Worldcon: Sunday
20 Aug 2017 15:51![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
extrapenguinI slept in an hour, then visited the art show and did a final round of stuff-buying.
12: Tomorrow's Cool SF Physics (Tom Crosshill, Boaz Karni-Harel, Tsana Dolichva, Ann Pollack)
Observation by necessity disturbs things and thus changes the universe. Also, what is observation? Does the universe only exist due to the antropic principle?
Metamaterials – use as wave deflectors (for tsunamis, voices, gravity waves, etc) + their need.
The exploitation of gravity like electricity, should gravitons be manipulable – tractor beams!
Using pulsar pulse timeshifts for gravity wave detection
Galactic Positioning System, with pulsars.
What would dark matter planets and biology be like? Would it be possible to fall through a dark star? (Since dark matter doesn't interact with regular matter with electromagnetic interaction.)
Some good stories out of string theory? Can we interact with parallel universes?
Greg Egan's Dichronauts was recced. (I would like to rec all of Greg Egan's output, since that's a guy who bases his hard SF on thoroughly-done mathemathics.)
Prosthetics are a real thing that exists, and tragically underutilized in fiction.
Ways to keep up with physics: PBS Physics on YouTube, the links to the original articles on New Scientist, phys.org.
13: Designing Life (Annalee Newitz, Laurel Anne Hill, Sam Scheiner, Carl)
The main change in the past few decades is that DNA sequencing has become a Thing for the public.
Knockout organisms are organisms where one has turned off/removed one gene and then observes the results.
The ethics of GMO pollen re: ecosystems? (This can also be done intentionally.)
Human clones, if they don't exist, will be done eventually.
Would it be wise to make a backup copy of the mitochondrial DNA into the nucleus?
If a metabolic pathway exists, nucleic acids can be synthesized.
The biggest safeguard vs synthetic organisms is that in all probability, organisms that are a result of millenia of natural selection are way, way better than ones designed in a lab.
In fact, one of the best safeguards couls be designing synthetic organisms that don't survive outside the factory/whatever – save the ecosystem.
Who owns DNA? DNA can be patented, but the not-quite-patent lawyer in the audience said patents don't mean ownership.
Foci of synthetic biology in the near-ish-term: correcting genetic defects, making things able to coexist with toxins, creating commercial-scale microörganisms, improving plants.
Fixing single-gene issues: good (genes have no morals, after all), cultural genocide (eg. deafness), or an issue of "what is 'better'?" (depends on whether we want to live on the ocean bottom or in the stratosphere).
On "What is 'better'": metabolic things, height, etc depend on whether we want aesthetics or to save the environment. Additionally, we understand very little about how genes affect brain function.
Also, we're making decisions for an organism who has to live with them.
Modifying our symbiotic bacteria is also a bad idea currently, since not only do we not know much or anything about their ecology, but we're also constantly shedding them.
If something looks beneficial and is already out there, why hasn't it taken over?
15: Nature and Use of Religion in SF/F
video
I thought this would be about using constructed religions for worldbuilding, but it was a more real-world affair. Thus, I left.
15: Names in Translation (Hannes Riffel, Andrei Tuch)
This panel could've done with a non-European panelist.
Interesting things to do in translation include transplanting the idea (voyage up a river) onto another – say, river – and replacing all of the dialects-of-the-Mississippi with dialects-of-the-Rhine. Additionally, transposing things without a strong sence of place from Place A to Place B (like, Huxley's "Brave New World" from London to Berlin) can help with getting the message of "this could happen here" through.
In the Soviet Union, only things critical of the capitalist system could be translated – such as 60s SF, which ended up being very important. Thus the 20th Century Russian translators' meme: "Kurt Vonnegut loses a lot in the original".
Why do we not translate certain names?
To localize a Greek name from English, or directly from the Greek? To jar the reader, or perhaps conform overmuch?
Pronunciation.
For localizing modes of address: is the book set in the target country, or somewhere else?
Globalization leads to publisher pressure against translating names. Additionally, some countries have strong traditions of not translating names in YA, frex.
Names have connotations that do not necessarily travel.
Readers want to be challenged! Let them be challenged!
For stuff like Shakespeare quotes, there's often an authoritative translation that should be used whenever there's a Shakespeare quote or whatever in the original text.
Then there were the closing ceremonies, which were nice, and then I went home and crashed. I think I'll skip San Jose 2018, but Dublin 2019 is a place I plan to go to.
12: Tomorrow's Cool SF Physics (Tom Crosshill, Boaz Karni-Harel, Tsana Dolichva, Ann Pollack)
Observation by necessity disturbs things and thus changes the universe. Also, what is observation? Does the universe only exist due to the antropic principle?
