YouTuber Captain Meatshield arranged a heavy metal cover of the Star Trek: Voyager theme, and it’s fantastic:
Star Trek: Voyager Theme – Metal Cover by Captain_Meatshield
How do I know it’s great? Like the original, Captain Meatshield’s arrangement passed the goosebump test. Good job, sir!
Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.
Finnish author Leena Krohn’s English-language anthology Collected Fiction (Cheeky Frawg Books, 2015) is a finalist for the World Fantasy Awards in the Collection category.
Collected Fiction appeared on The New Yorker‘s and The A.V. Club‘s best-of lists last year (see previous posts here and here). It was also recommended by the New York Public Library.
The awards will be presented during the World Fantasy Convention, held October 27-30, 2016 in Columbus, Ohio. Congratulations for the nomination!
Found via Locus Online.
Image via Cheeky Frawg Books.
“’I’ve got a bit of a stew for you, and some broth, Mr. Frodo. Do you good. You’ll have to sup it in your mug; or straight from the pan, when it’s cooled a bit. I haven’t brought no bowls, nor nothing proper.’
“Sam and his master sat just within the fern-brake and ate their stew from the pans, sharing the old fork and spoon. They allowed themselves half a piece of the Elvish waybread each.”
The simplest and most famous of all meals in The Lord of the Rings is without doubt the rabbit stew cooked in the wilds of Ithilien by Sam Gamgee. This is the closest Tolkien comes to giving us a recipe and we have done our best to honor both Tolkien’s words and the simplicity of the scene he evokes. This month we have a simple rabbit stew cooked on a fire outdoors and accompanied by our version of lembas bread.
Like in The Lord of the Rings, our stew is served from the pan. Hobbit implements from previous dinners (Long-Expected Party and Farewell Feast in Bag End) make a reappearance. There’s also a skewer-like metal poker for cooking, and an old metal measuring cup has pretensions of mughood. Lembas wrapped in strawberry leaves and blackberries inside a piece of cloth add a hint of comfort to the austerity.
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!
The copyright infringement case filed by Paramount Pictures Corporation against the Star Trek fan production Axanar has been in the news a bit this spring. I have a mild interest in it, but I don’t spend much time following the reports—with one marvellous, excellent, and hilarious exception.
Attorney Marc Randazza wrote an amicus curiae brief for Language Creation Society (i.e., for the defendant’s benefit) to counter a copyright claim by Paramount “over the entire Klingon language, not any particular words or portions of dialogue from any episodes of Star Trek, but in the entire vocabulary, graphemes, and grammar rules of Klingon.”
His friend and co-blogger Ken White at Popehat shared the story and the brief itself (as a .pdf file). (The full docket for the case is also available via the U.S. Courts Archive.)
Mr. Randazza not only argues that one cannot copyright an entire language, invented or not; he also briefly summarizes the history and some current uses of Klingon. (Did you know, for example, that the Klingon Language Institute has overseen Klingon wordplay contests? I didn’t. Check them out; the palindromes are especially awesome.)
The best thing about the brief, however, is how Mr. Randazza uses Klingon—complete with the Klingon font, transliterations to the Latin alphabet, and translations—to illustrate his arguments.
I’ve copied three examples below without the Klingon font, using the Latin transliterations instead and adding the English translations Mr. Randazza provides. It’s worthwhile to visit the .pdf brief available online (here or here) for the full effect, though.
“Plaintiff Paramount Pictures Corporation (“Paramount”) has claimed this copyright interest for many years, but has not actually asserted it in court before now – most likely because the notion of it is [meq Hutlh / it lacks reasons].”
[p. 9 of 26]
“Just as poker jargon is unprotectable, so is Klingon. To grant such protection would be to attempt to leash that which Plaintiffs have no right to control. Plaintiffs will learn that [Suvlu’taHvIS yapbe’ HoS neH / brute strength is not the most important asset in a fight].”
[pp. 16-17 of 26]
“Plaintiffs attempt to downplay the significance of their claim of ownership over the Klingon language by arguing that ‘a language is only useful if it can be used to communication [sic] with people, and there are no Klingons with whom to communicate.’ […]
“A language is not constrained to a given ethnic or racial group. By their logic, Ancient Greek is not ‘useful’ because the Ancient Greeks are no longer with us, and the language has no native speakers, despite it being the original language of some of the seminal literary and philosophical works of the western world. Plaintiffs’ logic would seem to dictate that French is not ‘useful’ if spoken by a native German. [qoH vuvbe’ SuS / The wind does not respect a fool.]”
[pp. 23-24 of 26]
At the very least, do yourself a favor and check out how the first line of the Sesame Street theme song translates into Klingon (pp. 23-24). Ha!
Mr. Randazza’s straightforward and humorous writing not only counters stereotypes about legal language, but it’s also very informative. (And he did it pro bono!) Qapla’, sir!
Image: Screencap from Brief of Amicus Curiae by Marc J. Randazza for Paramount v. Axanar (case no. 2:15-cv-09938-RGK-E) filed April 26, 2016
Out There is an occasional feature highlighting intriguing art, spaces, places, phenomena, flora, and fauna.
