Dreaming in Plastic

Blender 3D Learnings

First, the original artwork by Jonathan Wojcik, who says he saw this in a dream.  I could have used my own art, but then that would be cheating, wouldn't it?

The challenge was to learn Blender by creating a 3D model of same.  (Ugh, I can already see mistakes I didn't see before.) 

Then I lost control of my bodily functions and uploaded it to Shapeways.

They sent me back this 2" figurine, all ready to accept human sacrifices!

(It's hard to get a good photo of something this white, but in real life the detail is impressive.)

...Plus a love letter!  

Shapeways hearts Bogleech.

Never forget attribution!

Update: You can now download the 3D model for yourself from Blendswap.com.

Matteries

Could you make a battery whose stored energy is 100% of its mass?  Call it a matter battery, or mattery.

We'd be golden if we could totally convert natural matter into energy.  But natural matter is very complex and very stable (of course; it has been around forever), and it seems that every time you extract energy from one level of structure (e.g. fission), there's more mass left (e.g. protons) and yet another level of structure to be broken down.

What if we created our own synthetic matter straight from energy, in a form which would be simpler and easier to break down on demand?  

For example, if the Large Hadron Collider discovers this new, skinny little dimension they're looking for, then maybe we have a nice storage space cut out for us already...

Imagine we send a light wave into the direction of this tiny dimension, so that it loops around forever.  Would that trap it?  No; over time a ray of light eventually spreads out and disperses.  So how do we hold it together?  Emit a second light wave into this dimension, parallel and superposed upon the first, but headed the opposite direction.  Each light wave should be of such high energy density as to have a gravitational field that acts as a lens upon the other wave.  Each light wave's gravitational lens prevents the other wave from spreading out, so they are mutually trapped.

If the wavelengths of the light are the same, and an even ratio of the tiny dimension they travel, then they will be a standing wave, and look like a pulsing stationary particle.

To release the energy, we would inject a third light wave at an angle through the loop.  The third wave's gravitational lens would deflect one of the trapped waves just a little bit out of parallel to its partner, breaking the trap open, and releasing energy to the outside world.

Manyfold Pasts

If true randomness exists, and every quantum event splits the universe into two real, alternative worlds, then it is unavoidable that multiple alternative pasts can lead to a single moment as well.

This is because, for each next moment to be truly indeterminate, some percentage of it must have come from information that did not exist in this moment.  

Which means that the same percentage of now also did not come from our real past.  ...And how do we tell which information came from this 'real' past, and which was stirred into the mix from quantum randomness?  We can't.  

This makes here-and-now a bastard of uncertain parentage, with no possible DNA test.  For all the universes that can expand from this moment, just as many can collapse to it.  

Wouldn't conservation of universes be cool?  Next time you spawn off another world, say 'hasta la vista', because you just might see each other again.  

Freedom of speech is not private property

Consider this:

If we treated sound waves the way we treat radio waves, then by federal law, nobody else could speak in the same frequency range as my voice.

I could also buy all the sound frequencies I want, and nobody else, by federal law, would be ever allowed to speak when I am near, even if I am silent.

The reality is that when you buy radio bandwidth, you're not just buying yourself a megaphone, you're also buying away a piece of everyone else's right to speak. Real government forces, with guns, enforce that gag on the public for you.

So if this were a true free market, you could broadcast, but you wouldn't expect the taxpayers/government to stop everyone else from broadcasting just to preserve your monopoly of a frequency band.

Of course we need boundaries between frequencies, but we should stop fooling ourselves that the right to speak can be sold, without using oppression to create artificial scarcity.

A Long Time Ago

  

  My stepbrother and I were kids, and when we cut through a yard in his neighborhood in suburban Greenville NC, we encountered something amazing: an entire tiny city created from clay, with beehive-shaped skyscrapers, highways, cars, parks, and statues.  All made from fired and clear-glazed ceramic.  

  

  A woman came out of the house when she saw us two boys staring at this oddity.  She said that it was her husband's work, and that he got to play all day for a living.  

  

  Before we left, she gave us both lumps of clay, and when I got home I did everything I could to try to rebuild a piece of the city I had seen.  This city of clay has repeated itself throughout my life without my even remembering where it started.