Let's Play Dress-Up! Halloween '09 (part two)

We left off last time when I wasn't even like half done. Turns out, things like spray paint and papier mache take the Hell-ass long to dry. Anyway, I got it done and it turned out acceptable, so here's the wrap-up!

The next step was to assemble the blade/tape-frame thing and fasten everything in place with finishing nails. With enough duct tape, cardboard, styrofoam, and finishing nails, you can make pretty much any prop. Look, see:

The above was taken after laying the first two layers of papier mache (with newspaper), which ended up including the smaller blade because the bare cardboard looked even more like crap than the main blade, and now it just looks less like crap. This is what I get for giving myself one week instead of, say, three; lesson learned. Anyway, after spraypainting the smaller blade silver, I used toilet paper to papier mache over the whole non-sharp part, then I used Plasti-Dip (rubberizer) to smooth out the transition from arm to blade. I am very happy with how the texture came out:

click for huge!

I think that's a very good approximation of the kind of thing I was going for:

source

The tendrils also turned out rather acceptable:

And here's what the whole thing looks like on top of a laser printer:

We had a costume party at the office on Friday, and I got someone to take a couple pictures on my cell phone, but they mostly turned out awful. This is one I took myself, and I think it's OK:

I had to do a bit of 'shopping (here's the original), as you can probably tell, but with the scratchy face, the bloodied frame, and the slight discoloration, I think that's more or less in keeping with the game's aesthetic. Good enough for me, anyway. And, of course, for anyone who doesn't know what this is all about, here's the intro video:

Happy Halloween, y'all! Time for me to start writing The Quantum Mechanic. Wish me luck!

101 Interesting Things, part thirty-one: The Sandbox Tree

Many thanks to Silver Garou for tipping me off to a tree in desperate need of a better PR agent. The sandbox tree is a native to Central and South America, and so-called because its unripe fruit was used in colonial times to make "pounce pots," also called "sandboxes." These devices hold ink blotting materials such as talc powder, finely-ground salt, or even actual sand. This is perhaps the most boring quality of the tree, rather like calling your automobile a "portable cupholder." The only way they could have named the sandbox tree in any more boring a fashion would be to call it "the bark-having tree," or perhaps "the leafy tree." See, look, it has those things:

source

This is a tragedy because the sandbox tree, AKA "monkey no-climb," is about the least boring tree in the world. In order from least to most impressive, it can stab, poison, or even shoot you: not only can it kill you with its caustic sap, not only can it kill you with its spiny bark, not only can it kill you with its toxic leaves and seeds, but this tree can fuck shit up for anyone within a football field by way of its explosive fruit.

Read that again. It's better the second time, I promise.

To be fair, the sandbox tree is also called "the dynamite tree" due to the loud report of its seed-spreading antics. But a still-more-accurate name would be "the poison-blooded spiny-armored grenadier tree," though it would make casual conversation on the subject something of an ordeal. This tree quite simply does not fuck around. Its sap is both caustic and poisonous, its bark is also poisonous and covered in very sharp spikes, its leaves are poisonous and grow to two feet wide, and its fruit is poisonous even before it explodes. When the fruit does explode, it can throw its flat seeds about a hundred meters through the air, injuring anyone stupid enough to stay in sight of the damned thing. Although I guess I wouldn't really want to turn my back on this bastard; I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if the tree could uproot itself and walk into my home to strangle me in my sleep. Y'know, in keeping with the whole "kill anything in the area" ethic it's got going on.

Bearing all of that in mind, of course we found a way to harness such power for good or for awesome. Indigenous people rub their hunting and fishing implements on the tree, and this gets them sufficient amounts of toxin to aid them in hunting their quarry. Eat a seed and you'll get vicious cramps while your bowels evacuate both ways, while a "large" dose (consisting of two seeds) can fucking kill you - or just give you delirium and convulsions, if you're lucky. Although somehow these properties have been harnessed for recreational purposes, as some derivative of the plant is sometimes used as an additive to Ayahuasca.

