Now I have a working base unit for the Bucket Wheel Excavator it’s time to make the rotating base which serves as the connector for the conveyors and bucket wheel arm. This build took two hours. I had only really budgeted about ninety minutes of time and so I was feeling quite tired towards the end, but the result is gorgeous.
Base Superstructure
Here’s some detail of the build.
Cogs ‘n’ Stuff
I’m about a third of the way through the instructions and not quite halfway through the separate bags!
Here’s the conveyor superstructure part way through the build:
Conveyor Super Structure
This is the initial joining of the pieces but with more work still to do:
This Lego model is being constructed in sections. These communications are in line with the numbered bags of legos in the kit. The first part of the kit was to make the dumper truck covered here, this took about an hour.
Here is my workspace:
Work Space
I use pasta bowls to hold the pieces while I work. This saves them from dropping into the fireplace or bouncing under furniture on the floor.
This was the first main part of this part of the build:
Central Chassis
More of the framework:
Open Square?
And this is the final part of this build. This section is the base unit with driver gears for the caterpillar tracks.
Caterpillar Chassis Completed
This took about an hour. So far, total time is two hours.
Another in this mni-Lego season. Here we have Qui-Gon fighting Darth Maul in the Naboo power station (?). Obi-Wan awaits to avenge what is about to happen!
Duel On Naboo
You are being spoilt these days as we have another gallery for you!
I took a birthday trip to see Kong: Skull Island at the Rochester Cineworld Cinema. If you don’t know me by now, then you’ll never, ever know that I rate my movies on the IMDB website, but there’s a catch. I explained my rating system here, but I think scores have been creeping recently so I may have to redefine the system. Watch this space. When I decide my score I tweet it, which leads to a quite nice embedded format:
I had originally scored this as a 6, but upon reflection it didn’t deserve to be rated that highly, hence my change of mind.
Because, this film, was, shit.
SPOILERS ahead.
The script was appalling, lazy, stereotypical bullshit. Samuel L Jackson’s eyes got too much screen time. The film makers can’t count helicopters.
The monsters looked brilliant. I’m not really aware of the mythology around the Kong character but in this film he seemed to be more of an accidental benevolent monster type thing rather like Godzilla than all out terrible monster. I guess it’s OK because he fell in love with Brie Larson, who didn’t get smashed to death inside Kong’s hand while he ripped the brain out of a two legged lizard thing. It was irritating that Brie Larson seemed to spend all her time with a bag strap over her chest to enhance her breasts, this wasn’t needed, it seemed sexist to me.
The characters were terrible. War mad generals, smooth calm SAS member, crazy scientist with stupid theories, tribe who don’t speak. It was lazy terrible bullshit.
I can suspend my disbelief for gigantic monsters on an island surrounded by a perpetual storm. That bit was fine. The rest of this was bollocks.
It’s the little things. Little things that shouldn’t be things I have to write about. Like helicopters that materialise from nowhere. On the ship travelling to Skull Island there were, quite clearly, one Chinook, one Sea Stallion and four Hueys. All of a sudden when they take off to head to Skull Island the Hueys had babies and there were eight of them!! I have no idea where they came from. I also don’t know where the helos at the end of the film came from unless the US Navy had a task force nearby.
Oh, the Hueys had tape players and speakers. I can’t quite decide if this was an homage to Apocalypse Now! or just a plain bullshit rip off. The shots were almost exactly the same.
If you want a film with rebellious music, at least make the music decent. There was a ton of decent stuff around in the 1973 setting.
The two chaps who had crashed on Skull Island in the opening sequence made a boat out of aircraft parts. The team spent about a day turning this hulk of 29 year old metal into a working boat by turning some bolts and waggling some leavers. They made a metal thing work smoothly after 29 years in a humid environment. They must be geniuses. Oh and then, when they get the engine running it pops away smoothly and quietly in the background. Let me tell you that there are NO aero engines that run “quietly” in the background. That engine would have been producing in excess of 900bhp and no silencing. The makeshift boat would have torn itself apart.
According to the Wikipedia page I missed the post-credits scene where other monsters are revealed to the viewer. I don’t care.
If I wanted to be very extremely generous I could claim that the film was a complete metaphor for the USA’s battle against terrorism with Kong representing the terrorists. But I don’t want to be generous with this film.
Part two of the journey into the largest Technic Lego kit ever available. I made the dumper trump that comes with the bucket excavator. It’s a nice little kit with steering and a raising bed.
