06/11/20 – Next To You

Spacetrawler, audio version For the blind or visually impaired, June 11, 2020.

|

2020-06-11-spacetrawler3b

|

Cedra has left on a road trip (for business). Now I can work around the clock. Joy. I WILL meet my deadline. Dang it.

29 Comments

    1. Meran

      I agree.
      Yet it’s just one more thing I’m allergic to (casein, the protein).

      I’ve found 2 products that aren’t that bad. If I served then to you, you’d think: Ok, this is cheese, not bad. What kind?

      But it’s nothing like cutting off a chunk to eat in your hand. (This stuff is ~very expensive)

      I do miss cheese.

      And MILK. Looking like milk isn’t the same at all.

      1. Gregg Eshelman

        Have you looked into the possibility that an infusion of a proper balance of beneficial bacteria into your digestive tract might take care of that?

        The procedure is called a “fecal transplant”. Donors literally give a crap, which is then carefully screened for infectious diseases. The donors have to not be taking antibiotics or several other medications.

        The donated ‘material’ is then deposited throughout the recipient’s colon. A top down treatment may also be done, either via an endoscope through the stomach and past the duodenum or by swallowing several capsules of donor ‘material’. The capsules are extra thick gelatin so they don’t dissolve until they get into the small intestine.

        Another product for this is Re-POOP-ulate. The company behind it sorted our a bunch of strains of bacteria humans are supposed to have in their GI tract. Claimed benefits over ‘naturally produced’ product are it’s always the same product for consistency of determining efficacy, and since it’s an artificial culture there’s no chance of missing a nasty bacterium or virus, also no chance of effects from traces of medications.

        The FDA had only approved these procedures as a last ditch treatment for Clostridium Difficile bacteria, to be tried after your guts have been nuclear carpet bombed by the most powerful antibiotics. If C. Difficile survives nuking the site from orbit, then you get to try the overwhelming it with good bacteria hail mary play.

        That led to people doing self treatments with donations from friends and relatives they hope aren’t packing nasties in their poo, and using various lash-ups to infuse it up their bums. At best they can only treat their sigmoid colon, maybe partway up the descending colon.

        A bit of googling shows that as of 2017 this was becoming a much more accepted treatment, applied sooner instead of as a “Well, if it doesn’t work it can’t make things worse.” final attempt.

  1. Coyoty

    “Tea… Is that anything like coffee?”

    “…It’s almost, but not quite, entirely unlike coffee.”

    “Oh. A Hitchhiker’s Guide quote.”

    “How…?”

    “Chiphu keeps going on about it.”

  2. Rikard

    Cheese, the final frontier. These are the adventures of the enterprising coyte Ruddock, and his brave crew of gastro-intestinal bacteria. Their mission: to boldly eat what no coyote has eaten before.

  3. Karl Engler

    I get it now, the light lines are the 3D model (wire frame) of the ship that you position to where you want, then add the characters as indicated but the heavier dark lines from your tablet pencil. I can see why you invested time to learn 3D modeling.

  4. 0z79

    I’m thinking that a certain symbiote is whispering in Tesfay’s ear, getting him to make a rational argument for not being in space… then all three, one at a time are coming in to ask to be let off this crazy ride.

  5. Pete Rogan

    In conclusion:

    Emily’s coterie and its destination are now known and set. Ditto her plan of action. Pending some complication from the GOB, she’s free to resume her inner quest.

    But you don’t have to be James Cameron or Stephen King to know things won’t stay so cut-and-dried. There are larger events going on, and closer ones, too, for Emily. Their solution will be intertwined, in ways you can’t imagine now.

    But I am aware not just of Story, but of the rules of Story. l am here to hear this story, not mess with it or the readership. Extremely bad form. Shocking bad hat and all that. No, no, no, no.

    So I will get another box of Milk Duds, and this time perhaps some Now-and-Laters to chew on when the chewing gets necessary. And root beer. Yes. Definitely root beer. I will watch it foam up and not think of anything else.

