July 27, 2019
Some Respite
Art is by Mocha who now has tutorials as well as collections of his full resolution works available at BOOTH. Additionally BOOTH now has handy dandy instructions on shipping stuff one buys outside of Japan.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
04:03 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 37 words, total size 1 kb.
July 20, 2019
When I Looked in on Razorfist Tonight, This Was NOT The Video I Expected to Watch
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
10:00 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 16 words, total size 1 kb.
July 07, 2019
More on D-Live
A few months ago we embedded a video concerning the YouTube alternative D-Live, which emerged in the wake of the YouTube-purge before-last as a free speech platform based on blockchain technology.
The video took the position that D-Live was not just a new and untested platform, it was a scam. Since then there has been some walkback around the web including by the fellow who made that video.
In the wake of his retraction and apology, SFO recently conducted an interview with Allen Chan, one of the founders(and current Director of Growth) of D-Live.
In the course of the interview, which was conducted by Direct Message, SFO established that D-Live is not at all the scam people initially feared it was.
It's far worse.
In the interest of data redundancy, the full conversation is screen capped here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
SPECULATION:
D-Live is a Chinese company and given the situation with the Orwellian TOS's of China affiliated (and China curious) companies, I suspect that in addition to the issues noted in the video, D-Live is a sort of honey-pot phishing scheme. The company's marketing appeals to people with eclectic views who seek to avoid walking on eggshells and risking demonetization/deplatforming. All the while D-Live is Hoovering up all their critical data (identities, credit card and routing numbers) of a self selected cross section of the sorts of people that want to maintain anonymity and have views that are likely to get them banned, brigaded, and demonetized, and that data, collated in one place is a commodity in and of itself, being of the greatest value to the worst people.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
09:57 PM
| Comments (5)
| Add Comment
Post contains 278 words, total size 4 kb.
June 30, 2019
APB (Update)
FINAL UPDATE : Sad news, she's gone.
22 years old is too short a time for anyone. May she rest in peace.
Sincerest condolences to Anna.
******************************************************
Previous iterations of this post and its updates are below.
more...
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:42 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 57 words, total size 1 kb.
June 28, 2019
Random Thimgs
Someone takes a moment from twirling his broomhandled mustache long enough to provide an interesting review of Innocents Abroad .
Dustbury points us to ...this...
Pixy doesn't seem to know what 'unexpectedly' means, but he does provide us with this....
...which tells us nothing, but certainly has my attention.
Pete notes what appears to be a cunningly executed trap.
J.Greely seems to be a deeply problematic individual whose tastes are not global at all.
And that's OK.
Dustbury points us to ...this...
Soon!
Scott Lowther gives a shout out to Tabletop Whale, a really interesting art of science page that is the exact opposite of the cringey dumpster fire one expects from 'STEAM'. ...which tells us nothing, but certainly has my attention.
Pete notes what appears to be a cunningly executed trap.
J.Greely seems to be a deeply problematic individual whose tastes are not global at all.
And that's OK.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
01:23 AM
| Comments (4)
| Add Comment
Post contains 122 words, total size 2 kb.
December 31, 2018
Wonderduck In Hospital
I know nothing more than that. I just cut on my phone (it had run down and been charging most of the day) and received a text from Wonderduck timestamped about 6 hours before I typed this.
The message said that due to his leg injury had not been able to get out of bed for 30 hours and that he was, at the time of the text, in the ER.
That is all I know. It's 6 hours out of date and he has not returned my text. I'm loathe to call him because he probably needs sleep.
He's been in a lot of pain of late, so keep him in your prayers if so inclined; at least go drop by his place and leave him some good cheer.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
05:36 PM
| Comments (5)
| Add Comment
Post contains 133 words, total size 1 kb.
May 03, 2018
Quick! To the Fainting Couches!
Behold these outlander sprites appropriating our women's formal wear!
(Insert profanity laced virtue signaling here...or just admire the animation on the dresses)
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
02:46 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 27 words, total size 1 kb.
April 14, 2018
Another Reason Not to Date (Updated)
On a related note...
