Eppu – Page 62 – Co-Geeking

Generating Secondary World Maps with Pasta

September 27, 2016September 26, 2016Eppu

Remember Uncharted Atlas, the online tool to autogenerate fantasy world maps with? If that feels too convoluted or restrictive, there’s also a quick low-tech solution. Tumblr user ohemult describes how to make maps with pasta (and expletives):

“BETTER, BUT NOT FUCKING GOOD! WHATEVER, TRACE THE COASTLINE WITH YOUR PENCIL. BE SURE TO BE SLIGHTLY SQUIGGLY AND, OH, FUCK THOSE LITTLE ISLANDS YOU MADE THEY’RE NOT BIG ENOUGH TO BE WOBBLY ENOUGH SO YOU’RE BETTER OFF USING EITHER RICE (OR SIMILAR) OR JUST TRY TO MAKE SOME REALISTIC FUCKING ISLANDS (SPOILER: YOU WON’T)”

(I find that ohemult’s instructions work best if I imagine Samuel L. Jackson reading them as his Pulp Fiction character.)

Visit Tumblr for the full write-up. Found via Tor.com.

Image by ohemult via Tumblr

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

On First Contact Communication in Arrival

September 23, 2016May 28, 2017Eppu

The movie summer and early fall have been rather dry, as has the actual weather here. I’m eagerly awaiting November when Doctor Strange (six weeks to go!) and Arrival (seven weeks!) open a hopefully more thirst-quenching end of the year. And the more I hear about Arrival, the more intriguing it sounds.

Mark Liberman at Language Log was asked to provide a linguist’s perspective on first-encounter communication strategies. His post is both lengthy and enlightening.

Specifically, he answers the question “An alien is standing in front of you, apparently peaceably. What is the first thing you try, in an attempt to communicate with it?”

The meatiest bit is this:

“There’s no guarantee that their senses and their modes of action are going to be a good fit to ours. They might communicate via skin color changes like cuttlefish, except maybe theirs are only visible in the ultraviolet. Or maybe they can modulate and sense electric fields, like electric eels. They might use gestural and postural changes in a body that’s very different from ours, or rapid morse-code-like modulations of sound at a dozen different frequencies independently and simultaneously. Maybe pheremone-like chemical signals are a crucial part of the process.

“Whatever the modalities of communication, it’s quite likely that we won’t be able to imitate them without building some specialized apparatus. And it’s quite possible that it would be hard even to recognize the fact that they’re communicating with one another, before we even get to the point of trying to understand and imitate.

“More likely, the process would be:

(1) Persuade them not to kill us, and vice versa;
(2) Persuade (or coerce) them to let us observe their within-species interactions, or vice versa;
(3) Design and build systems for recording, analyzing, and synthesizing their communicative signals (or wait for them to do the same thing for ours);
(4) Use those systems to engage in a sort of “monolingual demonstration”, and hope that we can come to understand them and communicate with them to some extent.”

According to Liberman, Ted Chiang’s short story “Stories of Your Life” (that the movie is based on) also mentions “in a mild way” a few of these issues:

“[Protagonist, linguist Dr. Louise Banks] needs to use a ‘sound spectrograph’ to analyze the aliens’ utterances, which sound to her ears ‘vaguely like […] a wet dog shaking the water out of its fur’, and she needs recording and playback to communicate in the other direction, since they don’t recognize her attempts to imitate their speech.”

Visit Language Log for more.

On the basis of the Arrival trailers released so far it’s hard to say whether the movie will be focusing on linguistics specifically, or whether the intellectual mystery will be rounded up into a more generic academic exercise. It does look like the script at least attempts to stay with Chiang’s story. Like Liberman, I’m very interested to see how much of the linguistics makes it on screen.

Image: sign language : friend via Flickr (2008; colored pencil on charcoal paper; by R.A. Olea) CC BY 2.0

On, of, and about languages.

