Oolite Bulletins

Wildeblood wrote: ↑Tue Apr 29, 2025 6:11 pm

What, I don't get credit for Sliders?

Okay. In that case, Schrödinger's Cat: The Universe Next Door.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B ... at_Trilogy

Ahoy there! Cheat!! One at a time, old boy!!! Give others a chance to get their oar in!!!!

I'll get a try with Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves.
Don't remember the whole story line, but it's about Earth scientists getting a glimpse in a parallel universe, which turned out to be a sort of energy source for ours (or something of the sorts).

Cholmondely wrote: ↑Tue Apr 29, 2025 6:24 pm

Wildeblood wrote: ↑Tue Apr 29, 2025 6:11 pm

What, I don't get credit for Sliders?

Okay. In that case, Schrödinger's Cat: The Universe Next Door.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B ... at_Trilogy

Ahoy there! Cheat!! One at a time, old boy!!! Give others a chance to get their oar in!!!!

Good point - I hadn't quite noticed that it was the same person several times - I'm going to disallow both of these until someone else has had a go.

And as if by magic another appears...

Commander_X wrote: ↑Tue Apr 29, 2025 9:06 pm

I'll get a try with Isaac Asimov's The Gods Themselves.
Don't remember the whole story line, but it's about Earth scientists getting a glimpse in a parallel universe, which turned out to be a sort of energy source for ours (or something of the sorts).

That definitely qualifies. One to go!

Wildeblood wrote: ↑Tue Apr 29, 2025 3:19 am

(There's an hour I'll never get back. )

You get it back - doubled - in Purgatory, when you have to re-watch everything you wish you'd never watched in the first place.

ffutures wrote: ↑Thu May 01, 2025 11:31 pm

That definitely qualifies. One to go!

The topic being "parallel universes", preferably with interaction between universes.

Charlie Stross's "Merchant Princes" series, which starts with an uncertain number of parallel universes, in one of which a family discover they have a recessive mutation that allows them, with certain stimuli, to travel to a parallel universe, along with anything they're in electrical contact with. Except the ground.
They then set up to freight "high value" goods (mostly white and powdery) from one location in the target universe ("ours", "-ish"), through their mediaeval society universe, to another location ; and then back to the corresponding location in the target universe, where white powdery goods have a high market value.
There is conflict between the "Merchant Prince" clan and the law enforcement (then military) of "Us-verse".

I haven't finished the series myself - I should harass the library - but it gets predictably radioactive in one universe, very police-stateish in two others, and then the question of just how those recessive mutations arose needs to be addressed, And Charlie was commenting as writing about how he'd put something outlandishly improbable into his writing in time to have it turn up in real life as soon as the ink splattered onto the dead tree. To be honest, I'm not sure if Charlie has finished it himself.

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Fri May 02, 2025 3:25 pm

ffutures wrote: ↑Thu May 01, 2025 11:31 pm

That definitely qualifies. One to go!

The topic being "parallel universes", preferably with interaction between universes.

Charlie Stross's "Merchant Princes" series, which starts with an uncertain number of parallel universes, in one of which a family discover they have a recessive mutation that allows them, with certain stimuli, to travel to a parallel universe, along with anything they're in electrical contact with. Except the ground.
They then set up to freight "high value" goods (mostly white and powdery) from one location in the target universe ("ours", "-ish"), through their mediaeval society universe, to another location ; and then back to the corresponding location in the target universe, where white powdery goods have a high market value.
There is conflict between the "Merchant Prince" clan and the law enforcement (then military) of "Us-verse".

I haven't finished the series myself - I should harass the library - but it gets predictably radioactive in one universe, very police-stateish in two others, and then the question of just how those recessive mutations arose needs to be addressed, And Charlie was commenting as writing about how he'd put something outlandishly improbable into his writing in time to have it turn up in real life as soon as the ink splattered onto the dead tree. To be honest, I'm not sure if Charlie has finished it himself.

OK, that's the fifth one and we have a winner - As I remember it the main series of books is complete, with a second series of two or three set a couple of decades later.

And handing a MBP (for finishing this round with an excellent example) and the chalice to Rockdoctor, I shall beat a hasty retreat...

ffutures wrote: ↑Fri May 02, 2025 5:43 pm

And handing a MBP (for finishing this round with an excellent example) and the chalice to Rockdoctor, I shall beat a hasty retreat...

Eye of newt ... tip of Sullivan's cue ... Interestingness of Davis. Let's try brewing up something really weird. Give me a few minutes to find the aqua regia.

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Fri May 02, 2025 11:35 pm

ffutures wrote: ↑Fri May 02, 2025 5:43 pm

And handing a MBP (for finishing this round with an excellent example) and the chalice to Rockdoctor, I shall beat a hasty retreat...

Eye of newt ... tip of Sullivan's cue ... Interestingness of Davis. Let's try brewing up something really weird. Give me a few minutes to find the aqua regia.

Checking the search box for previous use from my secret stash of topics made the length of this thread rather evident, so I've edited the Subject: line in a rather obvious way. If you don't like it, you know what to do. If you do like it, then someone needs to remember every do often.

