The Retreat

This article is written in response to a post on the THW forums where there are some questions about In Sight Tests which demand an ongoing illustration. Doing that, however ... That's a longer piece. This piece.

A nuclear-powered luxury supertrain hurtles between LA and NY, filled with glamorous stars and gripping human drama! Kingdom Story Seed It’s 1978. The supertrain Kolossus runs at more than 200mph, is powered by an active atomic pile and ranks of steam turbines, and makes a run between LA is NY in 36 hours, filled with glamorous stars, everyday joes who’ve saved their whole lives for this vacation, and a crew of misfits and weirdos who’re just doing their best to keep things on track! But with a job this big, that’s quite the handful! Whether it be the attempted political assassination due to mistaken identity, the cops hunting for mob big-wigs, representatives of the Kolossus holding company with a stake in having the train never stop, or just the mess on the lit disco floor, something is always going down. The Kingdom is the train and everyone on board, passengers (generally stars from the 70’s; feel free to just refer to them by their name and not their character’s name, we ...

I have done a terrible thing. More accurately, I've committed to a terrible thing. I have allowed myself to be drawn into a cooperative writing event, somewhat mimicking Script Frenzy which used to be administered by NaNoWriMo in April – but since they're not running it, I can do it anytime I want to. The overall idea is to write a 90 to 120-page script (screenplay, that is) in a month and share it with the world. But that's boring. I could do that any day. Here's the spice: in this case, I will be tagging out on writing scenes and short sequences with at least one other writer. (Poor +Eric Thompson  .) That's right, I have deliberately gamified the idea of writing a script. My companion writer has specified that he wishes to pursue this idea of wainscot sci-fi , but we are deliberately leaving vague specific elements and how they will play – because neither of us should know going in. Instead, whenever our scene/sequence comes up, we will be responsible...

Of all the strange things in the world to be inspired by, a tongue drum up for sale on one of the local music supply sites was not what I expected. And yet, that's exactly what happened. The tongue drum, originale To the right, you will see the original object posted to the Facebook sales community. It's a lovely wood texture percussion instrument, clearly finally polished and well cared for. Or at least cared for. Of particular note (pardon the pun) or the wooden tongs which extend into the middle of the top surface, ready to be struck with a padded mallet at any moment in order to be encouraged to scream. At least it should give out a pleasant, woody tone. Not pictured here is the side view which made it clear that the whole thing is a box with possibly a fitted or glued lid of possibly dissimilar wood type. There's also a resonator hole to let the noisy bits out. Without that, the overall sound would be negatively affected. This isn't actually the origi...

Out of the boundless joy and generosity of my heart, I have decided to release the 3D designs for the Pokémon Go Christmas ornaments and Christmas tree topper for free! That's right, I'm putting them up on Thingiverse for anyone to download and print for themselves before the end of the holiday season. If you print one of these designs, I would greatly appreciate it if you were to reply on Thingiverse with a picture of the results, and be sure to tell your friends. If you feel like sending me a little tip via the site, I would certainly not stop you. Smarmy Saturnalia and a Merry Christmas to all of you!

You ever have one of those days where you get an idea, it looks simple, but once you knock out the obvious parts it starts getting ugly? Yes, this project is like that. From the top. This is what it looks like (by intention): Fairly simple, right? It's a simple Pokemon Go Pokestop, that weird location where you put out a finger, give it a spin, and it showers you in presents by shooting balls and sticky potions in your face. Perfectly sensible as an inspiration. This is what burped its way out of my brain: A perfectly sensible translation, at least if you intend to stick it on a tree. There are a couple subtleties that can be pretty easily overlooked if you're in a hurry, like the fact the outer ring has a definite inner lip, or the fact that there are multiple floating parts that we don't currently have maglev or anti-grav to keep in the air without some kind of through-post to suspend them -- which needs to at least be notionally strong enough to keep the bit...

Taking A Look There was some discussion on my previous "pokemug" design that suggested at least one  person wanted to see a more ambitious design, something with a little more of the classic Pokeball going on. Never let it be said that I am not accommodating. Let's talk about some of the issues with taking a classic Pokeball and turning it into a usable mug. Firstly, it's a sphere. You know upfront that you're going to have to trim a little off the bottom in order to create a surface for it to sit on stably. No one wants to knock their mug and watch it go rolling away spewing coffee in all directions. That would be a terrible idea, and as a designer, I would have to take myself to task for doing something so stupid. So, flat bottom, right up front. Secondly, it's a sphere. You know you're going to have to cut a little bit off the top in order to have something that one can actually physically drink out of. This is actually a bigger d...