Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Indescribable


Can't wait to see this at Tetsuya!


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Tuesday, July 12, 2005

MX Missive

Would you trust a newspaper with a website that looks like it came from Page 7 of "Frontpage for Dummies & Media Magnates"?

Last week I noticed that everyone on the train going home was reading what I took to be a new 'culture' & 'arts' (gossip & cross-promotion) section for the Financial Review.

It turns out this is in fact a new newspaper, owned by His Supreme Highness Rupert Murdoch. Aparently they rather neatly get around the whole issue of media ownership laws in Australia by giving it away free. We'll see how long that lasts; it is the same economic model used to bootstrap the very economically sustainable industries of cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, etc.

Anyway, I thought it was funny they called it MX - what does that mean? MiX without the i so they don't get sued by MixFM? Then I realised they *must* have named it after Ronald Reagan's highly sucessful MX missile program! Clearly, because of the similarities between ICBMs and newspapers.

Speaking of which...


This *incredibly scary* image is the first page of the now legendary 'National Missile Defense Coloring[sic] Book' which can be seen in here. This picture is just so EVIL. Syn might think HappyTreeFriends is evil, but a line-drawn Ronald Reagan scares the willies out of me! What the hell is he going to do with those TEETH? The site is well worth a visit - mostly because of the date on the colouring book: 1950? nope, Ronnie was playing with chimps then. 1970? Nope. 1980? Nope(!) 1990? NO! 2003! Yes, the 21st century. A mere two years ago! Why? WHY? Kids, can you say Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle? This is great! They actually call what you and I might rationally call a 'warhead' or even more simply 'bomb', an 'exoatmospheric kill vehicle'. I love Newspeak! All resource units love Newspeak!

I have digressed; the point about MX is that being given away free, I am guessing they are using people to hand it out. Only guessing, because obviously people who use Meadowbank and King's Cross railway stations don't fit into the MX desired demographic. Anyway, I am guess that the hand-out people store these things nearby in stacks, much like the other pieces of bum-wad media such as '9-to-5' and 'Sydney Weekly'. Which brings me to thinking hmmmmm.... nice jamming oppurtunity that. A few insert pages prepared could really freak people out. Stories about iPod-induced 'brown note' incidents. Reviews of anti-pedestrian bull-bars for BWM and Mercedes 4WDs. Articles about banning bicycles due to 'insurance liability concerns'. Or if the have pages for 'vox-pop' journalism, maybe some bogus stories might fit in nicely.

Then again why bother? Jamming is nearly as bad is the media it seeks to jam - you can tell I have been re-reading 'Always Coming Home' by Ursula LeGuin, can't you?

So why not colour-in instead. Ah, Photoshop...

I call it "ZombieSith Emperor Ronald McRaygun".

Procrastination over.

Not quite:

For those disbeleivers, here is the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle; just so you know what one looks like.




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Thursday, July 07, 2005

The trouble with conscience


Bear & I occasionally get ideas.

We have on occasion noted the amazing tendency of people to beleive the most amazing crap is actually true. In particular, 'audiophiles'. The kind of people who pay serious money for blocks of wood to improve the 'spaciousness' of recorded music.

I just found this little gem:

"The TV-Rayex has been especially developed to reduce or eliminate the negative effects that the invisible and scientifically non-measurable rays emitted from the television screen and computer monitors have on our bodies."

Um, right. How do you measure the effects of invisible and scientifically non-measurable rays? For that matter, how do you know that they are invisible, if you can't measure them? After all, they might be visible, just not measurable.

The really big problem is that Bear & I have too much conscience to actually make stuff like this and sell it to gullible fools, no matter how much Lego & rockets we could buy with the proceeds.

As for the 'TV-Rayex', I am sure we could sell a product that "does everything the TV-Rayex does, AND MORE as it can be used in the car, under water, while fishing, and is safe on pets"

No false or misleading advertising there!

We have though about similar scams, er, SCHEMES with audio cables and connectors. Browsing through any newsagency reveals entire magazines full of this stuff, especially the audiophile gear. The new-ager magazines have pletny of the Rayex-type things too.

I think we shouldn't be so guilty about seperating idiots from their money - I mean look at the commercial TV channels, especially 9 - most of their ads and 'infotainment prograds' seem devoted entirely to that cause.

I guess we aren't good at realising our business potential by actualising new paradigms of market dynamics by empirical investigation of oppurtunity costs in relation to mitigating public perceptions of long-term risk management ideals, in an emergent digitally progressive lifestyle choice environment.


