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

Waffling on Miniatures 2

Hi there! 

Welcome to another installment of the Miniatures Waffle Series: where we take a break from critical thinking and abstract waffling, and waffle instead on miniatures!

After all the emails, I can finally share an update on the tabletop figures front.

To Right: A Naga Monk Forms...

How do you feel about the accuracy of this piece? I'm impressed with the detail and accuracy to the comics depiction. I look forward to revealing the sculptor and where you can get the minis once the project is completed, so stay tuned!

I'm looking forward to getting my hands on this piece and on the generic lizard mutant figures as they come (they'll be similar scale, and either pewter or resin...).

Now I've shared the good news first,

 onto the less good news:

there are some technical and quality problems with the translucent minis projects I have on the back burner: these are the 'holocronicular dice', the thrown lightstick, irregularly shaped lightsticks and lightwhips, double ended lightstick and jetpack contrails... the 'objective marker' set/customising components set.

The materials thickness and resolution for clear printing is not at a fidelity that you or I might like for our customising efforts... there is also a problem with the glues we can use with these plastics: its not entirely ABS or whatever that spool is, so with the pieces I've got as prototypes, regular glues like araldyte and tarzans' grip are melting the mini and warping the surfaces/making the mini turn brown...

Have you had similar experiences when using 3d Printer printed extruded plastics? Have you had problems when adhesing pieces of clear detail plastic: to other plastics, to other surfaces such as MDF or Acrylic?

I have a feeling these 'plastic problems' will spill over to the vehicle projects...

Hopefully they can be resolved swiftly, I feel they can be worked around or overcome.

Moving to the Chodak minifigs... 

there's 3 variants at this time. I feel its a  dynamic concept, and you could do a lot with the figures.

the internal splines and curves for transparent plastic are too small for most 3D printing at the moment;

we could upscale (not an option)

we could change the profile and shape (not a preferred option)

we can make the components separately, as the cavity in the 'mech suit' does pass the bar... whereas the suit plus an internal translucent mollusc do not. (my preferred option).

we can sacrifice the translucentness of the internal mollusc (I don't want to compromise finish).

Also, the same gluing problem arises, and these things are more brittle than resin (so, extra precautions will need to be taken in shipping).

What do you feel about these? Have your say via comments or emails.

Its full steam ahead otherwise!

So, for the vehicle projects,

it looks like the Dagger and the Dianoga will be up next:

I want the endprice manifold to be around the same as a papercraft version of these figures: I want it to be great detail for dirt cheap, and a solid base that customisers can then tinker with as they like, so we can have more 1/48th scale vehicle options.

You can still send in your suggestions for vehicle and miniature figures concepts or requests here or at bloomilk. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, which might be the case here.

Bear in mind the key selection criteria (must have a 'what the?!' factor, and be something we can't get elsewhere and are unlikely to ever see elsewhere).

A small sketch or series of sketches helps to envisage the concept: maybe you link to existing images, or you make a rough sketch yourself...

I look forward to seeing your suggestions!

Could Mangroves be used in mitigating sea level rises?

Hi there!
This waffle is about a topic that I recently overheard at a couple of different meetings
(an environmentalist group, a freethinking/communication skills club, and a skeptical thinking club)
and I wanted to further investigate/deconstruct the elements in the claim... mainly so I can understand what they're meaning more and engage at the next meeting.

So,
some people were converging on sea level rise: they were arriving at that conclusion from a number of different perspectives (climate skeptics were playing devils advocate, to try and understand the hypothetical and get into some numbers).
Some people brought up Seawater Greenhouse, desalination and mangroves of all things...
as potential offsets for sealevel rise etc.

In the past, I've heard some spurious claims about mangroves, from use as a natural pump in elevating water (along with Oak Trees and Cacti, etc) which can be plausible depending on the claim made,
through to a 'natural liquid-separating device', which separates liquids according to viscosity (so, you could get salt water to separate into wine, for example...) - this can get quite technical with discussions of capillary functions etc

Proponents of mangroves essentially argue that
"if you must plant trees, then why not plant the 'triple threat' tree of mangroves, since mangroves will ward off sea level rise, will also act as desalination sources (to increase availability of drinking water), and will act as natural carbon sinks, if indeed carbon is behind warming phenomena". an interesting claim...

