Yup: Cyanotypes

 art, awesomeness, cyanotype blueprints, drawings, history, news  No Responses »
Dec 092022
 

I am going forward with the return to cyanotyping. I’m gathering the supplies needed to rebuild the capability; learning some lessons from before, this setup should be a little better and a little bigger. I should be able to make prints 24 inches by up to 7 feet. It’s a bit of a chore and certainly an expense, but the end results will, I hope, be an improvement over what I produced before.

 

As before, I plan on taking commissions. I don’t care what it is… aerospace diagrams, ships, architectural diagrams, sci-fi movie prop diagrams, gay wedding cake layouts… if it can be blueprinted, I’ll do it (for a fee). So if you have anything along those lines you’d like blueprinted in the old-school cyanotype fashion (white lines on a Prussian blue background), made by hand using chemicals, sunlight and effort rather than hitting “print,” let me know. Something I will try again is blueprinting onto linen. I ran off a few back in the day; interesting, but perhaps a bit niche.

 Posted by at 9:17 pm

This was a good deal… for Russia

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Forward!, Gah., Meh., news, politics, russian empire, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 092022
 

Not so much for the US.

WNBA star Brittney Griner released from Russian detention in prisoner swap for convicted arms dealer

She is an *acknowledged* drug-transporting criminal. Whether you agree with Russia’s laws on such things or not, those were the laws. And while the US went to the bizarre extreme of returning to Russia an arms dealer for Griner, the US has done doodly squat for other prisoners currently languishing in Russian penal colonies. Why? because Griner has various and sundry privileges that others don’t. see, for example, Marc Fogel. Very similar circumstances of bringing in a small amount of pot; almost no public outcry, no celebrities or TV NPCs shrieking about how the US needs to bring him back. Why? Feel free to guess.

But hey, at least the Russian get “The Merchant of Death” back.

 Posted by at 6:40 am

No more private tigers

 blather, cats, Hmm..., news, politics  No Responses »
Dec 082022
 

I’m conflicted:

Big cat bill unanimously approved by Senate, heads to Biden’s desk

The legislation prohibits any “import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire or purchase in interstate or foreign commerce” and the breeding or possessing of such wildlife. Possession of big cats and cross-breeds would be limited to wildlife sanctuaries and state universities, as well as certified zoos. … Current owners of big cats will be able to keep their animals but are prohibited from breeding, selling or acquiring any of the prohibited wildlife species. They are also banned from allowing their animals to engage in contact with the public and must register the cat with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service within 180 days of the bill’s enactment.

Hmmm.

Big cats are often owned by people wholly unable to care for them correctly. But on the other hand, there are more tigers in private hands than in the wild. On the gripping hand, legislating “you can’t own that” is never a good thing. The passage of this law will doubtless be used by some to say “Well, we can ban the ownership of assault rifles. We can ban the ownership of standard capacity magazines. Internal combustion engines. Bitcoin. VPNs. Books we don’t like.” Etc.

It’s unclear to me what exactly will happen with all the privately owned big cats, especially the ones used in crappy “attractions” for some sort of income. I suspect at least some will be simply driven into the sticks and let go. Which won’t be good for anybody.

 

Perhaps the thing to do would be to start off by walling off Central Park in New York and turning it into a free-range sanctuary for one particular species of big cats… tigers or lions or some such. Won’t be able to sustain a lot of them, but it’ll be a start. All of those gigantic and horribly expensive sportsball stadia built at taxpayer expense might also serve.

 Posted by at 6:25 pm

Cities going blue

 Hmm..., science, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 082022
 

Not politically, literally:

 

The Great Purpling

 

I’ve noticed a number of streetlights around here pumping out a distinctly blue/purple light for a while now. It’s disconcerting… it’s not an unpleasant color, but it’s *different,* and everything looks funny under it. I thought it was a choice, but it turns out it’s a manufacturing flaw.

 

 Posted by at 10:21 am

This will put a smile on your face

 art, awesomeness, science fiction, youtube  No Responses »
Dec 072022
 

If you want to get your soul crushed, try to display a classical talent before an audience composed of modern high school kids. “Disrespect” won’t begin to cover it.

So prepare to be surprised as this kid manages to get an auditorium of his classmates to fall into utter silence as he plays the theme from “Interstellar” on the piano. It’s not perfect, but damn it’s good.

 

 Posted by at 12:28 pm

The return of cyanotypes

 aircraft, art, awesomeness, blather, CAD diagrams, cyanotype blueprints, drawings, history, Hmm..., new products, news, projects, rockets, spacecraft  No Responses »
Dec 072022
 

Some years ago I produced a range of cyanotype blueprints of a number of aerospace subjects. The hardware needed for this was disposed of when I left Utah at the end of 2019, so starting again seemed unlikely. However, someone has expressed interest in a special commission. Rebuilding the hardware needed will be an expensive chore, and sadly getting the large format transparencies printed looks like it will be much more difficult here than it was in Utah. Nevertheless, at this point it looks probable that I will restore that capability sometime in the next few months, assuming one further detail can be ironed out.

You can see my now-defunct catalog here:

https://www.aerospaceprojectsreview.com/catalog/cyan.htm

 

When I get back to it I will probably focus on the larger format stuff rather than the smaller prints. I have plans on how to improve upon the prior hardware to make things work better and more efficiently. If there are any of the former large format prints you’d like to see returned to production, or you have any prints you’d like to see, let me know. And once this is up and running I plan on trying to take commissions, working with a local print shop to find customers interested in this somewhat unusual and certainly obsolete form of art.

 

If you have a diagram you’d like me to turn into a cyanotype, contact me. Commissions aren’t going to be restricted to aerospace subjects; naval, architectural, movie props, whatever you’ve got, so long as it *can* be blueprinted, once things are in place I should be able to do it.

 

 

 Posted by at 11:54 am

Fine dining in NYC

 AARRRGH, Crazy, critters, Forward!, Gah., ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Dec 072022
 

Ummm… NO.

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 8:43 am

I’d like to see a breakdown…

 awesomeness, Hmm..., news, science, youtube  No Responses »
Dec 062022
 

… of just what constitutes this garbage. What fraction is paper? How much plastic? And how much is just sticks and weeds, stuff not normally considered “garbage” in the ecosystem?

 

 

In any event, this mechanism seems to be working quite well. I wonder if it could be made actually productive, though, rather than just harm-reducing: instead of shipping the garbage off to be landfilled somewhere, run it directly into an incinerator. Use the heat and the water to spin a turbine; use the turbine to drive a generator. Use the generator to power not only the mechanism, but feed excess power – if any – into the grid.

 Posted by at 7:15 pm
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