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Actual art on @ a college?

Posted on October 5, 2008 by GrandAdmiralThrawn | 7 Comments by GrandAdmiralThrawn - GrandAdmiralThrawn
Filed Under Images and has these tags:

(7 votes, average: 4.43 out of 5)

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The Corpus Clock is a large sculptural clock on the outside of the Taylor Library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It was conceived and funded by John C. Taylor, an old member of the college.
It was officially unveiled to the public on September 19, 2008 by Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking

The clock’s face is a rippling 24-karat gold-plated stainless steel disc, about 1.5 metres in diameter. It has no hands or numbers, but displays the time by opening individual slits in the clock face backlit with blue LEDs; these slits are arranged in three concentric rings displaying hours, minutes, and seconds. The lights dart rapidly around the clock, pausing at the correct positions allowing the time to be read as on a normal analog clock.
The dominating visual feature of the clock is a sculpture of a grim-looking, devouring, metal insect similar to a grasshopper or locust. The sculpture is actually the clock’s escapement (see below). Taylor calls this beast the Chronophage (literally ‘time eater’, from the Greek χρόνος [chronos] time, and φαγέω [phageo] to eat). It moves its mouth, appearing to ‘eat up’ the seconds as they pass, and occasionally it ‘blinks’ in seeming satisfaction. The creature’s constant motion produces an eerie grinding sound that suits its task. The hour is tolled by the sound of a chain clanking into a small wooden coffin hidden in the back of the clock.
The clock is entirely accurate only once every five minutes. The rest of the time, the pendulum may seem to catch or stop, and the lights may lag or, then, race to get ahead. According to Taylor, this erratic motion reflects life’s “irregularity”.
Conceived as a work of public art, the Chronophage reminds viewers in a dramatic way of the inevitable passing of time. Taylor deliberately designed it to be “terrifying”: ‘Basically I view time as not on your side. He’ll eat up every minute of your life, and as soon as one has gone he’s salivating for the next.” Others have described it as “hypnotically beautiful and deeply disturbing”.
[edit]Mechanics of the clock

The Corpus Clock is a product of traditional mechanical clockmaking. It features the world’s largest grasshopper escapement, a low-friction mechanism for converting pendulum motion into rotational motion. The grasshopper escapement was an invention of eighteenth-century clockmaker John Harrison, and Taylor intended the Corpus Clock to be an homage to Harrison’s work. Since “no one knows how a grasshopper escapement works”, Taylor “decided to turn the clock inside out”[6] so that the escapement, and the escape wheel it turns, would be his clock’s defining feature.
The Corpus Clock’s clockwork is entirely mechanically controlled, without any computer programming, and electricity is used only to power an electric motor, which winds up the mechanism, and to power the blue LEDs that shine behind the slits in the clock’s face. The clock has many unexpected and innovative features; for example, the pendulum briefly stops at apparently irregular intervals, and the Chronophage sculpture moves its mouth and blinks its eyes. Taylor explains it as follows:
The gold eyelids travel across the eye and disappear again in an instant; if you are not watching carefully you will not even notice. . . . Sometimes you will even see two blinks in quick succession. The Blink is performed by a hidden spring drive, controlled in the best tradition of seventeenth century clockmakers of London. The spring is coiled up inside a housing that can be seen mounted on the large gearwheel visibly protruding from the bottom of the mechanism. As the huge pendulum below the Clock rocks the Chronophage as he steps round the great escapewheel, each backward and forward movement is used by sprag clutches to wind up the drive spring. A position step prevents the spring from being overwound yet allows the spring to be ready at an instant to drive the Blink. The mechanism is released by a countwheel with semi random spacing so the Blink takes place at any position in the to- and fro- motion of the pendulum. A further countwheel mechanism chooses a single or a double blink whilst the air damper at the top of the gear train slows the action to a realistic pace.
The Corpus Clock is expected to be able to run accurately for at least two hundred years.
[edit]Funding and realisation

Taylor invested five years and £1 million in the Corpus Clock project, and two hundred people, including engineers, sculptors, scientists, jewellers, and calligraphers, were involved. The clockwork incorporates six new patented inventions, and “the rippling gold-plated dial was made by exploding a thin sheet of stainless steel onto a mould underwater . . . [at] a secret military research institute in Holland.” Stewart Huxley was the design engineer. Sculptor Matthew Sanderson modelled the Chronophage.

