However, analysis of larger groups suggests that the IQ drops exponentially.
Extrapolating to the Internet, and hence the Singularity gives us:
Whomsoever was responsible for the layout of the underside of the dashboard of the 2001 Caravan should be condemned to an eternity of changing the heater fans. I have engaged in some difficult teardowns in my time, but this one was ridiculous. Why should a simple job be made so purposefully complex?
The writers of the Haynes Manual covering that section should be made to assist as punishment for their blithe and uninformative instructions.
Which was surprising, considering how happy I've been with those guides to date.
The writers of the Haynes Manual covering that section should be made to assist as punishment for their blithe and uninformative instructions.
Which was surprising, considering how happy I've been with those guides to date.
And in a eight-cubed map, when backing away from the center, I will approach the wall for a long time and then the center of the map will appear ahead of me , and I will be approaching it from the other side!
Infinite universe of finite size, but with a visible edge!
I can shoot rockets down into space and have them reappear far overhead. Interesting deathmatch possibilitys here.
Infinite universe of finite size, but with a visible edge!
I can shoot rockets down into space and have them reappear far overhead. Interesting deathmatch possibilitys here.
Found an interesting effect in Quake while experimenting with Big maps.
I used Quake Army Knife to generate a 16386 unit long room, 8192 units wide.
Sky roof, black walls, tiled floor.
Running around in it, I found places where a fired rocket would 'bounce' off an invisible surface
without exploding.
The surface presented no barrier to movement, and I discovered myself standing in a corridor that bisected the map, and allowed me to look 'outside'.
Also, when a rocket was bounced off one of these walls, it actually twinned, and one rocket continued on the original course into the 'second universe' while the first rebounded. Both can explode, and apparently do damage.
I also found walls that were invisible, that exploded rockets.
Hmmm...
' In orthogonal countries, metaphorically cues have the hopeless ... '
'EVP' is the idea of capturing the voices of ghosts by recording static and carefully listening to it at high gain.
So could we consider the static background of porn gibberish that underlies any queries of the Internet as containing the messages of ghosts?
Or perhaps the ghosts of alternate Internets, linked via L-Space?
'Who defrays the mandible, because of what cause we execute?'
I need some sort of search engine that will crawl around the bottom of the databases, returning the text found. A sort of Mandelbrot zoomer for words.
This seems apropos: 'Research is unextractable in extreme...'
' In orthogonal countries, metaphorically cues have the hopeless ... '
'EVP' is the idea of capturing the voices of ghosts by recording static and carefully listening to it at high gain.
So could we consider the static background of porn gibberish that underlies any queries of the Internet as containing the messages of ghosts?
Or perhaps the ghosts of alternate Internets, linked via L-Space?
'Who defrays the mandible, because of what cause we execute?'
I need some sort of search engine that will crawl around the bottom of the databases, returning the text found. A sort of Mandelbrot zoomer for words.
This seems apropos: 'Research is unextractable in extreme...'
When ones system goes inexplicably down, its rather ominous to find the SYSTEM.INI file starting with this:
The file names and locations are material I was working on before I closed Firefox.
I'd hate to think that it was writing random gibberish to random files.
This is a win98se system running Firefox 1.0.2 over a 24.4 modem connection, btw.
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>É_ € span style=""> /span> span style=""> /span>NC:ProgressPercent NC:parseType="Integer">100 /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> rdf:description about="C:\kwanlo\newspring\soviet-death-ray-gun-kazakhstan-astronomy.jpg"> /rdf:description> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal">NC:Name="soviet-death-ray-gun-kazakhstan-astronomy.jpg" /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal">NC:Transferred="42KB of 42KB"> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> nc:url resource="http://neatorama.cachefly.net/images/2008-10/soviet-death-ray-gun-kazakhstan-astronomy.jpg"> /nc:url> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> nc:file resource="C:\kwanlo\newspring\soviet-death-ray-gun-kazakhstan-astronomy.jpg"> /nc:file> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> nc:datestarted parsetype="Date">Mon Nov 03 05:29:58 Atlantic Standard Time 2008 +750000 /nc:datestarted> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> nc:dateended parsetype="Date">Mon Nov 03 05:29:58 Atlantic Standard Time 2008 +800000 /nc:dateended> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> nc:downloadstate parsetype="Integer">1 /nc:downloadstate> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> nc:progresspercent parsetype="Integer">100 /nc:progresspercent> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> rdf:description about="C:\kwanlo\DocSavageEbooks\dislady.htm"> /rdf:description> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal">NC:Name="dislady.htm" /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal">NC:Transferred="1KB of span style=""> /span>1KB"> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> nc:url resource="file:///c:/WINDOWS/TEMP/_AZTMP0_/dislady.htm"> /nc:url> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> nc:file resource="C:\kwanlo\DocSavageEbooks\dislady.htm"> /nc:file> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> nc:dateended parsetype="Date">Mon Nov 03 17:28:51 Atlantic Standard Time 2008 +210000 /nc:dateended> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> nc:downloadstate parsetype="Integer">1 /nc:downloadstate> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> nc:progresspercent parsetype="Integer">100 /nc:progresspercent> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> rdf:description about="C:\kwanlo\newspring\asdfasdf\asdfasdf.jpg"> /rdf:description> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal">NC:Name="asdfasdf.jpg" /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal">NC:Transferred="116KB of 116KB"> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> nc:url resource="http://www.sasdfgwerf.com/sdfg/asdf/dfsg/english/asdfasdd.jpg"> /nc:url> /p> p style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 255);" class="MsoNormal"> nc:file resource="C:\kwanlo\newspring\asdfasdfi\asdfasdf.jpg"> /nc:file> /p> p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"> span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);"> nc:datestarted parsetype="Date">Mon Nov 03 18:44:20 /nc:datestarted> /span>
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The file names and locations are material I was working on before I closed Firefox.
