ultranos ◾ ◾ Memes and a link

rodlox tagged me with this meme, and I'm kind of lacking in anything better to do. So:

Comment on this entry and I'll choose seven interests from your list which I'd like you to explain. (If you want me to. I don't care much either way.)

steampunk I've professed my love of the steampunk genre before, but there's just something about the idea of all sorts of technologies powered by steam rather than fossil fuels. Airships, clock-work men, burnished brass and steam. It's a visually fascinating concept, kind of reminding me of a slightly more innocent age where science-fiction was all about the human spirit and exploration, rather than distopian futures and war and catastrophies. And while I love the latter, my love for steampunk sometimes feels like my nod to the buried idealist inside me.

time travel For all I complain about it making my head hurt, I actually really like stories that do it well. Maybe it's a relic of my childhood, when I would get a new 3-2-1 Contact magazine and immediately flip to The Time Team story. I've always been a bit fascinated by the concept, and the majority of my current favorite sci-fi shows deal with it in some respects (Doctor Who, Journeyman and Stargate SG-1/Atlantis [at times]). And even when it does make my head hurt, it's amazingly fun to throw theories and mechanics back and forth with people.

science: it works I'm a scientist by inclination and training. Actually, to be more precise, I'm an engineer. But it still means I tend to see the world with a sense of wonder most commonly held by those who want to figure out how it works. Yes, this is a reference to the xkcd shirt, but the sentiment remains the same: I get damn excited when I read articles and news releases about new discoveries and innovations. And when our models for phenomenon actually fit with the data.

Doctor Who I've only seen the new!Who. One of my housemates (Yarmond) and I are making our way through s4 currently, having been convinced to start at the beginning of new!Who by our other housemate (Link), who wanted someone to watch it with. It's great fun to watch with other people, and it's goofy enough and makes no attempt to explain any real mechanics that we feel totally okay with it when the new group of people we're making watch ask us about it. ("How does time travel work?" "Wibbly-wobbly timey-whimy" "Uh...okay then.")

Also, as a fun aside, I played in a 10-day long LARP where I got cast as "Tom Baker", prior to me having seen any Doctor Who. This has lead to the running joke of "I am NOT a Time Lord."

physics Like I said earlier, I'm an engineer. Specifically, mechanical, which means that mechanics and E&M pretty much rule my life. So much of the universe, I feel, can be understood and admired through it. It's not distilling the infinite universe and all its wonders down to "mere numbers", it's a lens through which we can view them and magify the brilliance.

I've also always been fascinated by quantum physics and astrophysics, even though I'm not awesome enough to handle that level of math. I get the concepts, though, so I can definately appreciate it. Just don't expect me to solve Schrodinger's equation in five minutes at the drop of a hat. :)

dimensionally-displaced characters It's one of my favorite tropes in fiction: the "fish out of water". Just...a little more epic. Take a modern-day character (approximately), and fling them to the future, or to the past, or to a parallel universe. Done correctly, it gives the audience instantly some character to identify with and extends their patience with whomever's been designated "Captain Exposition" explaining what the heck is going on.

enemies of khattam-shud This requires me to explain a bit, because it's a reference to the book Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie. It is, in a lot of respects, a book about the importance of telling stories. Anyway, the main villian is named Khattam-Shud:

"Khattam-Shud," he said slowly, "is the Arch-Enemy of all Stories, even of Language itself. He is the Prince of Silence and the Foe of Speech. And because everything ends, because dreams end, stories end, life ends, at the finish of everything we use his name. 'It's finished,' we tell one another, 'it's over. Khattam-Shud: The End.'"

Therefore, an "enemy of Khattam-Shud" is one who fights against the silence, against the end of dreams, against the end.

Also, everyone should visit the Particle Zoo.