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TIE Fighter

Posted on October 4, 2008 by GrandAdmiralThrawn | 16 Comments by GrandAdmiralThrawn - GrandAdmiralThrawn
Filed Under Images and has these tags: Star Wars; Sci Fi -

(13 votes, average: 3.46 out of 5)

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“The standard mount point for the primary weapons of a TIE craft is just below the forward cockpit window on the main hull ball. Vessels designed for mainly non-combat roles may have a single central cannon with a barrel gauge of several centimetres, but the most common configuration on combat ships is a pair of laser cannons side by side. Placement of guns near the centre of a fighter provides a stable weapons platform and may provide slight advantages to pilot aim. [Central placement is reported as an advantage in performance comparisons between World War 2 fightercraft.]

The laser cannons are usually represented as short cylindrical protrusions from the hull plating. An alternative form of laser cannon takes the form of an orange conical device of a size similar to the cylinder-type cannons. These seemingly simple structures evidently are not the only mechanism involved, because the blast bolts can be shot out in many different directions. Although this isn’t obvious to the eye, something inside the weapons must be capable of swivelling. The pilot may direct his fire anywhere within the field of view without turning his craft, and the tracking does not detectably delay the bolts’ firing. This is a significant advantage over the more static armaments of most rebel starfighters, such as the X-Wing and Y-Wing,

Some models of TIE interceptors and other heavier combat craft mount laser cannons and ion cannons on forward tips or the hubs of the wings. The reasons for this are not entirely clear: there may be tactical and practical advantages in having the cannons widely spaced; or it may simply be a matter of main cockpit ball being too tightly packed with other systems. Direct attachment to the radiators might allow a marginal improvement in the cooling of overheated weapons, or it might allow easier access for maintenance crews. Spreading the fire may improve strafing, and may boost the chances of scoring a few hits even when a few of the linked shots miss. Another possible advantage is redundancy of guns on a partially-damaged fighter: a single grazing hit cannot ruin all of the interceptor’s weapons at once. In any case, most designs with wing-mounted guns already have the standard chin guns; wing guns usually seem to be supplemental.

The bolts fired from TIE laser cannons are consistently green in colour, at least on the military models. Green blaster bolts appear to be exclusive to spacecraft and artillery in Imperial service. The physical significance of this is unclear.” - Dr Curtis Saxton

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vincent.ex2 — October 4, 2008 @ 4:04 pm

Why, o why would anyone want to know this?
jediadept — October 4, 2008 @ 4:13 pm

Knowing is half the battle.
~G.I. Joe
Zen — October 4, 2008 @ 4:19 pm

I bet that half of the people here don’t even know what TIE stands for.
awfulintentions — October 4, 2008 @ 4:24 pm

Twin Ion Engines if I remember right? Used to know.

Man, this makes me want to go install XWing Alliance, the successor to the Xwing vs Tie Fighter series, with seriously awesome graphics in comparison. Too bad it doesn’t run very well on my new computer, and my old one is almost completely out of commission.