I'd hate to think that it was writing random gibberish to random files.
This is a win98se system running Firefox 1.0.2 over a 24.4 modem connection, btw.
Hmmm...
Has anyone actually measured the speed of propagation of gravitation change?
Everything I've found so far seems to be basing it on the 'speed of light barrier' which smells to me like a assumption.
While detection of gravitational waves has proved problematic, measurement of local graviational fields is relatively simple. Has an experiment been done to measure 'rate of change' of local fields?
This may be limited by the responce time of gravimeters.
Has anyone actually measured the speed of propagation of gravitation change?
Everything I've found so far seems to be basing it on the 'speed of light barrier' which smells to me like a assumption.
While detection of gravitational waves has proved problematic, measurement of local graviational fields is relatively simple. Has an experiment been done to measure 'rate of change' of local fields?
This may be limited by the responce time of gravimeters.
'According To The Plan Of A One Eyed Mystic' and 'Bequest of Evil' contain intreasting similarities.
In both cases there is a plan to sell secret weapons, there is a base by the seashore - in one case, on 'Death Island' somewhere north of Labrador, in the other in Labrador.
The head honcho in one is a short man referred to as 'Lucky Napolean'. He is supposedly a a european gangster. In the other book, his name isn't known, but he uses the alibi 'Mister Mystic' - he is a short man, with brown skin, and apparantly missing an eye.
'Bequest of Evil' is confused to the point of incoherency. An attempt is made to kidnap Doc. It fails. Monk is told he has inherited the Canadian estates of the Earl of Mayfair, along with five million dollars. He goes to the estate, where he is captured.
Its explained they wanted him because they thought he was an electronics expert! The famous Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, Chemist Extraordinare!
Then it turns out that the Earl of Mayfair isn't dead after all, and he looks just like Monk - like enough to impersonate Monk with ease. Oh, and did I mention that Earl Mayfair is actually a British Secret Agent?
'According to The Plan of a One Eyed Mystic' is almost as confused. Here a scheme to make people think that their minds have been swapped into other people's bodies is being perpetuated as part of a plan involving the
Sterling Instrument Company, which is making something for the war that is so secret that even Doc cannot gain any information when he calls the plant - an occurance he considers surprising. Something to do with the A-Bomb, perhaps?
Reading the two books together really gives me the idea that there was a Mad Scientists Lair somewhere along the Labrador coast, that it was run by a one-eyed man, and that he had developed several intreasting weapons and had made a deal to sell them to the Nazis. Or rather, to sucker the Nazi's into showing up with a submarine stuffed with money, and then murdering them all and taking everything. The kidnapping of scientists must have attracted Doc's attention, and he was already investigating when Monk is captured. Following Monk gives him the leads needed to storm the hidden base, after provoking a fight between the henchmen and the Nazis.
The tale - no doubt a complex one - is heavily garbled, and furnishs material for two seperate books.
So is Monk an Aristocrat?
Considering that he hates being referred to by his given names, and makes a point of dressing and acting like some sort of sideshow buffoon makes me think its just an act. A clumsy clown like show, at odds with his brains and his upbringing, I suspect.
In both cases there is a plan to sell secret weapons, there is a base by the seashore - in one case, on 'Death Island' somewhere north of Labrador, in the other in Labrador.
The head honcho in one is a short man referred to as 'Lucky Napolean'. He is supposedly a a european gangster. In the other book, his name isn't known, but he uses the alibi 'Mister Mystic' - he is a short man, with brown skin, and apparantly missing an eye.
'Bequest of Evil' is confused to the point of incoherency. An attempt is made to kidnap Doc. It fails. Monk is told he has inherited the Canadian estates of the Earl of Mayfair, along with five million dollars. He goes to the estate, where he is captured.
Its explained they wanted him because they thought he was an electronics expert! The famous Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, Chemist Extraordinare!
Then it turns out that the Earl of Mayfair isn't dead after all, and he looks just like Monk - like enough to impersonate Monk with ease. Oh, and did I mention that Earl Mayfair is actually a British Secret Agent?
'According to The Plan of a One Eyed Mystic' is almost as confused. Here a scheme to make people think that their minds have been swapped into other people's bodies is being perpetuated as part of a plan involving the
Sterling Instrument Company, which is making something for the war that is so secret that even Doc cannot gain any information when he calls the plant - an occurance he considers surprising. Something to do with the A-Bomb, perhaps?
