Eppu – Page 53 – Co-Geeking

Vikingaliv, a New Viking Museum in Stockholm

June 5, 2017June 4, 2017Eppu1 Comment

A new museum focusing on Vikings opened in Stockholm, Sweden, at the end of April 2017. The Vikingaliv museum is divided into two parts, a static exhibit and a ride, and it highlights details of everyday life besides just the warrior men of bloody repute, including dwellings, farming, cooking, travel, the lives of children and women, slave trade, and religious practices.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the museum is Ragnfrid’s Saga, an 11-minute long ride through dramatized settings with sound and light effects. The ride follows the story of Ragnfrid and her husband Harald, and takes visitors across the Baltic Sea from Sweden to Kiev and Miklagård (Constantinople) and finally back to Scandinavia and the British Isles. It’s currently available in Swedish, English, Finnish, Russian, German, and Chinese.

Privately owned and operated, Vikingaliv sits west of central Stockholm on the island of Djurgården conveniently close to other museums and destinations. Visit the Vikingaliv and Visit Stockholm websites for more.

Images via Vikingaliv

3D Video of Flying above Mars

May 31, 2017May 28, 2017Eppu

Jan Fröjdman hand-built a short tour of Mars using high-resolution images from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Here it is on Vimeo:

A Fictive Flight above Real Mars by Jan Fröjdman

Not only did Fröjdman add color to the original black-and-white photos, he transformed them into 3D. The four-and-a-half-minute video starts with an approach to Mars from beyond the moon Phobos and then moves to several clips of “flying” above the planet, looking down over craters, plains, and other features.

“This film is not scientific. As a space enthusiast I have just tried to visualize the planet my way,” Fröjdman says.

Scientific or not, it looks absolutely beautiful. Being a visual person, I just love being able to glimpse at the scenery. Kudos!

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

Hugo Awards 2017 Voter Packet Is out

May 24, 2017May 21, 2017Eppu

Since last Wednesday, I’ve been like:

And:

As members of Worldcon75, we are participating in this year’s Hugo Awards voting. Last week, the con released a packet of reading and visual works to help voters access materials on the finalists list. (Note to self: We have until July 15, 2017, 2:59 am EST to get our votes in.)

Apparently this year’s packet is larger than ever before in the 10 years it’s existed. While definitely not the reason for our memberships, it’s an invaluable bonus.

In addition to the official packet, JJ at File 770 did a huge favor for readers and collected a comprehensive list of finalist works published free online.

With all of this reading, I definitely will have no problems with how to fill my days in the foreseeable future!

Thank you, various creatives and rightsholders, thank you, Worldcon75 Hugo Awards staff, and thank you, JJ and Mike Glyer / File770.

Images: Kermit flail via Walker—Bait on Tumblr; Captain Picard Full of Win via Adam Holisky on Twitter; Reading film: radicktv via Lady Fancifull

Quotes: First-Name Basis with Your Information Professional

May 19, 2017October 15, 2022Eppu

“If you are on a first-name basis with your information professional, you are one of the smartest people in your company.

“If you are on a first-name basis with your information professional, you value your time.

“If you are on a first-name basis with your information professional, you are saving your company money.

“If you are on a first-name basis with your information professional, you value accurate, timely information.

“If you are on a first-name basis with your information professional, you know the importance of information and where to get the most bang for your buck.”

– Gloria Zamora

Gloria Zamora, past President for the Special Libraries Association, counterargues the claim that knowing your librarian by name means spending too much time in the library. Humbug, I say, to that erroneous argument! Not to mention balderdash, baloney, bunk, drivel, hogwash, malarkey, and poppycock. 🙂

Zamora, Gloria. “On a First-Name Basis with Value.” Information Outlook, vol. 13, no. 07 (October/November 2009), p. 3.

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

Spot-on Hobbit-Style House in Scotland

May 17, 2017February 23, 2025Eppu1 Comment

Reddit user KahlumG shared photos of an amazing Hobbit-style house built by their uncle outside of Tomich, Scotland.

Looks completely like it could be from Bree, right?

The inside looks as appropriate as the outside.

And—and I almost can’t believe it, it’s so perfect—the house has an outbuilding with its own water wheel!

Kudos! Visit the imgur gallery for many more photos.

Images: kahlum1986 on imgur

Edited to correct an inaccuracy and a typo.

In Here is an occasional feature highlighting geeky spaces created by our fellow geeks all over the world.

Ending of Rogue One Seamlessly Connected to A New Hope

May 10, 2017May 7, 2017Eppu

This nine-minute video by Barre Fong combines the very ending of Rogue One seamlessly to A New Hope:

https://vimeo.com/209263699

“Rogue One” Spliced with “A New Hope” by Barre Fong

Nice job! It was pretty clear from just seeing Rogue One in the theaters how well the team not only wrote but propped, set-dressed, and costumed their movie to match the George Lucas -led original. This merger makes it very explicit, though. A hat-tip to all involved.