This is part one of a series of communications about Lego Model 42055. It’s a monster and so will be spread in sections as I am looking forward to categorising my journey.
This is the box:
42055 – The Box
There’s a Lego DeLorean on top to give an idea of scale. It is a very big box. It is the largest Technics set. The box has a gatefold style to it and so opens out to look like this:
42055 – Gatefold Image
The next exciting part was opening the box and spreading out the various part-bags. There are nearly four thousand pieces in this monstrosity and here some of them are:
42055 – Some Of The Parts
The white box on the right has the instruction book and also more part-bags in it!
42055 – Second Lot Of Parts
And finally for your delectation I have an image of the instruction book.
42055 – Instruction Book
Thus ends the first communication concerning 42055.
I know they are the best we have but sometimes there needs to be some serious editorial control from the BBC because they publish utter rubbish like this:
Bad Headline
This is the first article in the Health News section for today. Click on the story and you get this:
Terrible Article
First up, a warning. The word CHIROPRACTIC already flags this up as a terrible article. The only responsible news item that mentions CHIROPRACTIC is one where there is a decent discussion of why it is rubbish and doesn’t work.
Rather than get enraged at the poor reporting lets look at the data and quotations included in the article.
First the BCA is quoted as saying that clothes can be bad for us. Then in the next paragraph:
However, the research has been rejected by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and other back experts.
They say we shouldn’t be afraid of our clothes.
Real doctors and scientists say this is bollocks. Then there follows plenty of gumpf from the BCA about what items can be damaging. While the BBC do “balance” this with more quotations from proper scientists they have already done the damage by publishing this shit.
In a section called “What’s the reality?” [it’s not reality, it’s written by the BCA] the BBC write:
The BCA’s poll of 1,062 people found 73% had suffered back pain and 33% were not aware that clothing could affect their back, neck or posture. They warn that any item of clothing that restricts movement, or that leads people to stand or walk unnaturally, can have a negative impact on the posture, back or neck.
There are major problems here. First they say a survey found that people have suffered back pain. So fucking what? I’ve suffered back pain. Most people have. Then, apparently, one third of people aren’t aware that clothing can affect your back, neck or posture. Well, given it’s not a thing they can’t know about it can they? This article relies on people being unable to understand a causation-correlation problem. Surveys are the worst of scientific evidence, but slightly better than anecdote.
At the base of the BBC article there is a quotation from the head of practice at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy who says that disseminating this false information could lead to real problems. The BBC need to get an editor who understands a load of bollocks when it is written and when to pull it. I am not going to look but I bet there are loads of news articles online and in print running this bollocks too.
Steve Tolan, head of practice at the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, says “reading scare stories about skinny jeans is probably more harmful than actually wearing them.
“People should wear whatever is comfortable and they feel good in – skinny jeans and hoodies included. They certainly shouldn’t fear that their clothes are going to do them harm as there is no evidence for that.
“What is probably more relevant is whether a woman thinks that they are wearing something that is damaging their back, says Dr O’Keeffe.
“The beliefs about the jeans and bags may not only be incorrect, but detrimental if they cause worry about the spine being fragile and discourage women from moving normally and wearing what they want.
“Misconceptions regarding the causes and treatments of low back pain are widespread. This story about skinny jeans and heavy bags is just another myth in the long list of myths about back pain.
“It fits with the misconception that load and movement are bad and that the spine is a vulnerable structure that is easily damaged. Strong evidence shows that this is not true.”
I thought I ought to look at the BCA article or press release to see what it said. So I went to their website.
The “research” was probably a telephone or internet based survey. The BCA don’t link to the actual results. There is so much wrong with this article it infuriates me. As my tweet earlier said:
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!
Research from the BCA! Grrrrrrrrrrrr.
This “news” article is an advert masquerading as serious science. It’s bullshit. It’s designed to make people think “oh, I feel like that”, then they visit the BCA website and try to find a local chiropractor. This will cause proper injuries as chiropractic DOESN’T work.
I don’t understand the Sunday night gig thing. I do know that the law changed a while back to allow dancing and music for public entertainment on Sundays but I don’t understand why so many gigs are now on Sundays, in London. Can’t the cities in the rest of the country have the Sunday gig? Sunday nights out are a big inconvenience.