Reading the two books together really gives me the idea that there was a Mad Scientists Lair somewhere along the Labrador coast, that it was run by a one-eyed man, and that he had developed several intreasting weapons and had made a deal to sell them to the Nazis. Or rather, to sucker the Nazi's into showing up with a submarine stuffed with money, and then murdering them all and taking everything. The kidnapping of scientists must have attracted Doc's attention, and he was already investigating when Monk is captured. Following Monk gives him the leads needed to storm the hidden base, after provoking a fight between the henchmen and the Nazis.
The tale - no doubt a complex one - is heavily garbled, and furnishs material for two seperate books.
So is Monk an Aristocrat?
Considering that he hates being referred to by his given names, and makes a point of dressing and acting like some sort of sideshow buffoon makes me think its just an act. A clumsy clown like show, at odds with his brains and his upbringing, I suspect.
Another treat, this one from Mad Eyes:
' Doc had whipped out a strange-looking pair of binoculars. These were superlensed. They showed all objects in four dimensions at any distance. ' *
In Four Dimensions ??
It gets better. The villains use enormous suction machines to draw lighting down from the sky into special conduits and storing it in immense copper spheres.
The henchmen use paralysis rods, that have thin wires attached to them, but its never explained what the other end of the wire is attached to. Men are driven mad with visions of amoeba and paramecium projected onto their retinas by super-magnifying 'metallic' contact lens.
Ooo. How is this for an explanation? '"These cars are a type of Super-Diesel, which draws nearly all of its energy from the stratosphere. "'
Say....whaaaat?
This isn't even pseudo science. Its nonsense.
Much of the action takes place in a quarry beneath a sanitarium named 'Cragsrock'. Which is all blown up by the bad guys during the final scenes.
Tres gothic, tres dramatique...
On the other hand, theres a plot to discredit Savage via impersonation by Andrus Davidson, a 'unsuccessful actor', and the whole scheme to take over the world is masterminded by his 'plump' sister Jane Davidson. Savage is supporting research into projection microscopy and Professor Spargrove's discovery of bacteriovores.
*Are they talking about the Sagan-Tesla conjectured fourth cardinal direction 'Zorth' ?
' Doc had whipped out a strange-looking pair of binoculars. These were superlensed. They showed all objects in four dimensions at any distance. ' *
In Four Dimensions ??
It gets better. The villains use enormous suction machines to draw lighting down from the sky into special conduits and storing it in immense copper spheres.
The henchmen use paralysis rods, that have thin wires attached to them, but its never explained what the other end of the wire is attached to. Men are driven mad with visions of amoeba and paramecium projected onto their retinas by super-magnifying 'metallic' contact lens.
Ooo. How is this for an explanation? '"These cars are a type of Super-Diesel, which draws nearly all of its energy from the stratosphere. "'
Say....whaaaat?
This isn't even pseudo science. Its nonsense.
Much of the action takes place in a quarry beneath a sanitarium named 'Cragsrock'. Which is all blown up by the bad guys during the final scenes.
Tres gothic, tres dramatique...
On the other hand, theres a plot to discredit Savage via impersonation by Andrus Davidson, a 'unsuccessful actor', and the whole scheme to take over the world is masterminded by his 'plump' sister Jane Davidson. Savage is supporting research into projection microscopy and Professor Spargrove's discovery of bacteriovores.
*Are they talking about the Sagan-Tesla conjectured fourth cardinal direction 'Zorth' ?
Two years ago, my wife showed up after a local auction was over to help her father load his purchases. It had been the estate sale of a batchelor that died without progeny. He'd been a heavy reader, and they had been selling paperbacks by the box full. Too bad I missed that part.While walking through the house, Liz noticed several lots that had'nt sold because no-one wanted them: three bookcases full of science and astronomy books.
Needless to say, she grabbed the auctioneer, and in two minutes was the proud owner.
Then she called me.
We filled the back of the Volvo station wagon until the springs bottomed out. We also filled the passenger side of Liz's pickup. Seven empty bookcases were included, and a complete set of Hockey News from November 1952.
Total price ? $62.50.
Now -- ignoring of the bookcases and the sports magazine -- the science books were still there because nobody wanted to haul them away, let alone pay 25 cents for them. I could understand ignoring the books on string theory - they went to the Salvation Army shortly there after - but several hundred books on stars and dinosaurs and lasers and particle physics and, and -- (deep breath).
The astronomy/ astrophysics section alone was about ten times larger then the local librarys.
They would have been thrown out; the man's surviving family did not want them, the hundred-odd people attending the auction didnt want them, and his cat could'nt read them.
Its easy to ask ' what does that say about this town?' but conversely, this man was a resident of this town, and very few people knew about this hoard.
Makes you wonder how many 'closet scientifiphiles' there are in North America.
It occurs to me that a rough-and-ready estimation of airborne pollutants would be to track the amount of business each areas window washers have. Most windows need washed because of airborne dust, after all.
So the questions are - is such data availible?
And what sort of sampling frequency is available - beyond the 'summer only' state?
So the questions are - is such data availible?
And what sort of sampling frequency is available - beyond the 'summer only' state?
