Customiser's Log, Supplemental 2

Howdy!
I've been doing Lorentzian shtuff and futures bouncing while learning new skillsets, hence the picturey delays. What follows are mostly recycled, but they're V1 or V2 stage.

Here's the fleet staples. Note the homebrewed oberth at 'true scale' compared to the behemoth-oberth class...
Theres a charger perimeter defence scout, a TOS-Oberth medical freighter, and a mobile repair tender (limited to warp 5). Also present is USS Incursion from Studio Bergstrom; I love that thing!

 A closeup of some neato crafts; I love the federation models speedboat shuttle.

 STVOY all over again. the micromachine cube is actually the core of a Borg Tesseract. The borg scout/interceptor, the borg tetrahedron, borg obelisk type 1, and the beginnings of a tactical cube/intermediate cube.

 Voyager is chased by a routine borg patrol: on this occasion, an interceptor and an obelisk.

 The romulans! A hallmark warbird and a kitbashed friend approach! Its from the lost era: brownie points if you can spot the components in this kitbash. The neck/beak is 3D Printed.

 As ostentatious as it is, I say Prometheus is ~850m L, and a warbird is ~900...

 I was inspired by the AST variation of the Griffin class romulan: that was a smashing scratchbuild that this present project can't hold a candle to... All Scale Trek is an awesome and inspirational place for all!

 Sideview! This mighta given the game away!

 Here we have direct from the workshop, the preliminary test fit of my re-imagining of USS Premonition - it was too tiny in Armada, and I didn't like the phaser-handle dolphin hump, so consider this v1. It will require liquid greenstuff and putty to smooth and finish, but it'll only cost ~$30USD to have made in materials by the end of it - a bargain from my bitsbox!

Prometheus and her sister-from-another-universe ship, the Uss Premonition. Thadius Demming is a welcome guest aboard Premonition on an earlier temporal incursion prior to Armada...

Here we are then;
until next time.
Next time I hope to have the Assimilator painted and share-able. A cube nearly done, with another Warp one to share, and maybe a factory-direct eaglemoss...
Hopefully I can work out a trade as well: I have a bunch of Fleet Captains Klingons leftover who'er looking for a new home... PM me over at Bloomilk or AST for more details!
TTFN, Kobayashimaru.

*the shapes contained within this log are of a non-profit private consumption geometric study nature, no challenges intended, white rabbits. No give backsies. The other shapes are there as handy scale.

Boldly Customising Where So Many Have/Are Before... 1

Howdy!

Welcome to the trek inspired segment of the miniatures waffles to be found here.

I'm a huge fan of the FASA and Clix games (Fleet Captains is a lot of fun, especially as accompaniment to Decipher's awesome card game!), and of course of Armada, Bridge Commander, Academy, Star Trek Online (some parts) and Legacy (and the more recent Mod for Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion --- when will you guys port it for the Original Sins? If you know of a star trek mod for the original sins of a solar empire?) 

Unfortunately, there is a problem of scale. As so often it would seem when it comes to trek stuff...

Taking an 800-900m Ent E, a 600-700m Ent D, a 580m Ent C, a 3000-8000m Borg Cube, a 600-1200m Rom Warbird, a 600m Sphere, a 170m Defiant as our rough landmarks,

and computing those, comparatively analysing with the Furuta, Konami, Clix and Fasa Offerings, we see that at the tabletop scale...

you get a ratio of roughly between 1:4800 and 1:4880, and more often than not, the data points suggest a tabletop ratio approaching 1:4848.48* (I'm not making it up, run the math on your favorite ships and compare them to the tabletop options, its happened for many of the ships).

This is a nice scale for ships larger than an Oberth, or 130m. Anything smaller than that though, needs to be upscaled a little like STO craft (not the ridiculous amounts seen with clix or micromachines). So, I cheat and upscale craft like the speedboat shuttle, which is between 8 and 15m long, and use the Federation Models 4mm long speedboats.

Borg Cubes scaled to 1:4848.48* will be about 60-70cm long, so to game effectively, will need 12-16" worth of table/play space. This size is convenient for storage and display purposes, and is slightly larger than the existing large sized kits (and will be larger than the awesome Federation Models Borg Cube Kit).

Speaking of which... Federation Models Spacedock 001 is PERFECT for 1:4848.48* scale! its perhaps a fraction too small if compared with Furuta or truescale 1:4848.48 Ent D, but only marginally.

onto some pics!