Ah, I used to be such a SW geek.
AgZed — October 4, 2008 @ 4:34 pm

Man, I still have an old IBM 386 that I fire up every now and then, just to play TIE Fighter. X-Wing vs TIE Fighter is prettier, but the gameplay can’t hold a candle to the original, which is at the top of my Games That Are Most Deserving Of A Proper Remake And If They Fuck It Up I Will Combust From the Sheer Power Of My Nerdrage.
TGGeko — October 4, 2008 @ 4:41 pm

@ jediadept

Yea, and violence is the other half.
Caio — October 4, 2008 @ 5:15 pm

Good thing a Doctor told us.
Nimbo — October 4, 2008 @ 5:17 pm

Star Wars sucks
MrDooves — October 4, 2008 @ 5:27 pm

Never played much from the Tie Fighter series, but I’ve run the Rogue Squadron games into the ground.
Need another one of those.
Phyreblade — October 4, 2008 @ 10:14 pm

OK. you have two X-wings on a Tie Fighters six, the rear X-wing pilot at right angles to the forward wing, exhibiting great skill (or great stupidity)in firing through the wings of the forward X-Wing, which is also firing.

And yet, Mr. bad ass tie fighter pilot here is just kinda cruisin’ through the 4 resultant laser cannon beams like it ain’t no thang…?!?

Methinks the Imperial propaganda machine is at work here…
tiki god — October 5, 2008 @ 1:13 am

@awfulintentions: Is that the one with the Millenium Falcon wannabe? I Loved that game. I still have it somewhere around here, damn I loved the Xwing vs TIE fighter games too, that shit was awesoem
RSIxidor — October 5, 2008 @ 3:27 am

@tiki god:

You’re probably thinking of Shadows of the Empire which was actually a multimedia project. The game was a combination of FPS and third-person flight action. (I think the shooter part might have beend TP, too, but I don’t recall). The “wannabe” falcon you mention is the Outrider, a modified version of the YT-2400 Correllian light freighter. The Falcon was a YT-1300. Hardly a wannabe, and in the Star Wars universe, both ships were widely known.

The Rogue Squadron series was basically the closest to a starfighter sim that showed up on consoles. What you could do on PCs as far as control of your craft was far more detailed. Rogue Squadron was also third person (instead of in the cockpit).

Does it make me more or less of a nerd that the only part of this that came from memory was the basic, “No, that was this game” setup?
LostOne — October 5, 2008 @ 8:56 am

I miss this game. This is one that they should have upgraded every generation of PCs.
MrDooves — October 5, 2008 @ 1:50 pm

Oh, don’t worry. Lucas Arts wont miss an opportunity for a re-release.
Puulaahi — October 5, 2008 @ 8:04 pm

A re-release, prequel, sequel, alternate universe, cartoon, Lego game.
theeris — October 26, 2008 @ 8:15 am

Actually, as an interesting aside, I have TIE Fighter brand new and am trying to figure out how to create a shell to run it on my current PC, a P4 server base. Any help (I haven’t had to do this is aeon’s!) would be most….helpful.

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Imperator-class star destroyer

Posted on October 4, 2008 by GrandAdmiralThrawn | 5 Comments by GrandAdmiralThrawn - GrandAdmiralThrawn
Filed Under Images and has these tags: science fiction, Sexy. Cute as hell, Wallpaper

(6 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)

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“The hull number of the star destroyer Entor (CVS 1049) indicates either that in excess of a thousand star destroyers of this class have been built, or that this is the 1049th built by its particular shipyard. According to the reports of Rebel Alliance historian Arhul Hextrophon (in The Imperial Sourcebook) the Galactic Empire has a about three to five dozen or so destroyers in an average sector group fleet, of which there is at least one for each of the Empire’s thousands of sectors. This indicates that the local territorial fleets alone account for tens of thousands of star destroyers galaxy-wide. It should be noted that though Hextrophon’s reports have proven to be error-prone on many occasions; they consistently tend towards gross underestimates of Imperial naval and military strengths. The true number of star destroyers is probably much greater than the values he implies. In addition to the vessels assigned to particular sectors, there must be uncounted numbers attached to Imperial High Command and elite roving forces such as those of some Grand Moffs, and higher officials such as Lord Darth Vader.” -Dr Curtis Saxton

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Command Ships

Posted on October 3, 2008 by GrandAdmiralThrawn | 17 Comments by GrandAdmiralThrawn - GrandAdmiralThrawn
Filed Under Images and has these tags: Fantasy - Science Fiction, Sexy, star wars