Metamaterials – use as wave deflectors (for tsunamis, voices, gravity waves, etc) + their need.
The exploitation of gravity like electricity, should gravitons be manipulable – tractor beams!
Using pulsar pulse timeshifts for gravity wave detection
Galactic Positioning System, with pulsars.
What would dark matter planets and biology be like? Would it be possible to fall through a dark star? (Since dark matter doesn't interact with regular matter with electromagnetic interaction.)
Some good stories out of string theory? Can we interact with parallel universes?
Greg Egan's Dichronauts was recced. (I would like to rec all of Greg Egan's output, since that's a guy who bases his hard SF on thoroughly-done mathemathics.)
Prosthetics are a real thing that exists, and tragically underutilized in fiction.
Ways to keep up with physics: PBS Physics on YouTube, the links to the original articles on New Scientist, phys.org.
13: Designing Life (Annalee Newitz, Laurel Anne Hill, Sam Scheiner, Carl)
The main change in the past few decades is that DNA sequencing has become a Thing for the public.
Knockout organisms are organisms where one has turned off/removed one gene and then observes the results.
The ethics of GMO pollen re: ecosystems? (This can also be done intentionally.)
Human clones, if they don't exist, will be done eventually.
Would it be wise to make a backup copy of the mitochondrial DNA into the nucleus?
If a metabolic pathway exists, nucleic acids can be synthesized.
The biggest safeguard vs synthetic organisms is that in all probability, organisms that are a result of millenia of natural selection are way, way better than ones designed in a lab.
In fact, one of the best safeguards couls be designing synthetic organisms that don't survive outside the factory/whatever – save the ecosystem.
Who owns DNA? DNA can be patented, but the not-quite-patent lawyer in the audience said patents don't mean ownership.
Foci of synthetic biology in the near-ish-term: correcting genetic defects, making things able to coexist with toxins, creating commercial-scale microörganisms, improving plants.
Fixing single-gene issues: good (genes have no morals, after all), cultural genocide (eg. deafness), or an issue of "what is 'better'?" (depends on whether we want to live on the ocean bottom or in the stratosphere).
On "What is 'better'": metabolic things, height, etc depend on whether we want aesthetics or to save the environment. Additionally, we understand very little about how genes affect brain function.
Also, we're making decisions for an organism who has to live with them.
Modifying our symbiotic bacteria is also a bad idea currently, since not only do we not know much or anything about their ecology, but we're also constantly shedding them.
If something looks beneficial and is already out there, why hasn't it taken over?
15: Nature and Use of Religion in SF/F
video
I thought this would be about using constructed religions for worldbuilding, but it was a more real-world affair. Thus, I left.
15: Names in Translation (Hannes Riffel, Andrei Tuch)
This panel could've done with a non-European panelist.
Interesting things to do in translation include transplanting the idea (voyage up a river) onto another – say, river – and replacing all of the dialects-of-the-Mississippi with dialects-of-the-Rhine. Additionally, transposing things without a strong sence of place from Place A to Place B (like, Huxley's "Brave New World" from London to Berlin) can help with getting the message of "this could happen here" through.
In the Soviet Union, only things critical of the capitalist system could be translated – such as 60s SF, which ended up being very important. Thus the 20th Century Russian translators' meme: "Kurt Vonnegut loses a lot in the original".
Why do we not translate certain names?
To localize a Greek name from English, or directly from the Greek? To jar the reader, or perhaps conform overmuch?
Pronunciation.
For localizing modes of address: is the book set in the target country, or somewhere else?
Globalization leads to publisher pressure against translating names. Additionally, some countries have strong traditions of not translating names in YA, frex.
Names have connotations that do not necessarily travel.
Readers want to be challenged! Let them be challenged!
For stuff like Shakespeare quotes, there's often an authoritative translation that should be used whenever there's a Shakespeare quote or whatever in the original text.
Then there were the closing ceremonies, which were nice, and then I went home and crashed. I think I'll skip San Jose 2018, but Dublin 2019 is a place I plan to go to.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-20 18:42 (UTC)This is legit a sentiment I've heard from my parents ;) (Also about Jack London, O.Henry, and several other authors. In some cases, I even agree :P)
But, actually, it's a topic that endlessly fascinates me. For example, the first time I read Brave New World, it was in Russian translation. It was a VERY different book, purely through the choices made by the translator: scathing indictment of capitalism, with the communist roots of the dystopia swept completely under the rug. When I read it in the original later, I was very much "Wait... what?" I definitely think the original is the better book, but it's a very different book nevertheless.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-20 23:50 (UTC)