Some model kits I mastered for Fantastic Plastic are back in stock. Click the images to go to the relevant catalog page.
Jun 022015
Jun 022015
Had one of these a little while back, but let’s face it, public proposals that go wrong will *never* get old. Watch the video. It’s high-larious.
Teen Rejected in Front of Entire School Learns the Perils of Promposals
Wah-wah-waaaaaaahhhhh…
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Not entirely related, but then, never not funny:
Jun 022015
So here I am, plugging away at various new products that’ll hopefully raise a couple nickels, when I decide to surf the net for a moment to distract me a bit, and I come across this:
Finally, A Hulkbuster Toy That Can Fit An Iron Man Figure Inside Itself
I have no particular interest in the Hulkbuster toy as such, but I do recognize the magnificence of the manufacturing of it. It’s a beautiful little replica. And by “little” I mean 1/9 scale, or 16 inches tall. And by “replica,” I mean “the price tag for this thing is $840.”
Boggle.
Is a superhero toy worth $840? I dunno… it’s worth what people will pay for it, I suppose. And, sure, there’ve got to be collectors and die-hard fans who’ll cough up that kind of money from time to time. The thing that saddens me… on a planetary scale is there really that much of a bigger market for *insanely* expensive toys than there is for obscure aerospace history? Just a few dozen of these toys would be worth more than I make in a year. And I do mean *few.* And yet I fully expect that the manufacturers will sell far more of these things than there are APR Patrons.
And thus, I’m saddened once again by my own relative lameness.
Jun 022015
In some ways, the description of the “bionic computer” in the British Aircraft Corporation internal intelligence report from 1964 sounds remarkably modern, even futuristic. What’s described is work by the Space General Corporation and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base on developing an artificial brain of power and complexity on par with a human brain. This is something being worked on today, and won’t be achieved for some years yet, but the description here makes it seem like it was not that far off. But the description of the actual mechanism? Odd, to say the least. It *seems* that they though that a simple iron wire (presumably microscopic in size) would make a practical analog for a neuron, and to make it work it simply needed to be dunked in nitric acid. Adding proper salts to the mix would cause the wires to grow functional analogs to the dendrites of organic neurons.
Very steampunk, I suppose… a “brain” made of iron suspended in an aquarium full of acid. Not programmed, but actually brought up to speed via actual “learning.”
Jun 012015
Jun 012015
Spacy Richmond resolution attracts far-out responses
In the Bay Area (the bay in question being San Francisco Bay, shockingly enough) town of Richmond, the city council recent passed a resolution against space-based weaponry. This was based on a 2001 anti-space-weaponry bill proposed by Dennis Kucinich (D: Insanity), and has resulted in the city being barraged with complaints by crackpots, loons and other generically silly people who seem to think that CIA mind control rays in low Earth orbit are trying to penetrate their aluminum foil hats.
Jun 012015
From the ESA:
The effect of the winds of Mars
On the Red Planet, strong winds whip dust and sand from the surface into a frenzy, moving it across the planet at high speeds. These winds can hit 100 km/h, enough to create giant dust storms that settle across huge swathes of Mars, lasting for many days or even weeks.
As these winds travel they carve their surroundings, eroding and smoothing and gradually wearing away the planet’s surface features over millions of years.
Evidence of these processes can be seen in this image from ESA’s Mars Express orbiter. The image shows part of the Arabia Terra region, which is scattered with craters of varying sizes and ages. The craters in this image, caused by impacts in Mars’ past, all show different degrees of erosion. Some still have defined outer rims and clear features within them, while others are much smoother and featureless, almost seeming to run into one another or merge with their surroundings.
The largest crater in this image also has the steepest rim. With a diameter of some 70 km, this crater dominates the left, southern, side of the frame. At first glance, this image seems to show something amazing in this crater, and in one of its neighbours to the right: is this a hint of blue liquid water? No, it is an optical illusion caused by the image processing. The blue-hued patches lying within the ragged craters are actually dark sediments that have built up over time. Again, this is due to the winds, which carry dark, volcanic, basalt-rich deposits across the planet.
This colour image was taken by Mars Express’s High Resolution Stereo Camera on 19 November 2014, during orbit 13728. The image resolution is about 20 m per pixel.
