Sunday 12 August 2012

Make: iPhone Dice Tower

iPhone 3G box - nicely sized for use  as a dice tower or dice box
iPhone 3G box - nicely sized for use
as a dice tower or dice box
iPhone dice tower: Prepare to decouple
Prepare to decouple
iPhone dice tower: Decoupled!
Decoupled!
iPhone dice tower: ready to nest
Ready to nest
iPhone dice tower: Nested and ready for action!
Nested and ready for action!!
Okay, so it's not a dice tower made out of actual iphones, rather just the extremely sturdy boxy it came in.  I stumbled on this instructable the other day and knocked this out in a lull between olympic events last night.   

My iphone 3G got stolen a couple of years ago and I still had the box, so i decided to put the box to good use.  The 3G box is considerably larger than either the 3GS or the iphone 4 boxes (as used in the instructable) and makes a more practicle dice tower and also doubles as a capacious dice box. 

I followed the general guide in the instructable, but as I wasn't using exactly the same box, I needed to fiddle with the dimensions of the opening hole.  I also elected to just go with one baffle which throws the dice forwards onto the cradle and then down onto the 45 degree baffle at the bottom.  I think that the second baffle's job is to slow down the dice, lessening bounce-out, so I would reccommend that you stick with the instructable and put 2 baffles in if you try this yourself. 

After construction I discovered that my hand was just a bit too podgy to comfortably retrieve the dice and the visibility from an observers point of view was also quite poor.

It was a trivial matter to trim the edges of the lid at a angle to rectify this whilst maintaining its function as a lid.  I also discovered during modification that there is enough material in the off-cuts to make your baffles.  It is entirely possible to construct the dice tower solely from the contents of the iphone box with no need to resort to scraps of foam board.  Of course you will still need the glue to hold the whole thing together.


The other advantage of the using an iphone 3G box is that it comes with foam pre-glued into the lid already, which dramtically reduces the chance of dice bouncing out. 

Saturday 11 August 2012

Cyberpunk: Appendix N - Inspirational and Educational Material


In the Gygaxian tradition here is my Appendix N for Cyberpunk, a list of the books, movies and anime which have inspired my cyberpunk adventures since first encountering it in the very late 80s.  Also available on Pinterest. 

Please do not treat this an exhaustive list of what is and isn't considered cyberpunk, these are just the things which have inspired me, I will probably add to it when I get access to the deep recesses of my cortex.

Cyberpunk - APPENDIX N: Inspirational and Educational Material

BOOKS
MOVIES

ANIME

Friday 10 August 2012

NSFW Movie Double Bubble - Cobra The Space Pirate and Cockneys vs Zombies

The classic 80s adult themed anime Space Adventure Cobra gets a live action movie directed by Alexander Aja (Piranha, The Hills Have Eyes).  Scheduled for 2013 there are no details other than this sweet poster.  I could be mistaken, but is that David Wenham (300, Van Helsing, Lord of The Rings, Australia)  posing as Cobra, I do hope so, cos he's a great character actor.



Thanks to the Troll Lord Stephen Chenault, for finding the trailer for Cockneys vs Zombies which if you haven't seen it is here.



Michelle Ryan (Eastenders) leads an unlikely ensemble cast including Alan Ford (aka Bricktop), Honor Blackman (aka Pussy Galore) and Richard Briers (aka Tom Goode) in a tale of Eastend bankrobbers going toe-to-stump with the walking dead.  Looks like a riot.

I'm no Eastender but isn't cockney rhyming slang for zombies, Stale Bread ... Walking Dead?

Wednesday 8 August 2012

Help Save Great Sci-Fi for the Future

Roger Zelazny's "Damnation Alley"
Roger Zelany's "Damnation Alley"
Savethescifi.com is a great sounding startup which aims to preserve out of print vintage sci-fi novels by turning them into e-books.  It's certainly an interesting business model and a worthy cause which has support from noted authors Neil Gaiman and Ken Macleod

Essentially as a subscriber you will help to choose which books they acquire the rights to and you get it as part of your membership.  The small team of 3 "time-travelling archivists" aim to save at least 1 book a month and they already have a list of some quite suprising candidates in the shape of:
 
Roger Zelazny's "Damnation Alley", Poul Anderson's "Day of their Return", "Mayday Orbit" and "Go Home, Earthman!", Arthur C Clarke's "Imperial Earth" and  Michael Moorcock's "The Final Programme".

There is also a plan to launch a new Brooklyn bookstore where you can buy the saved works (and others) in dead tree format do help join the this and save some sci-fi books from being lost in the future.

Tuesday 7 August 2012

10 Reasons Why D&D is better than an MMORPG

Bill Cavalier
Bill Cavalier
1.  D&D doesn't crash hang or lag
2.  D&D doesn't have gold farmers
3.  D&D minions don't respawn
4.  D&D doen't need an internet connection or a subscription
5.  D&D graphics are the best you can imagine
6.  D&D lets you rewrite its bugs yourself
7.  D&D has the best plots you can imagine
8.  D&D doesn't become obsolete, just unfashionable
9.  D&D has an infinite number of hours play
10.  D&D doesn't have cheat codes

Thanks to Bill Cavalier's latest video "The Stingy DM" for the inspiration.