Concept art: three artists

In my view concept artists have the best of both realistic and abstract art worlds.  Good ones paint with detailed realism on topics imaginary--or derivative.  Here are three of the best.

Aaron Blaise who worked as an animator for Walt Disney Feature Animation.

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Aaron Blaise, concept/character art gallery

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Michael Kutsche does work that sticks in my mind, like this piece that I first saw on deviantART:

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Michael Kutsche, Astronauts (2010)

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Michael Whelan is a prolific artist and perhaps best-known for his illustrations for Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern science fiction series.

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Michael Whelan, Death Wing

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-- Marge

Cartoons: fools and posers

News from the war front at the US-Mexico border verges on delirious.

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Pat Bagley, the Week

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Drew Sheneman, the Week

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David Fitzsimmons, the Week

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Meanwhile, at the war front in DC, it verges on insane.

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Steve Sack, Cagle

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Seems to me these guys in Washington were elected to represent their constituents. They're supposed to be adults.

-- Marge

DIY: getting water from air

Arturo Vittori, WarkaWater tower, Smithsonian Magazine

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Yesterday fellow G+ poster +Lacerant Plainer published an article on a structure that produces "Water from thin air." Lacerant wondered why this concept hasn't been developed more.  And so did I.

Called a WarkaWater tower by the architect Arturo Vittori who designed it, this airwell, is a passive device (requires no energy input) that can be made from bamboo and nylon by hand. Information on the Warka project can be found at Architecture and Vision.

Online Vittori's idea is quite popular--just do a search on 'Warkawater 2014.'  A good article on it can be found at the Smithsonian site. The tower is considered an elegant solution to collecting water, especially in less developed areas.  Finding potable water is rapidly becoming a worldwide problem badly needing a solution, as explained by HowStuffWorks:

Water is becoming an increasingly important issue in the developed world. But this issue is nothing new for other, less developed nations. For centuries, clean drinking water has been hard to come by for many populations, especially the poor. In some areas, water may be available, but it's often disease-ridden, and drinking it can be fatal. In other areas, a viable water supply is sim­ply not available at all.

With all the crowdfunding sites available you'd think someone would have jumped on one, but none lists 'WarkaWater' or 'Warka' as a current project.  If you'd like to look yourself, Forbes has a list of the top ten crowdfunding sites.  Matt Damon's Water.org make no mention of the concept.

While looking for reasons (besides funding) why this project hasn't taken off, I hit on acceptance by the Ethiopians, atmospheric availability of water vapor, and drinkability of condensed water.  Take a look at the Modern Survivor Magazine for a how-to on water from condensation. Found during my search process is an interesting paper (PDF format) on "Health Risks from Drinking Demineralised Water," published by the World Health Organization (WHO).  Another source of interesting information is this page on Ethiopian social etiquette.

Other water-from-air concepts presented but not fully developed are Edward Linacre's Airdrop, winner of the 2011 Dyson Award prize, and Phil Pauley’s Solar Cucumber.  Both are discussed at Green Prophet.

My conclusion?  Talking about, even admiring, a concept is not the same as bringing it to market.  To parrot a quote I found at the Green Prophet (link above):

The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea.  ~Isak Dinesen

-- Marge

Art: Firefly the TV series lives on

Some refer to Joss Whedon's Firefly as a 'cult classic.'  Wikipedia describes it as a "American space western drama."  To me it had some of the most memorable characters seen on television.

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Firefly original cast, Netflix

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For years fans have tried to revive it, as reported in "Fans launch 'Help Nathan Fillion Buy Firefly' movement (2011)." Earlier this year the Netflix announcement "Firefly to make landmark return to Netflix" turned out to be an April Fool's joke with the joke on Netflix. Drats!

If you want to see what I'm talking about, mosey on over to Hulu where you can watch Firefly free.

Firefly also lives on in Serenity comics by Dark Horse. According to the Wikipedia article--

Written by Joss Whedon and Brett Matthews, and illustrated by Will Conrad, the first miniseries, Those Left Behind, was created as a bridge between the events of the series and film. Those Left Behind was popular: the first issue was the highest-selling comic published by Dark Horse Comics until the release of Buffy Season 8 in 2007.

Last December Comic Book Resources interviewed Joss on the Serenity series.

Here's a video with screenshots of frames from the comic and music from the TV series, posted by Chaitea16.

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-- Marge

Cartoons: quaking, hedging, fleeing, and shooting

Reporters have a wealth of news to give us this week, sad to say.

The number of earthquakes is up in Oklahoma. Meanwhile, gas producers in Pennsylvania quake at proposed taxes.

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John Cole, The Week

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The CDC keeps losing (or misplacing) infectious toxins.

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Drew Sheneman, The Week

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Violence in Chicago may be somewhat comparable to that in Central America.