So, lets waffle a little about this;
I'm approaching from an ERoEI perspective: how many mangroves would we be needing to plant and raise here... for there to be any effects approaching that which the proponents describe? Is this feasible when compared with other processes?...
Mangroves are admittedly pretty awesome plants, they look cool, and do some awesome stuff.
But you'd need a lot of them to be planted along coastlines for a long time, and they'd have to survive... and you'd then have the classic 'unforeseen sideffects' because Mangroves are not native species in all landmasses.
Mangroves also require certain environmental conditions to thrive and survive... and this is where the technocrats/Meliorists show their true colours.

"But we could genetically modify the mangroves..."
here we go.  Genetic engineering to the rescue!
It's fun, and I find it a worthwhile aside to ask at this juncture a couple of questions;
does that individual like to drink recycled water when given the choice between 'natural water' and recycled water?
does that individual like to eat GMO food sources, from a human security perspective (knowing that our food sources are becoming less biodiverse and more vulnerable to 'contagion')?

Okay, digression aside,
lets assume we could modify the mangroves, to both optimise those mitigating effects, its survival chances in a wider range of climates, reproductive clumping rate etc... (so this plant would potentially be part artificial plant/biological fluid separator and catalytic converter?, part sunflower, part cacti, part bamboo/weed and part mangrove?)

That still won't allow you to plant anywhere near enough mangroves in the coastline areas in which they are required, to achieve the desired effects. Bare in mind this discussion has until this juncture, eschewed the ERoEI/Fossil Fuels required to both produce the mangroves (which goes up if we need to GMO the mangrove) to then go and plant... the planting energy costs would also be quite high...
what sorts of fertilizer quantities and nutrients would be needed to sustain all these mangroves? 

When you compare this with other methods and approaches to
'combating climate change'/mitigating some of the potential impacts of climate change...
such as doing nothing/adapting to the rate of change,
reducing the number of people (who generate demand on climate/experience the climate change) via a plethora of ways;
using seawater greenhouse technologies, or technologies along with desalination,
redirecting the water (either underground, to some other geographical region ala Panama Canal style project) or even
literally blowing up the water...
other methods are much more ERoEI efficient and/or have fewer sideeffects.
 I find it all to be a fascinating discussion, because then you get the next order of discussions - combinatorics! You then get people who say that perhaps a combination/configuration from the set of these partial solutions will emerge the set of 'optimal solution'...

This becomes entertaining;
so what ratio of 'genetically engineered mangrove planting' to 'cloud seeding' to 'reduction rate in people' to 'desalination plants/seawater greenhouses', to "diverting the water" to 'literally blowing up the water' do people envisage as this 'optimal solution'?
"I feel 15% of the optimal solution is apportioned to 'literally blowing up the water'"... and so on.

So,
what do you think?
I'm keen to hear from a wide range of people on this subject, what's your take on it?
Could mangroves be used to mitigate climate change? If so, how do you arrive at that conclusion (as it would be fascinating to see the ERoEI justification for those technologies).

And now, to ramble on collecting the Arts!

Time to change topics for a moment, from waffling to other things;
the arts, and in this case, miniature tabletop Fallout gaming. 

