As I said right at the start of the Blog in March, there will be some shameless plugs on Beyond the Launchpad. Today, the absolutely brilliant Digital coverage of Formula One on the BBC. I'm not sure if it's being transmitted in HD yet but the 'Red Button' option of today's race was fantastic! On my 1080p Samsung I had Picture in Picture when I switched to the onboard Car Race coverage, showing the actual footage chosen for 'normal' televison, whilst I rushed around Monaco on several of the cars, a choice of commentaries (I stayed with the TV commentary) and indication of the race at the bottom of the screen. An absolute dream. Monaco is a race of dreams but so too is Monza, home of the Italian Grand Prix, where I went to see my only F1 race in 2006 and that was a real good couple of days... This really is akin to being there though: R. Kubica in Cruise Control: Picture Courtesy of BBC coverage, copyright 2010 Formula One Administration Limited. The image i
As the world waits for Venus to transit in front of the Sun... I was thinking. Forgive my laymanistic terninology as well. Kepler is searching for planets by detecting them passing their own Sun(s). Some are seeing if the light passing through the atmospheres could be passing through certain gasses by checking the light ranges seen. Effectively though the planet passing in front of the Sun should have a 'dark side' and therefore show no light whatsoever.But what if the planet WERE showing light, for example streetlights, of a civilisation lighting it's evening? Would this be distinguishable? Just a thought but is it scientifically provable (or even detectable)?
Sometimes, when I'm not building Gundam, I set about modifying 'toys' and such to make them look cooler. This weekend I have progressed with several projects, some nearer completion than others, but I thought I'd give you a peek at something more or less complete - a 1/6 scale Jawa I purchased last weekend at the Maidstone Vintage Toy Fair. When purchased I thought I'd just got a lump of plastic to display only. Wrong. It seemed it was one of the 1997 Special Edition releases, which did have a neat little gimmick of light up eyes, however, the contacts on the on/off button were not in a great shape and worse still the button was a contact switch - so the light came on only when the switch was pressed... Time for some Martin magic. (turn me on!) Hidden in the back of the Jawa, an on/off switch (the silver thing in the illustration above) which, following some slight modification of the switch opening at the back of the Jawa and a now hollow chest area,
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