nz

We first covered the wonderful world of Dr Grordbort last year, with the advent of the Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory and an animated interview with artist Greg Broadmore.

"As a kid I was massively inspired and awed by the black-and-white serials on Sunday afternoon TV, in particular the 1930s Flash Gordon and the many sci-fi movies of that era," says Greg. "This book allowed me to pay homage to that world of science fiction and create something new at the same time. And it's full of guns, did I mention guns? Rayguns actually, the best type."

This year Dr Grordbort presents ....Victory - Scientific Adventure Violence for Young Men and Literate Women

The year's foremost journal of progressive armaments and weaponry! Behold the latest line of defense captured in action! The second book to emerge from the printshop at Grordbort Industries, Victory follows in the footsteps of the trans-galactically successful Dr Grordbort's Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory that was released last year.

Filled to the brim with first hand tales of exploration and progress from the great heroes of our time, picture strips of unimaginable escapades on the frontier, never-seen-before portraits of dazzling damsels and monstrous villains, and laudable accounts of man and robot pitted against our greatest enemy (the uncivilized world), Victory is an onslaught of action-packed scientific adventure in full-spectrum color - containing facts that every boy and literate girl should know.

 http://www.wetanz.com/victory

The Righteous Bison

We are also lucky enough to have been able to get our hands on a Righteous Bison Indivisible Particle Smasher from the Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory at the g33k show. MsBehaviour took a Righteous Bison out for testing in the wilds of Waitakere. Unfortunately our first blast at Lion Rock, Piha was dialled up a little high. We hope no-one notices...

and in more news....

Collectible insectoids

The Blue Sacked Pillock is the first in a planned series of fantastical insectoids from the Universe of Dr Grordbort's, hand made by the world class artists at Weta Workshop.  Each only available in an edition of 50 world wide. This is what Lord Cockswain's field notes say about this specimen:

Entomologically preserved specimen collected Venusian steppe sector VI, near Mount Kann-Udl. Mounted and framed. A1 condition.

Characteristica

The male Blue Sacked Pillock is a weedy little bugger whose fore-limbs (in fact its only limbs, not counting the "wings") are disproportionately elongated. The most obvious peculiarity is, however, the bulbous and rather sickly blue inflatable appendage that makes up the rear third of the animal.

http://www.wetanz.com/pillock

Blast a Buffoon

Also play... Blast a Buffoon, Charbroil a Chum or Fry your Friends at the Weta Website.

Upload a photo of a Buffoon (your boss, your mates...) wield a weapon of your choice and blast away!

http://www.blastabuffoon.com

Watch an animated interview with Dr Grordbort

Stop Press reports on Looksy, a global collaborative film project that has kicked off with the first entries at: http://www.youtube.com/looksygenc

"Auckland film-maker and critic Lewis Bostock is aiming big by thinking small: he’s trying to create the largest collaborative film ever made. His project, Looksy.org, aims to piece together a documentary from user-generated short films that represent Generation C, “the generation of digital creatives who are remaking the way we buy, sell and, most importantly, communicate” around the world. Bostock calls it “an exercise in digital ethnography.”

Helen Baxter MD of Mohawk Media is on the panel of judges including the head of New Business at MTV Asia, Waitakere City mayor Bob Harvey, Marc Swadel (award winner at Cannes), Mitch Olson (Digital Worlds), and Debbie Mayo Smith.

Join in the largest collaborative film ever made at: http://looksy.org

 New Zealand is due to enter the space race on November 30th with the launch of a rocket made by Auckland based Rocket Lab.

Space Fellowship reports that the launch of the Atea-1 rocket on November 30th will:

• Be the first privately built rocket launched from the Southern Hemisphere to enter space
• Launch the Southern Hemisphere’s first commercial space programme
• Be the first commercial sounding rocket to use hybrid fuel technology
• Give the global scientific community the first practical alternative to conventional rockets – at significantly lower cost based aerospace company

The project is being funded by Mark Rocket a successful internet entrepreneur, and the CEO and Techical Director of Rocket Lab is Peter Beck, an award winning scientist and engineer who has been working on the design for over 15 years. The Atea-1 rocket uses super-lightweight carbon fibre components and a revolutionary fuel design, that can generate 3200 horsepower from a 13kg rocket engine. 

The rocket Manu Korere (Bird Messenger) is due for launch on Monday November 30th at 7.10 a.m. (weather permitting) using privately owned Great Mercury Island as a launch pad. Sciblogs 'The final frontier' reports on how high the Kiwi Rocket needs to go before it has officially deemed to have reached 'space'.

Beyond the stratosphere is the mesosphere (temperature decreases with height again), and beyond that is the thermosphere (temperature, for what it’s worth, does a reverse again and now increases with height.) There’s not much air left at all, and at 100 km the Karman line marks an arbitrary boundary as the ‘edge of space’.

You can follow the countdown to the Rocket Lab takeoff at twitter.com/rocketlabnz