I like the arts; I like tabletop games, like Chess. I'm addicted to many variants of Fallout rpg atm, very fun and can be used as scenario tools for people to visualise, if they are paranoid and prefer to not use computers (yes, there are still Y2K people out there... *shudders*)
 I acquire many different mixed media miniatures from all around the world: New Caledonia, Germany/Spain, USA, Russia, China, Argentina, UK and Japan. and Norway, can't forget Norway! It's like a win-win: penfriends, and you get a figure too!
There are so many talented people out there, that have so many skills. For example, some whittle out of wood... some use mixed glues and clay polymers... others a type of papier mache. Some of the rarest figures in my collection are napoleonic mixed media tin soldiers, along with some from circa 1920-1940s germany (they made rare mixed media toy soldiers, with hideous bodies but porcelain heads; they're worth a mint, and my favorite minis). I even have some Ivory minis from long ago: back when whaling and ivory were cool, and thought to keep the populations of animals down. I certainly hope they don't make those today... but as they're heirlooms, I enjoy keeping them.

I prefer 1/48th-1/52scale for most things; its just a nice scale, has a lot of utility and lets you trade across a bigger spectrum. My partner collects ATC's, artists Mixed Media Trading Cards. These things are one of the coolest aspects of secret womens (and increasingly, all kinds of artist) business;
they're made from a huge range of mixed media from jewellery (pressed and embossed metal) through to fabrics and translucent materials. They're cool, and if you're into trading cards, these might just be the best thing!

So here's a new acquisition for my collection;
Below, a naga monk custom made for my fallout campaign that will be set in Harlan Ellisons Middle-East-Asia. He's a statue come to life, turned pirate. The toothpicks will be replaced with maces and axes at a later stage, (and armor and an eyepatch, he's a pirate afterall)... This baddie lurks around Angkor Wat or Wat Arun, Wat Pho or any of the other Wats they're building over there: its all concrete, to replace the wooden ones...

When he's not bumming around the temples, he'll be on his own custom boat, surfing and plundering the high seas. The Fallout probably mutated him, or I'd like to think it was an animatronic statue in a Wat that came to life. I was tempted to have another made with many guns, but don't we see enough of those already?

So, once this figure is done, I'll have to see if other naga monks and pirates can be made to tag along... I'm looking forward to painting this when i receive it.

I'll be sure to keep you posted, and I'll have to give a shout out once this is done,
cheers!

Q's for the Reader:
Do you collect anything? any numismatists out there (coin collectors)? What about stamps, crystals/minerals? Tektites? Skulls... (only a few people I've met have come up to me and said: "hi there! Do you want to see my Human Skull collection?" Cool collectables for sure).
Are you into tabletop gaming or RPGing with people, face to face?
Do you collect ATC's?

What do you think of the Naga Monk? Should the face be a little different?
I feel its reminiscent of one from a Wat I've been to, and if I can find the photo I'll have to put it up.
Should the mace be mid-air posed - like Heroclix action poses they have now (they've really set the bar in terms of all my other 1/48th scale stuff now)? or should the mace be flat on the ground, being dragged behind this roboslug?

I'm also hoping to have some objective markers made, to match a bunch of the stat-cards that are on the forums.

EDIT: PROGRESS!

We can see above, with a WOTC mini for scale (no coins or tapemeasure to hand in the lab).
The maker is making the mini, and they're doing a great job! This space pirate Naga Monk will be up in no time making an appearance at the LGS or at RPG outing. If the arms are right, and the weapons look generically sci-fi, I could probably also use it as a Fallout Mutant for asianic campaigns.
I'm told there could be many generic insect variants etc... and that there might be female versions as well... I'll be sure to keep you updated on the wheres and whens as they unfurl.

New Layout Feedback Waffle

Hi there!

I wonder what you all think of the layout: 

is it more readable?

Are there too many fonts?

Do I need more useful links? I've put a translate button down the bottom of the page, as this was requested... it makes complete sense.

I might put a rotating poll up and schedule it to coincide with layout changes as they happen...

 

 

Reflections on an Evening with Kaku

Hi there,

this is a waffle about the excellent futures waffles that were had as part of the "An Evening With Michio Kaku" event, what a fun time! Do forgive the fanboy gushings here; as critical as I can be of technocrat/Meliorist perspectives... I do respect the awesome hardwork that many have made, as there's much to be thankful for.