In an article at SAPIENS, archaeologist Stephen E. Nash discusses the difficulty of interpreting prehistoric life due to the fact that artifacts made of perishable materials are so rarely preserved to be found. It’s a quick, fascinating read, but what jumped at me was this image of a split-twig figurine that Dr. Nash shared:
Found in Dolores Cave near Gunnison, Colorado, and at 4,500 years old it’s apparently the oldest and easternmost example of an artifact style found in dry cave environments across the American West. It’s unknown whether the figurine had ritualistic (or magical) uses or whether it was a child’s toy.
Regardless of what its function was, the figurine is an intriguing example of Stone Age material culture. Like Dr. Nash points out, much of the coverage of prehistoric cultures concentrates on artifacts made of nonperishable materials—stone, bone, shells, metal, or the like. It’s exhilarating to see something that could basically have been the equivalent of a twig toy horse.
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?
Sam (who goes by sobeautifullyraw on Instagram) shared her recipe for vegan donuts with most impressive galaxy glazing. Take a look at the results:
I would imagine it’s easy to adapt the instructions for making the frosting with cow’s milk should you prefer that, or just use the icing to top regular store-bought donuts for a quicker project.
Sam really pulled no punches: topping the donuts, there’s vegan edible food glitter for individual stars. You can truly feast your eyes on these beauties!
Image by Sam (sobeautifullyraw) on Instagram
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!
ActionMovieKid is a terrific YouTube channel that I just discovered. It’s run by ActionMovieDad (also known as Hashi), who does the videos mostly with Adobe After Effects. He writes of how the channel came to be:
“My 4-year-old kid is awesome. He gets into some epic situations which remind me that life is an adventure. Now his sister’s getting into the action too. Buckle up.”
Below are my current favorites. They’re all really short, but there are many neat longer compilations, too.
Toy Lightsaber by ActionMovieKid
Get in the Boat! by Action Movie Kid
Scary Bridge by Action Movie Kid
3-Year-Old with a Real Portal Gun by Action Movie Kid
It’s so great when adults take kids seriously enough to immerse themselves into their adventures. And I especially love how well Hashi incorporates his kid’s expressions into the videos.
P.S. ActionMovieKid is also on Facebook and on Twitter.
Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.
“’I thought it was only a kind of cram, such as the Dale-man make for journeys in the wild,’ said the Dwarf.
‘So it is,’ they answered. ‘But we call it lembas or waybread, and it is more strengthening than any food made by Men, and it is more pleasant than cram, by all accounts.’
‘Indeed it is,’ said Gimli. ‘Why, it is better than the honey-cakes of the Beornings, and that is great praise, for the Beornings are the best bakers that I know of.’”
We never get to see proper Dwarven food in The Lord of the Rings, but what if we had? What would a proper Dwarven feast look like? For this month’s dinner, we try to imagine what sort of a welcome Frodo and the company might have received in Moria if they had come in better days, when Balin and his followers were bringing the ancient kingdom of the Dwarves back to life. Lentil soup, rye bread, rosemary crackers, a great pile of sausages, and honey-nut cakes make a hearty meal for weary travelers, with beer and whiskey cider punch on the side.
Instead of place settings, a pile of heavy plates stands near the food for an informal help-yourself serving. There’s also a utensils crock with a mishmash of forks, knives, and spoons. Two simple candle holders of black metal hold white tapers. They are accompanied by a tall white marbled pillar candle and a silver napkin ring for a little more flair.
A table runner with hexagonal woven decorations softens the polished stone table, and a striped scarf stands in for banners or wall hangings.
Chunky stoneware mugs for the frothy beer and simple pottery bowls for the soup are perfect for the setting.
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!
After the invention of the printing press, old handwritten books and documents were commonly recycled as reinforcements in new bookbindings made in the 15th through 18th centuries. Now, thanks to an x-ray technique developed in the Netherlands, these hidden manuscript fragments are readable without destroying the book they’re a part of.
It’s all possible with macro x-ray fluorescence spectrometry (MA-XRF), which allows even pages glued to each other to be read. Dr. Erik Kwakkel at Leiden University, one of the academics behind the Hidden Library project attempting to uncover more of these fragments, has both been interviewed and written about the process.
Dr. Kwakkel describes the importance of this discovery for The Observer like this:
“Every library has thousands of these bindings, especially the larger collections. If you go to the British Library or the Bodleian [in Oxford], they will have thousands of these bindings. So you can see how that adds up to a huge potential.”
He blogs about his projects and findings at Tumblr and at medievalbooks; see the latter e.g. for the exclusive behind-the-scenes post on the Hidden Library project.
Now I’m hoping we will eventually find a wealth of medieval texts in bookbindings. It’s really fascinating what we can discover with modern technology!
Image: A printed book with medieval manuscript fragments inside the spine, photograph by Erik Kwakkel (Leiden, University Library, nr. 583; 16th c. with 12th c. fragments)
I’ve been having computer issues on and off for a couple of months now, so my part of the posting here will continue to be lighter than normal until they’re resolved.
It’s not all bad, though: whenever my computer has been acting up really bad, I pretty reliably end up returning to one particularly brilliant Scandinavia and the World comic.
The character in the snippet above is Brother Finland. As a fellow Finn, I feel his pain (especially when Brother Sweden – of all people! – walks in and fixes the computer with a touch). And usually I then end up reading more SATW, which is a great stress relief.
Image: Computer Technician, detail of a Scandinavia and the World comic by Humon
Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.
Co-Geeking 