Isqua Istari

Perhaps you’re wondering what happened to Project London (Perhaps you don’t care at all)? Well, read on (or get lost)!

A few years ago, I quit my job and spent six weeks in Seattle making 3D models for a no-budget film that hasn’t come out yet. The reason it’s not out yet is that making a movie is a ton of work! After the 3D model part got done (about two years ago) they had to get picture lock, which involves deciding “We’re happy with how it looks right now, even though the sound is unfinished.” This is really hard to do because sound is a very effective tool to impart believably; Unfortunately the sound guys need picture lock so they can do their thing. (this isn’t strictly true, but it makes it lots easier on the sound guys if the scenes aren’t changing all the time while they are trying to establish mood and sync footsteps and stuff)

So after picture lock, sound design began in earnest. For whatever reason, Ian had a lot harder time getting a sound team working efficcently, and sound design dragged on and on. I actually helped to create some sound effects, even though I have no experience in sound design. Just shows how desperate they were. In the end, the producer and director decided “Let’s just raise some money and hire professionals.” And that’s where this post comes in.

When I started working on Project London, I signed an NDA saying I wouldn’t leak information about the script, the models, or anything I knew without express permission. Some of my best modeling work I’ve ever done was for Project London, but I’ve been largely unable to show it off. Until now.

So here they are, all of the (major) Blender models I made for Project London. Please donate so we can get this thing off the ground!

“And what element of progress is there in the world whose beneficial action has not been marred, particularly at the beginning, by much suffering and hardship? Our great urban masses of human beings stimulate bold flights of thought, but they often deprive individuals in their private life of the corrective of public opinion and serve to shelter debauchery and crime. Wealth combined with leisure favors the cultivation of the mind, but it also nurtures ostentation and snobbishness among the great and resentment and envy among the lowly. Printing brings enlightenment and truth to all strata of society, but it also brings nagging doubt and subversive error. Political liberty has let loose enough tempests and revolutions upon the earth and has sufficiently modified the simple and naive customs of primitive peoples to make serious thinkers wonder whether they would not prefer tranquillity under the shadow of despotism. Christianity itself has sown the great seed of love and charity upon ground soaked in the blood of the martyrs.

Why has it entered into the plans of infinite Goodness and Justice that the happiness of one region or one age should be purchased by the sufferings of another age or another region? What is the divine purpose hidden under this great and irrefutable law of solidarity, of which competition is merely one of the mysterious aspects? Human wisdom does not know the answer, but human wisdom does know that good is constantly spreading and evil diminishing. Beginning with the social order as it had been made by conquest, where there were only masters and slaves, and where the inequality within society was extreme, the work of competition in bringing ever closer together men of different rank, fortune, and intelligence could not be accomplished without inflicting individual hardships that, as the work has progressed, have continually become less, like the vibrations of a sound or the oscillations of a pendulum. Against the sufferings still in store for it, humanity is daily learning how to oppose two powerful remedies, foresight, born of experience and enlightenment, and social co-operation, which is organized foresight.” Frederic Bastiat

What amazes and heartens me is his utter dedication to an optimistic view of life under the banner of Christ, and a simultaneous utter rejection (elsewhere) of the doctrine of salvation by the power of government. I know it shouldn’t surprise me… but it does.

I’m giving the heat dumps a day to settle in before characterization. Back to more normal work today. Did some rounds on the mech deck. Everything normal, just like it should be.

Ran out a formal report to the engineering on that surprisingly useful “improved 0-Gee wrench”. Basically I said that it’s useful for making temporary crimps with “permanent” fittings. Threw a bunch of slang and extra info on top, should be a pain to read. Pretty fun to just ramble.

Keep in mind, this passage was written 150 years ago. The ever relevant Frederic Bastiat:

It is quite common, however, to attribute to capital a kind of deadly efficiency that would implant selfishness, hardness, and Machiavellian duplicity in the hearts of those who possess it or aspire to possess it. But is this not confused thinking? There are countries where labor is mainly fruitless. The little that is earned must quickly go for taxes. In order to take from you the fruit of your labor, what is called the state loads you with fetters of all kinds. It interferes in all your activities; it meddles in all your dealings; it tyrannizes over your understanding and your faith; it deflects people from their natural pursuits and places them all in precarious and unnatural positions; it paralyzes the activities and the energies of the individual by taking upon itself the direction of all things; it places responsibility for what is done upon those who are not responsible, so that little by little the distinction between what is just and what is unjust becomes blurred; it embroils the nation, through its diplomacy, in all the petty quarrels of the world, and then it brings in the army and the navy; as much as it can, it perverts the intelligence of the masses on economic questions, for it needs to make them believe that its extravagances, its unjust aggressions, its conquests, its colonies, represent a source of wealth for them. In these countries it is difficult for capital to be accumulated in natural ways. Their aim, above all, is by force and by guile to wrest capital from those who have created it. The way to wealth there is through war, bureaucracy, gambling, government contracts, speculation, fraudulent transactions, risky enterprises, public sales, etc. The qualities needed to snatch capital violently from the hands of the men who create it are exactly the opposite of the qualities that are necessary for its creation. It is not surprising, therefore, that in these countries capital connotes ruthless selfishness; and this connotation becomes ineradicable if the moral judgments of the nation are derived from the history of antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Though I would love to credit Bastiat with incredible foresight, it appears he is merely observing a current state of affairs. What this passage really says is that things have not become materially worse than they were a couple of centuries ago. Unfortunately, neither is our understanding (as a culture) much improved.

