Film & Television / Music — Comments Off
10
Jan 12

Current Pop Culture Passions

So, here’s what I’ve been watching on TV lately.

I can’t wait for Mad Men to come back, just can’t wait. In the meantime, AMC has been feeding me the delightfully gritty Hell on Wheels. Yeah, I know everyone loves Breaking Bad, but I like my grit with cowboy hats, so sue me. Anson Mount is sexy!

On the reality TV front, I’m still destroying my mind with Patty Stanger and The Millionaire Matchmaker. I know! I should feel guilty and I do but I just CAN’T stop watching. Slightly classier is Project Runway All-Stars. Even without Tim Gunn, it is great, because the contestants are great. Oh, Austin Scarlett, where have you been all my life? Or at least, the past several years?

On the music front, I’m loving Carolina Chocolate Drops a whole heck of a lot, and The Civil Wars as well. Deep, resonant voices running through me—Adele hasn’t cornered the market on that!

Charlie Chaplin [3]
Creative Commons License photo credit: Daran KandasamyI went to the movies with Art and saw The Artist. I really loved it. Who would have imagined that I’d be seeing a black and white silent film starring a couple of unkowns? It’s heart-warming and sweet without being treacly. I think it is a movie that really understands spectacle and the theatrical experience. I mean, in order to make silent films, you really have to understand how to convey a lot of information using just visual and musical information. There weren’t really that many title cards either!

Alone I saw Hugo, which was excellent too, but I liked The Artist better. I felt like, The Artist was a movie that told me “”movies are wonderful,”" while Hugo was a movie that told me “”Movies are wonderful and you should think so too.”" Preachy, in other words. It’s hard to watch if you already know that Martin Scorcese is obsessed with old film preservation, because that ends up being the most important thing in Hugo. I mean, the loss of old film is considered, in this movie, equally as tragic as a young boy being orphaned. So there’s that.

Gadgets — Comments Off
20
Apr 12

A Quick Lesson in Laser Machines

The most recent laser marker machines are able to do both laser cutting and laser etching. Some contain more than one type of laser inside to accommodate different surfaces and designs and to speed the process.

In general, laser machines have three components to them:

1)   1) laser

2)  2)  controller

3)   3) surface

Think of the laser part as a pencil (for etching) or the point of an X-ACTO knife (for cutting). The laser beam does precise work down to almost the particle. The controller is usually a computer–actually some computer code—that tells the point of the laser beam exactly what to do, when to do it, and how hard or soft to cut. (The controller manipulates the characteristics of the radiation as it touches the surface material.) The surface is the material to be engraved; it can be in sheets, tall, round or any 3-D shape.

Though directing and focusing a laser beam seems like a complicated and messy business, the machines today range in size from something so small it could fit in your hand or on your lap to enormous industrial systems.

These are only some of the options for laser machines:

Metal marking YAG laser—marks metal and plastics

Flat laser cutting machine—contains a feed-through mechanism (similar to a copy or fax machine). This laser works well on sheets of material of any length.

Flat, round and high laser cutting machine—inner holder moves the object (or surface) up and down several inches to give the laser access from both top and bottom. This machine can engrave anything from baseball bats to drinking glasses.

Tabletop machines –This is one of the smallest industrial machines and is still as powerful as some of the larger ones. This machine can handle both flat and round (cylindrical) objects.

Roll material machine—Built with a conveyer bed that can accommodate and etch on rolled material.

All machines, no matter the size, have safety features built in these days.  For the messier jobs (materials that don’t fracture or vaporize easily) there are machines that are completely closed and airtight when in process. Their high-speed work reduces dusk, smoke, oil and other atmosphere hazards.