I seem to detect a few flaws in the story of how the US shot down the Chinese spy balloon…
Also to be seen here:
Chinese “version” of what happened with its balloon over US territory https://t.co/pS2GIbVCOy pic.twitter.com/PBckqy95YE
— Samuel Bendett (@SamBendett) February 7, 2023
So, what’s going on in the world? Balloon-borne Chinese spy equipment the size of regional jetliners; an earthquake in a NATO member state that has killed at least 7,000 people; awards shows supported by Pfizer with segments that are basically Satanic rituals.
Eh, nothing of any real interest, so here’s a cat on a fashion runway.
@rover_thecat Happy Lunar New Year 🎉 ngl, kind of leaning towards the Vietnamese variation – Year of the Cat 🐈⬛
As a general rule I’m not a fan of putting clothes on cats, because cats don’t *like* clothes and it freaks them out. This one, though, seems cool with it.
A concept illustration of a an attack bomber by Bell Aircraft. No further info than the picture; this would seem to date from the very late 1930’s or early 40’s. As illustrated it’s lopsided… radial engine (Wright R-2600) on the starboard wing, inline (Allison V-1710-F-2) in the port wing. This would indicate engine possibilities, not schizophrenic designers. The forward fuselage is fully glazed and geometrically unbroken; the result is something like the Heinkel 111.
“Creature Features,” a YouTube channel that shows less-than-spectacular movies interspersed with segments with a trio of characters (a format made popular on TV decades ago with the likes of Elvira), found a better-quality copy of the movie “Meteor.” It remains a *terrible* movie with atrocious visual effects and models that can’t even be considered half-assed. But it somehow is rather entertaining. I remain vaguely interested in the notion of someone doing a Special Edition where all the model shots are replaced with insanely good CGI, maybe even tinker with the other visual effect. Ain’t nuthin’ gonna help the plot, though.
The hardware has been modified to “print” up to the full six feet in length (actually a little more, maybe 6’8″). I continue to crank out test prints, with about a 50/40/10 mix of “awesome”/”disappointing”/”dismal.” Now it seems the production part of the project is largely dialed in; it seems that *chemistry* is responsible for much of the trouble. There is a window in which the fluid can be properly used:
While the hardware is set up for in excess of 6 feet, so far the biggest print I’ve done is 56 inches, a *spectacular* pair of isometric interior structure views of the B-2A. yeah, I’m a bit surprised that the original was declassified, but it was, so there it is (and it was sent to me by a Russian feller, so it’s out there). I’ve done 2 so far… one is as close to perfect as I can hope for; one is *slightly* flawed via faded bits.
When I left Utah, my cyanotyping hardware got trashed. But I had the foresight to roll up all the transparencies I had. And wow, I have a lot of them. And WOW are they dirty. Utah is great and all, but it *is* the desert and full of dust… it’s coarse, rough, irritating, and it gets everywhere. All of the transparencies will have to be washed and windexed. And I’ve washed, but not yet windexed, the first of the six-footers I plan on printing: a CAD diagram of my own, the SLS in 1/72 scale. A good businessman would have had this ready for the Artemis mission a little while ago but… shrug.
These test prints will probably go up on ebay to get some sense of the interest in them. I suspect an Etsy store would be the best next step. There are a *lot* of crappy digitally printed aerospace “blueprints” there… one of the very first ones to pop up is a digitally printed 12″x72″ Saturn V that almost certainly was derived from Space Drawing 4. I previously sold actual cyanotypes of this at the exact same size… for $50 compared to the digital print at $75. I feel rather like a chump. There are actual cyanotype prints available as well, but the one’s I’ve seen all look rather bland and low-effort. Bah.
Because in present Day, everything has to be All About Me…
Several years before I left Utah I was contacted by an aerospace historian/ museum feller about a potential project. It seemed that a big tech company was purchasing an old Hughes Aircraft hangar with the intention of turning it into office space; I was asked if I might be interested in building a large (IIRC, wingspan in excess of twenty feet) replica of the Hughes H4 Hercules “Spruce Goose” to be hung in the large open space. My response was something along the lines of “hell yes,” but it didn’t go much further than that original discussion; like a lot of things it just faded away. Still, I’d dug out what plans I had of the Hercules and started dreaming up how I was going to do it… I’d model it in 3D CAD, lay out the internal structure and have ribs and longerons and frames and all cut out of quality plywood, clad probably in *really* good, really thin plywood, sanded baby-ass smooth and painted appropriately. I had discussions with a local wood shop about getting the many, many parts CNC milled. Woulda been a thing of beauty… and something I could have built several of and presumably made bank on. But it was not to be, and in the years since I’ve not given the project a second thought. Until yesterday…
So there was this TikTok video by some vapid person yapping about her day of meaningless food consumption and unproductivity at the Google LA office, built into a former Hughes hangar. Lo and behold, on display is a “sculpture” of the Hercules hanging from the ceiling, visible about 8 seconds in:
New adult daycare video just dropped, and this may possibly be the most horrifying one yet. These are the people who ban you from tech pic.twitter.com/kceLEkiRrN
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) January 22, 2023
My old brain fired up and I contacted my acquaintance who had originally presented me with the idea years ago… and, yup, that’s the place, and that sculpture is what they went with rather than my planned subscale replica. More info and a decent photo of it is here:
There are a number of things that jump right out at me. First, the volume of space available in the hangar is vast… and it *seems* like the volume of space actually used for offices and such is *small.* It appears to be horribly inefficiently utilized. And second, here’s the description of the Hercules sculpture:
Comprised of 2,800 individually hung chrome spheres, this perceptual sculpture by Michael Murphy appears to be an amorphous silver cloud until seen from the sole viewpoint where it reveals itself as the “ghost” of the Spruce Goose.
It’s a “perceptual sculpture,” only visible correctly from a single vantage point. Basically, it’s not “real” as such, it’s kinda like a hologram made of ball bearings. That’s… interesting, I guess. but I can’t help draw some analogies: What I had suggested was a real, tangible Hercules, visible as such from all aspects and viewpoints. What they went with was smoke and mirrors. What I had believed the place was going to be was a workplace where people got stuff done. What it ended up being was, apparently a holding facility for people who did nothing of value all day.
Would have been a nice project though. Oh well.
A YouTube video discussing the time between the cancellation of Star Trek and The Motion Picture. It would be an era unimaginable to fans of a just-cancelled franchise today: back then, you either saw the showed when it aired, or you didn’t. Until it hit syndication, there was for all intents and purposes no way for someone to see the show. All you had were your memories, the verbal descriptions from others, the occasional magazine article, and a series of novelizations of the episodes. There was no renting an episode on tape at Blockbuster, no buying the DVD, no streaming it online. A few might have access to crappy films.
And yet… when the first Star Trek Convention was held in 1972, the place was swamped, and attendance only grew from there. It was an analog IRL experience unlike anything possible today. On the one hand it was lean, dark times, with limited resources and opportunities; on the other hand, it led to fandoms and communities of a kind impossible today. There is value in rarity, I suppose. People value that which they have to work for.
A post from a few years ago with a Star trek Convention film shot in 1976.
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.
