Magnet Waffle 4

I think we mighta skipped a waffle... that, or it was censored... = )

So, we'll be talking about interlocking magnetic fields, monopoles, superconductors, orbits, variable geometry, nitinol wires and mylar/ionic levitators...

so...

I'm thinking I'd like to see science and fashion team up. Renaissance part 2, really part of an Nth renaissance that the universe must undergo all the time...
Anyway, I'd like to see variable geometry clothing, without the need for inflatible apparatus.
Something like the fabrics out of Batman - that 'memory fabric' cape he has, that lets him fly around as a glider, etc...
I'd like to see sneakers/clothes like Zuit from My Favorite Martian or Marty McFly's sneakers from Back to the Future... clothes that can assemble themselves, perhaps which are also like those spray on clothes, and which perhaps are also a non-newtonian liquid (actually, they're nanites as small as we can make them: your clothes can become part of your furniture... eventually, post a singularity, the line between us and inanimate objects will ironically once again become blurred...)

I'm thinking things like Silicene, Graphene, new monomers and synthetics... combined with nitinol (and other cool wires, including semi-soluable and non-newtonian wiring)... they can all be combined into 'power science clothing'. Why do scientists have to wear the stereotypical white labcoat? why can't scientists wear eerie fashion? not just the cool digital watches and working pip-boys we see today, not the LED/LCD belts and hats... not the memory fabric and light-up translucent/semiconducting tshirts... but clothes that make themselves etc...

eventually, if boston robotics, google and MIT keep doing what they're doing, you'll wind up with exoskeletons too (see 'thermo-nuclear iron man: is thorium what powers his suit?'). Turns out, Iron Man and HALO's Master Chief Suits mightn't be too far fetched, compared with Terminator's T2000 or Terminatrix...

The point is, much as with my idea with a magnetic ball within a pliable outer ball for producing current... I'd like to experiment and see if I can make some variable geometry clothing.

What do you think?
what science + fashion ideas do you have, that you'd like to see made or that make you think 'hmm, why hasn't this been done before?'

how would you achieve variable geometry clothing?
how would you replicate Zuit specifically, from my favorite martian? (the rings that do not touch in any way... except for magnetically that is... to the zuit-suit) - being able to suspend tools from coveralls would be a phenomenally awesome utility! and to selectively repel or attract dropped screws/bolts or nuts.

Miniatures Waffle, 3

Here we are again,
waffling this time on miniatures! The googlechats/facetime waffling sessions on philosophy and whatnot will be uploaded elsewhen further down the line, probably by other participants to that conversation (which was really fun to have been a part of).

Okay, so here are some minis projects (im not sure if I've shared these elsewhere before);

 Above: Serra Keto (female model from Wargames Factory conversion; those guys produce some of the finest minis this side of alderaan!)

 Above: various turrets, bonus points if you can identify all the components.

 Above: Upper Battledamaged MagnaGuard (ala EP 3 the game etc), to right, CW series probe droid.

 Above: gen1 magnetised Astromechs (sans R1G5/R3G5 or Ergesh in Astromech); the heads and torsos are interchangeable, and shortantly there shall be more custom robot parts courtesy of yours truly and several former-manus studios and other minis makers worldwide.Neodymium is worse than the plastics/glues/paints we use, so I try to use magnetised paperclips where possible: just enough pull to hold the parts together. Gen3 Magnetised Robots sit flush and are countersunk: no gaping holes as seen in Gen1.

 Above: Anti-starfighter/vehicle Roller Droid (A-S/V-RD), Tri-Pot Droid, and a stock B1 battledroid for scale. (the ASVRD is still WIP: legs or no legs? is it too 'up'?)

 Above: DD and to its right, a walking mode variant. the flash obliterated much of the detail, as the figure is made from hot glue and many clear parts...

 Above: DD and to its right, a 4legged variant of the DD: I never got why they didnt do that in the universe, to distinguish between alleged variants of DD... the mass produced DD's had 4 legs, and were slightly fatter/flimsier looking, and didn't have those popout guards near the center ball... but they did roll, fast!