 Above (left to right clockwise): My 3D Velleman has a problem, it seems to print out borg, ready to assimilate straight from the printbed!...

 Borg Scout Cube (micromachines, in 1:4848.48*, this'd be a ~150-190m^3 ship), Soon to be Coffee Filter Borg-Interplexing Beacon, Furuta Ent E --- ain't she a beauty?!

 Above: the same gang from earlier, but closer up. I'm working on a couple newer borg designs, such as the obelisk, interceptor, assimilator, cylinder (my own type and one reminiscent of STO's nasty super ship), Octahedron proper scaled, and Spheres! Oh, and a couple Borg Cubes: one patterned similarly to B6R7's awesome project, some more Federation Models Cubes, and scratchbuilds...

 Above: for scale testing, here's stock fleet captains Voyager (not to happy with the detail on that clix), Furuta Ent E, and a nebula class. I have a boatload of fleetcaptain spares, because when people found out they didn't have to paint them, they turned in their old fleetcaptains pieces to the LGS, where 2 years later, I bought them for considerably less than you see on the aftermarket. If you think the nebula looks a little small, that's cause she is, as Si' Soldiers blog discusses elsewhere on the interwebs. Conversely, the Furuta Nebula is a fraction too big, but they work together I think.

Above (left to right clockwise): a romulan outpost kitbashed from the bits box, sans fins etc, Stock Voyager trying to find its way home, a cannon from SWMinis doing double duty as a doomsday cannon or a space station, and in the foreground, a Federation station.outpost.

-----

The home printer doesn't have that nice scintilated lazer 3D printed finish, and the parts aren't as 'durable' for the handson tabletop gamers. That said, it makes mighty fine borg! 

To print minis requires callibration every few prints, and constant maintenance - it will ultimately require a 1.75 or .45mm hot end, though at the moment I'm getting solid prints out of the 3mm hot end with 1.75mm filament PLA combo --- I check the head and disassemble every 2 prints, and despite some concern from elsewhere, once you have a funnel on the receiver and control the flow rate and ensure there are no obstructions, you can get decent non-porous prints from straight out of the box! 

The printer also does double/triple duty as a lazer etcher/cutter and as a router holder for the dremmel.

So, apologies to the fans of the other Star Trek factions, but as I only RPG/game as Romulans, Federation or Borg; those will be the only major customs I make (or would be interested in trading for). If you're after ferengi, klingy, cardassiany, 8472y or other factions... you'll have to check out HCrealms or All Scale Trek.

On a final, and unrelated subject:

can anyone out there help a fellow gamer out?

I'm chasing POP cardholders/poseable sign holders, to be adapted for wedding tables and as stands for... signs. If you're in North America or Asia, and have access to POP sign holders nearby and can help, send an email my way and we can work stuff out! 

If you're additionally on other forums, I can certainly recommend you for +1 following successful trade, and am a respected trader elsewhere on WotC, Star Trek.com, Bloomilk and elsewhere.

Your support in this matter helps me to make more customs, and the ripples means we can run tournaments and more people can enjoy what the hobby has to offer! = )

Thanks, and any suggestions for future customs will be taken on board! 

leave a link to the images as a comment, or better yet, share your sketches/prototypes and leave it with me.

Some more Miniatures Waffle 5

Howdy!
Another break from reflecting on some of the other issues facing us,
to take a moment to appreciate some miniatures.

Did you know that Chess-like games, with miniatures, have been around since Gobekli Tepe times, and older elsewhere? The figures were originally carved from stone and composites, such as clays and muds. Some of those artifacts also contain fragments of hair and skin etc... very interesting features of these ancient minis! It must have taken/take much skill to make such fine art and figures, and this is one of those common touchstones that humanity has: all cultures on earth have made miniature study figures or game figures. Its a fine tradition!
On the larger end of the scale, you've got of course some statues from Ashoka's temple building rush, the terracota soldiers, Egyptian warrior figurines, and the Easter Island heads (which some have speculated might have been a bit like Risk Tokens in addition to being culturally significant 'tiki'/totems). People like their minis!