First band up were already playing when Smith and I got into the venue. They were called Car Bomb and they were shit. Some of the crowd really liked them, but I couldn’t get on with their music. There didn’t seem to be any method or pattern to it at all, there wasn’t really any good riffing or beat.
Car Bomb @ O2 Forum
There’s a possibility I’m too old for the newer styles of metal like core-metal and nu-metal. Code Orange were the next band. They had a drummer singer and a bassist who ran around and got the crowd going but who didn’t sing. There was also a female guitarist but I’m not sure if mentioning that is sexist or not. They were much better than the first band and they actually had some songs that had a good rhythm. I’ve got written down that they were core-metal with some good riffage. I don’t think this is my thing.
Code Orange @ O2 Forum
And we come to the finale. Gojira are a French metal band along the lines of Mastodon but less pretentious? I have listened to some of their stuff and think it’s better than Mastodon.
Gojira @ O2 Forum
The sound was BIG. The light show was excellent. There was a video backdrop and it fitted very well with the songs and general atmosphere. The crowd was heaving and packed.
More Gojira @ O2 Forum
This was a good gig and it was nice to get back to the heavy metal sound.
Unfortunately I felt incredibly rough during the show and I left early. It had been a long weekend with lots of travelling. I feel bad for leaving Smith there, but I needed to get into fresh air and home. At least I saw the first half of the show. Gojira seemed overwhelmed at the support they had in London.
In an unusual move I went to the cinema this morning to an 11:00 showing! I’d already had a run so I figured why not? I won’t embed that here, you can search my Twitter timeline if you want to see that. As is usual I rated the film on IMDB and for an explanation of the rating system you should read this communication.
So, I enjoyed the film. It was pretty violent and very well done. It wasn’t that violent given what I have seen in the past but I guess for a 15 it was impressive.
WARNING there are SPOILERS from HERE.
I don’t like superhero films. Or mutant films. Most of them are rubbish. This one was good but not brilliant. I’ve seen people raving about it and I think that’s mostly the rubbish they’ve been fed over the years colouring their view.
I need to add that the whole idea that the kids would be safe once they “crossed the border” was odd given that the company chasing them was perfectly happy to blow shit up in Mexico and the USA and so probably wouldn’t mind popping into Canada.
It was lovely to see Richard E Grant being evil.
This film was going to be rated 6/10 but I have given it 8/10 because of the major deaths that take place in the film. I though it was important to give those characters some honour.
With reference to the previous communication I can update the main blockages on the ADS-B splat. I wrote about this before here.
Blocked Areas Labelled
The blocked area labelled 1 covers the North Downs. This natural boundary lurks to the NE of me and I can’t do a great deal about it.
The blockage labelled 2 is, I believe, down to the aerial being inside my loft and the terrace houses of my block extending in that direction. I wrote about that here. The only way to improve this range would be to get the aerial placed above the roof of my house, which is not a job I am going to undertake. I may, however, consider getting someone else to do it.
These communications contain many items concerning the virtual radar system that lives in my loft and you can see a selection here. A short while ago I decided to buy an pre-amp and filter for my system to improve the range and number of aircraft being received. So, this communication now requires a large number of pictures to give you an idea of what this means.
Pre Filter Range 1
In the above picture you can see that there are around 20 aircraft and the black area [the range of the receiver] doesn’t quite reach Norwich, Portsmouth, Bristol or Calais. There is the NW-SE block as described before.
Coloured Splat
This coloured splat gives pretty much the same information but uses colours for the ranges of aircraft at different altitudes.
I bought a filter which only allows signals close to the 1090MHz requirement through to the USB stick I bought. It also acts as a pre-amp so there is an overall 14 dB gain.
Pre-Amp and Filter held securely in place
Here is the whole Virtual Radar system living in the loft:
Pre-Amp Filter, USB, Raspberry Pi
Once this kit was turned on I looked at the DUMP1090 output from the Raspberry Pi and pretty much shat myself at the number of aricraft shown:
Initial DUMP1090 view
When this view is compared to the twenty or so aircraft that I had before you can see an immense improvement in the receivers ability.
Virtual Radar Server View
Virtual Radar Server is a program I use on the RPi for a more detailed view, there are quite a few customisations you can create also. It is the software that will create the splat over time, keeping track of the aircraft and their position.
Holy Splat!
The distances have increased as has the overall coverage. I now track around 100 aircraft at a time. For a small sum of money the overall increase in detail has been terrific. I can now reach over northern France, over Wales and a lot of the channel to the SW.