 Above: DD again, and to its right, the turret section of a T4 Turret Droid. Curse my slow mind, noticing the patterns of the original image and finally putting 2 and 2 together to figure out where they might have had inspiration from: a box of model-kit parts, spluh!

 Above: DD and an oldie but a goldie, super heavy weapons droid. Its an old republic/Sep heavy weapon, partially powered by sith energies...

 Above: Cin Drallig and his protege, Serra Ketto. She looks less fuzzy and goofy in real life: I sneezed while taking this picture.

 Above: Serra Keto, in the Xena-esque "I-eeeeyaheeeeee" shrill warcry pose...

 Above: Side view of the master swordsman and his final apprentice.

 Above: Sora Bulq v2 Redux (so, that'd make it v4, right?) and a one-armed sith lady from the separatists/as a zombie piece to compliment Surf's stat-cards.

 Above: Zabrak Jedi Journeyman (journeyman is apparently the gender-neuter term in-universe), a near-human Jedi Librarian from eons ago, and Siri Tachi (formerly an orphaned and partially melted Mara Jade from a closing down sale...).

 Above: Foul Moudamma v2 (v3 in the pipeline, either 3D extruded or custom figured sculpted...), Female Talz Jedi Weapons Master (she's got a 'boomerang U-type blade', she's a lightsaber thrower for certs) and a stock B1 for scale.

 Above: a revisit of a few oldies: a dark cultist/gray jedi (ironically, with amber blade?), an 'Iron Knight of Illum' jedi archivist/chronicler WIP, and a stock B1... for scale.

 Above: Hobby Dragon's 1mm tube makes perfect lightsaber materials, as do 1/16th acrylic rounds.
Here we see a jedi battlemaster (jar kai), a Wandering Jedi Protector (with purple blade) and a Gran Jedi General (Jar Kai)

 Above: better in real life, but the light when this was taken was overpowering... Halsey, Jedi Knight (made from a RotS jedi knight figure)

Above: Yaddle (a Yoda GM conversion), Yoda ala Epic Duels, and a B1 for scale, though size matters not for this dynamic duo.

Thats all for this round folks, next round, there'll be some more vehicle schematics for miniatures, and some 3D printing Nitinol clothes that FLAP THEMSELVES. I'm working on clothes that zip/unzip themselves, powered by Raspberry Pi or Arduino/other SD card reading solutions...
(they'll be simple fabric solutions initially, then i'll go for replicating jellyfish etc, then I'll go for variable geometry garments!)

Miniatures Waffle 2

Howdy,
taking a breakfrom the batshiz bouncing and creative musing/waffling to do a little show and tell on some figures.

These would be the plastics, and today's subject is yet more starwars figures (i collect a LOAD of all sorts of miniatures, some being over 200 years old!) Its been a rewarding hobby, and a universal one, in that people from all around the world and from different cultures have all mad miniatures in my collection: everyone makes miniatures, and its great to collect them!
Brace yourself, there are a few pictures.

Above: generic nagamonk snake I've styled as a monk... Ive styled the rest as pirates or generic female thispassians. According to Ep2, associated comicbook appearances... this is an accurately scaled nagamonk too! I can't believe they never made him, nor that no-one else made nagas at all. I play tabletop Fallout RPG, set in Thailand, and there needs to be more generic nagas for that... I suppose you could use them in Warhammer as Slann apprentices or something...

Above: Obligatory bent wotc style blades; all the rares seemed to come like that. It was hard finding a match to that certain style, that certain quality that theWotC figures have: too detailed and painted too well, and the figure wouldn't sit well within the broader collection... it was a doosy! Great work once again by the sculptor of the year, none other than ExManus Studios. They make generic fantasy/roleplay figures of the highest caliber which lend themselves to adaptation and modification .

Above: The entire council assembles, minus Tyvokka, a decent Yareal Poof, Good Dooku and Syfo Dias. Kenobi might be in thepicture, or in another that didnt turn out right.

 Above: Luminous Beings Are We... a translucent hybrid figure, to represent a translucent stalk-eyed anthropomorphic crabmonk. The figure was supposed to have a lot more stalks... perhapsa generic stalky-crab monk figure might emerge down the line, and this figure can be revisited? The lighting effects are straight from the camera: no retouchment at all!