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Scott Stantis, The Week

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The Mideast, specifically Palestine-Israel, appears to be imploding.  This opinion in Al Jazeera asks if Hamas provokes Israel to attack Gaza.

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Dana Summers, The Week

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Russia is proving deadly, as well. Hopefully, this will not be the final result.

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David Fitzsimmons, The Week

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-- Marge

DIY: dubious fixes and the Junk King

For a change of pace from projects, here are some interesting I-did-it-myself fixes. To add to this mix is a video profile (follow the link in the caption) of Vince Hannemann, the Junk King. The Wall Street Journal reported on his Cathedral of Junk in "A Sacred Shrine to Austin's Junk."

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Unknown, AwEsome Fix, Thereifixedit

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Unknown, College Bed Frame, Thereifixedit

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Unknown, Unclogging The Tubes, Thereifixedit

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Evan Burns, Vince Hannemann: the Junk King, Vimeo

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-- Marge

Razors and vampires

Seeing a poster on vampirism, which always seems to be a hot topic, I realized again what little sense it makes to me. However, the concept of emotional vampirism does make sense. Dr. Judith Orloff talks about it in "The Emotional Vampire Survival Guide: Emotional Freedom in Action." Some believe in psychic vampires.

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Bela Lugosi as Dracula, quickmeme

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I don't fully believe that there are evil people, just ignorant ones who are mostly unaware of the consequences of their actions--both for themselves and others.  Often evil is a label that observers (and victims) place on people and things that are counter what is defined as good, sometimes at the moment.  This label could be used to define a gossip who spreads a rumor about you or a dictator who kills indiscriminately.

Many philosophers and religions have discussed evil and attempted to define it.  I'm partial to the Bahá'í Faith observation:

"Nevertheless a doubt occurs to the mind—that is, scorpions and serpents are poisonous. Are they good or evil, for they are existing beings? Yes, a scorpion is evil in relation to man; a serpent is evil in relation to man; but in relation to themselves they are not evil, for their poison is their weapon, and by their sting they defend themselves. (`Abdu'l-Bahá, son of the founder of the religion, in Some Answered Questions)"

Thus, evil is more of an intellectual concept than a true reality. Since God is good, and upon creating creation he confirmed it by saying it is Good (Genesis 1:31) evil cannot have a true reality.

My apologies to those of you who are atheists.  For you there are a variety of razors, or eponymous laws. As an example--

Hanlon's razor – A corollary of Finagle's law, and a play on Occam's razor, normally taking the form, "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." As with Finagle, possibly not strictly eponymous. Alternatively, "Do not invoke conspiracy as explanation when ignorance and incompetence will suffice, as conspiracy implies intelligence."

However, there are dragons, ones that rise up in your face when you least expect it.

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Nine-Dragons1, Wikipedia

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-- Marge

Cartoons: a tidal wave of children

To me this quote from the Worldcrunch article "At U.S.-Mexico Border, Children's Lives On The Line" tells a lot about how Mexican and Central American migrants view America and the current state of immigration.

Rina Guaimaca doesn't have time to wait for political reform. "In Honduras, the gangs were extorting us. We didn’t earn much in the first place, but we had to give half of that to them. I have a 7-year-old son, Fernando, and I didn’t want him to grow up like that. So, I decided to escape and join my mother who works in Oregon."

This article is part of a series called "Migrant Lives."  To know more about the publication Worldcrunch, take a look at this review at tinypass.

Here are some insights from the cartoonists--

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Steve Breen, The Week

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Mike Ramirez, The Week

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David Horsey, The Week

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Mike Luckovich, The Week

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Follow these links for more views on why this influx is occurring, "Why are so many kids crossing the US-Mexico border and what should Obama do?," and what happens to the children once they enter the US, "Q&A Explaining the crisis on the Southwest border as children seek refuge."

-- Marge

DIY: crypto mining

In the world of money, there's virtual currency, digital currency, and cryptocurrency.  These currencies overlap at times.  In cryptocurrency the most popular software-based payment systems right now are Bitcoin and Litecoin.

What caught my attention about crypto was a report of a shortage of AMD video cards due to cryptomining in Litecoin.  Here's some information on the reason for the shortage, "Massive surge in Litecoin mining leads to graphics card shortage."

You may well ask why a newly-released, discrete video card is needed for cryptomining.  In December, 2013, the CoinDesk reported:

Bitcoin mining on a standard GPU is a thing of the past. Put simply: it’s no longer economically viable, given the power consumption of discrete graphics cards and their relatively high price.

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Litecoin hash (1 month), CoinDesk

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Note that hashrate is directly related to profit. The difficulty reported in the graph above is due to investors/miners competing for coins.  As you know, a fundamental tenet of economics is the greater the demand, the higher the price. The CoinDesk explains "How Bitcoin Mining Works." CoinWarz has a nice online mining and profit calculator.