For further reading, there's Cracked's Six Things That Shouldn't Explode (But Did Anyway), and Julia Griffin's Something Wicked This Way Grows, both of which come highly recommended. There's just so much interesting stuff out there!

Costume Update: As of this morning, things are looking good - I just need to hurry now.

Let's Play Dress-Up! Halloween '09 (part one)

I don't always go all-out for Halloween; actually, I usually make a point of not putting much effort into my costumes. One year I went as Wonder Woman for a "Low-Rent Superfriends" theme; then I went to a superhero costume party as The Raving Objectivist - I dressed up and did my hair like Ayn Rand's, and wore a name tag - my friend Andrew said I was her spit & image, which I took as a compliment, but it was still kinda creepy (to be fair, he was also creeped out by my appearance, even though he said it was awesome, so I guess we're even). Perhaps my favorite costume was "Zombie Apocalypse Survivor," because I got to make a mess all over myself and carry around a crowbar.

Well, one of my roommates, Rhodopsin, informed me of someone he'd seen at DragonCon who fabricated a prosthetic blade arm from Prototype, and I started thinking about how I could do such a thing, because I want one. I came up with a workable idea, my friends helped me scale it down a bit at our D&D session Friday night (what?! I'm a huge fuckin' nerd, OK?), and then I had a plan. I bought some materials on Saturday, and combined them with a few tools I had lying around the house:

...and Sunday was building day. I screwed up and made it too bulky at first (more like Nightmare's sword than Mercer's blade arm) and I wanted to make it thin and sharp-lookin'. I took a look at some online photos to get an idea, because I didn't feel like reinventing the wheel at this point, so I'm using what I've got to improvise and scale it back some more. Fortunately, I've got enough time left to start over and still end up with a product I like. So, starting over! I unwound some wire hangers for my wireframe and assembled them like so, with a handle and a styrofoam housing for the blade:

Then I taped over the frame/handle assembly and added a plastic sleeve (so I don't duct tape the whole thing to my arm - hooray for recycling grocery bags!). The whole bit looks like this:

Notice the wire "tendrils" sticking out; those will be important later on. Next, I cut cardboard to size for the blade proper, and glued it together three layers thick so it's nice & sturdy:

I have some shaping to do on it yet, but the hard part's over and the rest is tedium. I have to spraypaint and assemble the thing, then paper mache several layers over the non-sharp-like bits, add a coat of paint and rubberize the details. More later; wish me luck!

On to part 2!

Call Ripley! Bionic commandos are just an upgrade away

This really has to be seen to be believed:

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OK, so I just Googled the i-LIMB to find out more, and here's an even better looking one:

Video found in this other blog here

This is just awesome! Seriously, though, as fantastic as these prosthetics are right now, there's still a ton of potential.  Back in 2004, I read a story (I forget where) about this game called "Mind Balance" where you look at cubes on a screen to balance a tightrope walker.  The "controller" (by which I mean, "the mechanism by which the player interacts with the program") is a piece of headgear which more or less reads your mind by using EEG to determine which cube is being looked at:  look at the left one to lean left, look at the right one to lean right.  I found the story today in an archived issue of Computor Edge magazine (see page 20).  In that article are other applications of similar technologies (like using thoughts to browse the internet), and opposite applications of other technologies (such as using ultrasonic pulses to induce sensory experiences).

Fast-forward to 2007, and Australia-based Emotiv has actually built a "helmet" that can play even more sophisticated games by reading brain waves (video demonstration).  Mattel has even made the technology into a child's toy with Mind Flex.  And just in case you aren't already aware, Raytheon Sarcos has already built a prototype exoskeleton called the XOS which monitors the human wearer's movements 200 times per second, can move at human speed, and reduces the perceived weight of lifts by 95% - it makes you stronger without slowing you down (video here, just skip to 1:15 to see the machine in action).  All we need to do is to refine and integrate these technologies, and soon we'll have cyborgs and remote-controlled robots running all over the place!

OK, maybe not, but this is still really, really exciting!