Above: I never liked any of the two official versions of this character, so I built her in this mode. Note the covered midrift; the high levels of exposure seemed rather unjedee like to me.

Above: the character from rear: I'm unhappy with the pose and my paint work (dont have dieting pills + esspresso and THEN try to paint a figure), but I'll revisit this when wargames factory makes acrobatic/circus clown female figure poses.

 Above: Hasslefree "turtle stalky lizard" head + wargames factory bodies = neat looking jedi! If only Wargames Factory didnt mold minis with that plinth thing (which is load-bearing; try to remove it by most means, and you either melt the minior it shears off at the ankles...). Only pet peeve there: Wargames Factory are premier resin producing miniatures company, that care for their clientele- they've always gone above and beyond. Thank goodness we have so much choice worldwide for minis providers - hasslefree, coolminiornot, wargames factory, exmanus studios... I couldgo on forever, but we've got choice!

 Above: a naga monk, replete with bendy (out of the booster) blades! I could paint and paint and paint all the bucket loads of detail in this AWESOME NAGA MODEL from EXMANUS STUDIOS, but then it would be TOO DETAILED and thus would look out of place!

 Above: Aayla and a companion. She became popular, he faded into obscurity... its funny how that often turns out...

Above: See, she's supposed to be force-pushing, as in the videogame Battlefront (that was so frustrating, i liked it when the only way to kill a jedi was either by exploding them off a cliff, squishing them with the ATAT... or landing a vehicle ontop of them...

Enjoy this decadent eyecandy... actually, it isnt so decadent.
Most of it is recycled, the customs I've made anyways (made,or composed... its just adult lego or combinatorics!)
the bases are made from local MDF, its sweet! And you can even make pepakura/papercraft figures: german, russian and japanese models out there have set the bar in terms of what you can do with papercraft models!

What minis might you like to see made, that arent and would not likely ever be?
What types do you collect, and what are your rarest figures?
How do the people closest to you handle your miniatures passion?
How do you store and or display your collection?
Do you swap/trade figures - with penfriends etc? Where has the furthest miniature in your collection come from? (ie, where did the mini in your collection that has come from the furthest away from your geographic location, where did that mini come from?).

Cheers!
EDIT: Now with stat cards

Magnet Waffle 2: Magnetic Clothings? More Than Just A Novelty

Howdy! Time for another installment;
I'm not sure if this has been discussed elsewhere before, though surely thousands have already thought of it... Murphys law of ideas on the internet: chances are if you can think of it, somebody else already has, and has put it on the internet...

Lets waffle a little about futures fashions;
specifically, smart fabrics, composite materials and effects... digital clothing.
We'll consider at the front of mind the ERoEI implications of this sort of stuff as well,

So, we've already seen raspberry pis and smaller and smaller chips, fabrics and smart fabrics, multi-modal LED/MED emitters... we've seen simple scrolling effects...
but, have we seen the cartoons from the 50s yet become reality?
- have we seen loop/hoop skirts that do not in any way actually 'touch' a person become reality? (some nice maglev like effects at apparently low and non-lethal/interfering voltages etc... some superconductors/monopole and gravity exploits, such as orbiting rings etc).

Can 'emotive clothing' become a reality? Variable geometry clothing? (imagine spray-on non-newtonian clothes which ALSO have variable geometry capabilities and different refraction indicies...)
Im envisaging more than novelty gear, more than the Kaku clothes and smart glasses of the near future... I'm envisaging 'organic' clothing that allows people to have an ethereal breeze around them in clothing form for visual effects if they wish. Im envisaging clothes that do what nike shoes did in back to the future: clothes that put themselves onto people who can't or dont want to dress themselves.
I'm envisaging clothing that can reflect your mood visually (not like the hocum mood rings heh): jelly fish for : im floating around the room calmly, storm/hurricane for "I'm sick of breaking up with you! We're over!"
I'm envisaging clothes that flap or point intuitively and expressively: like My Favorite Martians zootsuit. can it be done now? How much would such a thing cost - ERoEI wise and monetarily?
How dangerous or fragile would such a thing be?

