Aether Patrol embroidered patch from Molly “Porkshanks” Friedrich

Filed under Found on the Web

The unsinkable Molly “Porkshanks” Friedrich has added these handsome retro rocket patches to her Etsy store.

You don’t need to be a card-carrying member of the Innuendo Division to admire these. In fact, you can still want one if you’re just a Suggestive Commando or a Winking Wingman. Person. Whatever.

She doesn’t mention how many of these are available but since it is an embroidered patch you can bet that it was a limited run.

So I’d suggest you order yours on the double – some of these Aether Patrolpersons seem to dabble in temporal acquisitions… and so they might beat you to it even if you’ve got yours already. Which makes my brain hurt.

[tags]steampunk, dieselpunk, rocket, retro, porkshanks, costume, patch, aether patrol, embroidered[/tags]

“Reach” Robot Animation

Filed under Computer Graphics, Found on the Web

“Reach” is another lovely short animated film about robots and the things that drive them – this time, both figuratively and literally. This one’s by Luke Randall. The film’s won a number of awards and about a month ago Luke took off for Tinseltown… or at least for Dreamworks Animation.

“Powerless” Robot in a short film from Britain

Filed under Computer Graphics, Found on the Web

“Powerless” is a beautiful short film by digital animation students at the University of Hertfordshire. It’s got a dreamy dark palette and moody music, and shows us what a difficult time we can have when we set out to Meddle In Things That Man Was Not Meant to Wot Of. Or something. In fact, that’s not exactly what it shows us, but I can’t resist any chance to say that.

With a steampunkery robot and a solitary inventor in his woodsy cottage, not to mention all that copper and those antique gauges… what’s not to like?

Cover Preview for Warren Ellis’ Ignition City, due out this Spring from Avatar Press

Filed under Found on the Web

Warren Ellis has posted Gianluca Pagliarini’s pencil art for the cover to issue #1 of Ignition City, due out next spring.

Ignition City‘s a comics project I’ve been looking forward to since its original announcement – it’s described as a sort of unholy union of Flash Gordon and Deadwood, with disillusioned retrofuturist heroes drowning their sorrows, kicking cans, and swearing up a storm in a retro future that isn’t quite as pleasant as we might like. Sounds like loads of fun to me.

There’s also an ongoing thread at Ellis’ Whitechapel forum with concept art, designs, and yet another cover preview. Let the countdown begin!

Awesometastic Pulp Magazine Covers

Filed under Found on the Web

I’m sort of incommunicado this month and won’t likely be posting much of anything new, but these are too good not to share:

Here’s a whole collection of great old pulp magazine covers posted at a collectors’ forum. Everything from detective fiction to science fiction, westerns, war stories and whatnot. Some great, great stuff.

I found it through a post by Mark Seifert of Avatar Press at the Whitechapel Forums, in this equally nifty thread there. Canny readers may note that I infiltrated it with one of my own neo-pulp posters.

MIT Researchers Put Photosynthesis in Your Basement for Solar Power Storage

Filed under Can't Stop Thinking, Found on the Web

Back in May of 1935, Charles F. Kettering of General Motors told Modern Mechanix & Inventions magazine that if we could only unlock the secrets of photosynthesis and harness them, we’d have found the way to create almost limitless, inexpensive energy.

Researchers at MIT seem to have cracked that nut in a way they hope will turn each of our homes into its own power station – and filling station – with a process that can cheaply and effectively store electricity from solar (or other) sources using common carbon-free materials at room temperature.

Storing and transmitting energy is a lot more difficult than you’d suppose. There are inevitable losses as energy passes through power lines. That’s why the extensive wind farms being built these days provide regional, not national, power. In fact, about a gazillion years ago when I worked at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant on California’s central coast, that plant was linked to an underground hydroelectric plant. In off hours the nuclear plant’s energy was used to pump the subterrainean reservoir uphill so that in peak times the water could rush downhill and power turbines that supplemented the nuclear plant’s output. Very clever, really, but there were still substantial losses in energy because of friction.

