#shamini bundell

[maddyisabstract]

IT'S HERE, IT'S HERE!!! CY_BORG is back on @realmspod! You're in for a treat, my friends. The first episode of Season 2 is an adrenaline-fuelled thrill ride. If you haven't listened to Season 1, now's the perfect time. It's only 5 episodes but really packs a punch.

This actual play series from Realms of Peril and Glory is GM'd by the incomparable Pip Gladwin, and stars me as Blythe, Shamini Bundell as Pyrex, James Barbarossa as Edge Impulse, and Zack FG as Keith Hira.

As always, Zack is KILLING IT with the sound design and James is MURDERING IT with the original music.

Listen to Season 2 Episode 1 NOW!

Catch up on Season 1 HERE!

[realmspod]

CY_BORG - ₵Ø₥ł₦₲ ₴ØØ₦ - RealmsPod.com

[oxventurequotes]

margery: this is a moral conundrum!

dob: it's really not

[merelymatt]

Catching up on @realmspod's original London Grind series in anticipation of the new one with Shamini Bundell starting soon!

If I'd caught this when it first went up, I wouldn't have been able to make this comparison, but I'm enjoying 'Three Card' Monty's Nana Barker as a direct contrast to @worldsbeyondnumberpod's Grandma Wren: both old witchy nanas accompanied by birds who are arseholes, but in extremely different ways (Nana turned a street corner drug pusher into a raven, something she does regularly as a combination punishment-for-wrongdoing and favour to the Tower of London)

[crochetedblorbos]

"Do you think Bags cares about us? I didn't program that."

Character Name: Pyrex

Fandom: Realms of Peril & Glory (@realmspod) , CY_BORG campaigns [Podcast]

Played By: Shamini Bundell

Yarn Used: Skin: CraftSmart Value - Coffee Clothes/Hair/Bags: Loops & Threads Soft and Shiny - Onyx Rainbow Circuits: DMC #G168

Basic pattern here.

Our beloved little orphaned gearhead (NOT a hacker). Pyrex is just one of those characters you instantly want to wrap up in a warm blanket and keep safe from everything - including, let’s be realistic, herself. She’s so delightfully awkward and earnest and I just love her. (I don’t think Shamini is capable of playing a character I hate.)

Pyrex differs from the base pattern as follows:

Trousers: I gave her stirrup pants. I don’t know why. I just felt very strongly that Pyrex would have stirrup pants and bare feet for some reason. So I stitched the first round of the leggings in the front loops of the last round of her feet, then slip stitched to a point that looked like the right place and did a chain until it was long enough to go under the foot and slip stitch back into the other side of the cuff, at which point I chained one and continued as normal.

Tunic: I was going for a baggy, sort of oversized top for her, so I did the ridge at the waistband like I did with Mini and Azu. After I finished the rest of her torso, I went back with the yarn and added the long part. I took a week off in the middle of working on Pyrex to make a baby blanket for a friend who was moving and wouldn’t have a fixed address for a while, and because when I went back to her I still had the stitch I used for that in mind, I decided to do a Catherine’s wheel stitch for the bottom (which is a bitch and a half to do in the round, just FYI). The pattern was as follows: R1: Join yarn to loop produced from flo/blo stitching in center of back. Ch 1, sc in each st around, sl st in first sc (38 sc). R2: Ch 1, sc in next 9 st, 2sc in next st, sc in next 18 st, 2sc in next st, sc in next 9 st, sl st in first sc (40 sc). R3: Ch 1, [sc in next st, skip next 3 st, 7 dc in next st, skip next three st] 5 times around, sl st in first sc (5 sc, 35 dc). R4: Ch 1, 4dctog. [Ch 3, sc in next dc, ch 3, 7dctog] 4 times. Ch 3, sc in next dc, ch 3, 3dctog, sl st in first 4dctog (5 sc, 5 7dctog, 10 ch3 sp). R5: Ch 3 (counts as first dc). 3dc in same st. [Skip ch3 sp, sc in next sc, skip ch3 sp, 7dc in next 7dctog] 4 times. Skip ch3 sp, sc in next st, skip ch 3 sp, 3dc in first st, sl st in first ch (35 dc, 5 sc). R6: Ch 1, [sc in first dc, ch 3, 7dctog, ch 3] 5 times, sl st in first sc (5 sc, 5 7dctog, 10 ch3 sp). Fasten off.

