The Evolution of Hobbiton

When Peter Jackson returned to film “The Hobbit” trilogy, the owners of the farm and the film company made the decision rebuild Hobbiton as a permanent set. This foresight has allowed fans to step into the world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved universe. The attention to detail is remarkable, with each Hobbit hole crafted to bring the fictional village to life.

Interestingly, the set features Hobbit houses built at different scales. Some are constructed at 60% of normal size, creating the illusion that humans standing nearby are much taller, aligning with the canonical height difference between Hobbits and humans. In contrast, other Hobbit holes are built at full scale, allowing human actors playing Hobbits to interact naturally within the space during filming.

Keeping the Magic Alive

Preserving the beauty of Hobbiton is no small feat. A team of nine full-time gardeners works tirelessly to keep the set in pristine condition. Their efforts extend beyond mere maintenance; the fruit trees and gardens throughout the set bear real, edible produce that staff members are welcome to enjoy.

Adding to the ambiance are the charming chimneys dotting the landscape. While not functional in the traditional sense, they emit a gentle smoke created by hidden smokers filled with wood chips, filling the air with a pleasant aroma and adding to the illusion of a lived-in village.

Iconic Locations

As we toured the set, our guide pointed out several significant locations. We saw Bag End, the luxurious Hobbit hole home to Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. The guide also pointed out some movie trivia: the oak tree atop Bag End is a completely artificial creation with 300,000 hand-painted leaves, making it the most expensive single piece on the entire set.

We also visited Sam Gamgee’s more modest dwelling and crossed the very bridge that Gandalf traverses in his wagon. The tour concluded at the Green Dragon Inn, where we were treated to complimentary Hobbit ale, allowing us to literally taste a bit of Middle-earth.

Another recognizable spot is the field where Bilbo celebrates his eleventy-first birthday. Our guide shared an interesting tidbit: the cake in the film scene wasn’t real but was actually flammable, set alight off-screen after Bilbo’s memorable speech.

After the tour, I found myself rewatching parts of both “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” trilogies. It was thrilling to recognize specific locations from the set in the films. One scene that stood out was Bilbo’s mad dash from his home across Hobbiton to catch up with the dwarves embarking on their quest. Seeing the actual path he took on the set brought the scene to life in a new way.

Inside a Hobbit House

The interiors of the Hobbit holes were not used for filming. The production team found it challenging to control lighting and sound in such confined spaces. Instead, interior scenes were shot on separate sets. However, to satisfy curious visitors, one full Hobbit hole interior was constructed specifically for tours after filming concluded. Visitors are allowed to touch things inside too.

This tourist-accessible interior is a testament to the filmmakers’ dedication to authenticity. Every detail has been carefully considered, from the functioning fireplace to the plumbing. Even the fake stove, gives off a warm sensation when touched. The walls are adorned with whimsical touches like Hobbit newspapers and guides for foraging mushrooms, immersing visitors in the day-to-day life of these fictional beings.

Leaving Middle-Earth

As the tour ended, we ventured back out into the real world, and found myself surrounded by rolling hills dotted with sheep, their faithful canine companions herding them across the lush landscape.

See more of the Hobbiton Movie Set Tour here

Print Volume

This is the amount volume that the printer is able to print in.  Generally, the measurement is given by the three dimensions of a rectangular prism.  The thing to watch out for here is that just because a printer has a large print volume, it does not mean the printer can reliably print in all of it.  Say the design calls for a thin flat plate.  If the plate is too wide, then the edges of the plate will peel/warp during the print and the flat shape that was intended will be slightly curved.  To visualize what warping is, imagine a flat plate lying on the print bed as it is being printed.  Warping is when the corners of the plate start peeling off the base during a print.  Warping will be explained in a little more detail later on.

Resolution

This describes the accuracy of the nozzle’s positioning.  It is usually measured in microns or inches.  Clearly a smaller value means that the printer will be more accurate in its position.

Layer Thickness

Because the printer works by extruding layers of plastic, thinner layers allow for more fine details.  However, more layers means that the part will take longer to print (all other things being equal).

Print Speed

3D printing is generally a slow process, but a faster print speed could definitely help offset that.

Nozzle Diameter

A small nozzle diameter means that the extruded plastic will be narrow and thus allow for fine details.  It also improves the smoothness of the printed object.

Ease of Removing Parts off the Platform

Because during a print, the base of the part (ideally) should be firmly adhered to the print bed, one must take care when removing the part from the print bed.  In some cases, removing a part requires a little bit of force to pry the part off the print bed.  This application of force may affect the alignment of the print bed relative to the nozzle.  In lower quality printers this can permanently affect the alignment or require frequent re-calibration   Seeing how “rigid” the print bed assembly can help assess how the machine accuracy can be affect during part removal.  For example, if the print bed is mounted on really large support structure, then the affect of misalignment is less of a problem than a machine where the print bed is mounted in a smaller support.