I think there are ways we can integrate technology now, and have begun drafting patents (if the big indie and mainstream fashion companies havent already)
We can integrate small smart fabric circuits and solar panels and use that as the basis for our costume/outfit.
We'll use mylar ionisation strips or nitinol to physically move the clothing at crucially 'safe' parameters (so as to not electrocute people, cause ill effects or interfere with any nearby electronic equipment). we stitch the nitinol into a seam/pouch, and we use stretchy lightweight synthetic fabrics: stretchy because we want the product to have some give in it for our variable geometries...

We attach the smart fabric battery and circuitry to the nitinol strip: this costume will be hard-wired and hardware only, later there might be software to finetune it all...

Imagine self-flapping tuxedo, lightly flapping as if in a breeze: WHEN NO BREEZE IS AROUND! it would scream: I've got money, I'm defying nature... attention to me please...

I think these are different substantially from say novelty ties of the past...
much more interesting at least.

Getting clothes to have no connection and be a superconductor/suspended from a smart fabric surface is going to be trickier... especially if the fabric surface also has variable geometry... not to mention requiring more rare-earths and power sources/materials...
It can be done though at present, with minimal safety risk to the science/fashion model wearing it!

Many scientists can be beautiful people as well: I think if science and fashion/the arts come together and collaborate again, we can have another renaissance of awesome (we'll need to have one soonish if we want to exceed the present limitations etc...).
It'd be a great win-win: the serious scientists, who are coincidentally beautiful, can take some of their downtime to also be a fashion model - breaking stereotypes of science and bringing science to more people. Simultaneously, hopefully it raises awareness of the scientists profile - (more than the losses/negatives of 'this scientist is associated with 'quakery') - and so they can get their serious work done faster, cheaper AND look awesome while doing it!

I've been inspired in part by various novelty clothes (via Grand Illusions on Youtube)
partly by Thunderfoot and Gilesfilbrond (Giles is a brilliant practical fellow who shares and encourages wonderment and exploration).
Partly by Kaku - very far-seeing futurist and all round wise/enlightened fellow.
partly by Dr Nakamats (brilliant man, somewhere between a John Hutchison and a modern Da Vinci),
partly by many recent rapid funding cuts worldwide into substantial inroads in science in favor of military-industrial paperweights (how many weapons do we need?)
and partly by modern fashion cycle - which so often repeats and repeats and repeats... Clothing can be seasonal and cyclic, but it need not be: that construct is an artifact and a limitation stemming from ERoEI etc...

I look forward to sharing more with you or to discuss this concept further;
where do you see eutopian futures fashions heading inside the next 50years?
is there a way in which cutting edge fashion, science, and sustainability can be brought together?

PS:
Imagine the uses as an animatronic stageprop for places like taylormadeclips etc:
variable geometry clothing would likely start there as a niche subset before becoming widespread I intuit: such variable geometry clothing might lend more verisimilitude to the VFX that film projects strive to achieve...

Magnet Waffle 1

Its the inaugural magnets waffle!

I can't believe we haven't waffled online about this... this comes up so often real world in so many places... its a bit of fun, but it can get a little cranky, so just remember we've got a broad audience and we're playing 'devils advocate'/purely speculative.

I have to say upfront: I know about thermodynamics, Lenz law, transmission losses, friction, and limits. I've taken formal study in that stuff... this is more to explore some of the fallacies that come along every once in a while.

I have some understanding of physics, of maths and especially of ERoEI (energy returned vs energy invested): this is more of a debunking hypothetical for use in real world discussions if/when they come up from time to time. I've seen this come up more often than I'd care to admit at the local pub, along with people doing divide by zero fallacy arguments...

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=34438.0

if we read that, and some of the math stack exchange and ViXra stuff, we get a fair idea of the background...

Without further ado, behold a crude sketch!

Okay, so here's a simple sketch done in paint.

If you've seen something like this somewhere else before: could you share the link and tell me the names for it? Cheers

the magnetic field lines have been simplified (in reality, they are 3Dimensional etc): note the purple-purple color for the repulsion interface... Omitted are the circuit diagrams which would include capacitors (due to alternating current) and wires to earth, etc.