In a more recent addition, well at least I feel strongly that this is the level of awesome being made,
I requested a goofy lizard space monk replete with space wrench from ExManus Studios, along with an optional extra "I'll fix you!" attitude:
and this is what I got;

 As an outraged customer, I have the right to complain here:
this figure's attitude is too loud, the costume is too accurate, the wrench head is sold separately, oh and the heads are swappable...  (ie, I can get different heads and slot them in snug with ferrous materials so this base mechanic model can be from a bunch of species... how crazy is that?!)

Seriously now though, all satire/joke-age aside: This is one extremely fine lizard goofball that ExManus has made: ExManus Studios has done a fantastic job and I can't wait to get a lick of paint on this thing and start gaming. You can bet your bottom dollar that we wont see this in Imperial Assault or in SWCommand figures, I can tell you that now. Too bad if you wanted a space lizard...
This'll be a good token for my local RPG game of space checkers: "King Me"
I'll say when this is on the table for the first time heh.
The king fixer monk will be on the field, and will probably team up with Paratus (I understand Paratus was apprenticed to this monk, might explain the loopyness of paratus).
If not paratus, then this guy'll be an independent character as per SW40K v3 rules... which is good: it'll make him a sitting duck (if he is goofy enough not to cling to cover) for a CIS strafing run!

Now, on account of someone dropping and completely shattering their Cannon camera,
(butterfingers was yours truly)
We'll have to wait for the upcoming pepakura series, (pepakura dagger, dianoga and morningstars a/b/c anyone? papercraft trifighter too)
the "how to customise" guide and the next update batch of figures. That, and real world will probably gum up the works for the short term (its not a wrench in the works level of mayhem... yet hehe).

Enjoy, and I'll see you next time!

PS: I have some new stuff to ramble about exponentials/variable compounding rates perspectives,
some very funny gaffes in a few places about rates of expansion, and then several cross-comparisons for sources... Al Bartlett said it best about humble rates of modest exponentials... those lectures are dearly treasured, as are Williams's reflections on that in actors masterclasses.

Miniatures Waffle 4

Hi there!

In this installment, we look into the world of pepakura/papercraft and minis making in general.
I can do google hangouts and waffles if youd prefer that way: its always fun to shoot the breeze sometimes about stuff and ideas bounce, and I sure could use a hand or two on some printer troubleshooting!
I prefer to tinker in the 1/48 scale range, though I've worked on all sorts of projects.
you'd be surprised just how many packaging items can be useful for making miniatures! The tops from Ramune (lemonade) bottles are excellent for many engine cowlings and turrets, as they come already in the correct diameter and pre-drilled in the correct wall thickness for magnetisation!

Above: Remember the v1 papercraft dagger kit and limited run of MDF/Cardboard kit i did for it back in the day? Some like that '80s boxy chic' styling...

Above: A visualisation of "DAGGER FIGHTER KIT" in acrylic, 1:48th, mk 3. Its bigger, nastier, and angled-y. Did I mention its in 1/48th? MDF+Cardboard and Pepakura/papercraft variants to follow.
 The canopy is inspired in part by shotglasses in plastic, and in part by the turn dials from WizKids Heroclix: those also make handy shotglasses! (clean your heroclix turndials before trying to drink from them, drink responsibly, and don't mix drinking/customising games/playing games... also, don't eat food or drink in your customising/miniatures/electronics lab!)
This kit will be in acrylic pieces and in 3D printed parts: The entire frame could be made in the printer, but it is cheaper to break the assembly down into parts and have them made and folded in acrylic elsewhere. For scale, this thing is roughly the same length and width as the droid fighter mentioned later. Roughly.