Head: Pyrex was described as having filaments and wires across her face, presumably wiring her RCA (and, as we later found, her connection to Bags). And, well, I had a whole bunch of leftover metallic thread from a cross-stitch project I did for my brother that I swore I would never use on aida again. (Someone on the Old Gods of Appalachia Discord server referred to it as “the devil’s asshair” and I have not been able to think of it any other way since.) Except that I ended up buying silver metallic thread specifically for this project that worked a lot better. Anyway, I really like how that came out. For her pigtails, I used the same method I’ve used since Alice to put hair in around the outside edges of her scalp, then also in two lines down the middle back for the part, and then looped a few more in the middle to fill it out. They turned out cute!

Arms: I used the same technique I used for Mini’s hands - just stitching around the magnets - for Pyrex’s. Partly that was because I forgot to bring any stuffing with me when I got to her arms and I didn’t feel like going top down, but mostly it was because she just struck me as the skinny sort.

Bags: What would Pyrex be without her spider robot companion?

I probably overcomplicated this a lot, but basically I just crocheted a rectangular cube, put a big red eye on one end, and made his legs with sculpting wire and yarn. I crocheted a line of single crochet around the wires, then stitched them to Bags’ body. He doesn’t stand up as well as I’d like, but he turned out pretty good!

[steampoweredshow]

Science communication comes in all mediums, from film-making to journalism, even Dungeons and Dragons, and Shamini Bundell does it all.

Shamini is an award-winning filmmaker, a writer, and a journalist, working on the Nature YouTube channel, podcast, and magazine online. She is also one of the members of RPGeeks, combining Dungeons and Dragons with science.

Join us as we speak about Shamini's journey through science and science media production, her introduction to Dungeons and Dragons, and applying her broad skillset to both science communication and creative arts.

About Shamini Bundell

Shamini is a science-film maker and video journalist for the journal Nature. She studied Zoology at undergrad followed by a Science Media Production MSc and then worked in TV for several years before ending up at Nature. In her spare time she combines science communication with Dungeons & Dragons as part of the 'RPGeeks' including running live shows at evens like New Scientist Live and Natural History Museum Lates.

Website: shaminibundell.wordpress.com Twitter: @SBundell Instagram: @sbundell TikTok: @shamini.b

Watch or listen on your favourite platform.

Show Notes

[00:01:17] Delving into the natural sciences. [00:02:24] The transition into science media production and science communication. [00:04:37] Shamini's long history with filmmaking. [00:07:00] Science filmmaking for Nature. [00:07:24] The creative process for science filmmaking. [00:10:01] The making of Sandcastle film. [00:12:49] Project managing the filmmaking process. [00:13:48] How do you decide where to stop when making a video? [00:18:12] On discovering Dungeons & Dragons. [00:19:24] So, pantomime. [00:20:09] Drunken bus stop D&D. [00:22:37] The origins of RPGeeks. [00:24:55] Magic is just the science we haven't justified yet. [00:25:36] Segue: That world building thing. [00:27:31] On being a Dungeon Master / Game Master. [00:29:32] Making the science work. [00:31:42] The morally grey areas of science and magic. [00:34:08] Bonus Question 1: What hobby or interest do you have that is most unrelated to your field of work? [00:35:08] Bonus Question 2: Which childhood book holds the strongest memories for you? [00:40:07] Bonus Question 3: What advice you would give someone who wants to do what you do? Or what advice should they ignore?

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[franzis-frantic-thoughts]

we have an official announcement!!

The original tweet can be found here

 [ID: A tweet by the official Rusty Quill twitter account, reading "A little update from Rusty Towers: we’re delighted to announce some new cast and writers joining our new shows! First up, please welcome the cast of our upcoming actual play #ttrpg podcast, Chapter & Multiverse, joining director @maddy_abstract #MultiversePod", followed by a promo graphic. It is headed by the RQ Originals logo and a headshot of Maddy Searle who is named as Director/Creator. To the left there is the Logo for Chapter & Multiverse, which is a an island floating in a green galaxy. The island has buildings from various time periods on it. There are eight headshots of the confirmed Performers: Ben Meredith, Lydia Nicholas, Ahmed Aljbray, Shamini Bundell, Lowri Ann Davies, Helen Gould, Connie Chang, Pip Gladwin. The second image is the promo graphic in a bigger format for easier readability /end ID]

[sciencespies]

Scientists Take Fundamental Measurements of Einsteinium for the First Time

https://sciencespies.com/news/scientists-take-fundamental-measurements-of-einsteinium-for-the-first-time/

Scientists Take Fundamental Measurements of Einsteinium for the First Time

Using an unprecedentedly small sample, scientists have taken the first fundamental measurements of the highly radioactive element einsteinium. The results were published on February 3 in the journal Nature.

Einsteinium was first created in 1952 in the aftermath of the first hydrogen bomb test on the island of Elugelab, which is now a part of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. But the element’s most common form, on the rare occasions that it is produced, degrades by half every 20 days. Because of the element’s instability and the inherent dangers of studying a super radioactive element, the last attempts to measure einsteinium were in the 1970s, Harry Baker reports for Live Science. The new research not only sheds light on einsteinium and other very heavy elements, but also gives future chemists a model for conducting research on vanishingly small samples.