You can make your own mining rig.  Jason Evangelho at Forbes offers "Litecoin 101: How To Build Your Own Mining Rigs." CryptoBadger describes setting up a Linux rig. There are detailed instructions at Crypto Rigs.

If you just don't want to get into making all these parts work together, you can buy a custom-made at Xidax that looks pretty impressive.

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Cryptocurrency mining rigs, Xidax

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Options for software are posted on the Litecoin Wiki. To see how involved people can get with their rigs, take a look at "Insane Crypto-Currency Mining Rigs."

-- Marge

Animation: 2D, 3D or both

Since I'm working on learning animation, I go looking for good information on techniques, styles, and effects from time to time.  There is so much good work to see, especially on YouTube.  One thing I learned yesterday is to do the animated parts in 2D and the background in 3D.  Good to know.

Here Jazza of Draw with Jazza shows how he develops a character.

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This delightful 3D animation, A Fox Tale, reminds me of Samurai Jack.

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Below is a trailer for the CGI 2D/3D animation titled Colombiana; it's by Planet Jump Productions and published on YouTube by The CG Bros.  You may recall the movie Colombiana was a 2011 French-American action film co-written and produced by Luc Besson and directed by Olivier Megaton.

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This last sample--Telescope--is a film with CGI elements.  It's included because it is arresting and just plain beautiful.

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-- Marge

Cartoons: snapshot of America on this 4th

While, as Steve Breen asserts in the cartoon below, many of us still value life, liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness, some in America don't value these rights so much.  This is especially true when the self-evident rights of others are concerned.  Here are some dos and don'ts for today's America.

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Steve Breen, US News

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If you pray, pray for a tolerant employer.

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Jack Ohman, US News

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Forget what you love to do, learn what will bring home the bacon.

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Michael Ramirez, US News

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When faced with an anti-Obama Congress, use executive actions to get things done.

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Dana Summers, US News

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Watch out for underhanded play in the marketplace.

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Drew Sheneman, US News

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-- Marge

DIY: build your own battery

Environmentally compatible organic solar cells (in development), Physics.org

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Home installation of solar panels is growing fast:

A new solar-power system is now installed on an American roof every three or four minutes, often through leasing deals that require no money down and lock in lower electric bills for years. Wall Street behemoths like Bank of America and Goldman Sachs are pouring cash into rooftop solar, as are giant corporations like Walmart and Google, while a range of new financing mechanisms are making solar investments even more attractive. The installer SolarCity has begun to bundle customer leases into solar-backed securities, which could be as transformative (though hopefully not as dangerous) as mortgage-backed securities. And while the panels are now amazingly cheap–down from more than $75 per watt 40 years ago to less than 75¢ per watt today–the solar industry is just starting to drive dramatic reductions in “soft costs” like permitting, marketing and installation. (The Green Revolution Is Here, Michael Grunwald, Time Magazine)

But, unless you want to use environmentally unfriendly batteries that must be replaced and require maintenance, such as the ones sold by Wholesale Solar, you have to connect to the grid. If you decide to build or purchase a battery bank, be aware that there is a risk of explosion and the bank must be scaled to your system.

The push is on to build a better battery and a promising concept is a water-based organic one being developed by a team of scientists at the University of Southern California (USC).

In the meantime here are some batteries you can build yourself.  Check out the aluminum can, saltwater and charcoal battery made by egbertfitzwilly with charcoal from the backyard barbecue. To demonstrate battery basics here are 3 ways to make a homemade battery from WikiHow.

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Hand-Powered Battery, WikiHow

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Similar and related projects are a gummy battery holder by Andrea and a USB travel charger from Electro-Labs.

Who knows?  Maybe you can beat the USC team to the goal of a better, rechargeable, scalable battery.

-- Marge

Communal Living 2014

What with recent graduates and young families in need of financial help moving back in with parents, and many sharing apartments to help with expenses, the concept of communal is becoming attractive again.  In the U.S. communes were big in the '60s and '70s, but fell out of favor.  The article on communes at Wikipedia notes:

Andrew Jacobs of The New York Times wrote that, contrary to popular misconceptions, "most communes of the '90s are not free-love refuges for flower children, but well-ordered, financially solvent cooperatives where pragmatics, not psychedelics, rule the day." There are many contemporary intentional communities all over the world, a list of which can be found at the Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC).

Huffington Post has a section on Communal Living.  The video below was found there.

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BBC's article, "Living the communal life," gives some interesting insights into why people decide to share their living space.

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Living the communal life, BBC (Julius Schrank/www.juliusschrank.de)

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This Washington Post article also has some good insights:  A new generation of 'Golden Girls'. And this thread at Reddit caught my attention: Want to live in eco-village/hippie commune.. help!

Lisa Law's history the '60s counterculture and  of communal living at Smithsonian's site gives a detailed account of how and why they lived on that frontier.

-- Marge

Cartoons: keep flapping

No theme today, just some funny and apt glimpses into life and the news...

I can sympathize with Bush calling for the TV controller, but that's about it.

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Chan Lowe, US News

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Cartoonist Sheneman's depicting an IRS operative as a medieval executioner has a ring to it.

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Drew Sheneman, US News

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In keeping with the fairy-tale aspects of the IRS investigation--

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Chip Bok, The Week

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And finally, don't we all have to just keep flapping at times?

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Jack Ohman, US News

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--Marge

DIY: Living minimal

Eloise Ghioni, Third Skin (Paper)

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In his beautiful post, "5 Life-Giving Truths From 5 Years of Living with Less," Joshua Becker quotes C.S. Lewis:

The process of living seems to consist in coming to realize truths so ancient and simple that, if stated, they sound like barren platitudes.

The comments are well worth reading, too.

Minimal or simple living isn't new. Nor is it necessarily asceticism. But it is refusing to let your possessions and desire for new possessions to take control. In a world where we are constantly barraged by advertising and calls to action, it's becoming more and more important to step back and reclaim the freedom to just be and to see what we want to become or do.

Here's a collection of articles about minimal living. At WikiHow there's  "How to Live Like a Minimalist" (in 13 illustrated steps). The blog Simple and Minimal offers a list of books on the topic.  The BBC has an article titled "The joy of living with less," which quotes author Francine Jay:

A minimalist lifestyle entails being mindful about the things we own, the things we buy, and how we spend our time.

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Deborah DeWit, before time

-- Marge

Civil disobedience to terrorism

In today's social vocabulary the term radicalized is usually applied to an individual or group embracing Islamic terrorism.

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upstateNYer, The Machine Stops, Wikipedia

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But in a world increasingly out-of-balance, economically and politically, the instances of a person or group being wounded by the 'system,' whichever system it is, mount in number.  A recent attempt to speak out in the form of Occupy was summarily dismissed by local authorities, sometimes by unnecessary measures.

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Defining civil disobedience becomes a philosophical exercise.  Quoting the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

The term ‘civil disobedience’ was coined by Henry David Thoreau in his 1848 essay to describe his refusal to pay the state poll tax implemented by the American government to prosecute a war in Mexico and to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law. In his essay, Thoreau observes that only a very few people – heroes, martyrs, patriots, reformers in the best sense – serve their society with their consciences, and so necessarily resist society for the most part, and are commonly treated by it as enemies. Thoreau, for his part, spent time in jail for his protest. Many after him have proudly identified their protests as acts of civil disobedience and have been treated by their societies – sometimes temporarily, sometimes indefinitely – as its enemies.

The Civil Rights Movement and protests against the Vietnam War were acts of civil disobedience.  The assassination of Martin Luther King and Kent State Shootings are examples of what can happen when wronged or dissident groups speak up in America.  The article Domestic Terrorism in America During the 1960s and 1970s gives a succinct history dissent during that periond of history.  Pop History Dig has a page devoted to the reaction to the Kent State Shootings.

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John Paul Filo, Kent State massacre, ©Valley News-Dispatch

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One thing is clear: open protests simply cause a war-like reaction from those in power. Members of the 99% who recognize the threats inherent in the growing economic gap in so-called first world countries, realize that your strength is in numbers and the 1% cannot survive without your economic support.

 -- Marge

Cartoons: Carry a big Sharpie

Among the perpetual reports of unwelcome news: Iraq is back again. For extensive coverage, check out NBC's "Iraq Turmoil" page. As you have probably heard, ISIS is the new enemy. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross' article "Why Iraq's jihadists just keep on coming back meaner" is a good read on the topic.

Today's political cartoons aren't particularly funny (my apologies), but they do offer some good insights.

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Dana Summers, US News

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John Cole, The Week

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Walt Handelsman, The Week

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-- Marge

DIY: a nuclear fusion reactor

Now this DIY project is worthy of an X Prize competition.

You may think such a project is outside possible for regular folks; but in June, 2013, the Russian magazine RIA Novosti reported that "Fifteen high school students in the world have built nuclear fusion reactors." The Russian article was describing Conrad Farnsworth's build (video below).  Other teen builders are Jamie Edwards and Taylor Wilson.

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For some background on fusion here's a page at NextEra Energy Resources with simple explanations (I like simple). According to Wikipedia, "A fusor is a device that uses an electric field to heat ions to conditions suitable for nuclear fusion."

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You can find instructions for building a fusion reactor at Instructables.  Note that there are a number of safety warnings.

For continuing information on the current state of nuclear power, sign up at World Nuclear News. And this is an interesting piece of information: "Lockheed Martin announces compact Fusion Reactor plans."

 -- Marge