Custom Green Lantern Ch'p Action Figure

Awhile ago I picked up a clearance Rocket Raccoon figure. It wasn't a fully posable figure like a proper 6" Marvel Legends figure, but it did have a nice gun that was better than the one that came with the Marvel Legend's Rocket.

With the left over lesser Rocket figure, I decided to use his head and tail to make a Green Lantern Ch'p figure. I dremeled down the nose and I dremeled out a new mouth and I placed the head onto a Green Lantern B'dg body I picked up from eBay.

Ch'p has been drawn wildly different by different artists over the years, but I've always been partial to the early 80s version, which always looked as much like like a half raccoon, half squirrel to me.

Ch'p should be a pretty safe custom. He's been dead in the comics for over a decade and in continuity has been pretty much replaced by the more Rabbit looking B'dg, so there probably won't be a figure made of him anytime soon.

But of course, now that I've made a custom, I'm sure a proper figure will be announced in the next few months, as that's what usually happens when I make one of these figures. :)

What Life Really Costs at $7.25 an Hour
source: Meidum

Documentary 'Print the Legend' Goes Inside the World of 3D Printing
source: Mashable

This movie on Netflix starts a little slow, but hang in there, it's an interesting film.

Why Now for Apple Watch | stratechery by Ben Thompson
source: stratechery

I believe that in the long run – i.e. not this version of the Apple Watch, but the one several iterations down the line – the Watch will have cellular capability and the ability to interface with any number of objects, including accessories that have larger screens and/or superior input methods,1 and will be the center of your computing existence. From Apple’s perspective, that means the Watch category is the very long-term replacement for the iPhone, at least for some segment of the population.

Han Solo, Star-Lord And Captain Mal Discuss The Joy Of Shooting First
source:

Nexus Player is Google's first Android TV device | The Verge
source:


Interesting.

$99 Puck. $39 Game Controller. November 3rd.

"Aspirational" - Kirsten Dunst by Matthew Frost for Vs. Magazine
source: FashionTube

Really nice 2 minute film. Great social commentary.

Real space battles would be more 'Asteroids' than 'Star Wars'
source: It's okay to be smart

Pebble smartwatch currently on sale for just $99.99 at Best Buy
source: Android Central

Interesting pricepoint. It seems at this point adoption will be slow until either the color Apple Watch or Android Gear Watches hit that pricepoint though.

Spreadsheet123 free premium spreadsheet templates will make your life so much easier [Freeware]
source: The Red Ferret Journal

Neat

Incomplete episodes from canceled 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' animation released online
source: The Verge

An artist desk with paper storage
source: IKEA Hackers

Chrome OS Stable channel updated with MTP support
source: Android Central

The MTP support in the Chrome OS Files app lets you plug your Android device into a Chromebook and get files from that device.

Rare footage of the 1914 Martian conflict - Boing Boing
source: Boing Boing

Interesting 3 min video.

We've Spotted A Fatal Flaw In Hydra's Secret Quest For World Domination
source: iO9

I agree that they should cut back on the Hydra Logo use a little.

Jerry Seinfeld's Clio Acceptance Speech
source: Youtube

3D Printed Monster from 2D Drawing in 123D Design
source:

I like the simple paperclip joints.

Portable Standing Desk: StandStand
source: SwissMiss

Sensor Sense easily access what your phone sensors see in real time
source: The Red Ferret Journal

3D Printing Models From Computer Games
source: Hackaday

Second episode of The Flash on CW tonight!

Leopoly's Web-Based 3D Modeler
source: Fabbaloo

Custom action figures using 3D printed heads
source: Instructables

The World's Saddest Robot Looks For A Friend In Post-Apocalyptic Paris
source:i09

3D Systems 3D Print Boxtrolls At Home
source: TheFwoosh.com

The American Middle Class Hasnt Gotten A Raise In 15 Years
source: FiveThirtyEight

But they keep going to work.

Please don't ask me to visit my bank in virtual reality
source: The Verge

At times, it seemed as if Wells Fargo was trying to integrate banking into every hot new technology, whether it was practical or not. One idea, for example: Customers could use an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset to virtually walk into a bank branch and talk to a teller.

There have been a couple high profile experiments with this sort of thing already. Sony Playstation Home, and Second Life come to mind.

My general take on VR, is that you will want to do things that are impractical in the real world, but generally not duplicate/emulate it fully.

I think many people will want a "home" on the web. Sortof like a detailed Minecraft world. While many might have a few simple virtual rooms, ie: One to learn basic info about them, another for photos, maybe book or media recommendations, etc. I'm sure others will create elaborate connections to all manner of services.

People won't want to waste a lot of time virtually walking though. Virtual teleportation, sure. If it's a shared VR space, you'll see people beaming in and out of your space constantly.

VR won't replace voice, web, text or email. If a task is easier to do with those tools, people will continue to do them using those older tools.

People probably will want to watch movies and tv, once the screens get virtually big and good enough. People will also choose to watch shows with other people's virtual avatars. Pausing and talking during the show.

