Month: May 2017

The Best Star Trek Models, Props and Toys

Markozen.com Science Fiction

Scratch that collector itch and buy yourself some branded and licensed plastic lifestyle Star Trek accouterments.

1:350 Scale Enterprise Model

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If you’re a modeler, this is the replica kit to get. The completed USS Starship Enterprise is over 32 inches long, but more impressive than the size is the incredible detail. There’s even an optional lighting kit that will set the portholes aglow. Also makes a great holiday dinner centerpiece. $140

DST Communicator & Phaser

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If you are wandering in the outskirts of space, you are going to need these bad boys. Talk with fellow shipmates via the Communicator and stun your enemies with the Phaser. Diamond Select Toys is known for its excellent replicas, and this $75 two-pack is essential TOS hardware.

Bat’Leth

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A 1:1 replica of the most choice Klingon battle weapon, crafted of aluminum and finished with real leather. Phasers? Earthling nonsense. Hand-to-hand blade combat to the death is what really makes a warrior. $500

Tribble

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These tiny, hairy creatures are totally adorable. Buy 50 of them, throw them on your bed, jump into their furriness, then curse their existence. Fun! $10 each.

Custom Uniform Shirt

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Meet eBay user Murraymousie. Send in your measurements, and 10 days later you’ll be sent a custom-sewn velour replica uniform shirt or dress, complete with rank and insignia. Pick gold for Kirk, a red shirt for Scotty, or a red dress for Uhura. $100 and up.

DST Retro Cloth Figures

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The vintage 8-inch action figures from Mego are highly collectible, and Kirk and Spock go for about $50 each on eBay. But the plastic on these 40-year-old toys is disintegrating, so get yourself some modern-day redos from Diamond Select Toys. Pick from any number of characters. $160 for two.

The Klingon Dictionary

Author/lexicographer Marc Okrand, the creator of Klingon language for the Star Trek TV series, being bodily carried by two men made-up & wearing costumes as Klingons while reading his book THE KLINGON DICTIONARY at the Air & Space Museum. (Photo by Robert Sherbow/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images)

If you’re going to demand that an enemy “Surrender or die,” then you’d better get your pronunciation right. $11.33

TR-590 MK 9 Science Tricorder

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This $500 replica prop is not only stunningly accurate, but it also lights up and makes the appropriate sound effects. No more walking around with your iPhone going “bloop beep weee-ooh” when it’s time to play doctor.

Gorn Action Figure

LOS ANGELES - JANUARY 19: A Gorn in the STAR TREK episode, "Arena". Original air date January 19, 1967, season 1, episode 19. Image is a screen grab. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)

All of the ReAction figures are pretty cool, but we’ve got a soft spot for Gorn. $19

Hot Wheels Klingon Bird of Prey

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Never mind the little cars. Hot Wheels makes some pretty decent Trek stuff, and this Klingon BOP ($39) is a good example. The wings fold just like the real thing, but the cloaking device will cost you a whole lot extra.

Playmates Klingon Disruptor

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You’ll have to go to eBay for this vintage toy from the 1990s, but the cool sounds it makes are worth the hassle of all the hunting, bidding and sniping.

Enterprise Bridge Playset

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The ultimatest ultimate. This replica of the original Mego set from the ’70s works with any figure built to the scale of the originals, as most of the current “retro” toys are. $60

Tri-D Chess Set

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This recreation of the original Franklin Mint Tri-D chess set from the 1990s will set you back $275. But that’s real silver and gold on there. And whoo boy is this thing extra nerdy or what? How do you play it? Who cares!?

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A Really Cool Hotdog Car

Markozen.com Offbeat, Vehicles

“Wienermobile” is a series of automobiles shaped like a hot dog on a bun which are used to promote and advertise Oscar Mayer products in the United States. The first version was created in 1936 by Oscar Mayer’s nephew, Carl G. Mayer, and variants are still used by the Oscar Mayer company today. Drivers of the Wienermobiles are known as Hotdoggers and often hand out toy whistles shaped as replicas of the Wienermobile, known as Wienerwhistles.