“It is a very small amount of material. You can’t see it, and the only way you can tell it is there is from its radioactive signal,” says University of Iowa chemist Korey Carter, a co-author on the research, to Live Science.

The researchers worked with a slightly more stable version of einsteinium that takes 276 days to lose half its material. Every month, the sample lost about seven percent of its mass. To protect the sample—and the researchers—from its radioactive decay, the team created a 3-D-printed sample holder for the task.

“There were questions of, ‘Is the sample going to survive?’ that we could prepare for as best as we possibly could,” says Carter to Gizmodo’s Isaac Schultz. “Amazingly, amazingly, it worked.”

Einsteinium sits at the very bottom of the periodic table, in a row of heavy elements called called the actinides among neighbors like uranium and plutonium. All actinides are highly radioactive and most aren’t found in nature. When atoms get very big, like actinides are, it becomes difficult for chemists to predict how they’ll behave because they have so many sub-atomic particles with opposing charges that are barely held together.

For example, the particles around the outside of an atom are the negatively charged electrons, and the outermost electrons are called valence electrons. The number of valence electrons that an atom has determines how many other atoms it can form bonds with. Because einsteinium is so big, it’s hard to predict its valence value, but in the new paper, the researchers were able to measure it.

“This quantity is of fundamental importance in chemistry, determining the shape and size of the building blocks from which the universe is made,” writes Keele University chemist Robert Jackson in the Conversation. “Einsteinium happens to lie at an ambiguous position on the periodic table, between valence numbers, so establishing its valence helps us understand more about how the periodic table should be organized.”

The team got their einsteinium from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s High Flux Isotope Reactor. Normally, the Oak Ridge reactor makes californium, which is useful for things like detecting gold and silver ore. Californium and einsteinium have a lot in common, so the latter is often a byproduct of californium production. It’s tough to separate them, which is why the lab only got a very small sample of einsteinium—about 200 billionths of a gram—and even then, it was too contaminated with californium to conduct some of their tests.

The team bombarded a some of their einsteinium with high-energy light using the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource in order to take measurements. In one result, the team found that while most actinides reflect a longer wavelength than the light shot at them, einsteinium does the opposite, and reflects shorter wavelengths. The team also found that when other elements bonded to einsteinium, the bonds were slightly shorter than they’d predicted.

“That tells us that there is something special about einsteinium, in that it doesn’t behave as we expected,” says lead author Rebecca Abergel, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley’s, to Shamini Bundell and Nick Howe at Nature News.

#News

[environmentguru]

Nature Extra: Futures January 2017

Futures is Nature's weekly science fiction slot. Shamini Bundell and Richard Hodson read you their favourite from February, 'Fermi's zookeepers' by David Gullen. http://www.environmentguru.com/pages/elements/element.aspx?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr&id=4587973

[realmspod]

𝙂𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙂𝙪𝙩𝙨. 𝕷𝖆𝖘𝖊𝖗𝖘 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝕷𝖊𝖘𝖎𝖔𝖓𝖘. Don't come between a girl and her r̠͔̼̪͖̈͟ȯ̴̞̟̟̋̚b͖͐̌͘ͅő̴̦͎͙͙̜t̡͇̰͈̣͚̪͔̞̋̍̚ or else your face might get 𝔩𝔞𝔷𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔡 𝔬𝔣𝔣. Pyrex and Bags will take C͍̥̜̻̭̅̐̈́ͦ͜y̵̮̗͋ͤ_̢͓͈̤̟̗̪̲̬ͭC͇̯̲̑͂̚͘i͂̽҉͇̰t̡̤̰͉̦͓̝͈̥ͩ̇͊y̛͚̗̖͖̅ by force in Realms of Peril & Glory's CY_BORG, July 24th.

Discover the podcast, RealmsPod.com

[realmspod]

A sound from the microwave? A Pause. A Voice. 👁️

Shamini Bundell is Pyrex, CY_BORG is out now! 💀

realmspod.com

[maddyisabstract]

IT'S HERE!!! The newest series from @realmspod, GM'd by the incomparable Pip Gladwin, with superb players James Barbarossa, Zachary Fortais-Gomm (@zackfg) and Shamini Bundell, who I was lucky enough to join. CY_BORG is a fantastic game and perfect for Pip's dark dystopian tale.

LISTEN NOW!

[franzis-frantic-thoughts]

Dungeons and Leopards is happening again!

May 1st!

Bryn DMing, with James, Auto, Shamini and Sasha Ellen playing!