SIGGRAPH is going on right now, from August 9th to the 13th, and many of us are missing it. Here are a few videos explaining a couple of the tracks. While it isn’t as good as being there, a number of these individual programs will hopefully be captured and uploaded to their official SIGGRAPH You Tube Channel soon. While we wait for that, enjoy these teasers.
Since 1832 the Strasburg Rail Road has been running steam trains through Pennsylvania, and is the oldest continuously running steam powered train service in North America. So it is only fitting that in October it will be hosting the Steampunk unLimited, a festival of musicians, craftsmen, authors, and cosplayers taking place in and around the massive trains. Some of the musicians include Abney Park (the first track here), UnWoman (the second song on the page), and Frenchy and the Punk (the final track here). I couldn’t find their author listing, or I would have posted it here.
This isn’t a joke, and it is amazing. You really could win a walk-on role in Star Trek Beyond. Want in? Then go hit This Button and fill out some forms! If you are a Trekkie like me, you will hate yourself if you don’t even take a shot at it! Plus, even if you don’t win (and the majority of us won’t) you will have helped improved the lives of more people than you have ever shared a major sports stadium with. Assuming that, unlike me, you have actually been to a sports stadium.
Neil Gaiman gave the 13th Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture earlier today. It was broadcast live online, and you can watch it right now. I am truly sorry I will never again have a new Douglas Adams book to read, but these events are worth watching, and the causes they bring you are worth supporting.
Laissez les bons temps roulez! This year I decided to become a Mardi Gras float and join a parade which took place in a Steampunk Variation of New Orleans somewhere around the 1860s. The parade was held by the Crewe of Scribes, the theme was favorite Victorian authors, and I had a tough time deciding between Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. But Verne was fully in the era, while Wells only caught a bit of the tale end of it (not misspelling, just a really bad pun), so that is what I went with. I always enjoyed his underwater stories the best, so when I assembled my float I used coral alpha textures on a transparent prim, some seaweed flexi prims, and one of the best little Steampunk submarines I have ever seen. When it was finished, I put the float on as my avatar and joined the parade; what a lot of fun that was! Thanks to the Mayor of Mieville Perryn Peterson, and all the other good folks of the Steamlands, for a truly fun holiday. In fact, I have to get ready for the Mardi Gras Ball now; I will be back soon.
The Gundam Fever Project created a simulated Gundam visit to a Tokyo office building and played it for the unsuspecting office workers. They say this is just the first in a series of such pranks. Thanks to Otaku USA Magazine for the heads up on this one.