UPDATE: This is why MMD was invented. The song is a semi-pro fan cover of the OR3O number from the horror game Bendy and the Ink Machine. The animator did this video of the cover with some stock MMD background bits. But unlike so many MMD dance vids there is no stock, downloadable choreography for this song. She didn't download and re-skin this...she actually animated it. The art direction and the little Betty Boop chibis just ...work. This isn't point and click/copy paste, this is an actual fan animation. "Puccagarukiss" did a really good job with this. She has Patreon and Ko-Fi accounts.
The other, shorter version, according to their credits used a stock stage and Monika model (I'm somewhat astonished that there was a stock Monika) but their animation/choreography is markedly different, so they had to have done it themselves.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
01:21 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 152 words, total size 3 kb.
November 30, 2017
Internet Fight
Two rival gunblogger's research led them to very different conclusions regarding a historical matter.
With millions in grant money at stake, only one's career will survive this confrontation!
Watch as they viciously tear into each other!
Watch as they viciously tear into each other!
Grab the popcorn as they attack each other's reputation!
Thrill as they liken each other to Holocaust Deniers!
Oh wait.
These two are scholars, not academics.
There's no blood, tears nor fragile egos.
Well, that wasn't at all vicious, but it was edifying.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
08:08 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 92 words, total size 1 kb.
September 23, 2017
Aerospace Projects Review
Well, I got one of those status E-mails from Patreon bearing the distressing news that Scott Lowther is sending plain language calls for asistance in advertising. Without an increase in sales he has to consider hanging up the slide rules and calipers on one of the best internet resources for aerospace history out there.
It seems that his sales are running about 50 copies apiece, and considering that his prices are astoundingly reasonable and he's running all over the country to do research, he can't really justify this.
He's not giving up yet, but he's asking for help in marketing his wares.
And they are awesome wares indeed.
Now I know that some of my readers self-publish and know people who are masters of the ins and outs of self publishing, web-presence and web-marketing. Can we get this fellow some advice, contacts and maybe a link storm?
I've bought most of the available issues of his magazines and have been sufficiently impressed that I've mentioned this fellow before, but it's hard to do justice to how unique this publication really is.
Here...click on this here link, scroll down and browse. The individual issues contain exactly what they say on the tin. If you don't find those topics transcendentally awesome...you are wrong.
A random sampling of articles:
Northrop ST-38 Space Trainer: a rocket-powered T-38 for trips to space
"Have Sting:" A General Electric design for a gigantic orbital railgun
JPL Thousand Astronomical Unit probe: A spacecraft into interstellar space
Integrated Manned Interplanetary Spacecraft: A Boeing concept for a giant spacecraft to Mars and Venus
Convair Inflatable Spacecraft: an early spaceplane concept
One Man Space Station: A 1960 McDonnell concept for a tiny space station
Astroplane: A lightweight aircraft for the exploration of Mars
Reactor-In-Flight Test: A Lockheed nuclear-powered stage for the Saturn V
"Have Sting:" A General Electric design for a gigantic orbital railgun
JPL Thousand Astronomical Unit probe: A spacecraft into interstellar space
Integrated Manned Interplanetary Spacecraft: A Boeing concept for a giant spacecraft to Mars and Venus
Convair Inflatable Spacecraft: an early spaceplane concept
One Man Space Station: A 1960 McDonnell concept for a tiny space station
Astroplane: A lightweight aircraft for the exploration of Mars
Reactor-In-Flight Test: A Lockheed nuclear-powered stage for the Saturn V
Project Orion, USAF and NASA 10 meter designs. This article presents many never before published Project Orion technical diagrams.
ROMBUS/ITHACUS: the Douglas concept from 1963 for a million-pound payload SSTO, and its stablemate that could rocket 1200 fully loaded US Marines anywhere in the world
Convair Mach 4 Seaplane Bombers, by George Cully
Convair's flying submarine.
I gather that his Patreon will soldier on regardless ( that is separate from the magazine and he's doing fiction there as well).
Given that each issue runs between $6 and $10 bucks and tend to have 80 to 140 pages of aerospace might have been goodness you all should probably run on over and start buying before it's gone.
With a little better marketing, it will not come to that, there is no way that there are only 50 people on the internet willing to spend 9 bucks on the stuff in this publication.