    1. Muzhik

      @Pete Rogan:
      So I will get another box of Milk Duds, …

      Suggestion: Also get a box of Sugar Babies, and a large bag of very fresh, very hot popcorn, thoroughly covered with butter (REAL stuff from cows, not some butter “flavored” genuine artificial oil product). Dump the Sugar Babies in the bag, stir/shake the bag to distribute the Sugar Babies, and wait a few minutes. When you start eating the popcorn, you’ll run into occasional “nuggets” of caramel, which will have been softened just enough by the hot popcorn so that you can eat them (with the popcorn) without pulling out too many of your fillings.

      You’re welcome.

  6. I have to ask, Chris, what program are you currently using to create these backgrounds? You make it look so easy, I would love to try it. I have an old copy of SketchUp, but it was a bit laborious. Took me ages just to build a single house exterior. I couldn’t imagine making environments this intricate as quickly and masterfully as you seem to.

      1. Meran

        I used to use Computervision (for Drafting/Designing, then moved on to ProEngineer. Loved using those! High end programs, both. (If you need to ask How much? you can’t afford it. Lol]

        What are the requirements? Windoze? What versions… Apple? Ditto. Lol

      2. Gregg Eshelman

        Oooooo. So by some route you could have real models of various Spacetrawler objects 3D printed. 🙂 More swag to sell. Might be someone near you that you could work with. Would definitely want a contract that they’re not allowed to share any provided 3D models or other data. Their job is to make the models suitable for 3D printing and do the 3D printing.

        ‘Course that depends on the quality of your Sketchup models. That software has been known for making 3D work easier than other 3D software, but it’s also know for enabling the production of 3D models that look good but are structurally horrendous to work with in any other software.

        What horrors? Things like edges floating with one end not connected to anything. Polygons that appear to be a fully connected part of the model but are only attached at one side. Perfectly overlapping polygons, points and edges occupying the same space, and various others.

        3D printing requires a “solid model” that is “water tight”. There has to be an inside and an outside. Can’t have any polygons poking out on their own. Every edge of every polygon must be an edge of one other polygon. Only triangular polygons are supported, thus non-flat polygons (which any 4+ sides polygon could be) don’t work for 3D printing.

        So if you wanted to 3D print a Spacetrawler, you’d have to remove anything inside of it and close any holes so that only a solid outer shell remains.

    1. CBob

      He also does a lot of kitbashing from downloaded models (I’ve spotted a lot of such parts over the years of the comic), to make the process go faster.

      That’s not a criticism, BTW. Kitbashing is a major technique used in a lot of classic visual sci-fi (Star Wars being the most famous example).

      1. @CBob is right, for backgrounds that only have a quick scene or two, I totally kitbash. But with something like Emily‘s ship, I built most of it except (I think) the cockpit chairs, the patio table, the spiral staircase, the couch, and the pillows.

  7. meerling

    Echo, my cat, would totally agree with Ruddock over the cheese thing.
    Of course he has no idea what a coyote is, so he’d probably hide the moment the cheese was gone.

    1. Meran

      Cheese that already has rennet in it, has the means to digest it right there.

      And if the animal never goes without milk, (and has no allergy), they can have it there entire lives.

      I know. I’ve been doing “Magic Time” for 15 yrs now. No upset tummies, nor upset bowels. But then, I home cook my own doggie stew, too.

  8. Pete Rogan

    In another medium, I rely quite a bit on built-up backgrounds that often get just a remark, or a curse or two. I can appreciate having a tool that permits the generation of settings beforehand. It simplifies the entire process of creation. I would say it automates it, but then I think of the trouble my father got into bringing a cable-driven shaping tool to his woodcarving class. The situation made him realize that what qualifies as ‘art’ has as much to do with the limits of imagination as it does actual craft, a lesson I absorbed early.

Leave a Reply to Nomi Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *