this week, i 'av mostly been... blendering

http://omploader.org/vNHZvNw/picoconstructionpreview000.png

 http://omploader.org/vNHcwYQ/picoconstructionpreview002.png

http://omploader.org/vNHd3bg/picoconstructionpreview003.png


just a little ditty i've been spending a little portion on each day.  in an inspired moment, i sketched it out on paper first, and since then, i've been rediscovering blender... blender 2.5alpha2 to be precise.   ...and it's way easier and flowing than 2.49b  ... although... there's a minor niggle of window pane management... havnt figured out how to close new panes yet.


anyways, this little bike/car thing... i'm working on doing it right, so that this can be an actual design template.   it's still utterly early on in the construction...  just the chassis, tires, window/door, mudgaurds and much of the steering rig-up so far.   but i've loads of cunning ideas for it.


the vision i had for it, is for low-down, maximum visibility, component simplicity, down-force, form following function, a real driver's experience kind of deal, everything compact and lean, much like my dream linux distro.   i am often thinking on such analogies of distros to cars. 


every little bit i put on it, i tweak and re-tweak many times over.
not seen in these preview renders is the skeleton humanoid frame, hunkered down in his race-ready seating possition.


i suppose in some ways, this has been partly inspired by my friend's new lotus elise, which i've been out in a couple of times.  lotus's general modus opperandi, as i recall jeremy clarkson once saying, "is to simplify, and add lightness".  this thing is looking set to be so light, i've had to be thinking where i could ADD weight, just to make sure the thing will stay on the ground or have enough weight above the powered wheel.


engine-wise, i've still to get to that part.
i'm not the most nerdy when it comes to traditional combustion engines, but as you might expect from a free software geek, i dont mind reading up about more exotic options.  so besides the GEET implosion engine, and electric engines, i am actually very very keen on the idea of those combustion engines which instead of using pistons and combustion chambers that are rather 1 dimensional, and which the energy then has to be mechanically transfered yada yada.... there's those mad ones that are um....  cyclical...  the explosion chamber is integrated more deeply into the whole thing, and the rotary motion is perpetually pushed in one direction... around and around, rather than pistons having to waste energy on fighting the inertia of back and forth... i'll have to look them up again on http://peswiki.com/  ( http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Engines )so i remember who came up with them, and what they're called.   suffice to say, you get to fit the power of a normal car engine, into the size of a cd-rom drive.   ...so i was thinking of upscaling it a bit more.  ;)



ideally, i'd just throw some john hutchinson inspired zero-point energy battery/generator devices in it, and maybe some unity bending power ramp up stuff, but i dont want to make myself any bigger a target for corporate / secret-gov / OPEC / etc b[w]ankers to take me out.  ;D


but anyways, i do like the idea of only one gear... in which case electric would be the way to go... and then that would add all the weight i want, i could pepper the floor and rear with heavy batteries....   :/



oh it's good being free to play n dream up these things.

( /me considers including a dozen talk links from ted.com focussing on the value of play, and experimentation, and goal-less development, and exploration of ideas, and what incentives do, and what motivates people...  but that might get in the way o all i really wanted to focus on for this ramble...  blender & my little fun ditty )

track-day, road-car, or mere concept-car... i dont mind, i just like the creative process.  :)   the inspired evolution of ideas, the spontaneous a-ha ideas, the reveling in imagination, the hands-on manifestation, the...    you get the idea.  :)

i'll likely be back with updates to this.

freedomwhere

we could live on the northpole like gypsies if we had a community of amphibious caravans with water powered engines. i mean, flying&submarine ones too of course. some type of fabricating device, like the reprap, but more evolved, likely including a geet engine or the like, which can be tuned to produce different elements, as well as "print" out a complex construction (yes, a star treck replicator then, but in real existing technology terms). that way we could construct our own hydroponics equipment too, water purifiers, heaters, replacement replicators, replacement whatevers, new designs, anything we need... and the technology exists... now tell me my hippie anarcho-socialist dream is ecconomically unviable. :P

lets start cracking on with constructing those n getting them out to people eh?

;)

Don't be wrapped in plastic!

lemme set the scene for ya...

i installed archbang, but made a fail on my grub bootloader issues.

that's the scene.

and why did that scene take place in our stage production?

too long with what i, unashamedly insultingly call, noob distros.

it may seem more convenient that everything "just works", but one of the beauties of them not working, is that it forces your hand to learn something.

and that i intend as the central theme here.  learning something!



there are two pieces to the jigsaw of my experience-led mental make-up, that i'd love to hammer home to the world... 

these experiences came from:
1: an episode of star trek where a society is in danger of collapse because a computer that has taken care of their every whim for ages without malfunction starts to break down, and no one knows a thing about it.
2: the gnu.org/philosophy pages.

i summed it up in a near bumper sticker sized quote on a forum...

if your life depends on a computer, then know how it works!
(~edit~ and even if it doesnt too)

or at the very least, start learning!

dont be wrapped in plastic.  basically.

y'know... dont shut yourself off from the world around you.

your operating system is part of that world, and chances are, (especially if you are sad enthusiastic enough to be reading this blog), a really important one!

with proprietary, you're just not really given the chance.  trade secret, keep out, not allowed.

maybe back in the DOS days you felt a little closer to truth, but then along came macs, and that just completely denied the "end user" any chance of knowing what was really going on in their machine, and the DOS lineage pretty much followed in this way.

well it ain my way, no more.

back in the days of reading up on the gnu philosophy, i thought i understood it then... and i did, i was intelectually sold on the idea, and now i hope i KNOW it.

and dont think that just once you also "get it" and make the decision to leave your long familiar proprietary operating system, that your days in a bubble are over... there's still plastic sheeting over many open source distros.

yeah, sure, u can take it off.  you are actually free to look under the hood, and perhaps on occasion you may be asked to, or even required to peek under the plastic wrap which separates you from being one step closer to truth and reality, once in a while.

but if you dont want to fall the way of those who's existence was at risk, you'll have a motivation to your curiosity, you'll look under that plastic hood, you'll want the truth, not the plastic convenience facade.

wont you...?

yeah... convenience has real allure.

Richard stallman warned me.   he warned us all.

and if he had the "Public Relations" budget of the corporations, we all might have heard him over the corporate roar.

well i consider myself getting closer to living the ideals i've long held, now that i have arch installed.

my grub problem?

oh, i fixed that pretty quick... see, i was just a bit rusty after too many years of not needing to think, letting the magic under the plastic wrap do it all for me.

no more.

now the arch way,
is my way.