Fantasist's Scroll

Okay, movie hype has reached a “whole new level”.
Look , I like Batman. I read the comic books. I watched the original series. I watched all the different cartoons, and still do, when I can manage it. I love the movies. Even the bad ones! But, when Forbes is running an article about how to be Batman, well, I think we’ve gone a little to far. Though, they haven’t gone as far as HowStuffWorks, who has a How the Batsuit Works page and a How the Batmobile Works page.

Well, what the heck, it is Friday, after all. Click on one of the links. They’re all good!

Look, I made more art!
I needed a fantasy world to escape into, so I made one. Well, part of one. So far, I’m just experiementing with some stock images, but at least I’m producing things. ThisVue d’Espirit program is really intuitive, for me, and makes great output very easy to produce. Or so I’m told. So far, I’ve only made really good output, but I see the potential for great. Who knows, one day, someone might actually donate money for the art I produce! Yeah, okay, that might be asking too much, but, still… On the other hand, I’ve been thinking about saving up the money for a new color printer. Rumor has it that Epson produces archival quality inks for their inkjet printers. In theory, I could use them to produce prints that I could sell. Make a limited number of prints, frame them, and sell them on eBay or, dare I say it, my very own web page!

Okay, this may be fun for a limited number of people…
But, I’ve “invented” a generator based on the tables found in the d20 Past supplement for TSR’s, er, Wizards of the Coast’s d20 Modern Roleplaying Game. It’s from the section on pulp heros. Specifically, it’s the table for randomly generating inventions for your pulp-age scientist. Now, fully automated by yours truly.
So, what are you waiting for? Go whip up some Pulp Science-Fiction Inventions!

Aw, c’mon, it’s Friday, what have you got to lose?

I love Dune.
I love the Dune Encyclopedia even more. I have a now very rare, hard-back copy of this wonderful book, but it is sadly out of print. I treasure my copy and will, on occasion, simply thumb through the pages randomly reading entries. The imagination that generated the source material for the Dune universe, and the creative people who created the Dune Encyclopedia are equally brilliant, in my opinion.
In any case, you can get a fairly good PDF of the Dune Encyclopedia for free by simply clicking on the link. It’s worth the 10 megabyte download. Trust me.

What if Darth Vader were a chick?
Okay, so I saw “Revenge of the Sith” last week Sunday afternoon with a friend and it was good. Not great, but, considering we all knew how it would end anyway, it was pretty good. Special effects were first rate and seeing it on the IMAX screen was, well, like the “old days” of movie going. Well worth the $10.
Anyway, someone said something the other day that got me thinking… How different would all these movies have been if Anakin Skywalker had been, say “Anne” or “Annabelle” Skywalker? How much more tragic would that scene in Episode V have been when Darth told Luke the truth? “Luke, I’m your mother!” After all, mothers are supposed to be the source of all comfort and care and light. Imagine the horror of your own mother turning to the Dark Side and trying to twist you to a path of hate, fear and anger. What a powerful image that is!
Now, do any of you faithful readers, either of you, dare to re-write the Star Wars story with that one twist? I dare you.

Not just water and rocks!
Nope, this time, I included some free science-fiction objects with their “skins” mapped differently. In their original forms, they weren’t shiny enough to be science-fiction. If it’s not sparkly and shiny enough, it just can’t be high-tech! (Hmm, I should make sure my brother in R&D at Motorola knows that…)
Anyway, I created this because someone who reads my site complained that my digital art was all a little too antediluvian for his taste. And, I have to admit, it all did seem somewhat, well, “prehistoric”. Now, keep in mind, these pictures are all done with the FREE version of Vue d’Espirit which is several revs behind the full version and severly lacking in features. Also, all the good free stuff is done for the newer versions, so my subject matter is fairly restricted. Still, I think I do a fair job, all things considered. I can only imagine what I could accomplish if I spent the money on the full version. Someday, perhaps, someday….

Science-fiction comes to life.
William Gibson wrote about this ages ago, but it’s finally coming true. A video “screen” that is projected onto glasses. From what I read in this article on Australian IT, it seems to work on any kind of glasses at all. They say that if you’re one of those lucky few that don’t need corrective lenses, it will project just fine onto sunglasses. “It”, incidentally, is the TeleGlass which was developed by a Japanese microscope maker called Scalar. The article talks about people using this to watch portable DVD players, but it also mentions the recent update of the Sony Walkman to include digital video. Coincidence? Knowing how the Japanese kieretsu do business, probably not. Do I care? NO, because this is that damn cool.

No kidding.
Ever wonder how those really neat Jedi weapons actually work? Well, Howstuffworks.com has an article about How Lightsabers Work. I love these psuedo-scientific looks at science-fiction technology and lightsabers have long been a favorite of mine.
The funny thing is, I once had a long conversation with my brother about this very topic. Now, that might not seem like much, but my older brother has a PhD. in Physical Chemistry and worked with lasers for years as part of his doctorate research. The man knows lasers. He told me that it might actually be possible to focus a laser, or array of lasers, in such a way that you could actually create a sword-length beam. The trick is getting the engergy to power it. To make a laser or lasers powerfull enough to get lightsaber-like results, would take an enourmas amount of power that could not possibly be contained in a handle-sized device. Today. Who knows what might happen tomorrow.

Anyway, that’s enough deep thoughts for a Friday. Go, click the link and enjoy the fun!