Animals with lightsabers
Animals. With lightsabers. It does exactly what it says on the tin.
Monthly archives: September 2009
RIP Patrick Swayze and Keith Floyd
Patrick Swayze has died of pancreatic cancer aged 57.
Keith Floyd, famously boozy TV chef, has died following a heart attack.
The internet is going to be overloaded with YouTube’d Dirty Dancing clips today. So here, as a counterbalance, is Keith cooking duck for Matt Dawson-
Hello new server
Eventually Blogger will get its shit together and post stuff to the new server. Once that happens you shouldn’t notice any difference around here.
They’re number 37
This is based upon numbers from 2000, but I seriously doubt 8 years of Bush moved the USA up the list. More likely they’ve dropped below Cuba and others. Sadly, I doubt the UK has moved up the list either, but the NHS still kicks the American healthcare system in the balls no matter what.
Yeti spotting
I’ve spotted a couple of these. There’s a website attached, of course, so I’m just doing some viral by talking about it.
Little plastic things make me happy
My first order from Shapeways 3d printing has arrived. These are some of the bins, which will go out to model railway magazines to be reviewed. There’s another batch that I’m going to clean and test paint.
Only one problem so far- the second sprue of bins on poles broke off at the base of the poles. There seems to be a weak spot, possibly accentuated by the model’s orientation when it was printed.
Hair solar 1
A Nepali teenager has come up with a way to use hair to replace silicon in solar cells. The melanin in the hair is photo sensitive and a conductor, and can be bought for pennies a kilo. Panels could be made for £23, or less when production is scaled up.
There’s no real explanation of what Milan Karki has done to the hair to take advantage of melanin’s attributes. If I find them I’ll investigate further.
Last train to West Didsbury station
Who knows, in a couple of years trams could be running through here. For now though, nature has it and the track bed is a long, thin pond.
How to Save the World for Free
How to Save the World for Free
September 7, 2009 at 10:10 am
September 7, 2009 at 9:51 am
Wired takes a look at the wall mounted gardens of Patrick Blanc. Impressive. Next time I’m in London I’ll try to visit the Atheneum Theatre to check out its eight story living wall.
OO modern street furniture through Shapeways
The plan is to produce a few simple models every week and build up a wide range of street furniture for model railway builders. I’ll be ordering copies of my own products, some of which will go to magazines for promotion and some I will build myself and record here. In fact the first batch should print and ship this week, so next week I’ll be painting bins.
Today and yesterday I designed and uploaded some benches-
The cantilever bench comes as a set of five, the other two as sets of four. The price will depend upon which material you use, but includes taxes and shipping charges. There’s a minimum order of $25. None of the models will exceed that individually, but the idea is for you to be able to pick and choose street furniture until you’ve got enough, with enough variety, for your layout.
The benches, and the bins I designed last week, are available from my Shapeways shop.
Vertical Gardens 1
Wired takes a look at the wall mounted gardens of Patrick Blanc. Impressive. Next time I’m in London I’ll try to visit the Atheneum Theatre to check out its eight story living wall.
Technorati tag: EcoHouse
Pages from the sketchbook
A couple of pages from the sketchbook. These were done whilst I was home a couple of weeks ago as a test of my ability to draw from photo reference and to try out my new Pentel Brush Pen
Soviet Fords, and Chevrolets
English Russia is tracing the history of the Soviet motor industry. Part one covers the beginnings, which mostly consisted of copying others’ designs.
Technorati tag: Scale Models
Four colour Goatse
Warning If you don’t know what Goatse is, don’t go looking for it. Seriously. Don’t. I won’t be held responsible if you do. If you do know what it is then your mind is already broken and that’s not my problem.
Last weekend I picked up a bunch of cheap bagged comics, 6 for a pound. You see them in newsagents sometimes, I guess they’re overstocks- dating back to the late eighties in some cases- that someone’s making a final bid to raise money from. In amongst the ones I picked up was issue 2 of Megalith from Continuity Comics, dating back to 1989.
It wasn’t obvious until page 7, but the hero had projected himself into his own body to fix the damage done by a bomb blast.
There’s Megalith, patching up holes by creating multiple naked copies of himself and squeezing realy hard. I couldn’t help but notice the similarity of the first and last panels on this page to a certain notorious internet image.
The Goatse echoes continue on page 6, particularly the first and penultimate panels.
Once you’ve seen the original Goatse your subconcious inserts it into otherwise relatively innocent images. Which is why it carries a health warning at the top of this post. Don’t have any bad dreams now.
The Caution Cube
You can buy it, and various other mad devices, from the Oskar’s Puzzles shop at Shapeways.
I’ve been making a start in producing things for Shapeways to print in 3d. At the moment my shop is filling with street furniture for model railways. But I think I need to start learning how to use CAD if I’m ever to produce anything as complex as the Caution Cube.
Interactive flood maps
I may have linked to these before. See how your home, or anywhere else in the world, will be affected by rising sea levels. Both the places I consider home- in Manchester and the Lake District- are out of reach of even a 14 metre rise, for what little comfort that provides.
Technorati tag: EcoHouse
Westfest 2009
A mini festival celebrating West Didsbury’s independent shops and bars.