The UP printer is another 3D printer designed for home and hobby use. $1500 for the little machine and $50/kg for the material it uses may seem steep, but I reckon it’s comparable to early laser printers. One day I’ll have my own 3D printer.
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It’s the 70th anniversary of the Blitz. I’ve been following the Battle of Britain Day By Day blog since last month, today it stepped up a gear with a long post about the first day of concentrated bombing on London. By coincidence, I’m also reading First Blitz I’m halfway through the book right now. It’s a simple chronological recounting of raids, developments and countermeasures, but told in such a way as to remain interesting and based upon accounts from the attackers and defenders for balance. My only quibble is in its use of the word Blitz. It was my understanding that Blitz came from blitzkrieg and was first used to describe the bombing campaign of 70 years ago. It feels to me like the WW1 campaign has been retroactively renamed as a Blitz, either by the book’s writer or earlier historians, and contemporary writers would have called it something else. That aside, the book is proving an interesting read on early air warfare.
Wannabe Scottish holy warrior Stewart Cowan has started what may be an ongoing series on “The Myths and Hoaxes of the 20th Century”. That he’s started with a weak swing at evolution should come as no surprise, neither should the fact that he fails to put forward a coherent argument. Cowan bases his argument on a wilfull or genuine failure to understand an 18th century theory called uniformitarianism. (It’s doubly amusing that he links to the wikipedia page about it because whenever he or his cronies are presented with a wikipedia page which proves them wrong or shows up a weakness in their arguments they fall over themselves to claim the site is a liberal conspiracy.) He then ignores centuries of research, discoveries and advances and implies that this one theory is the only thing scientists have ever used to figure anything out. From this nonsensical conceit he wanders off into a bunch of Creationist talking points and fails to prove anything. He cites research with blind cavefish which he thinks proves his point, completely failing to see that it does the opposite. Stewart Cowan’s never presented a coherent or convincing argument against evolution, but this one’s even weaker than normal. As the only people who can be bothered to continually comment on his blog are equally uninformed and blinkered he has no need to improve his arguments, so they seem to be devolving. Manchester councillor Pat Karney, who’s responsible for the city centre, wants to ban the Christian Voice demo from chanting vainly at future Pride parades. The tiny band of narrow minded protesters have been a fixture of the parade for a few years. Last year I filmed an interview with one of them before the parade started. Annoyingly I have yet to get the footage onto a computer to do anything with it. They’re something of a sad bunch- except in their own heads where they’re no doubt fighting bravely against a tidal wave of sin and perversion- but they definitely shouldn’t be banned. Twenty or so homophobes with banners get lost amongst the thousands of people who’ve come out to see the spectacle, spot friends and enjoy themselves. It’s almost symbolic- a tiny minority calling for a return to bigotry and oppression surrounded by the mass of open minded and joyful humanity. They shouldn’t be banned, that just feeds into their self righteousness and imagined martyrdom, they should be allowed to come back every year and humiliate themselves. Perhaps the realisation will filter through to some of them that they’re missing out on the joys of being a decent caring human being and find a nicer denomination or (even better) none at all. As pointed out by some of the commenters on the report, Karney’s call, if not outright hypocritical, does show a lack of joined up thinking. If hate laws must be used to silence a few delusional god-botherers why weren’t they used last year to keep the English Defence League out of Manchester? The EDL’s values are just as wrong, if not moreso, and they’re a far nastier bunch to have to deal with. If you try to stop evangelicals showing their ignorance in public then you’re giving the Catholic church room to call for protesters with valid questions about clerical child abuse to be hidden away when the Pope visits. Let Christian Voice protest all they want. The crowd will prove how wrong they are. The helicopter flew beyond the City of Manchester stadium and turned to survey the surrounding area. It went as far east as the grand, run down Philips Park cemetery then came back to study the traffic on the wide Hulme Hall Lane and Alan Turing Way. With no clues from the ground it was going to be a hard time finding the white van they sought. There were several, heading in multiple directions, any of which could be the one they should be following. They called in vans as they spotted them and waited for some plod on the pavement to spot the target. The call came from an officer on a bicycle, who had just popped up from patrolling nearby canal towpaths to have a look around. The van was heading southeast, toward the junction by the City ground. The eye in the sky acknowledged the call and took up a viewing position. The van turned right, heading down another side of the football stadium and toward the city centre again. The helicopter dipped its nose and headed in roughly the same direction. Other fiction by Ian Pattinson Ruby Red- available as an ebook through Lulu.com or for the Kindle. So Much to Answer For- available as print on demand or ebook from Lulu.com or for the Kindle as part of the Post and Publish collection. Global Weirding- available as print on demand or ebook from Lulu.com or for the Kindle as part of the Post and Publish collection. Sounds of Soldiers- available as print on demand or ebook from Lulu.com or for the Kindle as part of the Post and Publish collection. I cycle past MoSI on the way to work. It’s been a year or so since I was last in there, so I think I can wait until this work’s finished before going for another look.
Love it or hate it, graffiti is everywhere. So any modern image layout would be incomplete without some. Stencil art is a recent innovation in graffiti, using templates cut out of card to give sharp edges and repeatable icons. This set contains 13 stencil designs, each one repeated 12 times so the taggers can leave them all over town. They’re printed on clear transfer paper so they can be laid over any background. They will suit OO gauge as large stencils or O as smaller ones. 
For anyone who thinks that their dollhouse is a little too clean comes this subtle but dirty bed. Slip it into the main bedroom of your 1:12th scale dollhouse to hint at the rude goings on when the full size folks aren’t watching or put it on a shelf somewhere as a sign of what you’d like to do. There may be more naughty dollhouse furniture in the future, and it will probably be less subtle.
For a limited time I’ve lowered the price of Post and Publish, my novella and short story collection for Amazon’s Kindle. For the rest of the month it shall be available for £0.74 ($0.99 in the US store). Get it now, before the price goes back up again. And don’t worry if you don’t have a Kindle. You can get the reader software for PC, iPhone or iPod Touch, iPad or Android phone. Kings of Pastry. Hobo With A Shotgun. Land Of Plenty. Amigo. Lake Placid 3. Beijing Punk. Red Nights. Dancing Ninja. Legacy. The Wicker Tree – Teaser Trailer Uploaded by dreadcentral. – Full seasons and entire episodes online. the Wicker Tree.  There’s a ticket on your penis extension, originally uploaded by spinneyhead. Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!  Such a dirty old town., originally uploaded by spinneyhead. And if anyone would know it would be a pigeon. |
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, an account of the German bombing campaign against London and the south of England during the First World War. After Zeppelins were no longer effective, the England Squadron flew 
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