How to make snow
A quick, basic guide to creating “machine made” snow. For a silly idea I may incorporate into part three of Pickers.
Source: SMI Snowmaking Basics
Monthly archives: May 2015
Coming soon- Pickers
Pickers breaks down perfectly into four parts of roughly equal lengths, so I’m releasing it as a serial before collecting it into a single volume. The serial will only be available from Amazon, but it will be in their Select programme. So, if you have Prime or Kindle Unlimited, you can get it for free.
Part 1: The Find and Part 2: The Trip are available to pre-order now. They come out on July 4th and July 18th.
In a climate changed future, Pickers travel the badlands between towns and farms, finding what they can to salvage from before the collapse.
One family of Pickers is about to start a search for a prize that could change everything.
Part 1 of 4- The Find.
Remy, his daughters, and his son in law, are on the hunt for a seed bank, hidden away before climate change crashed everything. The trail has led them to a hidden bunker, and what they find inside is going to set them on a long journey, back to the community they ran away from ten years ago.
Part 2 of 4- The Trip.
Remy, his daughters, and his son in law, have been travelling the badlands for years. But now they have found out about a hidden seed bank in the French Alps. With a grain blight ravaging crops in France, the seed bank could be the only hope of finding resistant strains and saving the country’s remaining towns from starvation.
Remy, Maxine, Veronique and Tony are determined to break into the vault and liberate the seed lines. However, they are in Spain, and they will have to cross the country and get over the Pyrenees before they’re even in France. And then, there is another obstacle. Only one valley over from their destination is the community they ran away from ten years earlier. The people of The Valley would be ideal recipients for a bounty of seeds, but will they welcome Remy and his family back after all these years.
Plans for an anti-Thatcher museum in London to showcase her “genuine terrible legacy”
“I wanted to start this project because I think there’s going to be a serious need to counteract the whitewashed version of Thatcher’s legacy the official museum will present.” says Darren
It’s unlikely the official museum will address Thatcher’s unflinching support for brutal regimes like the Khmer Rouge In Cambodia, Augusto Pinochet in Chile or apartheid South Africa. They’re not going to talk about Thatcher’s implementation of the first anti-gay law in 100 years, Section 28, which was almost identical to Russia’s recent anti-LGBT law.”
“They won’t address how Thatcher oversaw two recessions, massive levels of unemployment, raising poverty and inequality, the devastation of UK manufacturing, deregulation of banks, the Poll Tax and the privatisation of everything from basic utilities to social housing”
An interesting idea, for sure. I reckon there should be a string of alternative museums for famous people, where their successes and failures can be properly measured. Churchill’s begging for one, as is Reagan in the US.
Also, if you say bad things about Maggie, you might make George Osborne cry, and who doesn’t want to see that?
KitStarter
A great idea from Airfix. As one of the world’s oldest model companies, they have a huge backlog of discontinued kits, and still possess the moulds for many of them. Now they’re letting modellers choose, Kickstarter style, which ones will get limited run re-releases.
So much nostalgia. So many kits I made and then wrecked, or never got a chance to make. Right now, they’ve only got 1:1 bird kits up, but I’ll be checking back to see what else they offer.
Thinking of applying for Britain’s Hardest Grafter? Read this first.
Certain members of the British press, particularly the Daily Mail and the Sun, are evil, poisonous shits. What’s worse is the number of people who read these sad excuses for newspapers and think that they have anything but a heavily filtered and smeared relationship to the truth.
The piece linked to is about the sort of appalling attention you can expect if you’re in the public eye and not the sort of person Paul Dacre and the like approve of, but their rotten world view poisons everything in the end.
Taking to the streets
I’m not one of life’s chanters. I get all self conscious about it and it never feels comfortable*. Nonetheless, this feels like a year where I need to be in the demos, part of the numbers swelling the crowd, if not part of the noise it makes.
So, yesterday, I was part of the anti austerity demo which assembled in Piccadilly Gardens. Police say there were 500 of us, the organisers claim 2000. I always presume the truth is halfway between the two claims.
I was there with some of Salford Greens.
