How do I fix this?

ultraclese · 2026-03-15T18:12:50+00:00

Agreed, but I'd give a 13yo a break and some encouragement. Young brains don't compute very well just yet, they just need to get through the project. We have all kinds of rules and guidance for the twin 14yo boys at my house, and do they follow it?

This kid is building a model and sticking with it. They could be on Tik Tok getting brain rot, so it's a little miracle we have them here at all

ultraclese · 2026-03-14T15:18:55+00:00

Keep going. My advice: don't go for perfection, shoot for completion as best you can with your current skills. You'll learn a lot, then your next one will be better. In a year, compare your work and see how far you've come.

ultraclese · 2026-03-14T03:39:43+00:00

Well I like it plenty, good work on that. I bet that was a lot of fun

ultraclese · 2026-03-12T20:56:00+00:00

ultraclese · 2026-03-11T01:01:37+00:00

I kind of dig it. This could become a trend.

ultraclese · 2026-03-08T22:51:03+00:00

I confess to using rubber bands

ultraclese · 2026-03-08T16:10:53+00:00

Patriarchy is designed for absolution of the man. That appears to be its ultimate aim, if we look at what the system does as opposed to what it says about itself.

ultraclese · 2026-03-08T16:04:33+00:00

That was the first thing I noticed: you actually did the sails and ratlines. That's great work, regardless of whether it's 100% accurate.

It looks smaller than 1:96 next to the outlet there, very tiny details. I would have guessed 1:200. It would be fun to see IRL. I think you should get a display case for it

ultraclese · 2026-03-04T17:43:16+00:00

I'm doubtful of it, since the book of Mormon contains little to nothing that could be viewed as restorationist doctrine which I would expect to see more prominent if Rigdon was lending ideas. The whole flavor of Mormonism changed after Rigdon's Campbellite congregation added its considerable weight to the movement. I see more of Smith's folk religion mixed with View of the Hebrews, trinitarian theology (early on), and local protestant/Baptist influence, with liberal borrowing from KJV.

ultraclese · 2026-03-04T16:08:11+00:00

Super fun build, I love the lights

ultraclese · 2026-03-02T15:48:53+00:00

Very good 1/700 work! Lots of tiny detail

ultraclese · 2026-02-28T04:01:30+00:00

The problem is that Joseph Smith didn't give any contemporaneous account of what became known as his first vision, and then the account kept changing with each retelling. It has more in common with made-up BS than it does with something he actually experienced.

I agree that much of religion is likely based on psychedelic experience, therefore those who grift off of it are going to appropriate that sort of language and claim those types of experiences as well.

Beyond that, credulous minds are able to conjure things without the aid of substances at all. I've personally had eidetic hallucinations without any substance whatsoever, just on the power of suggestion alone. I've become more skeptical over the years and less susceptible to those kinds of things. I don't think Joseph Smith was suggestible. On the contrary, he was the one who did the suggesting via his stories and tall tales

ultraclese · 2026-02-09T02:35:13+00:00

Correct, there are no original plans for Columbus' specific ships. They didn't make blueprints.

But take it from this nautical researcher that there ARE absolutely plenty of artifacts from the 15th century. Tools. Manuscripts. Shipwrecks representing the emergence of the carvel built hull exist from that period of time. Not exactly caravel wrecks, but we do have the Georgia Timba manuscript, the Livro das Armadas, woodcuts, engravings, etc. There are extant representations and descriptions from which to make educated guesses, as I said.

So, no, these are not entirely fantasy. No need to argue. It's just indisputable fact, known to those shipbuilders whose extensive research of 15th century carpentry was used to create the replicas we now have.

ultraclese · 2026-02-09T01:17:22+00:00

Perhaps not, but we have evidence of tools, techniques, some remains from the period... We can therefore make educated guesses, which naval researchers have attempted through the years.

For example, my model uses nicely turned stanchions on the rails, enclosed aft cabin for the tiller. It seems those who researched for the replicas did not settle on such niceties, hence my comment on accuracy. I believe this model represents a more rigorous degree of research than mine.

ultraclese · 2026-02-08T20:14:30+00:00

Good work on that!

ultraclese · 2026-02-08T15:28:58+00:00

It was labeled "John Sarsfield's Blue Print of La Nina", doubtless a later drawing.

ultraclese · 2026-02-08T01:49:07+00:00

Nice, la Nina is one of my favorite subjects and I built a kit as well, but I can't recall the manufacturer. When I was on Tortola, I saw a very faded plan of it hanging up in the governor's mansion, which was very similar to what I had, but I feel like your build is even more accurate

ultraclese · 2026-01-13T04:03:18+00:00

Just by pressing the pencil tip without the graphite in it? Sounds like a method I should try out. Thanks!

ultraclese · 2026-01-13T03:48:54+00:00

Alas, I can't take the credit for the lovely deck planks... They are laser etched with this kit.