Said stuff includes actual designs for space battleships powered by atom bombs.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
03:36 AM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 468 words, total size 6 kb.
June 10, 2017
Places of Interest
in the comments section Madrocketsci inquires (in reference to Isaac Arthur's excellent channel)...
...where do people like this hang out online?Well, we linked to that one from here so, ipso facto, Brickmuppet Blog is a place where people who like this hang ou...
Art by Dani Ikapi
Oh.
Well then....
Atomic Rocket is a superb resource for near term space exploration concepts. It is primarily geared towards providing authors a reference to assist in providing realism in spec-fic
...so they can write SF "the way God and Heinlein intended"
Scroll down to the very bottom of the linked page for a sitemap. Be warned that this is digital crack. The engine list page alone will...
...
...
Damn. The sun is setting.
I should get back to the post....
Scott Lowther's site is named The Unwanted Blog for reasons that are quite unclear given that the correct response to it is "Do Want!". Mr. Lowther also runs Aerospace Projects Review, which produces several online magazines that look at forgotten aerospace history from an engineering perspective.
Next Big Future is a science-news blog that focuses mainly on disruptive technologies and futurism.
Glasstone.Blogspot.com focuses on things that might keep the future from happening, like global thermonuclear war. It is dreadfully non-intuitive to navigate but there is a cornucopia of information on civil defense and high energy weapons effect on that site.
The Secret Projects Forum is a vast message board dedicated mainly to forgotten transportation and weapons projects. Unlike most such sites it has a crackerjack team of moderators that purge unverified or made up content, so one doesn't accidentally find Antarctic Space Nazis in one's research into Horten Coal Fired Ramjets.
Jerry Pournelle's site is a stream of consciousness that touches on many futuristic topics and how to achieve them through a strategy of technology. It also has tips for how to preserve past knowledge and survive in the event that something stupid and terrible happens like a global thermonuclear war.
The excellent Colony-Worlds focused on space colonization but hasn't been active since 2012. It still exists and has still got a good deal of info... while it lasts.
Centauri Dreams looks at deep space exploration with the ultimate goal of manned trans-stellar voyages.
Icarus Interstallar is a non-profit advocacy group dedicated to bringing about a manned interstellar mission by 2100. They fund various engineering studies looking at the problem from different directions.
The Lifeboat Foundation is an organization exploring various ways to preserve humanity in the event of an extinction level event such as a Hostile AI, asteroid strike, plague or global thermonuclear war.
Nasa Spaceflight.com, is not as far as I know, NASA affiliated. It has forums for discussion of space related issues, but most of the high-end, credentialed discussions of speculative projects are moved to the L-2 forum which requires a subscription.
The Space Review is an online magazine dedicated to space exploration, space business and space law.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
05:12 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 494 words, total size 6 kb.
November 30, 2016
Linky Love
Dustbury takes a look at what happens when insufficient thought is given to dress codes and naming sports teams.
The weather in Kansas blows....but the scenery's nice.
Ace has found what must be the quote of the week.
"Her claims to be a 'queer Muslim' are probably part of an act designed to fit into as many victim categories as humanly possible," Adams elaborates. "Sometimes I wonder whether LGBT stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Thespian. So much drama, so few letters in the alphabet."
Peter Grant notes someone who anticipates a crappy board game.
Larry Correia talks with an expert on the pro's, cons and thought processes behind Marvel's latest marketing ploy.
NOBODY believes me when I tell them that this happened...
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
09:05 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 125 words, total size 2 kb.
September 14, 2016
A Few Good Links
Larry Correia has some thoughts on Trump.
While Correia's analysis and conclusions are pretty solid, these two related pieces from the American Conservative take a long and thoughtful look at how this dumpster fire happened.
Daniel McCarthy posits that this is a different sort of class war between two competing and ideologically incompatible groups of leftists. This is long, but I urge you to read the whole thing.
Rod Dreher has a shorter piece, much more a stream of consciousness, updated over a couple of days with edits. It takes a slightly different look at the same issue, namely the bigotry and 'virtuous contempt' one needs to be accepted as successful in this country.