Having this once in a lifetime opportunity to meet one of the fathers of String Theory was a chance not to be passed up - a real win win situation, as much of the 'exorbitant' fees and costs involved went to charity and to supporting science. Exorbitant though, is relative, as rock concerts are much more expensive for not nearly as much fun!

The event was sold out to capacity: complete with huge queues that snaked down to the mezzanine. something around 2000 odd people?

The gender ratio was ~ 55:45 in favor of women; loads of smart beautiful women, 

though the age range of the crowd as a cohort seemed to vary widely, with the youngest being 3 or 4 (no babies?! none that I saw and if there were, they were well behaved!) and the older being in their 90s... at conferences, or 'significant events', I like to gather pertinent data, such as the composition of the overall cohort, and any influential persons there, and gender ratios etc... just never know when that stuff might come in handy further down the line, and so few of these conference proceedings either gather that data or share it freely...

I use that initial impression of data to estimate what a statistically significant random sample from that group might be, then I try and sample random conversations (as politely as possible) so as I can learn as much as possible! Others might try to hit specific marks or whathave you; but talking with people is one of those fun things about conferences and events.

I had about 60 conversations over the night, with more women than men, 

and the topics ranged widely. It was great to see so many women interested in and studying sciences and statistics, particularly medicine, computers/cybernetics and law/humanities.

Many males were individuals, very few came in groups. I made a choice to try and talk to the males that were part of larger groups, predominantly so as to cover more people for the limited sample time...

As to the evening itself,

what a fun event! The 1 hour public lecture was much the same as those of the past 5-6years, similar to the ones you can find on Google or TEDx. This was a little saddening, as it felt the material was staged as against authentic or off the cuff. Flipside of the coin; kudos to Kaku being able to so consistently hit the same marks for all these years!

The ~1.2Hr public Q&A and Meet and Greet was much more interesting; there were a lot of technical questions about String Theory and the implications for combinatorial materials science etc... very interesting stuff there.

Yours Truly wanted to ask about Riemann Manifolds, Lorentz Transforms and more specifically about Harold White (warp field interferometer) and the Alcubierre Drive... but instead chose to ask the one question about Kaku's stance on Population Growth.

 For context, I had 15 questions prepared for the "Suppose you meet God and can only ask one question, what would the question be?" scenario... the gatekeeper said "no technical questions." so that ruled out 7 of em... 

The Gatekeeper, she wasn't wanting me to ask the question I did... but I thought why not ask, because Kaku has spoken on the topic many times before but never stated much of how we can realise these things... only that we shouldnt repeat the mistakes of the past and should afford science more respect, primacy and less persecution.

So I ask: What does he [Kaku] think of population futures, in the context of another great physicist Al Bartlett's work, The Essential Exponential! ?

To which Kaku said: A technical question, and the answer is yes! hahaha,

In all seriousness though, there's no reason to give up hope entirely just yet...

He then outlined that population figures were in decline in many places, with decline rates maintaining an S-curve and stabilising around 2030-2045, and that women empowerment (a very cool thing) would pretty much solve the whole population problem for us, along with an innovation rate that exceeded More's Law.

That was great, and I felt I had teased more of an answer out, as its such a taboo topic to discuss in a public place, in part due to the nature of misunderstandings that tragically all too often occur when applying critical thinking: I wanted a great scientist to be able to talk more about population freely (in the state they were talking in especially).

So, the rest of the questions were great,

an American (Canadian?) asked about how Kaku envisaged modelling the innovation rate; the answer was great, and so I must thank them the next time I see them for a great question. It was essentially similar to what Dave Coutts has written so eloquently over on The Exponentialist!  Basically, a variable compounding, polynomial thing, that implies it could be a negative innovation rate for potentially prolonged periods of time...

Some technical questions and a little maths were discussed briefly in the Meet and Greet on a whiteboard; just a little enumeration or some Lorentz stuff, I think college professors or skeptics were testing Kaku to see if he could do some 'simple' math... it was a good few maths jokes though.