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The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile has evolved from Carl Mayer’s original 1936 vehicle[1] to the vehicles seen on the road today. Although fuel rationing kept the Wienermobile off the road during World War II, in the 1950s Oscar Mayer and the Gerstenslager Company created several new vehicles using a Dodge chassis or a Willys Jeep chassis. One of these models is on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. These Wienermobiles were piloted by “Little Oscar” (portrayed by George Molchan) who would visit stores, schools, orphanages, and children’s hospitals and participate in parades and festivals.
In 1969, new Wienermobiles were built on a Chevrolet motor home chassis and featured Ford Thunderbird taillights. The 1969 vehicle was the first Wienermobile to travel outside the United States. In 1976 Plastic Products, Inc., built a fiberglass and styrofoam model, again on a Chevrolet motor home chassis.
In 1988, Oscar Mayer launched its Hotdogger program, where recent college graduates were hired to drive the Wienermobile through various parts of the nation and abroad. Using a converted Chevrolet van chassis, Stevens Automotive Corporation and noted industrial designer Brooks Stevens built a fleet of six Wienermobiles for the new team of Hotdoggers.
With the 1995 version, the Wienermobile grew in size to 27 feet long and 11 feet high.[2] The 2004 version of the Wienermobile includes a voice-activated GPS navigation device, an audio center with a wireless microphone, a horn that plays the Wiener Jingle in 21 different genres from Cajun to Rap to Bossa Nova, according to American Eats, and sports fourth generation Pontiac Firebird taillights.

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There are currently eight active Wienermobiles, six of which are the full-sized familiar models (the other two are the Mini and the food truck versions) with each assigned a part of the country. The “hotdogger” position of driving the Wienermobile is open to U.S. citizens, and the job lasts from the first of June until the following first of June. Only college seniors who are about to graduate are eligible. Both current hotdoggers and Oscar Mayer recruiters visit college campuses across the country in search of the next round of hotdoggers. Candidates are screened from an average of 2000 applicants. Every March, a pool of thirty final-round candidates are brought to Kraft Foods and Oscar Mayer headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, for interviews. Each vehicle can hold two hotdoggers, and twelve people are chosen. Currently there are about 300 hotdogger alumni.

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Amazing Fractal Images

Markozen.com Art

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A fractal is a mathematical set that exhibits a repeating pattern displayed at every scale. It is also known as expanding symmetry or evolving symmetry. If the replication is exactly the same at every scale, it is called a self-similar pattern. Fractals can also be nearly the same at different levels. This latter pattern is illustrated in small magnifications of the Mandelbrot set. Fractals also include the idea of a detailed pattern that repeats itself.

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Fractals are different from other geometric figures because of the way in which they scale. Doubling the edge lengths of a polygon multiplies its area by four, which is two (the ratio of the new to the old side length) raised to the power of two (the dimension of the space the polygon resides in). Likewise, if the radius of a sphere is doubled, its volume scales by eight, which is two (the ratio of the new to the old radius) to the power of three (the dimension that the sphere resides in). But if a fractal’s one-dimensional lengths are all doubled, the spatial content of the fractal scales by a power that is not necessarily an integer. This power is called the fractal dimension of the fractal, and it usually exceeds the fractal’s topological dimension.

I’m not exactly sure what the paragraph above means. But they sure are nice to look at.

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Mandelbrot above

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1941-1944 The Second World War in Color

Markozen.com History

December 1942

An Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) ‘spotter’ at a 3.7-inch anti-aircraft gun site.

Though color photography was invented decades before World War II, it was still a rather niche process, more complicated and expensive than black-and-white photography.

The scarcity of color film was compounded by the hazards of shipping in wartime and the difficulties of reproduction and printing.

Nevertheless, thousands of color images were created during the global conflict. 3,000 of those were assembled by the British Ministry of Information and eventually ended up in

the collections of the Imperial War Museums, which now hold over 11 million photos of conflict from the first World War to the present day.