New Edition of Alice in Wonderland with Salvador Dalí

September 21, 2016May 20, 2018Eppu

In 2015, commemorating the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Princeton University Press reprinted a color edition with illustrations by Salvador Dalí.

Surreal, almost psychedelic, and rarely seen before the reprint, the original gouaches were first published in 1969.

The color use is amazing, and the surrealist style fits elements of the story. However, I can’t escape the feeling that had I seen these illustrations as a kid, they would’ve given me nightmares.

Found via Colossus and Brain Pickings.

Images: Down the Rabbit Hole and The Mock Turtle’s Story via William Bennett Gallery (1969; heliogravures of original gouaches; by Salvador Dalí)

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

Labyrinth Released 30 Years Ago

September 16, 2016November 16, 2025Eppu

Jareth: “You remind me of the babe.”

Goblin 1: “What babe?”

Jareth: “The babe with the power.”

Goblin 2: “What power?”

Jareth: “Power of voodoo.”

Goblin 3: “Who do?”

Jareth: “You do.”

Goblin 4: “Do what?”

Jareth: “Remind me of the babe.”

This year marked the 30th anniversary of the release of Labyrinth by director Jim Henson. This past weekend FantomEvents ran some special Labyrinth showings in theaters. We didn’t go due to schedule issues (=work, work, work) but instead watched it at home.

As a geeky kid of the 80s, I have very fond memories of the movie. It’s mostly because of its visuals, but I do like the fantastic lines—great for learning English with—and voice acting as well.

Sarah: “Did you say ‘Hello’?”

Worm: “No, I said ‘allo’, but that’s close enough.”

(The worm was one of my very first tastes of dialectal / regional English!)

If my memory serves, the puppetry effects in Labyrinth are mostly better than in The Dark Crystal, Jim Henson’s previous fantasy movie. (Note to self: Find out if I can rent / stream The Dark Crystal. Local library to the rescue!)

Some of the songs, too, have become long-time favorites, especially “As the World Falls Down” by David Bowie.

Ballroom Scene – Labyrinth – The Jim Henson Company

As a kid, I didn’t really understand how someone could like Bowie’s music, but that one song opened my eyes. (Ears?) I still love it, and the ballroom scene with its floating props.

Bonus find: Stephanie at Make and Tell shares her “the babe with the power” wall art printable.

Stephanie Make and Tell babewiththepower_printable_mockup2

What’s your favorite Labyrinth memory?

Images: Labyrinth DVD case by Eppu Jensen. The babe with the power printable by Stephanie at Make and Tell.

This post has been edited.

In the Seen on Screen occasional feature, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.

Dining in Middle Earth: The Courtesy of the Golden Hall

September 14, 2016September 14, 2016Eppu2 Comments

“At the King’s board sat Éomer and the four guests, and there also waiting upon the king was the lady Éowyn. They ate and drank swiftly.”

This month we visit the Golden Hall of Meduseld in Rohan. Our food reflects the northern roots of Tolkien’s Rohirrim, drawing on Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon traditions.

We start with a hearty rye porridge, followed by braised beef and roasted vegetables. For dessert, a rich saffron and cream pancake served with apple compote.

The table setting is built with multiple colors, layers, and lush textiles. The colors refer to the expansive grasslands of Rohan, and gold-colored or metallic-sheen details add opulence. The dishware turns showier as the meal progresses, moving from a plain white bowl to a plate with brown and green glazing, and ends with a pale teal handblown glass plate on a gold-rimmed white charger.

Check out what’s it about in the introduction, or read the how-to!

Images by Eppu Jensen

Geeks eat, too! Second Breakfast is an occasional feature in which we talk about food with geeky connections and maybe make some of our own. Yum!

Glimpse of Behind the Scenes Driving in Fury Road

September 13, 2016September 12, 2016Eppu

A short video compilation of raw footage from director George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road has surfaced:

Fury Road – Crash & Smash via ESPORTS TV

Included are shots of practice runs of some of the vehicle stunts. The skill of those production designers, explosion experts, cinematographers, stunt people, and drivers is staggering.