My stash has an entry "[*] The Inquisitorial hat is yours. ............. Hats in SF, not including functional ones (i.e. helmets of space suits, environment suits for the chlorine breathers, military uniforms, etc)."
[*] I shall dash The Good Doctor's fedora (?) to the ground immediately and strangle it with a certain scarf - mostly because I still can't cast on enough stitches to knit my own.
[*] I recently saw a passing photo of a StarTrek (recent-ish) character played by Whoopie Goldberg (?) wearing a head-mounted Whoopie cushion (?) and I'll add that to the bonfire of the headpieces. (Is it a uniform? Hard to say.) Other Star Trek hats (because I remember none) are acceptable.
[*] Oh - and no cunning fabric-based origami with towels. Other DNA/ H2G2 hats are acceptable.

If the hat fulfils a story function - saving the hero's life by staunching a wound ; a tinfoil one being used to fool a prison lock ; short out the dilithium crystals ; whatever - that is acceptable ; but the wearer should be wearing (or carrying) it primarily for sartorial or other non-functional reasons. Enough people have been whacked in the face by a motorbike helmet to make spacesuit helmets a bit obvious on the weaponry front.

I think that's clear enough. Over to your recalls.

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Sat May 03, 2025 12:06 am

[*] I shall dash The Good Doctor's fedora (?) to the ground immediately and strangle it with a certain scarf - mostly because I still can't cast on enough stitches to knit my own.

A more recent incarnation of the Doctor went through a fez-wearing phase, "Because fezzes are cool."

And, the incarnation prior to the scarf-wearing one also wore a fedora-like hat (Panama?) occasionally, but like a gentleman, only when outdoors.

Actually, I think the cricket-loving one who came after the scarf-wearing one also wore the Panama hat sometimes (e.g. in Pyramids of Mars), though I might need to report myself to r/MandelaEffect.

Wait, it's all coming back to me now: the fellow prior to the fellow prior to the scarf-wearing one (the fellow whose adventures were notoriously demagnetized for being black-and-white, and hence useless for re-runs) was the original wearer of the fez.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Indiana's Fedora.

Only went with this one as the rest of the Indiana Jones movies were not exactly Science Fiction in the traditional sense. Even this one pushes the Sci-Fi elements to the end of the movie.

If not acceptable there is another on my possibilities list but that will be saved for another time unless someone gets to it first.

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century !!!

Not Buck himself, of course, but specifically Princess Ardala's unforgettably whacky, Viking-inspired headdress from this notorious scene:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WENCRKpgl0E

Jayne Cobb's "cunning hat" from Firefly - not hugely important to the plot, but caused repeated legal arguments because people made their own and tried to sell them using the Firefly and Cobb names - they would have been fine if they'd worded the adverts to avoid the trademarks.



https://whatthecraft.com/the-jayne-cobb-hat-debacle/

Dag nab-it - someone got there first !!

Wildeblood wrote: ↑Sat May 03, 2025 9:45 am

Wait, it's all coming back to me now: the fellow prior to the fellow prior to the scarf-wearing one (the fellow whose adventures were notoriously demagnetized for being black-and-white, and hence useless for re-runs) was the original wearer of the fez.

Reincarnation, however described, does not constitute grounds for consideration. One Dr out ; all out. By order of the Gallifreyan Medical Council.

Nite Owl wrote: ↑

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Indiana's Fedora.

I had a double take, and was trying to remember the bits before I last fell asleep. But that was "Temple", not "Skulls" I was thinking of.

Yes, "Skulls" does get close enough to SF to count. I think it would be the only Indy to do so though. Regardless, first hat awarded.

Wildeblood wrote: ↑

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century !!!
Not Buck himself, of course, but specifically Princess Ardala's unforgettably whacky, Viking-inspired headdress from this notorious scene:

YT still has my IP on (probably) a hit list for trying to d/l videos for watching offline, so I only got a couple of still frames out of that. The yellow ormolou and rhinestones concoction? It fits as a very non-functional headpiece, and Buck rogers is indeed SF.
You have hat 2.

ffutures wrote: ↑

Jayne Cobb's "cunning hat" from Firefly

Only a truly "hard" man could get away with wearing a hat like that in public. Duckie.

1. - Nite Owl with Indy's skull-covering.
2. - Wildeblood with Ardala's ... I have a sudden memory of Jospehéne Baker. Art Deco and enough rhinestones to distract a hunting Liberace.
3. - ffutures and Jay Cobb's firefly "tile"
4. -
5. -

Off to M.Poirot's chemist to stock up the Chalice with sparkling cyanide, strychnine sulphate (so much more usefully soluble than the bromide) and just enough triply resublimated thiotimoline to make it take effect as you hit the submit button.

RockDoctor wrote: ↑Sun May 04, 2025 11:56 pm

ffutures wrote: ↑
Jayne Cobb's "cunning hat" from Firefly

Only a truly "hard" man could get away with wearing a hat like that in public. Duckie.

He is something of a folk hero (for some definitions of hero)

https://youtu.be/pI-fiGUjAPY?feature=shared