(9 votes, average: 3.44 out of 5)

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“According to The STAR WARS Sourcebook there were four Executor-class vessels in service in the time immediately following the Battle of Yavin in A New Hope. By the time of the Battle of Endor, four years later, their success had led the Imperial Navy to construct many more, acting as standard command vessels throughout the Galactic Empire. Piloting a stolen shuttle to Endor, Han Solo was unsurprised to see the Executor in orbit, acting as the command station for processing security clearances for passage through the deflector shield protecting the new Death Star. When Luke Skywalker announced that Vader was present, Solo responded “Now don’t get jittery Luke; there are a lot of command ships.” Clearly the Executor’s siblings were relatively abundant by that time, or at least no longer rare. Most were probably put to use as flagships for Grand Admirals, Grand Moffs and important Moffs. For instance, the Black Sword Fleet near Farlax sector was led by three Executor-class command ships.” - Dr Curtis Saxton

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tiki god — October 3, 2008 @ 11:31 am

oh man, remember when star wars was cool?
GorillaMunch — October 3, 2008 @ 11:38 am

hey man, I played empire at war and thought it was awesome. But I get what you mean (nerd alert).
Sarcastastic — October 3, 2008 @ 11:45 am

Quote by Dr Curtis Saxton…

Doctor of what? Star Wars-ology?
suicydking — October 3, 2008 @ 11:45 am

Actually, tiki, I feel that every bit of new Star Wars junk that come out just makes me realize how effing awesome ROTJ is. It will never stop being awesome, and neither will Executer-class command ships.

I remember the sourcebook for the old d6 system Star Wars rpg that had all the ships in it shown to scale. When you got to the page for the Executer-class Star Destroyer it only showed the ass-end. There was a silhouette of the rest of the ship over the next 5 or 6 pages.
MrDooves — October 3, 2008 @ 12:56 pm

Oh come on, This gives me a big geek boner.
I love to know a ton of useless facts about Ultra Geeky shit. It makes me happy, so don’t buzz kill the mega geeks. We’re gaining a strangle hold over the entire system.
reboot — October 3, 2008 @ 1:08 pm

I don’t think you can count anything as a “fact” about a fictional universe that isn’t even internally consistent.
Crystalkestrel — October 3, 2008 @ 1:16 pm

Virginity: some people never lose it.
collegeboy — October 3, 2008 @ 1:16 pm

That doesn’t sound right. Weren’t there only 2 super star destroyers according to the EU.
RSIxidor — October 3, 2008 @ 1:31 pm

Wookiepedia has your answers
Dreth — October 3, 2008 @ 1:34 pm

I love the old trilogy and most of the games based off on them. I still await the day I’ll see the Star Wars Trilogy arcade shooter game released on…. well, anything.
MrDooves — October 3, 2008 @ 1:50 pm

@Reboot: Certainly there were inconsistencies when the expanded universe began to develop. Since however, they’ve amassed a fairly consistent universal chronology for most things. Bringing most of the expanded books, comics, movies and games together as well as possible. But the thing is, its fiction. So stop being a buzz kill and try to have fun. Ass Face.
Caio — October 3, 2008 @ 3:21 pm

MrDooves, do you mean like doing the Kessel run in seven parsecs?
suicydking — October 3, 2008 @ 3:33 pm

Caio, the Kessel Run thing was retconned to explain that the area of space in question was hazardous to traverse, and most pilots would circumvent it by taking the long way. Han was boasting that he made the run by traveling the shortest distance, straight through the perilous region avoided by sane pilots.

Or, is that what you were referring to?

