I just sent files to the print shop to get transparencies of two new cyantypes. One will be a pair of 18X24 SR-71 CAD drawings by yours truly, and one will be a 12X38 vintage USS Monitor diagram. I kinda plan on doing a range of ships and submarines, based on vintage blueprints and Booklets of General Plans, if they prove popular. If interested in these, or interested in suggestions something, let me know. 
There is a fan-built replica of the original USS Enterprise set – the whole ship, at least as built in the 1960’s – in Georgia. These sets were used for the filming of the “Star Trek Continues” fan films, and they look convincingly like the originals.
There are two such complete sets… this one, and one in New York. Every kid who was a fan of this show in the 60’s, 70’s and into the 80’s would have killed to have a set like this… at least the captains chair. I imagine there are a lot of folks who want a set of the Enterprise D bridge, probably some Voyager fans. But can anyone really suggest that, fifty years from now, fans of Star Trek Discovery will have recreated the sets from that show in a warehouse somewhere for their own fan films, offering daily tours to paying customers? I suspect not: not just because the show sucks, but because the sets are bleh and soulless… and if anyone wants to do fan films of STD, they’ll likely just work in front of a green screen and CGI-in the sets.
I do wonder if the builders for either of these Enterprise sets could make a decent business out of selling replicas of the captains chair, navigation, the science station, perhaps even occasionally the complete bridge. I suspect there are legal issues that would stand in their way, but if not, I don’t doubt that there are a number of fans with a lot of money and a lot of floorspace who’d happily pay for their own little bit of the Enterprise.
Believed to be somewhere in the range of 1800 to 2000 years old, this means that runic writing has been around for a good long time. Doubtless there’s a link between the runes and Greek writing, but the currently popular theory that runes derived from Roman sources would seem to be much less likely now. The runes seem to have been fully developed and in use well before there was much contact between the Romans and the northern Europeans.
Some Twitter threads by the researchers working on this.
New runestones discovered!
The oldest datable runestone has been discovered in Svingerud in Ringerike (Norway). 1/9https://t.co/jobDdPhgWS— Krister Vasshus (@KristerVasshus) January 17, 2023
1. This thread is about a unique #runic find from Norway – the oldest datable rune-stone in the world. It can change our knowledge about early runic writing tradition and the custom of making rune-stones. #runology #archaeology Photo: George Alexis Pantos, @Kulturhistorisk pic.twitter.com/34k6gw10ON
— Kristel Zilmer (@Kristel_Zilmer) January 17, 2023
The Fairey Rotodyne was a valiant but doomed attempt to develop a high speed civilian passenger VTOL. Decades ago, the British Airfix plastic model kit company released a decent model of it, but it has been unavailable for a good long while. They’re bringing it back out.
The new tools and techniques are now operating reliably. Behold:
The wide-view photo is pretty awful; taken in bad lighting, no flash. Ah, well.
Once split apart these will be 12″x44.” Probably going to go for $35 each, plus postage. Anyone interested?
Back in the mid 80’s, one of the things I got a kick out of was the FASA Star Trek starship combat game. Not just the game itself, but all the books and miniatures that went along with it. I bought, assembled and painted a number of the little metal ships, and have tried to keep them through all the decades since… but through numerous moves and general attrition and entropy, a bunch of the ships have vanished. Recently I’ve had an itch to take the ones I’ve got, strip their decades old paint and try again, and to replace the ones I’ve lost. I’ve looked for replacements on ebay with limited success. Most of what’s available are still in their packages, which means the prices are nuts, and the ones I really want to replace haven’t popped up.
So… does anyone have a collection of these things – or even just one – that you want to unload for a reasonable sum? If so, let me know.
Also: am I alone in having an attachment to these lead/pewter miniatures that simply doesn’t exist for plastic ones, including modern 3D printed versions? There just seems to be something special about them. Perhaps it’s the weight… and perhaps it’s the fact that these were what I had when my brain was developing connections that have ossified since I became an adult. I’d accept either or both explanations, but the fact remains: metal > plastic.
Along with the various iterations of single-seat tiltrotors (especially a stealthy version shown HERE), Bell also proposed a more conventional helicopter for the Light Helicopter eXperimental program in the early 80’s. The artwork below was published in 1985 and depicts a single seat scout chopper with stealthy features. I have no data on this design; scale can be estimated based on the size of the human figures. It would doubtless have been a chore for a single pilot to handle; probably less problematic than a single-seat tiltrotor.
An article by Sandia Labs discussing the disposition of an old, old, OLD Mk 17 nuclear bomb “trainer.” Obviously this isn’t, never was, an actual thermonuclear weapon, but a training device; as such, it doubtless included a lot of the same parts as the actual bomb.
The Mk 17 was a giant of a bomb, deliverable only by the B-36; with a yield of about 15 megatons, it was delivered in 1954, withdrawn from service in 1957. Consequently, this thing is pushing seventy years in age. The article states that it was “transported to Kirtland Air Force Base for its end-of-lifecycle dismantlement and disposition.” One *hopes* that means it’ll be lovingly restored and sent to a good museum for display. One fears it means it’ll be disassembled and scrapped. That *seems* to be its fate based on the vague descriptions of what’ll happen to it.
This is from a while back, but the video is *damned* entertaining if you are into spectacular engineering failures.
In short: Cantilever has it’s issues. Especially when, seemingly, you’re using glass window panels and compression members.
The title of this YouTube video claims that “Chrome Lords” was a 1988 movie that ripped off “RoboCop” and “Terminator.” But in fact “Chrome Lords” never existed. The video is ten minutes of “stills” from a movie that never was… all the images were produced by an AI. And other than places where it looks like AI/CGI, it *does* rather look like one of those schlocky 1980’s crapfest movies. So, well done. But here’s the thing… give it a few years (5? 10? 20?) and someone will have an AI take a few text prompts and spit out a full script, feed these images and the new script into another AI… and shazam, “Chrome Lords” will exist as an actual 90 minute horrible movie. But who – if anyone – will own the copyright?