Enclosure

Some printers enclose the part to be printed in a box and some don’t.  The reason an enclosure exists is so that the machine is able to prevent the part being printed from losing too much heat during print.  Loss of heat during a print negatively affects the adhesion of the printed plastic.  Also a larger temperature difference means the part will warp more.  Without an enclosure, heat is able to freely transfer to the ambient.  High quality printers generally have an enclosure.

Variety of Printed Materials

A common material to print with is ABS.  Other materials such as PLA can be printed as well.  The use of the particular material can be quite dependent on the application of the printed part.  The cost of material also differs.  It is worthwhile to determine what material will be printed.  In many cases, ABS should be sufficient.

Warping

This is probably one of the biggest limitations of 3D printing.  Because of the use of heat during print, it is natural for the part to shrink as it cools down.  The problem is that the shrinkage is not uniform.  Some parts of the model shrink more than others and most of the time it is very unpredictable.  While there are some general guidelines that designers can follow to reduce warping, there are definitely some machine features that are good to have to help reduce warping even further.  Because the nature of the way the printer prints is that plastic is extruded layer by layer, the plastic layer at the very bottom is the first to cool down.  Cooling down means shrinkage.  This also means that as the bottom of the model shrinks, the printer is still printing on top of a slightly shrunken part.  Sometimes the shrinkage can be so bad that the part pulls itself off the print bed.  When the part is no longer securely adhered to the print bed, the part may slide around and ruin the entire print.  Warping is the enemy of 3D printing.

Below are some qualities of a machine that help reduce shrinkage:

• Heated print bed – a heated print bed keeps the plastic hot during the print and does not let the base cool down as much as if there were no heated print bed
• Enclosure – described above

There are more ways to reduce warping that the designer can do, but that is outside the scope of this article.

Number of Nozzles

A lot of printers just have the one print nozzle, but there are some with multiple.  This allows printing with multiple colours or in some cases printing with a water soluble support material.  Generally, support material has to be manually removed from the printed part, but if the support material is water soluble, this saves a lot of the manual labor involved in cleaning up the model.

Nozzle Maintenance

Through extended use, the nozzle can become quite dirty, that is black gunk starts building up on the surface of the nozzle.  If one is not careful, this can clog the print nozzle.  It is worthwhile to find out how often the nozzle needs to be replaced.  There are also other factors that may result in the need to replace a nozzle.  This is a recurring cost of maintaining the printer.  Some nozzles are cheaper and more common than others and it is worth it to see how often the nozzle needs to be replaced and how much it will cost each time.  Machines may come with extra nozzles.

Lubrication

Over time, moving parts may have to be lubricated.  Printers should come with a maintenance manual to help instruct the user how to do this.  It is also helpful to know the cost of the lubricant and how often it will be required.

Machine Lifetime Cost

Aside from the cost of the machine, operating a 3D printer can also incur the following costs:

• Shipping
• Insurance
• Brokerage fees
• Tools for removing support material
• Currency conversion
• Sales tax
• Print material (recurring)
• Replacement nozzles (recurring)
• Lubricants for moving parts (recurring)

As it can be seen, the extra costs can be quite significant.

Conclusion

Hopefully this has given a good general overview of some of the considerations in buying a 3D printer.  Different people will value different things in the printer and hopefully this subset of possible considerations for buying a 3D printer helps people make a decision as to what to look for in a printer.

As a movie with an Old West theme, 3:10 to Yuma tells a story of how the law enforcement at the time brought outlaws to justice. The main character, Dan Evans (played by Christian Bale), involves himself with the whole ordeal to desperately make money for his family. The movie focuses on the group of people trying to send the outlaw gang leader, Ben Wade (played by Russell Crowe), to Yuma Territorial Prison while the rest of Wade’s gang chase them. Along the journey, Wade uses carefully crafted dialogue to play mind games on the others. The movie explores the ideas of human nature involving how people can make their own choices in life in order to lead a life of honesty or a life of crime.

I recommend this movie to anybody who likes movies dealing with human nature or movies with an Old West setting.

I won’t try to quantify exactly how much sleep one needs since it differs for each person, but rather explain some of the factors and what people can do in order to optimize their sleeping pattern.

The REM Cycle

During sleep, the body goes through stages of light and deep sleep.  Generally speaking, these types are known as rapid eye movement (REM) sleep , and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep.  The NREM type consists of three different stages, or cycles of sleep known as N1, N2, and N3.  The names of each type are not really important in the context of this article, but the body moves between these stages during sleep and each stage serves a different function.