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Saturday, July 02, 2005

ROCKETS

As has been previousy reported, Bear and I have been teaching Matt & Connor (Bear's nephews, my pseudo-nephews) some important life skills. How to make, launch, and usually lose, rockets.

Bear has two launches on his site; now I have one!

Bear and Syn gave me a rocket for my birthday, an Estes Stardart. Quite a small, simple rocket, but critically, with a parachute. Bear favours streamers for recovery, while I have usually used parachutes. Parachutes can be a little more reliable in terms of getting the rocket back in one piece, but less reliable in terms of landing anywhere near the launch site.

A famous rocket of over 15 years ago was found about 1km from the launch site, after two teenage boys door-knocked half a suburb saying "Excuse me ma'am, may we search your backyard for a rocket? The rocket is not dangerous but the lizard on board might be." That was an Estes X-Ray, with a lizard on board as Australia's first astronaut. Actually probably astrosaur. Anyway, that rocket (and lizard) were found despite the parachute landing some distance away.

Anyway, on the June long weekend we decided to launch the Stardart. A very calm day was chosen, though it was very overcast which is always a bit risky - you can't see the rockets very well after lauch against a grey sky.

Be that as it may, we set up and launched! The following pictures are frames from the video recorded by Bear...Stardart ready for launch!
The igniter fires......triggering the main engine.Main engine burning, building up thrust......resulting in liftoff! Note the flame from the engine lighting up the fins.The rocket is accelerating straight up, still on the launch rod. The engine flame is very visible now and seems to be around 100mm long. I think the somewhat dark conditions helped to see the normally invisible flame.The vehicle has cleared the tower, and commemced it's completely uncontrolled yaw program, caused by a slight wind which wasn't there a few seconds ago.Tracking looses sight of the vehicle. This was pretty much the last we saw of it.


Lessons learned from this launch:

Lower-power B6-4 engines produce a somewhat more graceful launch. They have a lower overall impulse than the Cs Bear used, resulting in a few more pretty frames of video.

Don't launch against grey skies - you can never see the damn thing for more than about 10m from the ground.

The kit-built Stardart, while heavier than Bear's all-balsa rockets, is considerably more streamlined, with a smooth fuselage and long tapering nose. We suspect this rocket went at least as fast as Bear's C-powered ones, and went possibly higher than any of our previous rockets.

No wind at ground does not necessarily mean no wind aloft... once the parachute deployed this rocket was last seen heading towards Parramatta. A shame, as it was a pretty good rocket, and was quite intact.

Two sepearate search parties went far beyond The Planet Of The Spiders to try to find the Stardart, but to no avail. Both search parties also saw no signs of police, ambulance, fire brigade or military activities, which is something you DON'T want to see after loosing a rocket.

Well, it's raining again, so no rockets this weekend. There are these two leftover B6-4 engines on my desk though... let's see what I can build...


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Friday, July 01, 2005

BBC now arm of the New Right-Wing Fascist Scum


Let's get one thing clear: Western civilisation is dying.

Choking on it's own shit might be a better description. Shit floats, and it is heads full of shit that sit on the shoulders of the leaders of the United States of Fucking Retards America, the United Kingdom of US-Lap-Dog, and the wonderful Commonwealth of Australian Yes-Men With Their Heads So Far Up Bush's Ass They Brush His Teeth.

I am ANGRY, in case you haven't noticed.

Why?

Well, the BBC is closing down their 'Cult' website. For financial reasons. More likely for 'hey, here's another way for all us Boomers to crap all over our ill-begotten hell-spawn-children-who-we-only-gave-birth-to-because-we-were-stoned-and-forgot to-take-the-pill-that-week-and-they-cost-as-much-as-a-Range-Rover-to-put-through-school 70's kids' reasons.

* pause to take breath *

Here is what I wrote to the BBC:

FUCK

Well, what I really wrote would be here if I hadn't cut-and-pasted something else. Shit. I hate that.

The point was that for quite a lot of us, the Cult TV from the 70's and early 80's actually has quite a bit of cultural meaning, mainly because it's what our Boomer parents used instead of babysitters or social activity. Admittedly because during the dawn of the grand New Economy SEIG HEIL SEIG HEIL SEIG HEIL HEIL HOWARD HEIL HOWARD sorry, got carried away there, they had to work their asses off to scratch a living, rather than actually spend time with their kids.

Note to the chef (me) - left-over veggie omlette should NOT be made with blue cheese, and should NOT be eaten in conjunction with gin-and-tonics.

I think I will go shoot things now.


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