There were speakers and singers, and, in smaller groups, we headed to the homeless camp on St Ann’s Square. This is one of the reasons it’s hard to get a solid turnout figure, because the demo was fluid, with break aways heading down Market Street or off to Albert Square, and returning, all the time.
Just to make things more interesting, the Green mini-march bumped into a Hare Krishna procession at the bottom of Market Street.
And, just as we were entering St Ann’s Square, these guys were coming out. I don’t know if they were associated with the demo in Piccadilly, or doing their own thing.
This is, mostly, the Manchester Green Party contingent of the demo.
Ding Dong. I promised this guy I’d crop his face out if I posted the picture online.
There are a few more photos in the album at Flickr.
*I have weird boundaries. I’ll happily cycle through the city centre without clothes on as part of the World Naked Bike Ride, but I have a hard time talking to new people- no matter the state of our attire- or shouting out rhyming couplets about what I’m doing.
Nicely done Ireland
The country becomes the first in the world to introduce same-sex marriage after a national referendum, with 62 per cent voting yes.
Ireland has voted to recognise same sex marriag, with a turnout of 60%, of whom 62% voted yes to rewording their constitution on the subject of marriage.
Marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two persons without distinction as to their sex.
Source: Ireland votes overwhelmingly for gay marriage – Channel 4 News
We Experimented With Powdered Alcohol So You Don’t Have To | WIRED
Powdered alcohol is a thing. Don’t know if it will ever be available in the UK. In the US, where it’s not on sale yet, there’s already a huge moral panic over it. Wired had one mad person mix up a home made version to see if there was any basis to the fears.
Result? Of course there wasn’t.
Source: We Experimented With Powdered Alcohol So You Don’t Have To | WIRED
Theresa May’s plan to censor TV shows condemned by Tory cabinet colleague | World news | The Guardian
Former culture secretary Sajid Javid told prime minister he was unable to support home secretary’s proposals as they infringed freedom of speech
It’s not just that the plan would give censorship powers to the Government, it’s that “extremism” is such a vaguely defined thing. Based on past experience, any speech that runs counter to the Government’s chosen narrative can be labelled extreme.
The Future of Wind Turbines? No Blades | WIRED
London Road Fire Station: exclusive images give glimpse inside historic building for first time in 10 years – Manchester Evening News
And the M.E.N. can reveal Capital & Centric, the firm behind Manchester’s planned new Kampus quarter, are considering a swoop for the controversial building
Antarctic ice shelf to disintegrate by the end of the decade (Wired UK)
Source: Antarctic ice shelf to disintegrate by the end of the decade (Wired UK)
Home brew heroin
Source: Genetically Modified Yeast Will Make It Possible to Home-Brew Opiates | WIRED
Breathe In
Spotted in town a few days ago. Useful directions.
Lords Cricket Ground
I think this sign may be lying.
Villains Quoting David Cameron
The article claims to be 14 supervillains quoting David Cameron, but I’m going to be pedantic and suggest that they’re not all superpowered. They’re all bad guys though, and the quote sounds much more appropriate coming from them than from our Prime Minister.
The 14 Worst Human Rights Myths – RightsInfo
This myth-busting visualization will take news-making human rights stories and explain the reality behind the headline
Prepare to hear the false columns from this repeated over an over for months or years as Gove gets the crayons out and tries to scrawl all over the Human Rights Act.
Jet Bike!
If sticking a jet motor on a four wheeled vehicle is crazy, just imagine what sort of lunacy is needed to do the same to a two wheeler.
Source: Jet Reaction is a 400mph two-wheeled rocket bike (Wired UK)
Jet Car!
One of my long list of ideas for models to build was a dry lake speedster based on a V1 flying bomb- take the wings off, make a simple chassis and fit wheels. It’s on hold, along with all my other big model projects.
This guy built something that practically is that project, but in real life.
Source: You Can Buy This Bonkers Jet Car for Just $30K | WIRED
British shipwreck off Uruguay coast could hold treasure worth millions
Salvage of the Lord Clive, sunk by Spanish guns in the River Plate in 1763, is due to begin in months with suspected hoard of cannon and coins the lure
Treasure! And Rum!
Well, maybe rum, it has been underwater for a long time.
Source: British shipwreck off Uruguay coast could hold treasure worth millions | World news | The Guardian