Found via io9 / Gizmodo.

Elsewhere in the Fury Road related Internet, there’s this music video by violinist, dancer, and artist Lindsey Stirling:

The Arena – Lindsey Stirling

It comes from her third full-length album, Brave Enough. I know Stirling from her Star Wars mashup video with Peter Hollens.

Awesome, awesome, awesome.

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

Ginormous List of Oncoming SFF Screen Adaptations

September 7, 2016September 6, 2016Eppu

Natalie Zutter at Tor.com has made a list of SFF adaptations currently in the works either for tv or cinema.

Such a variety of projects! It really seems like a golden age for genre adaptations, like Zutter says. Head on to Tor.com for the full list.

I’m most interested in Arrival (based on a story by Ted Chiang and out very soon now!), Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan, and Lilith’s Brood by Octavia E. Butler. It would also be great to see Ann Leckie’s Ancillary series, Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, and Daniel José Older’s Bone Street books on screen.

It was also intriguing to see Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky on the list, for I’m not used to seeing Eastern bloc SFF authors in the Anglo-American market. According to the all-knowing Internets, Roadside Picnic was turned into a Russian SFF art film Stalker in 1979. I never saw that, but did read the Finnish translation (Stalker: huviretki tienpientarelle) when I was too young to really understand it, so it would be nice to refresh my memory.

Besides works in progress mentioned in Zutter’s list, I’m looking forward to OtherLife. It’s adapted from Kelley Eskridge’s Solitaire (2002), which I read only this year and loved. Unfortunately, OtherLife seems currently to have paused in post-production. We live in hope, though! (I’ve been following the story of its development on Eskridge’s blog; do visit for a glimpse of indie movie projects from a writer’s perspective.)

Anything on your radar that especially tickles your fancy? Do share!

Images: Altered Carbon via Richard K. Morgan. Stalker via Goodreads

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

The Neverending Story Has an Anniversary Doodle

September 1, 2016May 20, 2018Eppu

Google tells me with a lovely doodle that it’s the 37th anniversary of the first printing of The Neverending Story by Michael Ende.

Originally published in German on September 01, 1979, Die unendliche Geschichte was translated into Finnish in 1982 (and apparently English in 1983, with the film adaptation in 1984). I can’t quite remember if I ever read it. At the same time, I want to recall a gorgeous tome with both green and red print, so I guess I must at least have been handling the Finnish translation at one point.

(No, I did not imagine the green and red print!)

While the movie version isn’t terribly well-made nor the first I saw in a theater, it is one of the first screen adaptations that made me realize I was a geek even if I didn’t have a word for it at the time. It’s purely for nostalgia that I own and occasionally rewatch it. I’m now wondering whether I should’ve bought the book instead.

Images: Falkor from Neverending Story by Sophie Diao via Google Doodle. Finnish translation of The Neverending Story (Tarina vailla loppua) by Katja Jalkanen at Lumiomena

This post has been edited for style.

ICBIHRTB—pronounced ICK-bert-bee—is short for ‘I Can’t Believe I Haven’t Read This Before’. It’s an occasional feature for book classics that have for some reason escaped our notice thus far.

Down with Dull Dystopias

August 31, 2016December 7, 2025Eppu8 Comments

The other day, Erik and I were at the library borrowing some light evening viewing. On my way to the circ desk my eye fell on the Just Returned cart and on a relatively recent SFF novel that I’ve heard good things about. (I always stop to check the cart. It’s often the best spot to pick up the popular new acquisitions.)

I picked it up and flipped over to the book description to remind myself what it was about. The novel is set in an apocalyptic or dystopic world with major environmental issues. And that made me promptly put it back down. I didn’t even finish reading the book description.

What my reaction made me realize is that, for now, I’ve reached my tolerance for dark storylines with brooding characters in dire situations.

My little episode at the library collided with two random online pieces.

