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.
I recently had a disturbing online conversation with a Russian aeronautical expert on the subject of Ukraine. One can reasonably expect a Russian will have a different point of view on the subject than a westerner would… but this was an *experience.* In short: It’s good and proper that Russia exterminate the Ukrainian people, because their culture, history and identity don’t exist; they’re a fiction, it’s all part of Russia and Russias destiny to retake that plot of land. “The history of Ukraine began with the betrayal in Belovezhskaya Pushcha in 1991 and will end in 2023.” Any who stand against the Russians goals deserve death and the nuking of western/NATO cities would be a small price to pay for Russia reclaiming it’s former empire.
Yeesh.
And of course one of the main excuses for why the “special military operation” is a wonderful thing? The need to get rid of all the Nazis in Ukraine. Ukraine, under the leadership of a democratically elected feller who I understand to be a Jew, is somehow being controlled by Nazis. Uh-huh. After years of weirdo whackaloons here in the west constantly banging on about fascists and Nazis – by which they mean anyone with politics to the right of FDR – I have no sympathy for Russians bleating on about Nazis. Especially when *this* is who the Russians are sending into battle against the Ukrainian people:
Hey @Seveerity, here's your video [ai] translated from Russian as requested by @Joe29707949. https://t.co/nBkg5bzrdD
— VidTranslator – targum.video AI bot (@vidtranslator) January 19, 2023
It’s bad enough that Russian leadership is clearly bugnuts, but that this has seeped out into the general populace is unnerving. I was told that Putin is felt to be too soft on the west, and: “If Kadyrov becomes president, the whole world will remember the beautiful and humane Vladimir Vladimirovich with tears.”
There have been more and more reports that NATO countries are running out of weapons and ammo. Again, this is both good and bad news. The bad is obvious. But the good is that the West is figuring this out *now* while our economies are still running and our factories are still standing. If the relatively tiny amount of ordnance the west is sending to Ukraine is drying up western armories… that’s a damned good sign that we need to start stocking up in a serious way.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer fella:
The argument seems to be that Baldwin was screwing around and negligently fired the weapon. However, it also seems to be the case that he was given a gun and told by the armorer that it was not loaded. Assuming those, I’m dubious that a solid legal case can be made against him. The prop master is in serious trouble (and is also charged), no doubt, but Baldwin was told it was safe. That said: I’m never, EVER trusting a weapon to be unloaded and safe until such time as I have personally inspected it. Do I trust the person handing me the weapon? Quite possible. But “trust” has a hell of a time stacking up against “oops, I accidentally shot myself/someone else.”
So jail time for Baldwin? I’m uncertain. A massive fortune-thinning lawsuit? Oh yeah. Kind of a given.
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
This new Apple+ show looks like it *could* have truckloads of potential… and I can see where it could torpedo itself. Behold “Hello Tomorrow!” Some sort of alternate history where the 1950’s never ended yet technology continued, so there are hover-cars, robots and spaceships that all look like they belong in the 50’s. This *could* be friggen’ spectacular: a bright, uplifting story of possibilities. But there are unsubtle hints that “things are not what they seem,” that could turn the whole thing into garbage. “Ascension,” anyone?” The space colonies don’t work, or there are dark conspiracies, or bog-standard “racism and misogyny and transphobia, oh my,” or it’s all some sort of simulation.
Remember the days when you saw a great-looking trailer and you actually held out optimism? But as I don;t have Apple+, I guess it doesn’t much matter…
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?
After multiple rounds of iterating improved tools and techniques, I seem to have finally nailed the large format system (at least up to 24X36, haven’t gone bigger yet… 24X72 is coming). I plan on mailing off the first clients prints in a few days. He has suggested that I sell further copies of these prints to whoever wants them; I will discuss this a bit more, and if all are amenable, I’ll make them available. Until then I don’t want to divulge much other than to say it’s a copy of a prop-blueprint with modifications, not an aerospace blueprint.
The new system relies on UV lamps rather than sunlight. This took some time to get right; 4 lamps turned into 8. But the exposure time has dropped from something like 5 to 7 minutes of Utah summer daylight to 1 minute fifty seconds of consistent ultraviolet bombardment, day or night, sun or cloud.
I haven’t been a Scooby Doo fan since the seventies, never watched of the many series that have been created since, with the lone exception being the initially remarkably awesome “Scooby Apocalypse” comic books. So the announcement of the “Velma” series bounced right off me. I was unsurprised to hear that it was Current Day Progressive Woke Trash; and there’s enough of that now that even hate watching this thing didn’t seem like a good use of my time or even passably entertaining.
But it seems that it is *so* bad that even the NPCs it’s aimed directly at are having a hard time accepting it. Seems there are some bugs in the code.
Velma is so bad in fact, that it’s spawning conspiracy theories that creator Mindy Kaling made what is essentially a parody of what the right wing thinks left wing comedy is like. As in, a show that not just recast most roles with new races, but also features loads and loads of “white guys, amiright?” jokes. The idea is that Kaling is a secretly conservative force in media trying to make the left look bad by making a cringey adult cartoon full of “this rich white guy has a small dong” jokes that the right can point at as everything wrong with race-recasted, social justice-influenced media.
Yes, yes… late the hate flow through you, commies weirdos!
