HOLD THE BUS

Hello, 

Next weekend I'll look for some of my old toy boats if you want some extra content for a toy boat post. I would think they used to be part of British DNA being an Island Nation. 

As regards busses I'm not sure how many there are, I'll have to count them. Back in the 90's when I started working with computers for graphic design there was no longer the use of hand skills, painting, drawing, glueing etc. 

So to compensate I started building small model cars etc for a future railway layout not realising how far in the future that would be. There were a number of companies in the UK that made 1/76 scale metal kits the advantage being that they were small and could be stored in a Manhattan apartment. 

When the Internet expanded and eBay was discovered I found there were lots of old toys available that could be repainted so started buying the old Dinkey bus which happened to match a limited number of buses bought by London Transport as a wartime supplement to their war damaged fleet. These buses were still in use in the early 50's on a route near me in north London, which is where my layout is set. 

Dinky never made these buses as London ones, usually they were in Liverpool colours, Green and Cream.

A few companies in the UK made decals for 1/76 scale buses so I ended up with an authentic looking fleet. 

In the attached photo are 13 of the repainted buses. There were a number of different colour schemes over the years including Greenline and Country buses that were various greens, and until the mid fifties there was a lot of cream with the red. 

As my branch line connected to lines that went to the London Docks the 1' x 7' extension allows me to display boats I have built. 

I have a clockwork Martian Tripod to photograph on my layout, instead of a Royal Salute my artillery can have a real target! 

Regards, 

Terranova47

NYC

KEV'S MIRON SPACESHIP FROM SCRATCH

I've done another Miron spaceship scratchbiuld. The classic saucer design that features in many of the story illustrations.

Take care,

Kevin

PROGRAMMES OF LIFE?

Is it valid to consider all living things as programmes?

I suppose I first encountered this idea in the film The Matrix. I was fascinated by the Merovingian being described as an ancient programme, having been around since the beginning as was the Architect and some other older characters. I also noticed birds and stuff in the film and wondered if these features of everyday life were programmed as well.

Can life - like spiders, trees, fish and humans - be classed as programmes in the way a computer has programmes?

My only trouble with the idea is the inherent suggestion that 'someone' must be doing the programming. Maybe this is just semantics. My answer would be that nature is the programmer.

Perhaps a less-loaded concept is to consider all living things as information. This also works for non-living things as well and as such everything in the universe is information.

I first came across the idea of information as a descriptor of all stuff in the theory that all information would be lost in a Black Hole.

I find this concept really fascinating and quite frightening too. All information would be lost. It sounds so incredibly final and irreversible.

So what do you think about these things readers?

VAST FREEZERS OF DATA BRISTLED ON THE SURFACE OF OTHER WORLDS

I was contemplating the vast amount of storage needed to house the world wide web.

Giant halls of servers thrumming endlessly.

But just how much space will these servers need as the number of users explodes into trillions over the coming decades?

How much energy will it take to keep these towering hives of wires cool?

Will we one day see colossal farms of storage encrusting the Moon or colder more-distant bodies and planets? Grand larders powered by the sun and cooled by space?

Gerry Anderson could never have predicted the World Wide Web [or at least I don't think he did] but had he then data storage could well have been a crucial role for his various world protectorates and space fleets.

My own favourite, Project SWORD, could well have found itself setting up and guarding the globe's mega-servers on data farms spanning colder worlds like Ceres or Io.

Massive satellites would harvest the flow while city-sized space stations would offer respite for SWORD personnel and the re-fuelling of sentry craft at the far edges of the system.

How would data sentinels look? How would SWORD web farmers and storage miners be transported? Which craft would be needed in the fleet?

As we contemplate this and other gargantuan puzzles we may well gaze at the grandeur of Gerry Anderson's titles for ETERNITY and seek some counsel there.

What do you think readers?

ASTEROID ESCAPE TOY

I saw this game in a toy shop this year.

Asteroid Escape by Smart Games. This was the space-related game. There were other themes too.

It seems to be based on the classic slide puzzle square we had as kids.

The miniature spaceship looks excellent!

I like the fact that its purely manual like an old pocketeer game - with no electronics I don't think.

There's a a definate X-Wing vibe going on in its design and in the box art.

What do you think readers? Anyone got one?