Above: The tools of the custom trade: this is a lite set that I tinker with, or that others in the 'factory' can help with: the kids like to help out, and or the nephews and so on; they like making little bead-craft ants and such, so its not much of a stretch to get them working on satelites and droids in 1:48th! This is inspired by Russian and Indian project gamer blogs: check out some of the awesome composite miniatures coming out of Russia and India atm! They're ultra cheap, ultra high quality: then there are MDF kits and the like coming out, as well as indie vacuformed stuff, they're awesome!
From left: wires (1/16, 1/20" florist and also twist-ties from bread/elsewhere), plastic tubing (hard lollypop sticks - 30c the bag at the $1 shop, ear cleaners!- once you've cleaned your ears, you can siphon the centre of the tube for use in projects ranging from microelectronics to bead/arts and crafts (though Audiclean spray may kill the ear cleaner).
Then we have selected 'waste packaging' which all too often either goes to recycle or worse, to landfill! We can make minis from them as-is, and prevent the need for any transport to recycle or landfill! These are from various products. The clear round disks are coffee filters from coffee maker machines: these are ubiquitous and make perfect raygun parts or space stations/satelites --- makes you think that the packaging designers might have custom-misers in mind when they make their packaging huh? And of course, $1 pliers/multi-tool from China, and a custom tradeshow screw driver that I've turned into a 'shiv' on the anglegrinder: the 'shiv' is handy for all sorts of stuff, from de-icing the fridge to working with minis.
This whole 'lite' customising kit is around $15USD tops, and you can easily make 100+ minis, more if you can source plastic packaging waste from local businesses. That means you can save more money and get tools and better paints and basing materials, or potentially aftermarket official parts for your miniature maker-y.

Above: to left, an old warnout figure from WotC (heat warped from direct sunlight and has 'plastic cancer'), to right, the beginnings of v3 Ptype DDroid: it has spinning blasters and 4 legs. The curvy back part is being prototyped for printing, as are gun parts and leg parts, but Ive found in past versions I've made, that the ribbed (can we say that without the laughing?) ring from milkbottles etc makes okay curvy back part stuff. Watch this space: I think a decent v5 variant of this p-type will not be far off, and then there'll be recipes. 

 Above: To Left, some weird floaty plant thing with a bot pal from WotC to right for scale.

 Above: The same floaty plant thing. The floaty bit is made from aquarium toys picked up at local yard sales: I tend to go to yard sales and buy things for ridiculous prices (its a win-win: i get neat stuff, they get a helping hand on their move). At the moment, I've taken to making furniture bauhaus style from stuff at yardsales, like broken speakers or old broken electronics: they make for really interesting coffeetables or desks/bedside tables, and any profit ratio that might be there helps put food on the table!

 Above: At long last, a v1 (in universe, this would be between RotS and ANH) T4 Turretbot squares off against a keldor rookie. The eyes are freehand decals made from high gloss 140GSM paper, then marker-pen'd and sealed. You

 Above: from this angle you can see the 'welds' where a v2 head has been attached: the actual printed v1 model which will be closer to the actual figure seen in Jedee Power Battles, will be moveable and twistable etc: I learned a lot from Gundam bubblegum kit models heh! Those designers are awesome btw, even if the gum was always off and the trading cards warped heh.

 Above: A front-on view: note the acrylic support stand as part of the base structure: thats only for this prototype: the printed legs will be sturdy enough to support their own weight. The printed legs will also snap together and thus be pivotable etc, and there will be internals for magnets/ferrous materials, so as this figure can be fully interchangeable and adaptable (ie, so as I send parts and you can choose to assemble them in whatever resemblancy configurations you wish). I'm working on alternate turrets for this guy, in conjunction with v3 of the SW40K conversion rules I've worked on and off for the past 5years - that seems a very popular project.

 Above: a Hasbro droid fighter "ACE" in 1/48th scale, on a 'POP freestanding stand': this particular one was sourced from Darice and is 8" tall: these stands are AWESOME as flightstands, and are a fraction of the cost of other alternatives, and look much better than if you were to just lazer etch or 3D print yourself. Did I mention they come premade/preassembled?!? All you need to do if you want is to alter the rods and increase the amount of knuckles or lengths. You can even mix'n'match with a MDF or cutnetched acrylic base and then put a rod/rods onto that: for example, in my SW40K adapted rules, as a Heavy Support AND Fast Attack Choice, you can take 1 wing of 3 fighters, or 1 ace fighter: the wing stand will be a Hexagonal etched base with 3 rods (each with 3 knuckles each),
whereas the ace base will be a smaller trapezoid with a telescoping and magnetic base instead.
Support your local retailer suppliers and local plastics companies, or buy these handy items from closing down sales etc. They are awesome, and I must thank the Macross/Gundam forums and the SW 3&3/4" forums for the tipoff on these ideas!

Alrighty, well, we'll leave that waffle there for the moment,
next time I think we'll cover futures in this hobby, some tips for magnetisation of ferrous materials/incorporating ferrous materials into your projects, and hopefully by then these printers'll be more printy and less "I don't like it when the software talks to me like that'-y.
Thanks and bye-bye.