So, it turns out that 8 watts is a lot of laser. Since it is all focused on a spot only 50 um wide, this comes out to about 4 GW/m^2.  That’s about four million times brighter than the Sun (at 1 Au). That much energy can do a lot of interesting things, like transform metals into a highly reflective bifurcated crystalline mess.

Even defocused to a spot a few cm wide at the lowest setting (10 mW) it produces a spot almost too bright to look at. The coherent light shimmers dangerously, dancing with coruscating interference. Even laser glasses (which reduce the intensity to one in 10 million) can’t protect you fully. The reflected light at full power can burn tracks in your retina right through the filters. I got a headache every day from the light that was reflected reflected off the surface, and then off the walls, leaking in to my peripheral vision around the edges of the laser glasses.

Given the extreme danger of an active laser, did I end up playing around with it? Of course I did! I found you can cut 1/8″ dowels in about half a second. It will bore a hole through a half inch of wood in less than 1/10 of a second. Most metals reflect the 532nm light fairly well, so I wasn’t able to etch my pencil eraser holder. The eraser itself burnt well, as did the wood body. The graphite seemed immune to the laser. It either reflected or radiated the energy with an insane efficency, and I couldn’t put a dent in it. (Maybe there’s a market for graphite laser armor?) Black zip ties burnt almost comically well, even when submersed in water. Pretty much anything that absorbs green light goes up in smoke instantly when it’s on the spot.

The moral of the story? Lasers are so bright! Oh, and the business testing worked as well. The customer was quite pleased, and we may be seeing more lasers coming through in the future. Remember kids: Always wear the appropriate safety gear, and then enjoy the dangerous stuff!

This article is written under the assumption that you want to win arguments. If you don’t care about being right and having other people verbally acknowledge it you probably won’t be interested in what follows.

Winning an argument is about mind control. It’s about changing the way your outspoken foil confesses his understanding of reality. With this in mind it becomes clear that many arguments are impossible to win. Many people are not interested in having their minds changed, or prefer to change your mind instead. Therefore every argument is really two sub-arguments, with both sides stating:

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I was looking at games the other day. Figured I’d support the Indie scene and… what’s this? SpaceChem? Okay, that looks like something I’d enjoy. I picked it up along with a couple others.

Turns out I was disastrously right. Here’s why:

SpaceChem is a training tool for many of the skills I value.  Process optimization, design problems, spatial layout, programming, continuous flow problems. It fits snugly in my mind.

There is no “right” solution (just like in real life!), only better, worse, and wrong.

I find SpaceChem really difficult. There’s a constant struggle to create a linked sequence of elegant solutions to unique process challenges.

I think I’m good at it. Judging from the “others solutions” charts (which is a brilliant idea by the way) I’m coming in below average (which is good, since they are all minimize optimal) on all three metrics at once. Consistently. Often on the first try. Of course, this only drives me to attempt ever more elegant solutions, making the game harder.

The game concept is very nanotechnology relevant, which I love. These kind of design problems could end up being very applicable in the near future, so it feels even more real and useful.

Review Summary: Good craftsmanship. Bad message. Dumb characters.

Anna and I watched “The Adjustment Bureau” a few days ago. A number of friends had said it was “great” and “fun”, so expectations were high. By the end, we were both dissapointed, not only with the film, but with our friends. You know who you are! Feel ashamed of yourself.

Feel ashamed.

“Wait, what? That was a fun movie! It was great!” you may exclaim. Well, if you do, read below and I will explain how you too can destroy a “great fun” movie using your own latent mind powers. (Fun fact: The “thinking” trick works on books too. Try it at home kids!)

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Had a good day re-installing everything. There’s nothing like a clean system working smoothly. Of course, the heat dumps are still deactivated, pending diagnostics. Most tasks have acceptable time frames for completion, but diagnostics are renown for their unreliability. It may take days for the diagnostics to come out just right, if I play it correctly.

Data from the probes is coming back. Now that we have current high resolution images there is an “Explorers Privilege” naming contest. We’re all submitting names of the major weather systems. Of course, the A-Tors are going to make the final picks, but it’s a nice gesture. I’ve come up with a few good ones myself.

Not saying which though. Wouldn’t want to skew your vote Dirk.

We have a laser at work for evaluation. The output is 8 Watts of 532 nm coherent collimated light (this is a lot of energy, it can easily vaporize metal). It’s only going to be here for the next couple of weeks, so I’m trying to think of awesome things to do with it after-hours. I’m planning on at least playing with water, food, and combustables. Perhaps I’ll make a laser pen.

Please submit your suggestions in the comments! I’ll try to make some videos, but no promises.