A surprise appearance of Kai Hiwatari

Just recently (when browsing this month's copy of MyM that I bought from Forbidden Planet) I was taken aback when I instantly saw this page....

from page 6 MyM Issue 39 (June 2015)

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have a sort of.... fraternization with this particular character. So much so that he occasionally makes an appearance in this blog. It's the result of research I did for a proposed piece of fan-fiction which I talked about (a bit) back in March.

Reading the article, I'm intrigued that Paramount Pictures is planning to make a live-action movie for the franchise (and the fact that these spinning tops has made $2.5billion!).

I can pretty guess that the resulting film will involve a lot of colour-filtered CGi, as (despite the existence of real-life remote controlled tops) its nearly impossible to control the direction of a top. It's like taming a cat.

My final thought about the idea - I think it would be as successful as the live-action Dragonball movie.

Good luck Paramount, because your gonna need it!

Fictional Book #3 Forever Reborn by theakapanda

A couple of years ago when I first encountered fanfiction.net, one story that caught my eye was this...

Forever Reborn

by theakapanda

Published in 2005 by the South African writer who calls himself "theakapanda," Forever Reborn deals with the concept of human cloning and the lengths upper class hierarchies would take for their name to continue. High brow sci-fi stuff so far. Been a fan fiction it has to involve a beloved franchise or character, and in this story the character in question is.... (drum roll please)

 Kai Hiwatari from Beyblade

(sigh) Yes, Kai Hiwatari..... the Chris Waddle of this blog. (Its not a reference about his performance in sport, its a reference that he gets mentioned a lot on The Fast Show.) He is the grandson of a rich heartless owner of a multimillion corporation that deals mostly with military hardware and research in cybernetics. Research that has gone well past the line that marks off when a scientific endeavor is borderline ethical (or "morally grey").  In the series, Kai has dabbled into his granddad's "crazy schemes for world domination" as a subject. He didn't become a cyborg (been the boss's grandson) but the rough training (which borderlines to torture) he got in Balkov Abbey made him one of the toughest beybladers (Jeremy Clarkson pause) in the world. As you can tell from this episode in his past, his relationship with his granddad ins't that good. If you have watched the series, like I have (for research purposes), the idea of his granddad cloning him to make a fresh start in insuring his legacy isn't that farfetched. 

But, there is another thing about Kai that makes him the ideal character in this story, and its referenced in the title. Kai is the owner of a bit-beast (just click the link. I have incriminated myself too much already in this entry.) that is in the form of a phoenix (the mythical firebird that has the ability to "regenerate" after death, so it'll never die). By been cloned, Kai becomes a sort of metaphoric phoenix. That's enough about the story.

The main reason for my interest in this story is the title, Forever Reborn. Its the sort of title you'll expect to find on a novel that is on sale in an airport bookshop. With that in mind, I think this story needs a book cover worthy of a good novel. A cover that'll look good on the shelves of an airport bookshop. In fact, here's several designs.....

I will make more designs for this book, so please bear with me.

Act of Cultural Vandalism #2 - Why the colour blue keeps you awake at night

Blue is my favourite colour. When I was 12, my parents decided that my room required redecorating (the wallpaper was deteriorating (especially with me picking at the loose bits)). I decided to have the walls painted blue (kingfisher blue from the Duluxe range). A few years later I got a blue LED alarm clock for Christmas, which helped me wake up during my years in college. When I was 21 my sister’s room (which was larger than mine) became vacant and was repainted from light purple to a shade of blue similar to paper (I thought I might draw on the walls if I developed the urge (which never happened)). A year later, I moved out to my former Gran’s flat. It was redecorated completely by Christmas. However, this time I decided to have my room painted yellow (which contained light-reflecting particles to make the room brighter (I had my “office” painted in a similar bright blue paint. I might draw on the poster-covered walls).