I was reading Tor.com’s coverage on the 2016 Arthur C. Clarke Award. In his acceptance speech, winner Adrian Tchaikovsky praised the other five shortlisted nominees for a recurring theme:

“One of the things that struck me about the shortlist for this year is empathy as a theme that runs through a lot of these books. Empathy across races, across borders… One of the things [my] book is about is the ability of humanity to seize value in things that are different, and the danger when that doesn’t happen.”

Tchaikovsky’s comment made me conscious of not just how done I am with dystopia, but also how much I’ve been missing stories where the nicer aspects of humanity are clearly present. That doesn’t mean all feel-good stories all the time. It does mean that lifting the darker side of humanity up into the limelight is not enough if, at most, the positive universals get slapped on like a thin coat of paint on a dilapidated theater.

The next day, I ran into an article at Literary Hub by Brandon Taylor. “There is No Secret to Writing About People Who Do Not Look Like You” focuses on the importance of empathy as an aspect of the writing craft:

“Stories have many functions: entertainment, healing, education, illustration, explanation, misdirection, persuasion. Stories have the power to shape worlds and to change lives, and so there is a lot at stake when an author sits down to write. Many people fold stories like delicate paper ships and launch them from obscure corners of the world, hoping that their ships land on distant shores and spread some of the truth of their lives to strangers. It is an act of communion, an act of humanity, the sharing of your story with another person. We each contain within us a private cosmos, and when we write of ourselves, we make visible the constellations that constitute our experience and identity.

[…]

“There can be no story without empathy. Our stories begin because we are able to enter the lives of other people. We are able to imagine how a person might move through the world, how their family might operate, what their favorite foods might be, how their nation works, how their town works, and the smallest, most inconsequential aspects of their lives rise up to meet us at our desks. You can’t write if you can’t empathize. Solipsism is anathema to good writing.”

Taylor’s piece crystallized in my mind why dystopias drag me down. It’s because many dystopic stories ignore or trivialize humane acts or traits like cooperative labor or generosity, and in doing so, they omit crucial aspects of humanity. And that—unless extremely, extremely skillfully executed—makes dystopias unsatisfying for me, exactly as I tend to think many utopian stories boring.

Just like darker traits, selfless characteristics exist today because in the past they helped us survive. They still do. We need them, and we’re better for it.

So much of my reading lately has included dystopic worldbuilding. I didn’t realize quite how much that’s been subconsciously bothering me. I’m full, thank you. No wonder books like The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers—one of the Clarke nominees, by the by—make such joyful reading experiences.

Images: Supermoon Lunar Eclipse Starting by Eppu Jensen; Empathy by Pierre Phaneuf (pphaneuf) on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

This post has been edited for clarity.

Story Time is an occasional feature all about stories and story-telling. Whether it’s on the page or on the screen, this is about how stories work and what makes us love the ones we love.

New Research Resource: Gigantic Online Picture Map of London

August 26, 2016August 21, 2016Eppu

The London Picture Archive is a gigantic, free online photo map of the city’s past. The project has been nicknamed Collage.

Managed by London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), the map is made with over 250,000 photos, prints, maps, and drawings from the collections of LMA and Guildhall Art Gallery. Visitors can search by street name, or browse featured galleries and subjects. From the description of Collage:

“The images provide an extraordinary record of London and its people from the fifteenth century to the present day. The whole of Greater London is covered, as are the adjoining counties. Some of the many highlights include photographs of Victorian London; the sixteenth century ‘Agas’ map of London; Hollar’s stunning panorama from 1647; beautifully designed twentieth century posters for London’s tramways; the Cross and Tibbs photographs of Second World War damage to the City of London and the collections formerly held at the Guildhall Print Room. We regularly add new content from the LMA collections and, in particular, continue to develop descriptions and subject tags for the very large London County Council Photograph Library.”

I’ve only poked around for a short time, but for general purposes Collage looks like an endless source of images. For more specific searches it may not do quite so well. It certainly appears to be a worthwhile source for historical or historically inspired worldbuilding.

Image: screencap of Collage home page by Eppu Jensen

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