Last night I went to see Hidden Figures. It has been a while since I’ve been to the cinema as things are just a little busy at the moment. I’m sure I’ll catch up in the next month or so. I’ve had a recommendation to see Logan and given my general dislike of superhero films it will be interesting to see it.
I went to see Hidden Figures. It is customary for me to rate films on IMDB and I did so.
Perhaps you should read my reasoning behind my ratings, although I have to admit the logic is shifting slowly over time, as should be expected I guess.
Hidden Figures was a good film. It was about some of my favourite topics; space, rockets, maths, civil rights, humanity.
Quite a broad range of topics there, but this film managed them all. This was the story of three mathematicians at NASA. That doesn’t sound particularly impressive until you suddenly say BLACK FEMALE mathematicians at NASA in the early 1960s. Everyone should see this film, it has the right amount of everything, really worth while.
It stuns me to see how different people were treated. God, people can be fucking assholes.
Saw a lovely part of London today when I walked along the Regent’s Canal today. I was learning some maths in town and I had to walk from St Pancras to the venue and rather than walk along the main roads I took the tow path. I’m glad I did.
Part Of The Canal
I also saw this exquisite book shop. There was music playing from loud speakers as I walked past and plenty of vinyl on display.
Bookshop
I also saw a lovely old industrial building that, if I had loads of money and the relevant experience I would turn this into a music venue.
It’s a shame I don’t have money, the contacts, the experience or any industry knowledge at all!
My Future Venue
When I got back home I went for a run and jogged past this quality piece of Kent countryside. I think this is the second burnt out car to grace these pages!
They cut out the VIN
But, there is good news: This lovely view over the Medway and Tonbridge and Malling Borough.
The Scala is a curious venue in Kings Cross. It might not actually be in Kings Cross geographically but it is close enough to the station and so that is where I proclaim it to be. I had been here before to see Therapy? and quite liked the venue. This time I was watching VNV Nation who I very briefly saw last year at M’Era Luna when they got a harsh review from me but Smith and I were rushing off to see Hocico so we only saw them briefly.
Doors were at 7pm and we got in there around 19:30 hrs after grabbing some food at a Cho Zen [where I had never eaten before]. The room is up three flights of art-deco stairs [I think they were art-deco] and around a few corners. It’s not an easy venue to fire exit I imagine.
This particular tour was a compendium tour. I hadn’t realised that, I think Smith and I got tickets because we thought the atmosphere and people would be quite similar to Slimelight and we figured the music would be bearable. There was no support. Just straight in to VNV Nation playing loud and proud.
I didn’t know a great deal about the band before this gig and I still don’t really but I can tell you the singer is Irish. He also has similar issues with people using camera phones as I do. After the first song he said that he is happy with people videoing or photographing the band but everyone needed to turn off their flash/lights and also keep the camera in front of their own face, not block those around. In terms of the flash he is spot on. Why use a low powered flash in that sort of scene, it won’t work, it’ll just ruin your final product.
VNV Nation
One of my issues with people and cameras is they use the digital zoom to get a “better close up” but the problem is they would be better off taking a full zoomed-out picture and then cropping. Digital zoom and cropping achieve roughly the same thing but less jerky.
More VNV Nation
So, I need to speak about the songs. All of their songs are pretty good. They are well constructed and good to dance to. The lead singer was good at getting the crowd going and he was really the only one doing any movement as the others were stuck behind electronic stuff.
They played two slow songs. During a song, which may or may not have been a slow one, the singer got the lights turned down and the room was lit by people holding the lights on their phones up. This was very nice and atmospheric.
This was a good fun gig. Nearly three hours of a single band playing their greatest songs from over twenty years of work. I enjoyed it. I’d happily see them again.
The “scene” wasn’t as alternative as I was expecting. There weren’t that many people who were part of the dress up scene such as the ones at Slimelight or M’Era Luna.
While taking a jog from SMP near junction 12 of the M20 here in Kent I noticed the gorgeous curves of a water tower. I like this design because it clearly is a DESIGN and not a “let’s build it as strong as possible” clump of bricks. Most water towers are inelegant, this one is gorgeous.
Curves
I have a suspicion that these curves are catenaries, Gaudí uses them a lot in his cathedral.
Along with the lovely curves of that delicious monster the sun was rising over the sea. Here’s a view.
I’m quite proud of that last picture. I do think I’d be quite happy living is this home:
