paul Cooper on Twitter. (Visit his Twitter tread for additional photos & info.)

Images: Cracked old Route 61 by t3hWIT on Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0). Coal fire in 2011 by Kelly Michals on Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0). Sinkhole from Feb. 14, 1981, by AP Photo via dfirecop on Flickr.

The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?