In general, I really enjoy comparing originals and recreations (or originals and adaptations), and the pleasure is multiplied when the successor is expertly and thoughtfully made. That’s one reason why Peter Jackson et al.’s making-of documentaries for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies are still the gold standard for movie extras—hearing about the design process is fascinating.

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

1899 Beer Fridge as Inspiration for Morgue Fridge in Murdoch Mysteries?

May 3, 2017October 14, 2018Eppu1 Comment

One recent introduction in our tv diet is Canadian detective fiction series Murdoch Mysteries. It’s based on novels by Maureen Jennings and set in Toronto during the 1890s and early 1900s. The series includes historical characters (Winston Churchill, Alexander Graham Bell, Emma Goldman and others), inventions (fingerprinting), and events (the Great Fire of 1904 in season 10) in their fictitious plots, and often hints at or spoofs future phenomena (telefax, sonar, Area 51).

Although not without issues, Murdoch is fun and interesting in its approach to history. Even if the Victorian era hasn’t ever really been my cup of tea, the production manages to make the era feel alive, not stuffy or staid.

And while I know just barely enough of Victoriana to say that feature X in Dr. Ogden’s dresses looks a little odd, or feature Y on that building appears historical, most of the time I’m guessing. It’s therefore nice to run into a historical detail that looks to have informed elements on the set, like this beer refrigerator from 1899:

The image comes from a catalog of by L. H. Mace & Co. of New York, currently in the Smithsonian Libraries collections. (It’s also very interesting to note that this fridge was actally sold and marketed as a beer fridge, specifically.)

In the earlier Murdoch seasons, there used to be an ice cabinet for storing smaller body parts in addition to larger cadaver drawers. I don’t happen to have a screenshot handy, but fortunately the fridge appears in the background of a few random shots on the Internet: in the photo below, behind Dr. Julia Ogden and Detective Murdoch on the right…

…and behind Dr. Emily Grace in the photo below:

It looks almost identical to the L. H. Mace & Co. beer fridge. Really very, very cool!

It’s such a great detail it’s a shame that at some point when the set was re-decorated it seems not to have made the cut. I will have to try to get a better screenshot of it when we re-watch.

Images: A beer fridge from 1899 via The Smithsonian Institution on Tumblr; Dr. Julia Ogden and Detective Murdoch via Scannersuniverse; Dr. Grace via Pinterest

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

Cassini’s Grand Finale Begins

April 26, 2017September 14, 2017Eppu1 Comment

The Cassini spacecraft is set to make its first dive through the gap between Saturn and its rings today, April 26, 2017. This dive, first of 22, opens the last stage of the Cassini-Huygens mission before the vehicle is driven into Saturn on September 15, 2017.

To celebrate, here are a few of the amazing photos sent back from the mission.

Why are we posting this pic of Saturn on #EarthDay? See that bright dot? That’s Earth, as seen from @CassiniSaturn: https://t.co/vYNrYrMeUt pic.twitter.com/oecjHaJQpx

— NASA (@NASA) April 22, 2017

Incredible. At this writing, the mission’s been running for over 19 years. It’s amazing what we can do when there’s a will.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

Follow the grand finale milestones, read the mission-end FAQs, browse graphics, documents, videos in a dedicated grand finale gallery, or follow Cassini on Twitter.

Images by NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI: Catching Its Tail; Colorful Colossuses and Changing Hues (Titan and Saturn); Spring at the North Pole; Water World (Enceladus and Saturn’s rings). Earth Day tweet photo with more info is available at The Day the Earth Smiled.

This post has been edited for formatting.

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

Quotes: In the Hopes that They Will Be Able to Pass for One of the Glintelligentsia

April 21, 2017April 16, 2017Eppu

“The Merita hotel chain offers rooms at a steep discount to people whose Information shows that they are interesting: as cocktail-chatter counterparts, as connections for enterpreneurs, as potential romantic partners. It’s a strategy to convince wealthier, duller clientele to pay a premium in order to share some sparkling conversation, or in the hopes that they will be able to pass for one of the glintelligentsia themselves.”

– Malka Older, Infomocracy

I just love the word glintelligentsia! It should be in mainstream use already. 🙂

Older, Malka. Infomocracy. New York, NY: Tor.com, 2016, p. 77.

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

A Flight Suit Resembling Iron Man’s Is in the Works

April 19, 2017April 16, 2017Eppu

Inventor Richard Browning has bold thinking in abundance. With the company he started, Gravity Industries, he’s developed a jet-engine suit like Iron Man’s to re-imagine manned flight.

British entrepreneur invents, builds and files patent for Iron Man-like flight suit by Gravity Industries

This 3.5-minute YouTube video captures the highlights of the development during a year. It closely resembles Tony Stark’s faltering design process in Iron Man—except this time it’s real. And while Gravity’s suit isn’t streamlined nor capable of long-distance flight at this point, there seems to be a modicum of potential. Staggering!

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.