The Secret of the Time Vault

This months book cover review is The Secret of the Time Vault by Clark Darlton. Book six in Perry Rhodans adventure series.

The Time Vault appears to be a zero gravity dance club complete with disco laser ball and disembodied alien head D.J.  By the expression of Perry we can see that mid dance, the music has taken a sour turn.

DJ Disembodied Head is unaware of the rooms dislike to his choice of music.  By his expression we can see that he has an overinflated sense of self worth and, like most DJs, is oblivious to the fact that playing a music disc actually requires no musical talent to achieve.

No secret there.

Two Perspectives One Cup

I think I've figured this out now.

The glass is entirely full of equal parts air and water.  Unless it's in a vacuum in which case it is truly half empty.  Although it may be half full of undetectable dark matter and therefore it is entirely full again.

No actually I think this is how it is.

If the glass starts empty and you fill it half way, it's half full because the process is filling it.  If the glass begins full and you empty half of it out, it is half empty because the process is emptying it.

Not a Nun

All the fishies say: Granny threw my hat! Granny threw my hat!

Tatu is quite repetitive when you sit down and listen to them.

This is not a nun:

Hero Machine

For those with a creative streak but a lack of pencil drawing coordination you should check out Hero Machine.  Hero Machine lets you create your own comic book style heroes regardless of pencil skills or lack there of.  I’ve occasionally found it to be an extremely enjoyable way to whittle away hours of my life.  One of the most notable things about hero machine is that it’s a living, growing project.  The developer actually interacts with the users through the website and even goes so far as to listen to what you have to say (that’s practically unheard of!).

There’s tutorials, critique days and contests where you can test your creativity while helping to test the software, as well as a whole bunch of other fun stuff you can join in on.  Well, just go see for your self at http://www.heromachine.com/ and be sure to check out the character hall of fame, you’ll be impressed at some of the creations.

Working Freeze Gun

The other day I ran into someone I hadn’t seen for a while and they asked me why I didn’t use my genius for niceness instead of evil.  What nonsense.  If you're an evil genius and you stop being evil, they you will just be a common genius and what would be the point of that?  To that end here’s my first Supervillain Workshop: Building a Freeze Gun.  Building a working freeze gun is actually really easy.

At its core premise this freeze gun spurts liquid nitrogen (LN2) via the power of compressed gas.   A simple one could be built by converting a paint spray gun. The down side is most of these devices work of mains power supply.  There’s the hassle of getting out the extension chord, finding a convenient power outlet, if you’re in a foreign country you need the correct adaptor and there’s always the risk that some kid disables your super weapon by pulling the plug out when you’re not looking.  Overall it’s an unprofessional look.

What you want is a design similar to a portable, three tank flame thrower having two fuel tanks and one compressed gas tank.  There are many advantages to a freeze gun over a flamethrower.  Primarily being the type of weapon it is, a freeze gun doesn’t need the ignition system a flame thrower does.  Additionally with a flame thrower the fumes from the fuel give you a headache, you have to clean burnt debris of the gold bars, and besides every man and his dachshund has a flame thrower.  Nitrogen is odorless, colorless, tasteless and evaporates away leaving no mess.  On top of this anyone who remembers their Adam West lore will recall that Mr Freeze was always surrounded by the most attractive minions in fur-lined, eskimo hooded miniskirts.  A freeze gun is by far the choice for the decerning mastermind.

As can be seen in Diagram 1, the pressurised gas connects to the LN2 tanks.  To avoid any unwanted reactions it’s probably best to use nitrogen (N2) as the compressed gas.   The pressure from the gas pushess the LN2 through the delivery hose into the hand held section.  The liquid tanks have screw on tops for easy refill and are vacume flask in design, not unlike your drink thermos, to prevent tempreture transfer between the environment and the LN2 sitting on your back.  The expansion rate of LN2 into gas is 1:694 which is an aweful lot of unexpected pressure if your tanks heat up. 

Safety tip: Use steel not brass valves. In 2006 the pressure-relief devices of a tank of liquid nitrogen at Texas A&M University were sealed with brass plugs. As a result, the tank failed catastrophically and exploded. The force of the explosion was sufficient to propel the tank through the ceiling immediately above it.  Fortunately, the dean always said he would like a skyelight.