Damn, I feel nerdy dirty just saying that.
MrDooves — October 3, 2008 @ 4:58 pm

@Suicydking: Brava! *clap clap clap*
MrDooves — October 3, 2008 @ 5:06 pm

Though it is still a fishy quote, since Han was referring to the Falcons speed, and not his brazen tenacity, or the ships maneuverability. Though I suppose that by taking the quickest most dangerous route, it equates to ‘being’ the fastest, just not by conventional thinking. Though It didn’t have a setting for ‘ludicrous speed’

Remarkably, its George Lucas himself that contributed to the highest number of errors. He is a visual story teller at best, and not especially intelligent. The best Star Wars Creations are when he is least involved.
Caio — October 3, 2008 @ 6:20 pm

Yeah, that’s what I was referring to. I got to say the “ring of black holes” around kessel is the biggest retcon in the history of retcons. That kind of retcon makes my penis feel shrinky

I used to like star wars but I think I’ll stick to ‘Hidden Fortress’. All the good. None of the retcon.
suicydking — October 3, 2008 @ 7:49 pm

Aye. Did George Lucas think that the Star Wars fans would find it endearing to see him photographed in a ‘Han shot first’ t-shirt? I know I didn’t find it endearing.

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Think he is going to be snow balled?

Posted on December 14, 2007 by GrandAdmiralThrawn | 1 Comment by GrandAdmiralThrawn - GrandAdmiralThrawn
Filed Under Uncategorized and has these tags: Humor, X-Mas

(17 votes, average: 4.35 out of 5)

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HMMWV hi res sunset

Posted on December 14, 2007 by GrandAdmiralThrawn | 8 Comments by GrandAdmiralThrawn - GrandAdmiralThrawn
Filed Under Images and has these tags: Military, Nature, Wallpaper

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U.S. Marines conduct a mounted combat patrol at sunset through the Iraqi desert near Al Asad, Iraq, June 15, 2005. The Marines are assigned to the mounted combat patrol team Diamondback 3, 1st Platoon, Echo Company, 1st Battalion, 14th Marine Regiment, Marine Wing Support Group 37 (Reinforced), 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. James B. Hoke

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Greenwood Lake Dam

Posted on December 14, 2007 by GrandAdmiralThrawn | Leave a Comment by GrandAdmiralThrawn - GrandAdmiralThrawn
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Also known as Greenwood Furnace. My Grand parents took both myself (and when she was a child) my mother there. Good camping.

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December 15 belongs to the Iraqi people

Posted on December 14, 2007 by GrandAdmiralThrawn | 3 Comments by GrandAdmiralThrawn - GrandAdmiralThrawn
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A US soldier patrols at sunset a neighborhood in the outskirts of the Iraqi northern city of Kirkuk

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Iraq Sunset

Posted on December 14, 2007 by GrandAdmiralThrawn | 1 Comment by GrandAdmiralThrawn - GrandAdmiralThrawn
Filed Under Images and has these tags: Nature, Wallpaper

(7 votes, average: 3.71 out of 5)

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Pennsylvania Canal Guard Lock

Posted on December 14, 2007 by GrandAdmiralThrawn | 4 Comments by GrandAdmiralThrawn - GrandAdmiralThrawn
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The ruins of the original Raystown Dam, the Raystown Guard Lock and feeder canal remain at this location on the Juniata River just below the confluence with the Raystown Branch, two miles east of the Borough of Huntingdon.

The dam was built across the Juniata, using the island as part of it. The guard lock and feeder canal run parallel to the Juniata River. The guard lock was constructed in 1831. It is 90 feet long, eight feet high, and 15 feet wide. The feeder canal extends 0.9 miles from the end of the lock to the canal proper.

The purpose of the dam and feeder was to maintain the proper level of water in the Pennsylvania Canal, replacing water lost due to leaks and evaporation. It also permitted boats built on Standing Stone Creek to enter the canal. - Lawrence McMillen

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Actual art on @ a college?

TIE Fighter

Imperator-class star destroyer

Command Ships

Think he is going to be snow balled?

HMMWV hi res sunset

Greenwood Lake Dam

December 15 belongs to the Iraqi people

Iraq Sunset

Pennsylvania Canal Guard Lock

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