Continuing in the same strain, we present stinker number two:
I suspect from Chemistry's knot abilities that this is written by the same person as Land Of Fear.
Oh, and did I mention that the ringleader kept wearing a 'waxy mask' in public? That was so Renny could tell he was the bad guy, I suppose.
The Devils Playground
Its referred to as a 'new gas' and I suspect its an early version of Savage's amazingly effective tranquilizer gas.Where do we start? The setting is before World War Two.
Its somewhere in Northren Ontario (Canada).
As an opener, we discover that the Ojibway Indians are still using stone tomahawks. This is referred to repeatedly, despite the fact that by 1900, it would be unlikely you could find an Ojibway that even knew how to make a stone 'tomahawk', let alone had one. They also use message drums, which I was given to understand were only to be found in Africa.
Savage has his associates stake out a mysterious iron mine; Littlejohn has actually joined the miners, while Monk and Ham pilot a birchbark canoe up and down the nearby watercourses, pretending to be some sort of sports fishermen. Sports fishermen accompanied by a weird pig and a weirder ape. Definately inconspicious.
Its important to note that while it seems to be a birchbark canoe, its actually a submarine with two different modes of operation. In one mode, a cover is drawn over the canoe made of fine metal mesh that somehow repels the water and extracts oxygen. The hydrogen is left to bubble to the surface. In its second mode, a 'glassite' cover is unfolded from a compartment and drawn over the top of the canoe, replacing the mesh. This plastic material is clear and rubbery, yet immensely strong.
In either mode, the canoe has ballast pumps, and a form of chemical rocket propulsion. The propulsion sounds like the machinery used in Savage's glass sub of Haunted Ocean, so I would geuss this farce is supposed to have subsequently occured. (Grammer terrible is. Muppet I am.)
The canoe also has extensive lockers, containing a complete chemical laboratory.
Lockers on a birchbark canoe.
Oh, and did I mention that the canoe slash submarine can be submerged and then recalled via a jolt from an induction coil? Convenient for those moments when the baddies might find your birchbark canoe with many useful additions and decide that something is amiss.
The ape continues to demonstrate his 'knot'ical prowness, able to untie Ham on command. Also able to tie the pig to a stake. This ape is making considerable progress. Next he'll be picking up rifles (Like that scene in Jurassic Park where the velociraptor picks up the man's rifle, and all I can think is Raptors with Rifles!! {The movie refused to become that cool.}.).
Monk and Ham engage in direct telepathy in order to exchange insults while underwater.
Its not just iron being mined, there is also nickel, which is being smuggled to Russia by six bearded dwarves, plus their ringleader Igor. They have a 'perfect defence' in the form of an enormous magnet which holds our heros helpless until they can take their shoes off and empty their pockets.
They are killing their enemies by terrorizing them with Indian drums and warwhoops played from hidden loudspeakers, and when the victim is sufficently demoralized, he's bundled into a Iron Maiden conveniently disguised as a tree, a stump or a boulder.
Savage is in the Fortress of Solitude and broadcasting instructions to his aides. His enemy use radio triangulation to find his poistion and dispatch a pair of twin engine attack bombers (Apparantly pulling them out of their ass, to use the vernacular). Luckily, the planes don't find the fortress, they find one of Savage's planes droning along through the sky.. They attack it, it fights back and finally is destroyed. Luckily, its a robotic plane, with a dummy at the stick. Savage is flying some distance away, and explains to the chorus that he expected radio triagulation and flew five hundred miles from the Fortress to transmit. He then hung around, apparantly to see what would happen. A pair of bomb-loaded twin engine bombers is what happened. Amazing, you never know what might fall out of the sky at you, over the cold Canadian North.
Now at one point he does use a gas that "[...] instantly effective, slowed up all motor processes of those who breathed it. He and Monk had held theirbreath. "It will only be effective for a few moments," Doc advised."
Its somewhere in Northren Ontario (Canada).
As an opener, we discover that the Ojibway Indians are still using stone tomahawks. This is referred to repeatedly, despite the fact that by 1900, it would be unlikely you could find an Ojibway that even knew how to make a stone 'tomahawk', let alone had one. They also use message drums, which I was given to understand were only to be found in Africa.
Savage has his associates stake out a mysterious iron mine; Littlejohn has actually joined the miners, while Monk and Ham pilot a birchbark canoe up and down the nearby watercourses, pretending to be some sort of sports fishermen. Sports fishermen accompanied by a weird pig and a weirder ape. Definately inconspicious.
Its important to note that while it seems to be a birchbark canoe, its actually a submarine with two different modes of operation. In one mode, a cover is drawn over the canoe made of fine metal mesh that somehow repels the water and extracts oxygen. The hydrogen is left to bubble to the surface. In its second mode, a 'glassite' cover is unfolded from a compartment and drawn over the top of the canoe, replacing the mesh. This plastic material is clear and rubbery, yet immensely strong.
In either mode, the canoe has ballast pumps, and a form of chemical rocket propulsion. The propulsion sounds like the machinery used in Savage's glass sub of Haunted Ocean, so I would geuss this farce is supposed to have subsequently occured. (Grammer terrible is. Muppet I am.)