The hand held section consists of a simple valve kept in place with heavy springs.  When the trigger is squeezed it releases the valve sending the pressureised LN2 to the nozzle which adjusts the spray acording to taste.  A flamethrower of similar design can shoot it’s stream about 45 meters.  Half that range is plenty for a domesic level freeze gun.  Because of the evaporation of the  liquid nitrogen when it hits the surrounding air this will reduce the effective range.  You may need to experiment with the nozzle to get a good compromise of distance and spread of the stream.  Wider spread will saturate your taget better but at the cost of distance.  If the spread of the stream is too wide evaporation will inhibit saturaion.  A bit of testing on the neighbours plants should help you find the right balance between distance and a coverage with the stream.

Safety tip: Handle liquid nitrogen with care.  Because of it’s extremely low tempreture inproper handling can result in cold burns and frozen limbs or pets.  Be sure to wear an insulation suit.  The suit will also have good intimidation value in the field and let the guards to the casino valt know you mean business.  I recommend sticking with a clasic silver suit, if you wear a green or camoflage suit you’ll look like a paramilitary extremest and people wil think you’re crazy.

Now you’re ready to strap those potentially explosive canisters of  freezing death to your back and away you go!

Evil Clown Cake

The longer you stare at this clown cake, the more you realist it’s staring back into your soul.

Kung Food

I've recently been made aware of a restaurant chain called Kung Fu or Zhen Gongfu (Real Kung-fu) in Chinese.  With Bruce Lee in Game of Death attire as its mascot, which absolutely kicks the McDonald clowns ass.  You can picture that epic fight with Bruce Lee winding up with a clown shoe print on his chest.  I first found out about this food chain from a blog called Daves Long Box.  That’s where I pinched the photos from (thanks Dave).  I've done a little investigating about the franchise since then.

The Kung Fu fast food chain was started around eleven years ago by a 22-year-old and now there are almost 300 locations around China.  Kung Fu is by far the cleanest, most efficient, and best-designed fast food chain to be found on mainland China.  Offering great priced, healthy Chinese meals and with their kung fu speed they proudly deliver all orders in under 60 seconds.  Despite their popularity and having a bilingual menu as standard, they are still relatively unknown to most foreigners.

I will definitely be on the lookout for a Kung Fus next time I travel. Hopefully they will keep expanding, I would really love to see this food chain here in Australia and considering the popularity of noodle bars, I think it would do well.  But will they pipe Regurgitators “Kong Foo Sing” over the muzak speakers?

Here's there companys webpage: Kung Fu.

Dracula Sneeze

Another Urban Dictionary definition.

Dracula sneeze

Holding your arm up over your face in a position similar to Dracula holding up his cape and then sneezing into your elbow.

"Due to the H1N1 swine flu pandemic the Centre For Disease Control recommends using the Dracula sneeze technique to avoid spreading germs."

I often do something similar when I cough (Dracula cough!) so I get less germs on my hands.

Most people don't realise that Dracula use to moonlight as a chiropractor and only put his cape across his face to protect his professional image.

Rocket to Uranus

Yes someone actually made a real record entitled Rocket to Uranus.

More disturbing than the title accompanied by the phallic shaped space vessel soaring up at a suspicious angle, are the bulging creases in the pants of the astronauts.

Roundabouts

There’s big ones mini ones and even magic ones! Here you have five roads converging on one spot and five mini roundabouts that work in the normal direction spread around an enormous roundabout that you can travel around in either direction!

The original Swindon magic roundabout was constructed in 1972 and named after the Childrens TV show popular at the time.  Originaly Le Manège enchanté the television show was created in France in 1963 where some 500 episodes were made and broardcast.  Those who recall watching the series were frequently traumatised by it’s unsettling theme song.

Despite being referred to as “One of the scariest road junctions” and “One of the World's Worst intersections” in England, British road planners decided to replicate the intersection in five other locations. Colchester, Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Denham and Essex.

The Swindon magic roundabout inspired the song "English Roundabout" by the band XTC, on their album entitled English Settlement and is considered one of the 7 urban wonders of the world, in the city roads and streets category.

Here’s Bill Bailey.