PS.
Goodbye, that bicentennial man, Robin Williams. You were a gift and will always be remembered as one extraordinary fellow. I won't forget your reflections or your standup, which with Bill Hicks and George Carlin, told the truth that was stranger than fiction. Your song work, particularly "How Do I Feel" from Toys, that speaks eternal. Nor that awesome moment with Koko.
Deepest sympathies to the family and loved ones, what a guy!

Waffling on Anderson Futures... 1

Hi there!

This will continue the tv related stuff, and I can't be suppressed here on my own blog as had happened in the past on the Fanderson's website... (cool people mostly, but Fans will be fans).

The topic here is musings on a subject that is dear to the heart... Gerry Anderson's fantastic vision of 'The Thunderbirds'. I don't own them, but they've been around so long... I just wish they'd been adapted into a large scale cinema 'ultimate' project, or had received "The New Adventures of Captain Scarlet" treatment and gone digital. The 2015 WETA project holds a lot of promise then...

There'd been a string of adaptations, which frankly, didn't fair too well out there in the community:

(the 2004 thing, prior fan projects and adaptations, and potentially counting chickens before they've hatched, the 2015 show might well suffer from that same curse).

Thats why we're musing here, we're waffling about a potential 3D/FFVII:AC style variant of the show

- if we could have anything and anyone from anywhen involved in a 'live action' TV/Cinema adaptation of that iconic show, how would we do it? (how could we take a leaf from JJ Abrams or Joss Whedon's book while we're at it? While staying faithful to the interpretation and perhaps spirit of the original we all know so well...).

So, with that all in mind... and yeah, I have written a few fandom-ish episodes (4 to be precise); I'd probably get a whole load of more writers in on the project hehe.

In my canon, Captain Scarlet and Thunderbirds universes are set in the same common 'Anderson-verse' -- though things like Stingray and UFO or Supercar are set in some other alternate verses...

There may be a slight crossover in this canon with the 'Fallout-verse', that post-apocalyptic-esque styled 'verse that is set in the near future, and which as I've waffled elsewhere and elsewhen about, is likely also the same universe that ST:TOS is supposed to be set in also...

It's gritty, its edgey-er. But not overthetop grim or depressing, nor are there incessant explosions or throwaway characters/lovestory arcs...

The Thunderbirds would have to have been on the radar for some time, and its likely a stolen project/subcontracted massive project: International Rescue must be something like Anonymous, a huge organisation world-wide... over a very long period of time.

 Some disaster happened; maybe global warming, maybe overpopulation etc... and the consequences of those are panning out... in come Thunderbirds, to try and mitigate some of this, as a supra-national organisation.

As with Abrams masterstroke in ST reboot, we want to do a slow reveal to make 'the old new again'. We want to start with vehicles that aren't quite what we know or the full number or completeness... but they morph into the characters and vehicles and ness that we know.

Also, Toshiba's model of Tracy Island, while we're on it, is the Canonical Tracy Island. They made a model for a display in Tokyo: that thing was so massive and so cool! It looked very Derek Meddings!

(same dude that worked on SFX for Thunderbirds and Superman, just imagine if he and Ralph Macquarie and John Eaves and Doug Chiang & Ryan Church and Mike Okuda all teamed up together, possibly with Da Vinci, to work on a project...)

So,  with all that in mind... if you're still reading this and keeping up, you've got some willpower!

Lets get into the fun bit, casting waffleage!

The beauty of 3D is that we can hybridise people! We can make people that resemble hybrids of multiple people all into the one 'character'. We can take people from anywhere and anywhen (unknowingly from futures though). I feel that a little bit of the original supermarionettes would still make it through to the final 'character', but I'd also like some real-world actors to stand in for the roles, possibly with other Voice Actors to do impressions.

So;

Geoff Tracy: Michael Keaton*, Liam Cunningham, Liam Neeson, Kenneth Welsh*

Brains: Brian Cranston*, Robert Downey Jr (as an aside, Brian is an anagram of Brain-s, so he was made to have the part).