A new book of never-before-published photos drawn from the IWM’s archives, The Second World War in Colour, surveys myriad aspects of the war, from frontline combat among flamethrower tanks and paratroopers to factories and hospitals on the homefront.

— all in vividly immersive color.

May 1943

A crew from the 16th/5th Lancers, 6th Armoured Division, clean the gun barrel of their Crusader tank at El Aroussa in Tunisia.

IMAGE: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS (TR 939)

August 1943

Nurses and convalescent aircrew at Princess Mary’s Royal Air Force Hospital at Halton in Buckinghamshire.

IMAGE: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS (TR 1169)

Infantryman at a training facility. Staged shot.

April 22, 1944

British paratroopers prepare for a practice jump from an RAF Dakota based at Down Ampney in Wiltshire.

IMAGE: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS (TR 1662)

October 1944. Field Marshall Sir Bernard Montgomery explains Allied strategy to King George VI in his trailer in Holland.

February 1944

General Dwight D. Eisenhower and his senior commanders at Supreme Allied Headquarters in London.

IMAGE: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS (TR 1541)

1943

Lancaster bombers nearing completion in Avro’s assembly plant at Woodford near Manchester.

IMAGE: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS (TR 1386)

U.S. P-51D Mustang on an escort mission 1944.

September 1943

A 5.5-inch gun crew from 75th (Shropshire Yeomanry) Medium Regiment, Royal Artillery, in action in Italy.

IMAGE: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS (TR 1402)

October 1944

British soldiers admire the Caryatids on the Acropolis while sightseeing in Athens.

IMAGE: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS (TR 2516)

July 1944

The RAF’s top-scoring fighter pilot, Wing Commander James ‘Johnnie’ Johnson, with his Spitfire and pet Labrador ‘Sally’ in Normandy.

IMAGE: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS (TR 2145)

September 1944

Dutch civilians dance in the streets after the liberation of Eindhoven by Allied forces.

IMAGE: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUMS (TR 2369)

Shibam: the Manhattan of the Desert

Markozen.com Buildings, Geography

The city of Shibam, located in the central-western area of Hadhramaut Governorate, Yemen, in the Ramlat al-Sab`atayn desert, is best known for its towering mudbrick skyscrapers. This small town of 7000 is packed with around 500 mud houses standing between 5 and 11 stories tall and reaching 100 feet high, all constructed entirely of mud bricks. The bizarre skyline that the high rise buildings bestow upon the city has earned Shibam the moniker “Manhattan of the Desert.”

Shibam is often called “the oldest skyscraper city in the world” and is one of the oldest and best examples of urban planning based on the principle of vertical construction. Its plan is trapezoidal, almost rectangular; and it is enclosed by earthen walls within which a block of dwellings, also built from earth, have been laid out on an orthogonal grid. Shibam was founded in the 3rd century AD, but most of the houses you see here dates only to the 16th century, following a devastating flood of which Shibam was the victim in 1532-33. However, some older houses and large buildings still remain from the first centuries of Islam, such as the Friday Mosque, built in 904, and the castle, built in 1220.

 

In general the windowless lower floors are used for grain storage, with areas for domestic use above and those for family and leisure above that. The main room on the second floor is used by men for socializing. It often has wonderful carved plasterwork and freestanding decorated wooden columns supporting the ceiling, while women’s areas are found higher, usually on the third or fourth floor. The highest rooms are for communal use by the whole family, and on the upper levels there are often bridges and doors connecting the houses. These are a defensive feature, but also a practical one – especially for old people who find it difficult to walk up and down the interminable staircases.

The houses needed to be rebuilt over the centuries. Rain and erosion have been constant threats to the buildings here. To protect their homes, residents must thickly coat the facades and roofs with sealant, and ensure they are maintained and regularly renovated. Those who can afford it limewash their houses to protect them against termites.

Shibam was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list in 1982.