Then it wrapped up, and before I could get to waffle with some more people, they'd all dispersed into the night! It was a shame, as I felt many wanted to waffle some more and had the distinct impression they wanted to vent or talk to someone who'd listen (as they'd spent nearly 3 hours listening).

I did manage to squeez in a few more random short conversations, which was awesome! People were talking about cybernetics and energies futures and all sorts of stuff. We exchanged a few emails! It was great!

I happened to wind up talking with two quite learn-ed first year uni guys, and we happened to be talking about their take on futures. I waffled (perhaps too much?) and we used the iPad to have a look and bookmark interesting websites...

When we look up and who should happen to cross the foyer but Mr Kaku himself?!

The poor guy, he looked exhausted from all the travel and so many questions... everyone wanted a piece of this guy...

Luckily, graciously, he happened to be headed the same way we were headed, and the traffic lights were red. Here we all were on the corner, and I happened to say, isn't that the you-know, the guy?

And he pipes up: who me? Why yes I am me, who are you?

and we got to talking, and he said we could walk and talk and we all had 5 minutes or so for sure (no problem) -that he had to hop in a plane to get to the next speaking engagement the next day, but for fans of science he always had time. He wondered what we thought of the presentation, it went well we told him. He had a standing ovation (2minutes of thunderous applause), so it must have gone well!

I waited my turn to ask a few questions, 

thanked him again (both as a Japanese American and as an innovator) and got to ask a few questions, such as about the warp interferometer and about energy futures as followups to my population growth question. 

He gave candid, pragmatic and succinct answers (that I'll not forget, especially the warning and the well wishing for troubling times ahead). He spoke about how "braindrain" was a terrible thing and would hopefully one day not need to happen. He commented I seemed widely read, and wondered what I thought might be the outcome for futures. I said my part. He wagered that progress was slightly more likely than collapse, but remarked he probably wouldn't be around to collect on our wager. He then kindly offered to autograph anything we had on us, and I was able to shake his hand.

We also spoke about SLAC and the extended periodic table, 

Kaku felt that the eka-actinides might be reasonably synthesised in the near future with 'decent' ERoEI ratios... and we both laughed/remarked that science would be the better investment than in the military-industrial complex. 

This was a lot of fun for sure... I could waffle some more on this topic, or about meeting great innovators/thinkers more generally (or on other topics, such as brushes/meeting famous persons, and trying to really "let them be" as much as possible, or at least treat them like people and have a regular old conversation). I try not to follow tabloid things, and try to talk with persons of interest directly.

----

So, bizarrely, as interesting as actually meeting the guy behind String Theory was, the conversations had with other people were as fun or even moreso!, 

these unsung heroes, from all over the world and different backgrounds, who had really neat ideas and made great conversations!

Thanks for them, and I wish events like that happened more like once a fortnight or once amonth: lifes to short to have them once a year or once a lifetime!

Thats what I want to aim for and strive for with waffling here and elsewhere on the web, and in waffling in real life:

a fun time, an informative time, and a sharing space where people can waffle.

 

What do you think about academia?

Have you had brushes with influential people, famous people or thinkers? What is a protocol for coincidental happenstance meetings? Do you try to "leave people be", or do you think its good to let them know you care and have a brief encounter/chat?

If you could only ask one question; what would yours have been and why? How do cull the options down for that question?

From the Toba Incident to the Future, and Beyond!

Hi there! Time for another waffle, this time on various things...
on the development of humanity, and of various caldera...

We'll be talking about humanity, from Olduvai to now...
and we'll wonder about that 'ancestors paradox' that Sagan and others have observed (well, we'll keep it to the back of the mind) and we'll talk about the origins of sentience, or at least the path to sentience.