And storing solar power for later use at night is one of the problems that continue to face the solar power industry.

This new process developed at MIT – due in part to the funding of a ten million dollar grant from the Chesonis Foundation – is a very simple technique that uses electrical current to separate oxygen and hydrogen in gaseous form, later to be recombined to produce power or charge fuel cells. The result could be the near complete decentralization of power. Each home would become its own solar power plant and filling station for the fuel cells we’ll need to power our electric cars. It’s the sort of energy system you’d expect to need in outer space – but you’d be using it at home.

In practice, I’d expect that homes would remain on the grid but that demand from the central power stations would drop tremendously as these homes began to generate their own power. In fact the excess power could even be sold back to the utilities. This process is intended to make solar power more effective but it only requires an electrical current to work – so it could be used with any electric sources, including wind farms, which also have a greater or lesser output depending on the conditions outside.

And couldn’t this same process be used in a centralized way to produce the still-expensive hydrogen fuel cells that remain a barrier to fully electric cars?

Buy 100 Fembots, Become Busby-Berkeley: Priceless

Filed under Found on the Web

Robots Rule treats us to this video review – there’s a longer, text review on the site – of WowWee’s new Femisapien robot. She walks, she dances, she has a built-in “Backup Singer” mode, and she can even attack other fembots with a sword. Yes, it’s true: my lifelong goal of commanding a force of Busby-Berkeley space pirates in ostrich plumes may be at hand.

Seriously, though, she does have a fairly simple interface for learning new behaviors and looks like a fun, if nearly useless, little project. I think you could say the same for almost any commercial robotics project these days – though MIT’s stair climbing robot was pretty impressive – and, in a pinch, she’ll even dance with you.

Get one now, before they organize.

[tags]wowwee, fembot, femisapien, robot, robotics, robosapien[/tags]

Vintage Buck Rogers News: the Action Figure, a new Atomic Pistol, and Newspaper Comic Strip Collections

Filed under Found on the Web

Go Hero has posted pictures of the final versions of its classic Buck Rogers action figure, along with a replica of the little ray gun that could – Buck’s Atomic Pistol, probably the first huge merchandising success for American popular culture. For full information, follow this link and click on “Shop”.

The little guy’s got loads of articulated and removable bits, including a bubble helmet and his own miniature pistol, and there are even glowing LEDs in the jet pack. (Buck originally used a “jumping belt” instead, which was made of the lighter than air metal called inertron; but jet packs did come along in the newspaper strips a few years later.)

It’s nice stuff, though I’ll warn you that it’s not priced for the faint of heart.

In other vintage Buck Rogers news, it looks like Hermes Press is starting a complete collected version of the daily and Sunday newspaper comic strips. Dailies and Sundays will be collected separately.

The first volume‘s scheduled for September, 2008. It’ll feature two years of the daily strips and an introduction by Ron Goulart, in hard cover. More daily strip collections are to appear every five months with collected Sunday comics pages appearing once a year.

Whimsical Retro Robot by Brazilian Artist Fabio M Ragonha

Filed under Computer Graphics, Found on the Web

Here’s a playful retrofuturistic robot from the portfolio of Brazilian artist Fabio M Ragonha. It’s a 3DS Max/Photoshop creation. Whatever job this little guy’s meant for, he looks like he’s ready to put his nose – if he had one – to the grindstone. Or his shoulder to the wheel. Or something like that. I have trouble keeping my proverbs in order.

Ragonha’s portfolio site is on the petite side, but it’s full of some wonderful images. Go see!

“Lighthouse” Animation from ProMotion Studios

Filed under Computer Graphics, Found on the Web

As part of Liberty Mutual’s “Responsibility Project” for short films, ProMotion Studios produced this beautiful short animation called “Lighthouse”. Very nice work – a good story, technically excellent, and with several very nicely observed character actions.

You can see it in low resolution here (Flash player), in high resolution here (Quicktime), and you may also want to visit the Responsibility Project site or ProMotion.