The canoe also has extensive lockers, containing a complete chemical laboratory.
Lockers on a birchbark canoe.
Oh, and did I mention that the canoe slash submarine can be submerged and then recalled via a jolt from an induction coil? Convenient for those moments when the baddies might find your birchbark canoe with many useful additions and decide that something is amiss.
The ape continues to demonstrate his 'knot'ical prowness, able to untie Ham on command. Also able to tie the pig to a stake. This ape is making considerable progress. Next he'll be picking up rifles (Like that scene in Jurassic Park where the velociraptor picks up the man's rifle, and all I can think is Raptors with Rifles!! {The movie refused to become that cool.}.).
Monk and Ham engage in direct telepathy in order to exchange insults while underwater.
Its not just iron being mined, there is also nickel, which is being smuggled to Russia by six bearded dwarves, plus their ringleader Igor. They have a 'perfect defence' in the form of an enormous magnet which holds our heros helpless until they can take their shoes off and empty their pockets.
They are killing their enemies by terrorizing them with Indian drums and warwhoops played from hidden loudspeakers, and when the victim is sufficently demoralized, he's bundled into a Iron Maiden conveniently disguised as a tree, a stump or a boulder.
Savage is in the Fortress of Solitude and broadcasting instructions to his aides. His enemy use radio triangulation to find his poistion and dispatch a pair of twin engine attack bombers (Apparantly pulling them out of their ass, to use the vernacular). Luckily, the planes don't find the fortress, they find one of Savage's planes droning along through the sky.. They attack it, it fights back and finally is destroyed. Luckily, its a robotic plane, with a dummy at the stick. Savage is flying some distance away, and explains to the chorus that he expected radio triagulation and flew five hundred miles from the Fortress to transmit. He then hung around, apparantly to see what would happen. A pair of bomb-loaded twin engine bombers is what happened. Amazing, you never know what might fall out of the sky at you, over the cold Canadian North.
Now at one point he does use a gas that "[...] instantly effective, slowed up all motor processes of those who breathed it. He and Monk had held theirbreath. "It will only be effective for a few moments," Doc advised."
I suspect from Chemistry's knot abilities that this is written by the same person as Land Of Fear.
Oh, and did I mention that the ringleader kept wearing a 'waxy mask' in public? That was so Renny could tell he was the bad guy, I suppose.
"Tall palms reached up into the sky like tentacles of death."
I knew long before I reached that line that any hope of finding sense in this book was gone.
I've been going through my Doc Savage collection, taking some notes on the unusual inventions. Not the stuff like his early development of television, or the autogyros and airship designs, or the ingenious burglar alarms. I'm interested in things like the mineral REPEL, or the barricade field out of the Spook of Grandpa Eben.
I wanted to get an idea of what unusual devices would be stored in the Fortress of Solitude, and a seventy year old design for two way television merely has curiosity value.
Then I made the mistake of reading The Land Of Fear.
Amung the more bizarre entrys are object compasses a la Skylark, using a new mineral from South America called 'Radiatite'. The villain wishes to steal the formula for crossbreeding rubber trees and cacti - a fantastic combination that Savage instantly names 'Rubberkak' .
The villain, of course is not helpless; he has examined a strange South African plant that can absorb moisture from the plants around it. Sort of a vegetative hydro-vampire. Using this knowledge, he constructs a funnel like device that can convert a human being to a skeleton in moments, merely by sucking all the water from his body. And without making physical contact. The water is stored in tubing wound around the villains body.
There is a house with insanely elaborate death-traps.
Chemistry the Ape is trained to tie knots and coil lines onboard a ship, so that he can work as a furry deckhand.
Savage falls victim to a trap that would serve only to hold a Road Runner: 4 inches of wet concrete with a thin layer of sand scattered on top to disguise it. As soon as Savage and his associates step on it, they are trapped helplessly.
...And to think that's all it would take!
Savage uses inflatable decoys to add verisimilitude to his ventriloquismic efforts.
He has powerful magnets and steel filings arranged to trap gangsters feet when they attempt to flee.
Et cetera, ad nauseum...
Now don't get me wrong. As any of my (non existent) readers can attest, I am a fan of Clark Savage Jr.
But I really think this one needs to be quietly swept under the carpet and forgotten.
I knew long before I reached that line that any hope of finding sense in this book was gone.
I've been going through my Doc Savage collection, taking some notes on the unusual inventions. Not the stuff like his early development of television, or the autogyros and airship designs, or the ingenious burglar alarms. I'm interested in things like the mineral REPEL, or the barricade field out of the Spook of Grandpa Eben.
I wanted to get an idea of what unusual devices would be stored in the Fortress of Solitude, and a seventy year old design for two way television merely has curiosity value.
Then I made the mistake of reading The Land Of Fear.
Amung the more bizarre entrys are object compasses a la Skylark, using a new mineral from South America called 'Radiatite'. The villain wishes to steal the formula for crossbreeding rubber trees and cacti - a fantastic combination that Savage instantly names 'Rubberkak' .
