Using a combination of solid and liquid printing, MIT printed the first ever 3D Printed Hydraulic Powered Robot. No assembly was required, beyond popping on a motor and battery. Which means now our Evil Robot Overlords will be able to print up their minions themselves. The advance that made this possible was developing a technique to print both solids and liquids in the same printer, and I find it somewhat surprising that they got the best results for the liquid printing using a regular ink jet printer.
The animated short Jinky Jenkins & Lucky Lou is an adorable little video about two people who were always meant to be together. While there were a lot of folks involved with this one, it is predominately the creation of Michael Bidinger and Michelle Kwon. It has won dozens of awards, including the Best Student Project Prize at the 2014 SIGGRAPH Asia convention, which impressed the heck out of me.
Want to convert something into Bronze? The Lost-Wax Technique really does date back to the Bronze Age, or as close as makes no difference from my perspective. This great little animation from Renana Aldor & Kobi Vogman was made for the Hadrian Exhibition at the Israel Museum, and it gives you the entire process step by step. Of course, there are some details you will have to learn with research or by trial and error, but everything you need to get started is included. I like it as much for the excellent use of simple animation techniques to create the educational presentation (2D animation and stop motion photography, both tools first developed in the 1880s) as for the information contained within it. Whether you are looking to cast bronze or create educational videos, this is worth watching.
Hadrian / Bronze Casting Using The Lost-Wax Technique from Renana Aldor & Kobi Vogman on Vimeo.
This week sees Hardcore Henry on the big screen, a man who has been brought back from the dead by his wife just before she gets kidnapped. He has no memory and doesn’t know the city he is in, and his wife’s kidnapper is a powerful warlord with an army of mercenaries. Worse, he has a plan for world domination which involves reanimating the dead, which is how Henry came back. The movie was filmed first person style, so you spend the thing seeing everything from Henry’s viewpoint, which is a little confusing on the action sequences. I probably won’t be seeing this one myself, but it is genre so I had to mention it here.
Movies brings us Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which would be enough for me if that was all there was, but we get a bit more. Identicals is a rather twisty little film about people who take over the lives of others, to the point where they lose track of their own identity. Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie closes out the Ghost In The Shell: Arise prequel, ending with the scenes that began the very first movie. I get to mention it here rather then in the Anime section because it actually did play on the big screen in US theaters.
TV has Doctor Who: Complete Series 9, which was a fun season that I wouldn’t have minded if it had had still more episodes. We also get The Expanse: Season 1, a first class interpretation of the books series, and I am happy to see they have signed off on creating the second season.
In Anime, Parasyte The Maxim: Collection 1 is a tale of a body snatching alien and the human he permanently attached to when he mistakenly ate and replaced his hand, instead of his head. Now the rest of the invaders want them both dead, so they have to work together to survive in this first half of the series. Rail Wars takes place in a parallel time line where the nationalized railway system was never privatized. While a lot of the story arc is involved with agitators and saboteurs trying to take control of the rail system away from the government, a good bit of it is slice-of-life tales of the day to day workings of the system as valid in this universe as in that one. We also have new stories for a few old favorites, with Lupin the Third: Jigen’s Gravestone, and Naruto Shippūden: Uncut Set 26.
Polkadot Stingray is a quality Art Rock band (they call themselves a Paranormal Plush Guitar Rock Band, quite a catchy title) with an unusual range. The first track is Telecaster Stripes, which they posted on March 4th of this year, the second is Dawn of the Orange from May of last year. Check them out and see what you think. The final posting here is the song Mermaid recorded live back on January 20th, and while I like the energy of their live tracks, I have to admit I enjoy the quality of their studio recorded songs much more.