On average, each sleep cycle last 90 to 110 minutes.  When one wakes up in between a sleep cycle, they will feel tired when they wake up.  A lot of times, the sleep cycle gets interrupted when the alarm clock rings in the morning.  But when one wakes up at the end of the cycle, they will feel very refreshed.

The time to optimize here is plan the sleeping time in accordance with the sleeping cycle to ensure that one will wake up at the end of a sleep cycle.  Of course, this will take some experimentation to gage exactly how long each sleeping cycle is.

My method involves leaving some extra time to wake up.  I overestimate the time it takes me to fall asleep and the time it takes for one sleep cycle, I will wake up feeling refreshed before my alarm clock rings.  However, having too much extra time will cause the body to start its next cycle before waking up, but that depends on the person and their sleeping pattern.  Again, this takes experimentation.

Another issue is how long to sleep for.  To me, this doesn’t really matter as long one is able to wake up naturally.  This way, the body is able to communicate that it has had enough sleep.  Although, there are times where people wake up prematurely from sleep and feel that they need more sleep.  Another way would be to see if someone can get through the day without feeling tired or falling asleep.

Circadian Rhythms

Circadian rhythms are why we should not sleep whenever we want.  This is just a fancy term for explaining that each person’s body maintains the same pattern everyday.  Below is a picture from Wikipedia of what happens throughout the day for the average person.

A lot of these events don’t really have to do with sleep except for a few.  For example at 4:30 AM, our body should be at its lowest body temperature if the above pattern is followed.  Wikipedia states the following:

The optimal amount of sleep is not a meaningful concept unless the timing of that sleep is seen in relation to an individual’s circadian rhythms. A person’s major sleep episode is relatively inefficient and inadequate when it occurs at the “wrong” time of day; one should be asleep at least six hours before the lowest body temperature.  The timing is correct when the following two circadian markers occur after the middle of the sleep episode and before awakening:

• maximum concentration of the hormone melatonin, and
• minimum core body temperature.

Six hours before the lowest body temperature would mean that the optimal time to go to sleep for the average human is at 10:30 PM.  I experienced this first hand.  I used to sleep at 4 AM until 2 PM and always felt that my sleep felt super restless, but now that I sleep from 8:00 PM to 4:00 AM (I chose to sleep at this time because this way I get to talk to people in Vancouver while I’m abroad), I feel super refreshed waking and most of the time, I don’t need an alarm clock to wake me up.  I only need the clock tell me what time it is.

Conclusion

This is what I follow when I plan my sleeping pattern.  I used to have a really erratic sleep schedule, where I woke up early one day and late the next because I’d always wake up in time to go to my first class of the day.  If the start time differed everyday, my sleeping time would change too.  As a result, I felt tired everyday and tried to adjust my sleeping pattern.  After changing up my habits, I no longer feel the need to take naps everyday, and I don’t feel fatigue anymore.

Sources

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm

After years of diplomacy, the DPRK still continues to develop nuclear weapons (source).  The country even develops long range missiles that many fear will one day be nuclear missiles.  Yes, the UN wishes North Korea to halt their nuclear ambition, but even after so much foreign aid given to them in exchange for them to stop, nothing has changed.  North Korea agrees to halt their nuclear program, and then some time later they start again.

In 1994, as a part of the Agreed Framework, an agreement between North Korea and the United States, North Korea agreed to halt their production of plutonium in exchange for the construction of nuclear power reactors, oil, and economic support.  However, in 2002, because of construction delays in the construction of the power reactors, North Korea argues that the United States violated the agreement.  In December of 2002, North Korea pledges to reactivate its nuclear facilities.  In February, they announced that they reactivated their nuclear facilities, and in April they withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  The accusation from North Korea shows that they had no intention to stop.  They looked for a reason to start their nuclear program back up again, and they found one. 

North Korea continues to perform nuclear tests (one in 2006 and one in 2009).  Although the international community condemns this nuclear test and tightened sanctions on the country, the DPRK continues its nuclear program.

Sanctions on the country do little to stop their nuclear program.  The sanctions simply prevent the country’s economic growth.  Sanctions hurt their citizens by preventing economic aid being sent into the country, and it’s no secret that poverty is rampant in North Korea.

As long as North Korea continues in its current course, the sanctions will stay.  Diplomacy can help alleviate this, but only if an agreement can be reached.  Six-party talks continue, with no favourable result.  This has gone on since the late 80’s/early 90’s.  It’s clear that North Korea has absolutely no intention to halt their nuclear ambition.  All people can do now wonder at what their next step will be.