The villain, of course is not helpless; he has examined a strange South African plant that can absorb moisture from the plants around it. Sort of a vegetative hydro-vampire. Using this knowledge, he constructs a funnel like device that can convert a human being to a skeleton in moments, merely by sucking all the water from his body. And without making physical contact. The water is stored in tubing wound around the villains body.
There is a house with insanely elaborate death-traps.
Chemistry the Ape is trained to tie knots and coil lines onboard a ship, so that he can work as a furry deckhand.
Savage falls victim to a trap that would serve only to hold a Road Runner: 4 inches of wet concrete with a thin layer of sand scattered on top to disguise it. As soon as Savage and his associates step on it, they are trapped helplessly.
...And to think that's all it would take!
Savage uses inflatable decoys to add verisimilitude to his ventriloquismic efforts.
He has powerful magnets and steel filings arranged to trap gangsters feet when they attempt to flee.
Et cetera, ad nauseum...
Now don't get me wrong. As any of my (non existent) readers can attest, I am a fan of Clark Savage Jr.
But I really think this one needs to be quietly swept under the carpet and forgotten.
Contour Crafting...
These guys are building house printers - or trying to. They've realized that the printhead can do more then just lay down structural material , that wires and insulation can be added at the same time. I imagine code compliance and unions may interfere with automated plumbing.
But they have no provision for scaffolding material - which in its cheapest form would just be sand.
So floors and roofs have to be craned on, after the fact.
Its a start, but its not far enough for my taste.
I want the machine to print a complete finished building. The potential for disaster relief, for instance.Rather than hordes of trailers,(for those lucky enough), or crude tarps and tents, machines could just start to spit out rows of houses.
Also, if the machine can embed wires and pipes, it should be able to embed steel reinforcing. Which means that structures can be built in quite radical shapes and forms.
Very thin walls, for instance, saving on printing time and material cost.
Another thing I haven't seen yet, is that if the concrete could be printed in a 'foamed' state, if the walls could be filled automaticly with tiny air cells, then the concrete would have significant insulation properties.
Considering that nearly everywhere on earth is either too hot or too cold to be comfortable, this is a major point. Of course, the print resolution would have to be small, but for a good finished surface, we want a good resolution, anyways.
Khoshnevis is also working on a concrete mixing printhead, which is an excellent idea. I've wanted a handheld one for years, its been a hot topic with me every time I've sweated over a wheelbarrow of concrete.
The use of automated trowels to modify the surface is also quite interesting.
But really guys, change the 'C's to 'K's Kontour Krafting....It sounds so '50's!
These guys are building house printers - or trying to. They've realized that the printhead can do more then just lay down structural material , that wires and insulation can be added at the same time. I imagine code compliance and unions may interfere with automated plumbing.
But they have no provision for scaffolding material - which in its cheapest form would just be sand.
So floors and roofs have to be craned on, after the fact.
Its a start, but its not far enough for my taste.
I want the machine to print a complete finished building. The potential for disaster relief, for instance.Rather than hordes of trailers,(for those lucky enough), or crude tarps and tents, machines could just start to spit out rows of houses.
Also, if the machine can embed wires and pipes, it should be able to embed steel reinforcing. Which means that structures can be built in quite radical shapes and forms.
Very thin walls, for instance, saving on printing time and material cost.
Another thing I haven't seen yet, is that if the concrete could be printed in a 'foamed' state, if the walls could be filled automaticly with tiny air cells, then the concrete would have significant insulation properties.
Considering that nearly everywhere on earth is either too hot or too cold to be comfortable, this is a major point. Of course, the print resolution would have to be small, but for a good finished surface, we want a good resolution, anyways.
Khoshnevis is also working on a concrete mixing printhead, which is an excellent idea. I've wanted a handheld one for years, its been a hot topic with me every time I've sweated over a wheelbarrow of concrete.
The use of automated trowels to modify the surface is also quite interesting.
But really guys, change the 'C's to 'K's Kontour Krafting....It sounds so '50's!
'Bathys' means deep, as in a 'bathyscape' or 'bathycolpia' (a delightful trait common to several of my girlfriends).
A deep bath could be referred to as a 'Bathysbath' to mix languages.
A deep bath that had been made or designed in the city of Bath would be a 'Bath bathysbath'.
To take a bath as per above would be to have a 'Bath bathysbath bath'.
Bath bathysbath bath...
Bath bathysbath bath...
Looked at closely enough, language is babble.
Terrifying.
A deep bath could be referred to as a 'Bathysbath' to mix languages.
A deep bath that had been made or designed in the city of Bath would be a 'Bath bathysbath'.
To take a bath as per above would be to have a 'Bath bathysbath bath'.
Bath bathysbath bath...
Bath bathysbath bath...
Looked at closely enough, language is babble.
Terrifying.
It should be possible to fire a potato cannon from a potato cannon, giving a two stage effect.
Slipping 1" ABS pipe inside 2" ABS would work, although I'd have to glue on a rubber strip as wadding.
Or go to a larger (4", perhaps) outer barrel, and a sabot style round?
Firing the second stage would be difficult, as a few fractions of a second delay would be needed. Perhaps a capacitor delay circuit, firing a ignition spark would work, and certainly would be light and simple.
It certainly would be dramatic, with a midtrajectory muzzleflash.
Perhaps I need a firing range.
(RenegadeMime suggests a leash.)
Slipping 1" ABS pipe inside 2" ABS would work, although I'd have to glue on a rubber strip as wadding.
Or go to a larger (4", perhaps) outer barrel, and a sabot style round?
Firing the second stage would be difficult, as a few fractions of a second delay would be needed. Perhaps a capacitor delay circuit, firing a ignition spark would work, and certainly would be light and simple.
It certainly would be dramatic, with a midtrajectory muzzleflash.
Perhaps I need a firing range.
(RenegadeMime suggests a leash.)
Learn something everyday...
Its been nesscary to mill a few logs for my house. Lacking a mill, I've been using my handy-dandy chainsaw.
Hoping to streamline the process, I do some research, and discover that I need a ripping chain to efficiently cut down the length of the logs. Ripping chains being prohibitively expensive, I made do with the ordinary chain. Rigging up a crude guide, and clamping a c-clamp to the bar's nose to keep the bar parallel with the guide, I struggled through the twelve logs I needed.
Roll Old Father Time around a year, and I need to cut a couple more. Being in a hurry this time, I just snapped a chalkline as a quick guide. I traced the chalkline with the saw, keeping the bar at a very shallow angle to the wood. Once I had a groove cut, I just kept re-traceing the groove, slicing deeper and deeper.
Long shavings were cut off, and it cut much faster then my plunging style ripping cuts had the year before.
The proverbial light bulb came on and illuminated a nasty excahnge I had read on a chainsaw mill forum.
Simply put, Guy A claimed that you had to have a ripping chain, and anything else was a waste of time. He had a
ripping chain and one of those clamp on guides that keep the saw moving accurately.
Guy B claimed that a ripping chain was not needed, and that he had split a lot of oversize logs down their length using his ordinary felling chain. He felt ripping chains were just an expensive refinement, and that Guy A was a shill.
Now if I hold the saw vertical to the surface of the wood, the teeth cut ACROSS the grain of the wood, cutting out tiny chips and generally cutting slowly. The felling chain has the wrong tooth angle and rake to effectively cut this way. But if I hold the saw so that it cuts ALONG the length of the log, it slices up the grain, peeling off two inch long shavings and cutting like a maniac. Now its possible that a ripping chain would cut at this angle even better, but the difference was night and day. Cuts that took ten minutes of struggle last year were whipped through in under two minutes.
Ironicly, the c-clamp bar guide was instrumental in preventing me from finding this cutting angle last year, and prolonging my struggle.
C'est la vie.
Its been nesscary to mill a few logs for my house. Lacking a mill, I've been using my handy-dandy chainsaw.
Hoping to streamline the process, I do some research, and discover that I need a ripping chain to efficiently cut down the length of the logs. Ripping chains being prohibitively expensive, I made do with the ordinary chain. Rigging up a crude guide, and clamping a c-clamp to the bar's nose to keep the bar parallel with the guide, I struggled through the twelve logs I needed.
Roll Old Father Time around a year, and I need to cut a couple more. Being in a hurry this time, I just snapped a chalkline as a quick guide. I traced the chalkline with the saw, keeping the bar at a very shallow angle to the wood. Once I had a groove cut, I just kept re-traceing the groove, slicing deeper and deeper.
Long shavings were cut off, and it cut much faster then my plunging style ripping cuts had the year before.
The proverbial light bulb came on and illuminated a nasty excahnge I had read on a chainsaw mill forum.
Simply put, Guy A claimed that you had to have a ripping chain, and anything else was a waste of time. He had a
ripping chain and one of those clamp on guides that keep the saw moving accurately.
Guy B claimed that a ripping chain was not needed, and that he had split a lot of oversize logs down their length using his ordinary felling chain. He felt ripping chains were just an expensive refinement, and that Guy A was a shill.
Now if I hold the saw vertical to the surface of the wood, the teeth cut ACROSS the grain of the wood, cutting out tiny chips and generally cutting slowly. The felling chain has the wrong tooth angle and rake to effectively cut this way. But if I hold the saw so that it cuts ALONG the length of the log, it slices up the grain, peeling off two inch long shavings and cutting like a maniac. Now its possible that a ripping chain would cut at this angle even better, but the difference was night and day. Cuts that took ten minutes of struggle last year were whipped through in under two minutes.
Ironicly, the c-clamp bar guide was instrumental in preventing me from finding this cutting angle last year, and prolonging my struggle.
C'est la vie.
Its a Bad Sign when...
A mouse crawls out from under the hood of the car you just barely convinced to start, and stands there as an animate hood ornament. It stood and stared at me for a few moments, and then climbed back under the hood.
Damned gremlins.
The car in question ( a 1987 Volvo 740 Turbo Wagon) ran for twenty minutes longer, before dying with a horrid, terminal wheeze, a gasping rasp so pronounced that I am at a loss to understand what part could have generated it.
Perhaps the turbine's bearings?
Time for it to face the knacker; I've probably got six hours of parts stripping ahead of me.