Scott: Johnny Depp, Ioan Gruffudd*

Virgil: Ben Affleck, Billy Zane*

Alan: Ryan Reynolds, Channing Tatum, Jake Gyllenhaal*

Gordon: Keanu Reeves, Matthew McConaughey, Chris O'Donnell (no clear favorites here)

John: Freddy Prinze Jr, Neil Patrick Harris, Tobey Macguire*, Nathan Fillion,

Kirano: Temura Morrison, Ken Watanabe, Jay Laga'aia

Tintin: Faustina "Fuzzy" Agolley, Connie Mitchell, Betina Bush

Hood: Ben Kingsley (reprising his role) or Jamie Farr

Mister X (the dude that is Hood's Boss): Hugo Weaving?

Penelope: Helen Miren/Gwyneth Paltrow

Parker: Sylvester McCoy (possibly with Joe Pesci in there), David Suchet + the supermarionette...

Alrighty,

so thats 'the dream team'.

Mark Mitchell would make a guest star/recurring part of his choice (good, bad, whatever),

Jamie Farr would also make a guest star or recurring part.

The Kransky Sisters would make a guest appearance (a rescue set in Beaudesert or Esk...).

David Strassman would also be pretty neat to have make a cameo... (with an actual thunderbird marionette, or is that too much?)

There you go...

We will have to see how the WETA variant in 2015 pans out though, and it does look Clone Warsy in terms of feel and budget... so it's sure to be big budget and explosion/action filled for real!

What are your thoughts on the 2015 Thunderbirds situation? What would you rearrange with the dream team cast list? better yet; what's your dream team list?

Star Trek fanboy observation 1

Hi there!
This is a brief aside on ST:TNG.
I've not been a fan of the character of Wesley (huge fan of Will Wheaton, he's hilarious on his Youtube/webpresence and has a good eye as a director/producer, just not a fan of the character in ST:TNG, and was happy when he ran away with the Space Apache's)
I don't know if other fans of ST:TNG have had similar ideas for a comicbook/episode of the show, but to my knowledge at time of writing nothing similar has yet been made.
I humbly offer for your enjoyment a 'what if', a universe that never had Wesley in it... but also in which Data doesn't die in Nemesis (a fair trade, I think).


So,
here's what happened in one of the ST:Multiverses...
At the end of Encounter at Farpoint, the first episode...
there is a little postscript scene,
Picard asks Q for a favor, because Q is somewhat impressed with what Picard managed to do (and there are several other junctures where Q could offer Picard a free wish to be rid of Wesley).

Picard asks Q to 'take care of the boy'. Q can read minds, so there's a thousand yard stare and a through zoom (sorta like Weird Al in "Aluminum Foil" where he's 'cracked the code'... except with a John DeLancie laughing maniacally).
Q then quite pleasantly begrudgingly agrees to take care of the boy alright, you won't even know he's gone...
Q snaps his fingers, and screen flashes white.
When Q's gone, Picard can't remember what he was doing, then remembers that he was looking for his datapad on the desk...

(Q has abducted Wesley to the mirror universe, and effaced Wesley's existence from the 'prime-verse'. No one remembers him or will know he's gone, it's like he was never even there.)
MEANWHILE.

Wesley finds himself banfed to an empty arena, in the mirror universe, someplace...
Q appears and tells Wesley he's in a mirror pocket universe as punishment for having offended Picard/being an obstacle between Picard and Beverly. Q also reiterates that there's no way for Wesley to escape this mirror universe, and that no-one will ever know he was ever alive in the prime universe...

Q pauses, then remembers to tell Wesley that he's about to meet his mirror universe self, and that the two of them should get along great! Have fun! and Q banfs away.

Mirror Universe Wesley and Prime-Verse Wesley then duel to the death. There are many combatants initially, and so its more like a Roman Circus, until the last two standing are Prime-verse Wesley and Alternate Wesley. The two battle in scenes reminiscent of Spock V Kirk... until simul-death, and so there was NEVER a Wesley Crusher, in either the Prime-Verse Universe OR the Mirror Universe.

Thanks Q! 

(NB: Will Wheaton, or fans of Wesley Crusher, if you're reading this,
its the character itself I dislike in the show. I've seen similar rants against Neelix, comparing Neelix to Deanna Troi or to Jar Jar Binks... Will Wheaton the actor acted and portrayed a great character with a great range of emotion and verisimilitude, I just didn't like the character when taken in context of the airtime that character had vs other characters development and arcs. I also didn't like that Data dies in Nemesis; Data oughta become a Professor as seen in the last episode of the show (which was also a Q episode).

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