So why am I telling you all this? It’s because of what was on TV about six months later after decorating my flat. BBC’s Horizon had showed a programme about recent research into how colours can influence our modes and one of things it showed was that the colour blue has the ability to keep people alert and awake. In other words, it’s the caffeine of colours. After watching it, something hit me. Since as far as I can remember this happening to me (sometime after having my room painted blue) I have had trouble going to sleep at night. It could be just my brain not switching off thinking mode, but is the blue I had in my sleeping quarters made it worse. Did I accidentally sabotage my sleep by having my room painted blue (and having a blue bright LED light alarm clock in my room as well)? I got to find out more.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013c8tb

To save me some bother explaining the basics of the science of colour, here's a 1984 edition of Horizon that explains everything

This observation concerns what scientist call circadian rhythms, or what everyday people call the body clock.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythms

A lot of research over the years have proved that light has a big effect on this internal clock in plants and animals (including humans). The most obvious example of this observation is the experience of “Jet Lag,” where you travel across one or a few time-zones by plane and find yourself tired during the day or wide awake during the night. Inside the artificial-light-filled sealed pressurized vessel that normally called a plane, your body’s photo-sensitive cells (your eyes are not your only light-sensitive organ, your skin is too (it produces Vitamin D when exposed to UV)) are almost denied of any form of sunlight (especially at night), which helps set your internal clock. Without that sunlight accurately setting your clock, you’ll be a few hours fast or slow.

That’s enough about Jet Lag. The heart that could lie in blue’s energy was that the very first ever coloured light receptors were sensitive to blue. In the primordial soups of the early oceans been able to see blue made you able to sense where the sky is, allowing you to orientate your body and have your chloroplasts (the green organelles found in plant cells where photosynthesis takes place) facing the sun. Over time, this led to the creation of the naturally-built-in programmed response that wakes us up when we see blue, no matter what it is. Blue flies, Smurfs, the Tardis, the Blue Man Group, Viagra pills, they all keep us awake at night because of their colour (and other reasons, but I’m not going to waste my time writing them down).

And it’s getting worse. One thing I later found out (on another science programme on the BBC, Bang Goes the Theory) was that fluorescent light produced quite a lot of light in the blue visible spectrum and this light had effects on sleep. Now, I knew that fluorescent light did produce a bluish light before I watched this programme. But, the fact that the expert said it affected sleep made me think back to that Horizon program a year earlier.

Making Fluorescent light on Bang Goes the Theory (2012)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescent_lamps_and_health#Blue.2FUltraviolet_Sensitivity

In fact the programme also showed that similar emissions also come from computer screens. Thinking about it, I’m not surprised. Look at how much blue there is on your computer screen when you use Windows! I wonder how many sleepless nights could be contributed to people checking their Facebook status constantly.

A typical screen grab from Windows XP with an offending (but cool) wallpaper. 

Look at all that blue!

So what applications could this observation give to us? Well, through fluorescent lights and PCs using Windows, offices, convenience stores, supermarkets and night clubs already do so (unintentionally?). But, I have thought of one other application that I think no one has ever commented on… let. I don’t need to say it, I’ll just let the picture I found below do the talking….

This is a piece of fan art by someone I don’t know (because it was collected from a random search on Google Images eons ago). It was this very image that made me first think about this application of the properties of blue.

(The face has been blacked-out to protect the unknown artist (and me) from a potential lawsuit from someone who doesn’t understand the term “fair-use” when it comes to documentary.)

After seeing this image, all straight men can agree that this is a great way to use the stimulating power of blue.

As am personally obliged to address the gender balance in reporting scientific findings and possible applications, for all female readers (and gay men (I mustn’t forget)) here’s a very blue image of a quite attractive male (It’s the first person to came to my mind.).

The camel is irreverent.

If you want more ladies (and gents) just go to Google Images and search “Kai Hiwatari” and/or “Beyblade”.

So what have we learned? We have learned that light and colours have a bigger influence on you than you can possibly imagine. You can blame Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg for depriving you of sleep. And (if done properly) blue can be the most attention-grabbing colour of all.

By the way, I still have some trouble switching my brain off at night to go to sleep (despite the fact my room is now yellow). Right now (at the time of writing) my body clock is totally out of step, with me not falling asleep until after 2-3am! I end up very tired during normal waking hours (7-10am). I now mostly wake up at around noon or afterwards (which isn’t good). I haven’t got a job (at all) that requires early waking, so it isn’t a serious problem (for now). Good night.

(Sorry for the lateness of this blog. I had been mentally distracted for a while).