Review: Generation 1 Mirage

Now for a throw-back review of Mirage from Generation 1. This is a wedding present found at a thrift store that included the box, directions, and catalog. No weapons, but you can't be choosy when it comes from thrift stores.

ROBOT MODE

Well, its a G1 figure, so that mean the arms move at a ninety-degree angle, the fists rotate, and that's about it. The remaining sticks give some nice details, his head is painted well enough, and this toy works well as a little statue.

VEHICLE MODE

After a simple transformation, Mirage becomes a Formula 1 race car, well detailed with the stickers, some painted-on details, and nice coloring. Behind the open cockpit is an chrome engine, and the rubber remains well on the wheels.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This is a good Gen 1 toy to track down at a reasonable cost. One of the pluses with this toy is that the hands are attached, so makes it a little easier to find a decent looking one. Sure, the weapons are missing, stickers are peeling, but this is one of the nicer G1 toys to stumble across.

Schrödinger's Toy Store

First Off: Schrodinger's Cat definition:

Here's Schrödinger's (theoretical) experiment: We place a living cat into a steel chamber, along with a device containing a vial of hydrocyanic acid. There is, in the chamber, a very small amount of a radioactive substance. If even a single atom of the substance decays during the test period, a relay mechanism will trip a hammer, which will, in turn, break the vial and kill the cat. The observer cannot know whether or not an atom of the substance has decayed, and consequently, cannot know whether the vial has been broken, the hydrocyanic acid released, and the cat killed. Since we cannot know, the cat is both dead and alive according to quantum law, in a superposition of states. It is only when we break open the box and learn the condition of the cat that the superposition is lost, and the cat becomes one or the other (dead or alive). This situation is sometimes called quantum indeterminacy or the observer's paradox: the observation or measurement itself affects an outcome, so that the outcome as such does not exist unless the measurement is made. (That is, there is no single outcome unless it is observed.)


Okay, still with me?

I always liked this thought experiment, its a mind-bender, but somehow it makes sense, even when most of what we know tells us it should not. The reason this sticks with me is because is is the mindset I got in when I was hunting for toys. (By hunting, I mean stopping before and after work at stores in the insane hope an underpaid stock boy accidentally put a toy out early.)

Some collectors call stores daily, getting the inside dope on shipments and shelf stock using DPI numbers and friends on the sales floor. Not me, these actions are cheating in my book, because the fun is in the chase. Every time I walked into a store, I had no idea what would be on the shelves. Until I reached the action figure aisle, buried deep within the store, the toys were both on the shelves and not. Only by my viewing them, was their state of being established.

Or not.

Really, I'm just happy a switch shut off in my brain and toys no longer drive me to such extremes. Until early June, when new Transformers are released. Then we'll see if a relapse is in order.

Planet of Primes

Some rambling backstory first...

I read a post somewhere on the Internet about shooting a panorama or 360 degree photo, then using the Polar Coordinates filter to transform the stitched-together image into an awesome mini-planet, looking like something in Super Mario Galaxy. The examples I saw looked fantastic, but I wanted something to call my own. I tried a simple 360 degree shot in the entrance to California Adventure, but without any proper equipment, it did not turn out.

Yesterday, I finally took a lot of posed shots of my collection of Optimus Primes in a park, using a cake dolly to smoothly spin the camera to keep the shots lined up. The results are...okay. One example is posted below, and I'm working on a second, which will look about the same.

I'm going to attach screws to the cake dolly to mount my camera, and then try again, maybe in a large, empty parking lot. I'm shooting this on my Canon Powershot A570, so some options are limited. One goal I made for myself this coming year is to learn the camera inside-out, which will better justify the purchase of a entry-level DSLR before going back to WDW next Christmas.

See the attached examples for wonderment.