At the time of writing, I know of no civilisation that has existed which is older than ~40 000 years, and that is primarily First Nations people. Next, there are the Indus Valley civilisations and the Gobekli Tepe civilisation, then various shorter lived civilisations...
If you know of any, even tentative, evidence for civilisations that have been around in between Olduvai Gorge till now,
or civilisations which are older than 70 000 years old, please share them with me = )








I suspect that humanity became set on the path to better intelligence as a result of the Toba Incident;
a time of great volcanic activity around the world (as evidenced by the many caldera), and a period of great extinction and bottlenecking.
I also suggest that it would therefore be logical to look for signs in similar lifeforms (not only mammals) that were present at that time and similiarly underwent such a 'close shave', for signs of sentience; there are only a few hundred examples... so we should in the next few thousand years or so, see the signs of emerging intelligence.

As a result of this Toba Incident period, it is theorised elsewhere that the human population dropped down to around 15 000 individuals; this is where mitochondrial eve comes from... or all our common ancestors.

Sagan wrote about studying for Oannes, perhaps as signs of extraterrestrial contacts of the past recorded within metanarratives (EPrime as a dialect and concept hadn't been invented yet; nor had existentialism, post-structuralism etc...).
I would contend that perhaps the Toba Incident is also such an event; what if all life had been extinguished, and extraterrestrial passers by happened to, as an act of kindness, fix that for us? (they simply hit the redo/undo button).

When you see things such as the mantidfly, it can be easy to give into such wishful thinking...
(the mantidfly, as weird as it looks, is a type of phenotype-mimic/biomimic, heh).

I also am a proponent of the explanation for Uluru as being either a volcanic plug, or the remnants of a self-launched projectile: the remains of a super-volcanic explosion or collision with earth from our history (and some geotechnical people I've met over the years have seriously suggested such hypothesis, in addition to the more conventional plate tectonics theories).
The projectile either didn't have enough force to reach escape velocity, or its orbit decayed and it collided with the earth.

There is not sufficient evidence in the form of rings to explain this, but perhaps that is due to erosion?
Perhaps also, if Uluru is a projectile from another part of the earths landsurface or crust, perhaps the mineralogical analysis would agree with particular sites? There are a few candidate sites with potential, from which Uluru could have formed.

---

To another perspective,
We've been around since the Olduvai Period, and only recently begun to achieve sentience.
This, as a fraction of the time that the Earth has been around, is a small fraction;
could other lifeforms have evolved here in the past, and potentially have then left the planet?
(ST:Voy explores this with a dinosaur race that lives on the other side of the galaxy).

I think its a possibility; a remote one,
but given that plate tectonics does periodically clear the historic accretion record... not one I can entirely discount.

This has implications for the Drake Equation: if planets can produce more than one sentient species in a given timeframe, and those species can then go on to live outside the habitable zone/differentiate and adapt to different environments... many more communicative civilisations might be possible to exist in the universe (this only makes the Fermi Paradox harder to explain).

The Drake Equation also doesn't consider different modes of communication, just signal emitting ones (both radio and spectra-altering or mass-altering ones).
Nor does the Drake Equation look for alternate types of lifeforms (its a very Earth-centric approach with anthropocentric biases).
So, I'm confident that there must be a large number of other sentient lifeforms out there in the cosmos...

As I've said in the past, and many others must have already thought,
if we extend the principles of natural selection...
if you take life from this planet elsewhere in the universe, and it survives and adapts...
then adaptation will lead to differentiation, and eventually you'll get aliens that way!
How cool is that?

So,
I'm keen to hear your thoughts,
and I would conclude with the thoughts that, from a human security perspective...
if Dr. White's Warp Drive project concludes we can't send manned warp space flight,
or more likely,
that civilisation collapses and splinters within the next 100 years or so,
and if we can't send a Von Neumann probe...
perhaps we'll consider 'seeding' asteroids and comets with resilient genetically engineered lifeforms, or sending out such samples at least in all directions from the Earth,
and trying to do the same thing for other planets/suitable locations within our own solar system (sending stuff there to serve as 'life backups').

This way, even if the only yet known source of sentience and all known life
decides it wants to wipe itself out, it can go for it! if it wants to make that stupid and terribly wasteful decision! = )

What do you think?
Should this be a top scientific project? Project Resilience...