Monday, June 17, 2013

Da Vinci's Demons – reviewing a tv-show

I came across this show while channel surfing at my parents house. I ended up watching the sixth episode of the first season and found it so good that I decided to watch the whole series. The first season was good enough to raise a few thoughts.

Da Vinci's Demons is set in renaissance Florence – the cradle of enlightenment, democracy and liberty. Whether you really believe that this was the case, Florence was actually quite advanced compared to rest of Europe at that time. Florence had become extremely wealthy from trading with fabrics and , most of all, banking. The city was full of palaces and had quite a few towers, the towers were so numerous that at one point it was forbidden to build towers higher than 19 meters. What made renaissance Florence become a legend was it's ruling family the Medicis. The family Medici is well known as supporters of art and science. Under their protection and patronage worked some of the most brightest renaissance geniuses – most brightest of them all was Leonardo Da Vinci.

The basic plot of the series is as follows: Da Vinci meets a Turk who tells him about a mythical artefact called “Book of Leaves” it is supposed to hold all the knowledge, I mean everything. Being the curios type he is Da Vinci sets out on a quest to find the Book of Leaves and during his quest he find out that the Vatican is also after it and to hide the artefact into Vatican's secret archives since it might bad for their business if people would find out that the church does not hold ultimate truth about the origin of the universe.

Usually some familiar invention made by Leonardo appears in the episodes that he utilizes to solve a problem or challenge he faces. Most of the time the inventions and plots are quite entertaining and funny but there is one episode that is just simply brain dead.

///SPOILER///

In one of the episodes Da Vinci's enemies come up with plot that is sure get him executed. With the help of a bribed victim and judges they accuse Da Vinci of sodomy, a crime punishable by death, even tough no-one has been found guilty in Florence for years (that's because the city is so liberal and civilized, get it). Okay, so Da Vinci gets framed and locked up in prison. Everybody is worried since he seems to be making no effort to get out and escape. This is were it gets fucking retarted. With the help explosions coming from bombs made of bat shit and delivered by bats, Da Vinci and his friend switch places in the prison. Da Vinci now free goes to the corrupted judge responsible for his case and knocks him. When the judge wakes up he finds himself tied to a pig (what?!?) and Da Vinci near by with contraption that can record the judge engaged in activity far worse than sodomy – bestiality. With this rudimentary camera Da Vinci takes a picture of the judge with pig and projects the image to the clouds for the whole Florence to see. After taking the picture Da Vinci returns to his cell and in the next session of the court all charges against him are miraculously dropped and he walks free.

///SPOILER ENDS///

In some cases the show pushes a bit too much Da Vincis innovations, the ideas of liberty and democracy and how the catholic church is totally corrupted and evil. However, the main plot line where Da Vinci and allies of Vatican fight to find “ Book of Leaves” is very entertaining. I also like the characters of the corrupted Pope and the ruthless count Riario. They have also woven in some interesting subplots that slowly unfold during the series.

Despite the brain dead bits this show offers entertaining stories so give it a look.

Bleergh - I am the devil

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Canolite D flash unit: Fixing the batterycover using 3D printing

Time to write a few lines to this blog and boy has it been a while. Last time I wrote was in October about rooting my phone.

This time I want to revisit an old topic. Over a year ago I wrote about how I fixed my Canolite D flash units battery compartment. The flash became much better but there was still one problem, the battery cover itself was broken. Two little bits had broken off from the cover that used to lock it in place. Since the cover was broken I had to use a piece of tape to hold it in place. This was not a very elegant solution so I started to thinking about how I could fix it.

I had read and seen videos about 3D printing and was terribly excited about this new technology. I saw an advertisement that Sculpteo offered a free 3D print if you registered to their site. I decided to try it and see if the printing resolution would be enough for my project. I placed my order and after a week I got my android key ring. The key ring had pretty elegant and fine structures which meant that there was a fair chance that my project would be successful.

Then it was time to find the tools that I would need to create a 3D model of the battery cover. As a software tool I chose Autodesks 123d since it was (and still is) free software and it would most likely be enough for my purposes. Of course, I also had to pick up a calibre and start taking measurements. After a while started to get a hang of from what kind of shapes the battery cover was comprised of. Then it was time to start playing around with 123d and start putting together an stl-file. There where a few hurdles in figuring out the best way for doing certain things, but mostly the whole process was quite easy. Of course, I had to be very precise. 

Anyway I managed to make an stl-file and uploaded it to Sculpteo. The solidity checker showed that my design was solid enough to survive the printing process intact so I placed my order. 

This is what I got back:

Canolite D: Perfect fit! Success!!

Canolite D: 3D printed battery cover on the left

Canolite D: 3D printed battery cover on the right

As you can see the project was total success. The part fits perfectly to the flash unit. This really proves how cool 3D printing is as a technology. You can manufacture spare parts to stuff have not been in production for a long time and make them usable again. It is not much short of a miracle. 

Now all I need to is load some film to my camera and start taking photos. Yes!!!