“Photographing Stuff” has arrived

 aircraft, APR, blather, books, cats, critters, new products, photography, Utah  No Responses »
Dec 242010
 

The magazine showed up in my mailbox today. It came out pretty much as I’d expected… except for a one-millimeter or so white strip at the bottom of each page. Lesson learned for next time: extend the image downwards very slightly. Other than that, no production weirdness that I could see.

As to the quality of the photos, I’ll leave that to any buyers who’d care to comment. In general, I’d say the experiment was sufficiently successful to go ahead with another project or two. Probably with better-thought-out typography on the cover…

Anyway, buy it here:

http://scottlowther.magcloud.com/

 Posted by at 4:11 pm

Family Photos

 awesomeness, humor, photography, science fiction  6 Responses »
Dec 242010
 

I must admit to some confusion as to why some people feel the need to plaster sites like Flickr and FaceSpace and MyBook and whatever all else with innumerable photos of themselves doing banal things. Having seen the damage that can be wrought by having even one recognizable photo of yourself online, it just seems like high-grade nuttery.

But then, there’s this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/redandjonny/

Red and Jonny’s innumerable photos of themselves as a married couple, doing banal things like going to the dentist. Basically yawner images…. except for one little quirk.

Result: awesome!

 Posted by at 12:32 pm

Forthcoming ice age?

 blather, news, science  No Responses »
Dec 222010
 

As yesterday… the hallmark of good science is the ability to make accurate predictions. So, keep an eye on this guy:

There’s a mini ice age coming, says man who beats weather experts

Back in November, when the Met Office was still doing its “mild winter” schtick, Corbyn said it would be the coldest for 100 years. Indeed, it was back in May that he first predicted a snowy December, and he put his own money on a white Christmas about a month before the Met Office made any such forecast. He said that the Met Office would be wrong about last year’s mythical “barbecue summer”, and he was vindicated. He was closer to the truth about last winter, too.

He seems to get it right about 85 per cent of the time and serious business people – notably in farming – are starting to invest in his forecasts.

If farmers are taking note of this guys predictions based on past performance, he’s worth watching. The fun part of the article:

 Piers Corbyn believes that the last three winters could be the harbinger of a mini ice age that could be upon us by 2035, and that it could start to be colder than at any time in the last 200 years. He goes on to speculate that a genuine ice age might then settle in, since an ice age is now cyclically overdue.

 Posted by at 6:52 pm

Snow Is A Thing Of The Past

 blather, news, politics, science  9 Responses »
Dec 212010
 

The hallmark of science is the ability to make verifiable predictions. The hallmark of good science is to make accurate verifiable predictions. Gentlemen, behold:

Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past (from March 2000)

According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.

 But then…

UK snow: Passengers turned away as Heathrow flights are grounded

And then…

Wintry weather brings snow to Australia in midsummer

Rather than being odd anomalies, these are some fairly big events, worthy of notice. Now, do they mean that the world isn’t getting warmer? Nope. The evidence largely suggests that it is, and humans have some hand in that. What these events do mean is that the “science” of global warming global climate change is so vague and handwavy, with such minimally useful predictive ability, that massive global governance resulting from it is almost wholly ill-advised.

 Posted by at 8:29 pm

Request For Business

 awesomeness, blather, drawings, models, new products, nukes, projects, rockets, spacecraft  5 Responses »
Dec 212010
 

Two items:

1) Since I released the 10-by-70 inch Saturn V print, several people have inquired into getting a full-scale version of the print (as presented it’s about 1/3 the size of the original blueprint). The print shop that does these for me says they can do that, no sweat. It will require re-scanning the original at a higher resolution and some more tinkering… and it’ll cost substantially more to print. Based on what I’m hearing from the print shop, I’m looking at a price in the range of $200 for a print 36 inches wide by about 254 inches long (three feet by about 21.7 feet) . Before I take the plunge (I really can’t afford to stock items like this unless I know they’re gonna sell), I’m looking for interested parties. I’m not looking for payment just now (I need to do a partial test run to make sure the quality is up to code), but I am looking for people who would definitely be interested. Those who sign up now (by commenting in the affirmative below) will get 10% off whatever the final price winds up being. Keep in mind, there won’t be a whole lot of these made, so it’ll definitely be a collectors item.

2) And on the topic of “not a whole lot made” and “collectors item,” I’m also looking for people who’d be interested in a large-ish scale finished display model of Project Pluto. I had two signed up for a 1/48 version at $500, which was just enough to go ahead; but before I went ahead and told the prototyping shop to stereo-lith the parts, one customer backed out. So I’m looking for at least one more who’s interested for a Pluto/SLAM at 1/48 or larger (1/40 would put it in scale with other display models of the period, such as the Topping X-15).

 Posted by at 2:57 pm

APR updates

 APR, blather  1 Response »
Dec 212010
 

1) Just passed 120 pages in issue V3N1. The NEXUS article is kinda… fat. A whole lot has been left out… mention is made of the “Helios” designs that were produced alongside the NEXUS, but since they weren’t actual NEXUS designs… out they’ve come. Maybe to appear on their own later.

2) The ability to buy subscriptions to APR should be completely removed from the website. Now if you want an issue… buy that issue. Those who have existing subscriptions to APR will continue to recieve their issues until their subscriptions run out.

3) Last night I incorporated the charts showing the schedule for manned exploration of the solar system into the NEXUS article. From the viewpoint of Convair in 1962, the future held three possibilities… the “conservative” model, the “intermediate” model and the “ambitious” model. Looking at just the “conservative” model… is seriously depressing in light of how history turned out.

 Posted by at 12:27 pm
 Older Entries  Newer Entries