Category: science fiction

Tuesday Project Roundup: This, Too, Happened

Karen2 Comments

Some backstory first: I am anti-costume, due to many, many factors (including but not limited to: feeling ridiculous very easily, being dumped on Halloween in college, never liking makeup, wanting to put my time and energy into sewing something I can wear more than once,  etc. etc.).

But.

My job at the craft company will be sponsoring a booth at Salt Lake’s first-ever Comic Con. I can attend for free, IF I work the booth a little–and that requires a costume. In a steampunk theme.

Yesterday I went from, “Eh, I can help you guys with your costumes” to “I am going to own an Amelia Earhart-inspired steampunk aviatrix getup! that I will make in a weekend!” in about four hours. I’m still not sure what happened.

I’m starting with this pattern (view A) in faux leather and adding boots and leggings and a lot of belts. (As far as I can tell, you can throw straps on anything and call it steampunk.) There will of course be an aviator hat, thanks to my friend who is a costume guru and (thankfully) helping me art direct, and there may or may not be opera gloves. A loose inspiration is Amelia #8 below:
bc6d7f8806535322d06bdab01fd2a2d8
With a little bit of this thrown in, too:
steampunk-amelia

This all came on so suddenly, I’m not even sure who I am any more. Apparently it’s someone who’s making a cosplay outfit for Comic Con. Will I finish in time? Will I regret wrangling 4 yards of pleather? Will I look cool, or will I look like Tron Guy? Tune in next week for the thrilling conclusion!

Science Or Science Fiction?

Karen1 Comment

On BLDGBLOG, I read a long and fascinating interview yesterday with one of the engineers on the Yucca Mountain project. The interview is matter-of-fact, not political, but it’s really interesting. I learned that Yucca Mountain is being built to a standard of a MILLION YEARS, which brings up all sorts of issues: How do you even label something for that kind of future? As the interviewee says,

We have looked very closely at what WIPP is doing—the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. They did a study with futurists and other people—sociologists and language specialists. They decided to come up with markers in seven languages, basically like a Rosetta Stone, with the idea that there will always be someone in the world who studies ancient languages, even 10,000 years from now, someone who will be able to resurrect what the meanings of these stelae are. They will basically say, “This is not a place of honor, don’t dig here, this is not good material,” etc.

[…] Of course, there’s also a little bit of fun involved here: what is the dominant species going to be in 10,000 years? And can you really mark something for a million years? What we have looked at, basically, is marking things for at least 10,000 years—and hopefully it will last even longer. And if this information is important to whatever societies are around at that time, if they have any intelligence at all, they will renew these monuments.

I love it when science seems more like science fiction, like the Large Hadron Collider going back in time to prevent itself from ever being made. Doesn’t the modern-day Rosetta Stone sound a good construct for a sci-fi story?

(I was also struck by this engineer’s optimism–because I have my doubts about whether anything will be around in 10,000 years.)

Science Fiction Plants!

Karen1 Comment

Last night I discovered that ivy has pushed through the outside bricks, into the walls, and is trying to sprout through the baseboard in the bedroom. And that is thoroughly creepy. Not because I think that ivy will suddenly come shooting in to attack us in our beds, but because the ivy has been slowly, slowly working its way in and is probably not going to stop now. (I am so glad I rent, by the way.)

Something that inexorable and vegetative reminded me of a couple of science fiction stories–there’s one by Bradbury in S is For Space about mushroom kits that kids order and start growing; the mushrooms then turn out to be a weird alien life that takes over the world and smothers all the kids’ parents. And Ursula LeGuin wrote “Vaster Than Empires, and More Slow” which I don’t recall as well, but is about a planet whose plant life slowly strangles the explorers, I think. (I mostly remember that the title comes from Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress“: My vegetable love should grow/ Vaster than empires, and more slow.)

So maybe if I hadn’t read so much science fiction I wouldn’t be nervous about walking by the spot where I saw the ivy pushing in. I think the landlord can deal with this…