Not that it really owned me anything. I paid 700$ at a junkyard for it five years ago, put another 700$ into it (mostly a new windsheild) and put 15,000 km on it. The odo stood at 386,000 when I bought it.Then when I replaced it with a marginaly newer car ( a 1990 Volvo 240 ), it still served faithfully for three years, hauling firewood every fall over old trails through the woods. Adventures included losing a muffler to an anthill (Thought it was a tuft of grass) and demonstrating that the bumpers can take a 30 kph collision into a large tree without body damage - a trick I wish my Dodge van could have emulated.
All things considered, it was the most comfortable car I've ever driven.
Rust In Pieces.
A mouse crawls out from under the hood of the car you just barely convinced to start, and stands there as an animate hood ornament. It stood and stared at me for a few moments, and then climbed back under the hood.
Damned gremlins.
The car in question ( a 1987 Volvo 740 Turbo Wagon) ran for twenty minutes longer, before dying with a horrid, terminal wheeze, a gasping rasp so pronounced that I am at a loss to understand what part could have generated it.
Perhaps the turbine's bearings?
Time for it to face the knacker; I've probably got six hours of parts stripping ahead of me.
Not that it really owned me anything. I paid 700$ at a junkyard for it five years ago, put another 700$ into it (mostly a new windsheild) and put 15,000 km on it. The odo stood at 386,000 when I bought it.Then when I replaced it with a marginaly newer car ( a 1990 Volvo 240 ), it still served faithfully for three years, hauling firewood every fall over old trails through the woods. Adventures included losing a muffler to an anthill (Thought it was a tuft of grass) and demonstrating that the bumpers can take a 30 kph collision into a large tree without body damage - a trick I wish my Dodge van could have emulated.
All things considered, it was the most comfortable car I've ever driven.
Rust In Pieces.
RenengadeMime pointed out that 23 does not have an entry in the telephone country code system.
His reason?
That it dials the Inferno.
I objected, pointing out that even Abner Perry's Mechnical Mole could not have dug deep enough to lay cable to Hell.
He laughed and told me it was on a cellular network, and that there was only two mobile phone networks prefixed with 23.
One in Sierra Leone, and the other in Zimbabwe: both countrys being ravaged by hellish war and cruelty for the last thirty years.
His reason?
That it dials the Inferno.
I objected, pointing out that even Abner Perry's Mechnical Mole could not have dug deep enough to lay cable to Hell.
He laughed and told me it was on a cellular network, and that there was only two mobile phone networks prefixed with 23.
One in Sierra Leone, and the other in Zimbabwe: both countrys being ravaged by hellish war and cruelty for the last thirty years.
I have become mesmerized by the Reprap and by the CandyFab. Sure, I'll admit it.
I can imagine printing things - useful things, like dino skulls and monstrously expanded ants.
I made the mistake of mentioning this to RenegadeMime, who was eating popcorn and jeering at Alvin Toffler.
He held up a popcorn kernal. "This would look good the size of a baseball." he said, "But how would you deal with the pixelization? If I wanted to look at voxels, I'd build popcorn out of Lego."
Vectors. I suggested.
"Hah." he said. And went back to reciting Future Shock in reverse, which he claims is the equivelent to time travel.
Most printers are built with stepper moters and a x-y ( and sometimes z) cartesian grids because they are conceptually simple and easy to manipulate.
But an extruder is basically a pen, with 'solid' ink. If I am drawing with a marker, I don't have pixelization problems - because I can draw real curves without staircasing.
Without the dreaded 'jaggies'.
If I used polar co-ordinates rather than cartesian, I could draw any arc - including the 'arc of infinite radius' AKA the 'straight' line.
Limits do arise; for a polar plotter, viz;
'Pen Width'...which dictates the narrowest line,
'Stroke Length'...which dictates the shortest line,
'Angular Resolution'...which dictates how similar two dis-similar lines can be,
'Integerization'...which forces all endpoints to snap to an intrinsic grid.
I can imagine printing things - useful things, like dino skulls and monstrously expanded ants.
I made the mistake of mentioning this to RenegadeMime, who was eating popcorn and jeering at Alvin Toffler.
He held up a popcorn kernal. "This would look good the size of a baseball." he said, "But how would you deal with the pixelization? If I wanted to look at voxels, I'd build popcorn out of Lego."
Vectors. I suggested.
"Hah." he said. And went back to reciting Future Shock in reverse, which he claims is the equivelent to time travel.
Most printers are built with stepper moters and a x-y ( and sometimes z) cartesian grids because they are conceptually simple and easy to manipulate.
But an extruder is basically a pen, with 'solid' ink. If I am drawing with a marker, I don't have pixelization problems - because I can draw real curves without staircasing.
Without the dreaded 'jaggies'.
If I used polar co-ordinates rather than cartesian, I could draw any arc - including the 'arc of infinite radius' AKA the 'straight' line.
Limits do arise; for a polar plotter, viz;
'Pen Width'...which dictates the narrowest line,
'Stroke Length'...which dictates the shortest line,
'Angular Resolution'...which dictates how similar two dis-similar lines can be,
'Integerization'...which forces all endpoints to snap to an intrinsic grid.
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