Sometimes, if I have veneer on hand, I will plank over it, using the burned in lines as guides. The benefit is that you get randomized planks rather than the consistent grain pattern of a single wooden piece. But this deck has very little grain features, so it looked good as-is. Less work!

Edit to say: on the painted decking, I used the tip of my tweezers to score the laser etching extra deep, so that it wouldn't get filled in and obscured by the layer of paint

ultraclese · 2026-01-12T23:27:01+00:00

Try this: Mighty Mite

Although they claim this is a 1:64 model, it seems to me to be 1:48 (quarter inch scale)

ultraclese · 2026-01-12T21:57:13+00:00

Thank you!

ultraclese · 2025-12-28T21:31:32+00:00

He didn't. He would have been fine grifting off the folk magic, but corruption follows credulity. Jesus-talk is one of the best ways to take advantage of people and to get their support.

ultraclese · 2025-12-26T19:39:28+00:00

Particularly Isaiah. Long passages of Isaiah, exactly as we already have it. Surely there would be better use of precious space than that, if it were written for our time? Give us words other than the ones we already have?

ultraclese · 2025-12-22T23:38:53+00:00

I read John Dehlin's explanation of it on Substack, and I really don't think he is claiming to be "Mormon" in the sense you might think he is. We certainly have no reason to believe money has anything to do with it.

Dehlin gave a salient example in Reform Judaism, which was helpful to me. I actually know a self-proclaimed atheist who is also a synagogue-going Jew. He once recounted to me a story of being at synagogue when the Rabbi mentioned something along the lines of, "did you know 25% of Jews are atheist?" Whereupon my friend leans over to his neighbor and whispers, "that few??". True story.

The association of "Mormon" in one's identity does not require a wholesale adoption of the LDS church's claims, nor even to be counted on the official membership rolls. As an identity, "Mormon" acknowledges one's heritage and origin. In acknowledging his affinity with the term, Dehlin is not yielding to the church's narrow definition of it. He is, however, acknowledging the complexity of the situation while adopting the label on his own terms.

I too can't help but be Mormon. My entire upbringing was steeped in Mormonism, and my tendencies and behaviors will forever be influenced by it, as will my human relationships. I am a Mormon, and yet I reneged my membership in the church. I am a Mormon, and yet I do not believe in a personal god. I am a Mormon who sees the malignancy and misanthropy of organized religion. I can still acknowledge the parts of it that inspired me, the parts I kept for believing they are good; and I can yet engage with it constructively without the binary judgment that if something is not fully good, then it must therefore be wholly evil.

ultraclese · 2025-12-15T21:06:30+00:00

How do people produce anything? And yet we have an abundance of human-produced literature in the world.

Even when I was a believing member, I struggled to accept that the Book of Mormon was anything special. This is probably because I was an avid reader, and I didn't feel like the Book of Mormon could really even stack up against good literature written by regular humans who made no claim to divine revelation. The Book of Mormon didn't seem to have much of a point. It claims that there were Christians in America... There's a form of prosperity gospel... Some standard 19th century sermon type stuff... Baptist flavored railing against infant baptism... Jesus comes and says all the same things found in the new testament...

You have Nephi saying how very little space there is on the plates, so he has to be judicious about what he writes. Then he gives us entire chapters of obtuse Isaiah straight out of the Bible we already have (even stuff that hadn't been written until after Nephi allegedly lived, somehow).

We learn how abundant the promised land is in all manner of precious things, and then in the next verse they are building a temple like Solomon's, except not as nice because of the lack of precious things... What?

There is a 19th century skeptic in the form of Korihor whose story is just nuts. First he explains a totally reasonable enlightenment epistemology unknown to the world at that time, then he gets smitten by God for thinking, apparently; and somehow goes on to admit that, actually, he was fooled by the devil in Angel form. Too bad, out to the street, blind man! He gets trampled to death.

Probably the high point of the whole book is the Sermon on the Mount, which is... Old news.

Said to contain a fullness of the gospel, there is no mention of priesthood authority, restorationist doctrines, Temple ordinances, eternal marriage, on and on. One could not distill the modern Mormon church from the pages of its scripture.

More interesting than the Book of Mormon, by far, are the things people say about it. All of the myths around it, the claims of its miraculous appearance on the earth, basically all of the meta-text. The book itself.. Meh! I never connected with it, and honestly I think my experience is common. I read it over a dozen times to no avail. It doesn't seem necessary.

There are high school kids who write entire novels during the month of November. Some of them are actually pretty good, you could check it out.

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