People will want to play some 1st person shooter games, but 1st person shooters will be easier to play longer on a non-vr regular flatscreen. The 1st person shooter VR experience will make most people motion sick, so they'll prefer it as it is today over VR.

However, people will want to play virtual boardgames, think chess, Monopoly, Heroclix, and that sort of thing. Those sort of spacial, slow moving, mostly stationary games will be ideal for VR. The VR will allow them to be enhanced with motion and animation in fun new ways but static non-moving stuff will be popular too.

People will want to take virtual tours. VR Google Maps Streeview, VR Museums, and VR movie sets will be very popular. Businesses may even install a few 360 cameras in their location, so people can virtually "beam in" and look around before committing to visiting in RL.

VR concerts where the performer is on stage in a smaller venue and the viewer can look around from a stationary spot fed by a 360 camera in the front row, will be very popular.

Watching VR sports will be less popular, too much distance traveled/occupied for most of sports for them to be compelling in VR, motion sickness again. Tennis, Fencing, wrestling and other sports that happen in a tight small locations will be popular though, in these smaller venues, the concert experience described above will work well.

There will be a whole category of Virtual presence TV-like experiences, where real world events will have stationary 360 cameras that VR participants can view the event from.

People will want to VR chat with the avatars of people they know, less so with the avatars of businesses and brands. People will mostly want to text and short message businesses and brands. This won't stop brands from creating 3D animated avatars of 100 years of cartoon spokes characters and trying to force this experience on people though.

VR will be a thing, but it won't be a perfect emulation of the real world, any more than the web is a digital emulation of a physical library.

HoneyComb: A New and Free Browser-Based Parametric CAD Platform for 3D Printing
source: SolidSmack

LukeW | An Event Apart: SVG is for Everybody
source:

Dealing with Fallbacks

• SVG needs fallback for IE 6-8 and Android 2.
• One fallback is to show nothing. If you are using SVG for icon enhancements, you may not need them on lower end browsers.
• Multiple background support is basically as good as SVG support so you can use them as fallbacks in background-images.
• CSS is decorative and non-vital to content, so no fallback might be needed.
• If you need to support fallbacks for inline SVG, you can use Modernizer, hiding/showing image and SVG elements, and other Javascript solutions like SVG for Everybody".
• You should also optimize your SVG files like you optimize other Web graphics. SVG-O is a tool that can do that for you.
• There's a number of build tools you can use to help with the creation & authoring of SVG images.

DIY Mini Table Saw Cutting Machine
source: DealExtreme

Make an Armature for Sculpting!
source: Instructables

The (Latecomer) Beginner's Guide To Minecraft
source: Makeuseof

The Flash

CW premiere was yesterday. It's a good show.

Generations

Boomers are mostly a thing. Some of the older Generation X have merged with Boomers.

There's a classic Generation X that has merged with the oldest of Generation Y that don't really see themselves as Millennials.

The Millennials main identity is that they are younger than everyone, except the oldest of them really aren't any more, so that identity is going to fall apart somewhat over the next 5 years.

There was a good 100 year run where these labels were useful, you could broadly bucket American people of approximately the same age together because they were all doing the same life milestones at roughly the same time.

It ain't that way anymore. Age is a pretty sloppy way of looking at what stage of life a lot of people are in now.

Instead of "Generations" people are probably sitting in a matrix that looks something like at right.

Axis 1 - Young or Old.

Axis 2 - Has Kids or No Kids.

Axis 3 - Gig Economy or Traditional Employer.

The young or old thing is one part physical age, one part mental age and one part how the bulk of society perceives you.

Having or not having kids is pretty self explanatory.

Gig Economy or Traditional 9 to 5 employer, is a pretty recent axis addition. I'd even lump people who are at Traditional employers but move around every 3 or 4 years into the Gig Economy bucket too.

Ignoring groups of people held together by specialty niche interest topics for a moment, where you sit in the above matrix will probably have more to do with who you identify with, and how you behave than comparing yourself to the Generation you were born into, and I think for the people even younger than the Millennials, that will be even more the case.

Star Wars Rebels

Watched the new Disney XD, Star Wars Rebels series 1st episode Sunday.

I enjoyed it. The computer generated animation seemed a little rough in spots, but the nice thing about computer animated shows, they get better with each episode as they develop a library of models and animations they can reuse.

The story, was in the vein of Star Wars IV: A New Hope. It hit a lot of familiar beats from that first movie.

The lead character, Ezra, above, is your Luke Skywalker/Anakin point of view character. Although in the first episode, he came across as Disney's Aladdin.

The rest of the crew has a Firefly vibe to them, that's not a bad thing, it should make for good episodic television.

I never watched much of the Clone Wars Animated Series. I got behind and then never caught up. But I'm looking forward to following this new show week to week.

The first episode is on Comcast On Demand right now, if you've missed it.

The Atom

Ray Palmer, The Atom, is coming to Arrow and also Flash on the CW this Season. The Atom was always a favorite character of mine. The shrinking powerset is fun, but you also have the classic Gil Kane costume design too.

I'm looking forward to what they do with the character on TV this year.