I am not sure what language the author of the article speaks that his English translation came out the way it did (Hint: it is Airlocks, not Air Pockets), but the pictures are beautiful in this story about the Stargate Atlantis Home Theater built by Jacob Yarmuth in Louisville, KY. Nor is that the only good article on unusual home features at Planet Oddity. Another interesting one came in the form of this Steampunk Home that Bruce and Melanie Rosenbaum put together.
There is a point at which you have to acknowledge that the machines have a better sense of rhythm than you do… or perhaps just acknowledge our Salty Robot Overlords. The first band is more a Steampunk-inspired group than actual robots, of course…
There are two good general sci-Fi cons in the US this weekend; on the left coast is Condor XVII in San Diego, with Writer GoH CJ Cherryh. The theme is Tripping the Past Fantastic in all its Steampunk glory, with a Mad Science Faire and nominations open for the Mad Scientists Hall of Fame. Out of those already nominated, I have to vote for Nichola Tesla for the Real and for the Fictional, it’s a toss-up between Dr. Emmett Brown and Professor Albert Wickwire (in both cases because of the skill and sheer joy the actors brought to the parts). There are also writers workshops, dealers rooms, anime rooms, the Hogwarts Educational Retreat, lots of live music including the Steam Powered Giraffe, and ever so much more.
Over on the write coast, SheVaCon in Roanoke, VA, has guests covering the spectrum of authors (including Kevin J. and Rebeca M. Anderson), artists, and actors. All aspects of Fandom seem to be covered in the Events section, with Anime Rooms, TV/Movie Viewing Rooms, Game Rooms, Computer Rooms, Fan Groups (a LOT of them), multiple competitive Cosplay events as well as non-competitive, and everything else you would expect. Whichever coast you are on, quality general Sci-Fi Fun is to be had!
If you are down under, Continuum 6: Future Tense looks to be the venue of choice this weekend. The premise for the event is that 2010 was used in so many books, movies, etc. to mean simply The Future, that now that it is here we should celebrate! Their home page describes it as Killer robots are beating down the door while Mutant Hordes gather… your Emotional Inhibitor is on the fritz and your Computer is calling you “Dave”, and again this event has everything a good general Con should have, plus something special. This is the event where they hand out the Chronos Awards, which I find somewhat disturbing. I am not disturbed by the thought of the award, but by the fact that I know none of the nominees in a contest that is pulling together the best authors and stories from an entire subcontinent. Looks like I have some serious reading to do!
Meanwhile the Japanese Art Festival comes alive at the Richmond Adult Community College in Richmond, UK. This is a Non-traditional anime-related event, if you are interested in the subject matter, I urge you not to miss this one; it is a monster!
I love Steampunk, but mostly it seems to be a European kind of thing, although the US had a major hand to play in it between Edison and Tesla. But did you know Japan had its own real-life Steampunk roots, just like the western cultures? I am not referring to the modern Steampunk instances, like the many Animes (Fullmetal Alchemist, Last Exile, and Steamboy being my personal favorite examples). But the roots of Steampunk, the technology that Could Have Been, had things gone a bit different (and yes, that is Paratime again). The best examples of true Japanese Steampunk I have found so far are in the realm of Karakuri; 16th through 18th century Japanese robots.
For a basic introduction to the topic I can think of no better example than I, Karakuri, a wonderful short explanation of both the concept (dolls that would surprise/trick observers by preforming human actions, such as serving tea, while hiding the mechanical bits that allowed them to do so; the humans would suspect an animating spirit, rather than a device, back in those days) and the history of the technology (watches imported by the Portuguese in the 1500’s, reverse engineered and by the early 1600’s the Edo period craftspeople had developed them into mechanical wonders to rival any cuckoo clock Switzerland ever dreamed up). These were developed completely independently of the similar proto-robots in Europe, and had a different style and sensibility even if the mechanical functionality was the same.
The Japan Foundation and MIT Singapore have both done live presentations on Karakuri in the last few years. KaraKuri Info is another great source of information on the background and history of this unique robot lineage, which is enjoying a renewed interest by modern robot inventors in Japan.
If you want to build your own, you don’t have to start from scratch. You can pick up a kit for the Karakuri Gakken tea serving doll from Maker Shed or other similar outlets, and the detailed instructions at Make Zine can guide you through the steps needed to create one of your own. There are kits for a few of the others, of which the most amazing (and expensive) may be the Bow Shooting Boy doll, but they may no longer be available.
While these are dolls, in the sense of being something made out of wood or plastic that looks like a person, they are also actual robots. Hard to believe because there are no computer chips in the device? True, but the logic is built in at the mechanical level, allowing them If/Then/Else choices even without the silicon chips. That means they can be programmed just like any other robots to follow out a sequence of instructions, with any given action only taken when the preset conditions are met (such as turning around and heading back to the tea pot when the weight of an empty tea cup is placed on its tray). The main difference comes when you want to reprogram it; instead of typing or uploading a new sequence of instructions, the gears, shafts, and spindles have to be changed for a set that processes the new logic and decision tree. Brutal but true: reprogramming means rebuilding!
If you have a hard time imagining how that works, the simplest example to explain the process comes from Europe of the same era; the music box. In 1600 Geneva or Paris, if you wanted your portable music player to play a different song, you put a different metal cylinder into it and wound the spring. As the spring unwound the bumps sticking out of the cylinder pushed and released against the differently tuned metal tongues, playing a pre-programed sequence of tones. While the music box did not have mechanical logic circuits built in (at least not until you got up to the ones installed in church towers), it did go through a prerecorded sequence of instructions to create a desired result without needing human supervision. Thus Automation was born.
There are also some inexpensive paper variations available, if you are trying to interest your young child in moving mechanicals, like the Karakuri Teeter Totter Robot or the Smoking Robot. These are not actual robots, and have no logic built in, but they are entertaining psudo-automatons that move when you crank the handle and demonstrate some basic principles of mechanical animation.
Just for comparison, some European Robots from the same time frame
With one of the longest titles of any film this month, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief looks to be very entertaining. The cast includes Pierce Brosnan and Uma Thurman, and the style looks very Harry Potterish. No real surprise there, as the movie is based on the first book in a series for YA Demi-Gods by Rick Riordan; I am sure they are hoping to tap the same youth market as the Potter films.
Also out this Friday, The Wolfman is a powerful remake of the original Universal movie, staring Anthony Hopkins and Benicio Del Toro. While it doesn’t look as Steampunk as either of the recent Sherlock Holmes releases, it does seem to lean in that direction.
Referred to as the iVictrola, this brass and walnut construct bookmarks the 20th century audio technology span. Mount your 21st century iPhone/iPod in the slot and hit play; the 19th century Victrola brass horn picks up the audio output and amplifies it just as the original did, acoustically. While the only production run of this device I know of was put on sale on December 8th, 2009, and was sold out by December 9th, 2009 (I am guessing a Production Run of about a dozen or so, but I have no real way of being sure if that is correct), it is physically simple and can be recreated by anyone from first principles.