Finally, from the Claremont Review of Books, a piece on options presented by the deplorab...sub-optimal situation and a follow-up.
But fear not! Sarah Hoyt has thoughts on parallel structures. Yes, sign me up! This is foolproo.....oh wait.
Holy...Crap. This is nuts.
Fortunately J.C. Carlton has provided us with a page full of awesomeness...and some high octane nightmare fuel.I further note that J.C. is not trying to sell us store-able food, which makes that last link more worrying somehow.
UPDATE:
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
08:36 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 201 words, total size 3 kb.
July 02, 2016
Broken Bird
The Dustbury is down.
C.G Hill just had spinal surgery and is trying to regain the use of his legs. Please go provide him with some encouragement, or, if you are able, practical substitutes for the same.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
01:18 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 39 words, total size 1 kb.
April 18, 2016
Ubuville is Under Water
We've been dealing with some annoying occorances of late, including but not limited to illness, exams, term papers, a sinkhole, severed cable line, and a spider. However, these do not compare to 20 inches of rain in 24 hours.
In the sincere hopes that Ubu Roi drags his bedragled self inside unharmed we're going put out some Ubu bait.
All courtesy of Ueyama Michirou's bait shop
more...
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:33 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 70 words, total size 1 kb.
April 07, 2016
Somewhere In the Great Smokey Mountains, Lies the Valley of the Win
"We should really pay more attention to J.Greely's sidebar!"
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
07:50 PM
| Comments (6)
| Add Comment
Post contains 21 words, total size 1 kb.
March 22, 2016
An Atypical Indicator of Genius
While by no means a reliable marker of stupidity, lowbrow humor is generally not a particularly dependable indicator of high intellect. However, it should be noted that humor of any type often does not translate well across cultures and this difficulty is greatly increased when one is attempting to convey a boorish bon-mot in something other than ones native tongue.
Learning a language is hard. Learning its nuances is extremely difficult.
Thus, the use by a native Russian speaker of the word 'titular' in this particular context can only be an indicator of the highest acumen and as such serves as an uplifting inspiration to all of us who are striving to learn a foreign language...at least those of us who are sufficiently problematic and déclassé to snicker at a boob joke.
Well played Pete.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
09:25 AM
| Comments (5)
| Add Comment
Post contains 140 words, total size 1 kb.
January 11, 2016
A Few Random Links (Genius Edition)
Some genius is translating the Beatus of Liébana and two volumes are already out. Said genius has other translations of Iberian medieval Catholic scholarship out as well. Given that the Amazon Prime price is naught, I'm curious as to her business plan, but she's a genius, so she's probably got it covered.
At the exact opposite end of nearly every spectrum or graph, another genius has blogged the junction of democracy, capitalism and trigger discipline. (Link probably NSFW)
Some mad genius in Texas is peddling an insane theory that involves the IJNS Nagato and Godzilla. Alas he has amassed compelling evidence, which is why he's not just a crazy person in Texas.
A gunnery genius has composed...this
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
06:44 PM
| Comments (2)
| Add Comment
Post contains 123 words, total size 3 kb.
November 29, 2015
Some Quick Links
While there is considerable concern being expressed about the Syrian refugee situation, Dustbury finds someone raising the alarm about a less appreciated invasion. He also helpfully points out that all of my problems stem from a parking fee. In retrospect, it's probably a decent trade-off.
Borepatch says all that needs to be said about Black Friday. He also manages to offend on multiple levels with only 9 words.
Tangentially related to that; while Wonderduck has been putting up a brave face yesterday and today, one should not underestimate the stress he will have to deal with until January 25th.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
12:58 AM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 114 words, total size 2 kb.
November 16, 2015
Pantheon
...is the word that J.Greely is looking for.
I should point out that what he is trying to find words for does indeed warrant some considerable attention.
"I would like to take this opportunity to remind people that there ARE other options available."
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at
05:54 PM
| Comments (1)
| Add Comment
Post contains 44 words, total size 1 kb.
90kb generated in CPU 0.6486, elapsed 0.8304 seconds.
76 queries taking 0.7664 seconds, 309 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
76 queries taking 0.7664 seconds, 309 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
