When I Was Growing Up, There Was A Certain "inspirational" Poem Most, If Not All, Of My Elderly Christian

Hello!  I've been painstakingly replicating the TARDIS Key as used by the Eighth and Seventh Doctors in the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie.  Now you can buy a 3D print of it or, if you have access to the proper gear, download my file for free and print your own.

The key prop used in the film was an official TARDIS key replica available at the time from 800-Trekker, a now-long-defunct scifi memorabilia catalog, under license from the BBC in the early 1990s. The 800-Trekker key was a unique design largely based on TARDIS keys used on-screen by the Third and Fourth Doctors in the 1970s, but with many noticeable differences from those TV props. Rather than design a new TARDIS key for the 1996 film, the film's prop department just bought a supply of those keys from 800-Trekker and made them the canonical key design used by the Seventh and Eighth Doctors in their movie.

The newly-canonical 800-Trekker keys became very popular with fans, but had already been out of production and in limited supply by the film's release. They were also made of a very soft pewter which scratched and bent easily, so very few good copies of the Trekker key remain in circulation today. I happen to own one of the Trekker keys, ordered myself from the catalog around 20 years ago. Armed with calipers, 3D software, and a desire to replace my prop (which has begun to show noticeable wear, despite my best efforts to preserve it) with something more durable, I modelled this key based on it.

So, you can now order 3D prints of this key in a variety of metals and plastics right here on my Shapeways shop.  (Shapeways, for those unfamiliar, 3D-prints users' designs in a variety of materials on industrial-grade printers.)  What's more, if you have your own access to 3D-printing gear (or you'd just like the 3D source file to play with) I'm sharing that file freely here on Thingiverse so you can hack and print it yourself.

Add a wire loop and chain to wear your key in style, or just hide it in a cubbyhole above your TARDIS door.

Thanks for looking!  Please feel free to ask any questions you may have.

I'm rather proud of the doodles in this one. Plus, I have a logo now!

I seem to be settling into a "Ripley's Believe it or Not!" sort of feel for the WHOFAX illustrations, which I quite like.

Another fact from the archives, illustrated.

Linus Torvalds (b. December 28, 1969)

Finnish-American software engineer Linus Torvalds is the founding developer of Linux, a free and open-source operating system kernel which led to countless implementations and derivatives and grew into the system driving an ever-increasing amount of public, professional, and private computing work.

Acrylic on canvas, 5x7″.  From my September 2015 set Luminaries of the Hacker World.

A dramatic reading I performed from the LiveJournal my old friend Murd0c used to have, as originally posted by him on September 1, 2003.  NSFW for sweariness.

Unfortunately the post I'm reading can no longer be seen; Murd0c deleted his LiveJournal because he didn't want a bunch of crap he wrote as a teenager still out there.  I don't see what his damn problem is, this was some ace material.

Reis Telephone 1861

Having worked on his own telephonelike concept since the 1850s, German inventor Johann Philipp Reis successfully demonstrated that his invention could transmit speech over a decade before Alexander Graham Bell would achieve that goal.  Reis' test phrase was “Das Pferd frisst keinen Gurkensalat,” which means “The horse does not eat cucumber salad.”

Acrylic on canvas, 7x5″.  From my series of paintings of historical telephones.

The Fifth of November, 1955

Remember, remember the Fifth of November, The scientist hanging a clock, Who knew on that date, That fortune and fate, Would reveal so much more to the Doc. Doc Brown, Doc Brown, he did invent Such objects of folly, with good intent, He tumbled and fell in his lavatory But soon after took to his lab'ratory For though he'd been woefully injur'ed A vision unfurled in his bruis'ed head Great Scott! Great Scott! From this disaster Great Scott! Great Scott! The Flux Capac'tor! And what did he do with it? Build it!

Archival ink on paper, 6x8". The original drawing is now owned by a private collector. I've also done a reading of this poem on YouTube.

These logos for fictional trendy Web 2.0 sites were made for the latest episode of The Media Show.  The show called for a bunch of silly but real-sounding website names which were generated in the manner in which we write many of the show's greatest jokes; blurting increasingly random things back and forth at each other on filming day until we've all hopelessly dissolved into fits of convulsive giggling.  I then whipped up suitably shiny icons to match.

"Toop" is pronounced "taupe" because of course it is.

"Bell Odyssey" - This phone-phreaking-themed parody of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" was written by RBCP for issue 39 of the Phone Losers of America zine, which was released on July 27, 1996. Thirteen years later to the day, I released my own performance of the song.

The release date was entirely coincidental; I randomly got the urge to record the old track, spent a few days putting it together, and just happened to finish and release it on July 27, 2009.  RBCP later informed me that it just happened to be the song's 13th anniversary.  I blame the ghost of David Bowie; he isn't dead of course, but that's certainly never stopped him before.

Soon after I posted this, my colleagues at Off the Hook surprised me by using it as the closing song on the July 29, 2009 episode while I was away from the show.  RADIO AIRPLAY!

The genuine phone company recordings used in this track came from ThisIsARecording.com.

This song is downloadable as an MP3 from PLA's songs page.

In today’s daily doodle, President William McKinley wishes he had a Nintendo Game Boy.

I was screwing around with the Doctor Who Red Nose Day special short "Space/Time" (see those first if you haven't) and this accidentally happened.

Doctor Who ©BBC.