Let's assume that the magnets on either end of the Newton Cradle are either hemispherical (so the field only magnetically interacts outside the cradle in a confined area, doesn't interact with the cradle or interfere* with the cradle balls in any way associated with its magneticness) or are monopole magnets of some sort...

Lets assume that the green magnets on the induction coil piston do not interfere in any way with the induction coil/impede the coils conductivity: the green magnet precisely pushes the yellow core back to its tipping point. I do not know the means by which the green magnet is 'off' such that the yellow magnet may move towards it unimpeded (i suspect this is a weak spot of the fable, probably an electromagnet therfore ERoEI doesn't break 1:1 requirement).

Lets assume that the yellow magnet is somehow held in place at the start point such that it can frictionlessly move towards green magnet but doesn't stick or bounce off once it returns... 

Lets assume there's no mains power: just a capacitor that then attaches to an LED or something... gotta have the "look ma, no mains!" part to make it bonafide.

Having done systems theory, I immediately go for "there are too many parts/moving parts which will require replacing" then, i switch to combinatorics/compatibilism and think "Babushka limits". Nothing will be able to consistently exceed the limits enough for this to work/if only you could overcome friction here, here... and here. heh.

How long might a rig like this hypothetically run for, before requiring kinetic energy input in the newton cradle? 

You can see my next question: how long would a device such as this have to operate continuously for, before it 'broke even' with the ERoEI materials inputs cost (energy of materials in construction + transport + fabrication, we won't include the food it took to sustain the people at each step in the process...)?

How long would it have to operate continuously for to power anything useful? (ie, an electromagnet, a bank of LED's, a radio, a Raspberry Pi?)
Could the coils be used to extend the duration that the Newton's Cradle remains in motion?

I've done some theoretical numbers...

the longest a Newton cradle can operate for on avg. is ~ 2mins. Assuming the "magnetic balls modification" doesn't significantly alter performance, we can assume therefore that the run time is ~2mins for the apparatus... (note, as the apparatus was in use and aged, this performance metric would deteriorate).

The balls will only be in a particular range of repulsion for a limited portion of that ~2min swing time, maybe 20seconds total (being generous), so of the total cycles for the newton cradle, only ~8 will connect with the coils on each end...

The coils will have a maximum size based on the constraints we have placed upon the performance requirements... thus, there will be for each run, 2 shuttles per coil (one going away from the apparatus, one going towards the cradle), for a total of ~16 per coil/~32 for the whole rig.

Each run will induce x amount of current... for a total of 32 x a run's current value.

The ERoEI of materials in the rig, if converted to fraction of a barrel of oil (or barrels of oil), and then to the equivalent electrical value via a joules conversion... is approaching a few (more if we extend total systems inputs to include transportation, assembly, parts replacements, food for the people at each step, etc...).

The amount of power generated each run is a tiny fraction of a barrel, not even approaching a 10x10^9th amount... its tiny.

AH! But you could run the device for a long time... every 3 minutes or so, you could put more energy into the Newtons Cradle, and start it again...

Bah, so what if that would be BILLIONS OF YEARS before you ever even approached 1:1 ERoEI materials breakeven point... (not to mention successive generations in the meantime).

So, how would the above rig compare with other ideas?

A potato battery is x amount more efficient, a hand-cranked dynamo is more efficient... pedal power, solar, exo and endothermic reactions... ion energy, tidal energy...

And thats eschewing all the friction losses and the puck/magnetcradleball wobbles, the decreased collision efficiency, and timing issues.

A fun experiment to introduce people to electricity, or newton cradles, or limits/exponentials etc, but not one you'd ever want someone to seriously try making, like solar roadways or perpetual waterwheels...

I'll spare you the "perpetual upright solenoid"/thermal and pressure solenoid variants and more sophisticated spherical versions for another day;

(these are hypothetically ones grownups have been playing with: with superconductors and flexible surfaces and semiconductors/nanoelectronics on the micro,meso and one day macro scales).

I'd sure be interested in your thoughts if you've come across this variant before or if you've tried contemplating the ERoEI of this concept before...

also any other similar stories involving magnets would be great to share