Here are the main dimensions of the Prometheus model, assuming a 560-foot length and 1/500 scale. Dimensions are in millimeters. If you want it in inches or feet or yards or li or rods or fathoms or furlongs or leagues or parsecs… well, it’s late, I’m tired, and what, is your arm broke? Use a calculator.
Speedbump. He’s a happy cat, pretty much, but he doesn’t particularly look it sometimes.
Speedbump and Raedthinn. Note that Speedbump is sitting on a 2-inch-thick home-made cardboard scratching pad, and yet he’s still shorter than Raedthinn. Speedbump is a normal sized cat. Raedthinn isn’t.
A diagram of the Sidewinder air-to-air missile, taken from an F-104A weapons system manual. Note that here it is labeled the GAR 8, an earlier designation from before being relisted as the AIM-9. Dates from early 1957.
Oy vey:
*IF* the story here is true, we’ve got a 6th grade public school teaching that the Earth is 6,000 years old and that if you don’t want your teachers berating you for being a Buddhist, then the cours4e you should set is towards conversion to Christianity. Why, yes, the ACLU *has* jumped into the fray. *IF* the facts are as the story describes them, here’s a time when I hope the ACLU tears ’em a new one.
After more than a month (yay, H1N1!), here are some progress shots on the Prometheus. The vast bulk of the modeling is done (antennae and details on the lower “nose” being the main gaps now), but that doesn’t mean the project is done. The parts need to be hacked and carved and turned into printable, moldable and castable *kit* parts. This means turning the fat brick that is the main body into a series of shells, something my version of Rhino cannot do with the push of a button. So it needs to be “carved” out. The main body is here shown in four colors for the four parts it has currently been sliced into; this may reduce to two parts, top and bottom. Most of the hollowing is done; the extreme tail needs doing.
Since the last update images were posted, the engines have been brought inboard to their correct position. The ball-and-socket joint should allow the engines to be modeled in landed, flight, or anywhere-in-between positions. Built right, it should be possible to build the whole thing so you can move them as desired, rather than fixed in place. However, the landing gear itself is being modeled in two distinct positions… if you want to scratchbuild that mess of pistons and hinges to be movable… well, you just go right ahead.
While most geeks and nerds would love to work on the USS Enterprise, one job that seems kinda lame is that of Transporter Chief. What’s the job? You stand – not sit – all day in a small room. All alone. No windows. Suddenly, someone may come dashing in requiring that you push a button on a moments notice. And then they’re gone off on an adventure… while you’re still standing there staring at gray walls.
There are a series of comics detailing the nonadventures of Chief O’Brien aboard the Enterprise:
Thought I’d give the old camera a try.
Raedthinn
Fingers.
Speedbump was dubious of the whole thing.
And Buttons was too busy to pose.
Some years ago I got a CanonSD960 IS point-and-click camera. It’s good for basic stuff. But in recent months the quality of photos has been seriously degraded by *stuff* actually within the optics. You can see it pretty clearly here (photo processed to bring out the contrast):
I took the camera to a camera shop and asked ’em about the cost of cracking it open and cleaning it… the guy tapped on his computer and said that the estimate was from $100 to $150. Screw *that* noise. I was able to buy a cheapo replacement for $70-some at Best Buy. So, problem solved.
But when I got home I realized that I still had a functional, if munged-up, camera. Since it had a brand-new replacement, I’d lose approximately nothing if I destroyed said camera. So, I decided to try to clean it myself. The outside of the case had a few tiny screws; I figured I’d undo those, and probably a few more inside, and I’d be able to access the innards and clean them. WRONG. The inside of the thing is a *mass* of tiny screws, seemingly all different. I started taking them out and placing them so that I could replace them. But the sheer number became overwhelming. I did eventually get the camera sufficiently disassembled to *kinda* access the interior of the optics; a can of compressed gas blew out *most* of the specks. I put the camera back together successfully; it doesn’t rattle excessively, and it functions perfectly normally. But… I was left with this:
Hmmm. Either the camera is going to shake itself apart at some point… or it was over-engineered to begin with.
The camera is better, though still not perfect. Probably good enough, though.
Hmmm…
Modern cosmological models suggest that there are “filaments” of matter and dark matter stretching between distant galaxies and galactic clusters. Computer simulations (such as one illustrated at the link) make it look like nothing so much as neurons, making the universe into something that looks like a vast brain. It is kind of an appealing notion on some levels, but I’m uncertain how a 2-million-lightyear-long filament of hydrogen and dark matter would transmit something resembling a thought.
Still… dark matter neurons. Sci-fi fodder if ever there was.