Whata is the Status of NBK's PDF

[darkdontay]

I'm posting this because all te hype is starting to wear off and I'm really starting to wonder about it.

I know he is coming along with it I'm just waiting for some little scrape to be sent out to ease the hunger... I mean I hope he is going to make a silver first..

Any ways so how s she coming along NBK

And wahts does she look like so far... Rough stats?

[xyz]

Is NBK releasing a new pdf? His other one is on the ftp...

[darkdontay]

He has been making a HUGE DVD for the past long while I was wondering the currnet progress off it, I should have said that rahter instead in the Topic Header..

I have been itching to get a peak at the information stored on it....... NBK has never let me down yet on teach me knew things....So I can only envision what is on the DVD... Though I would love it if he made it with a Blue Ray disc... :p but I bet a burner if out of his cash abilities. Sony.. Seconded only to the devil.

[megalomania]

While not speaking the official word, that being from nbk himself, I believe there will be quite a few years wait on the DVD. Like myself, I think he has found the ol "the more I do the more I want to do" trap of all great projects. I have been privy to a few sample gems from the PDF, and I must say I am very impressed. Rest assured that the longer he takes, the more worth it it will be.

[darkdontay]

HEY!.. thats like holding some heroin right above someones head and telling them they are going to have to wait years "But the fix will be great" :p


Hopefully he will release some samples to the general public or a beta crew for sample testing and feed back......

And as allways I would be willing to buy a Pre from him to help with funding and everything..... Remeber man you can allways come back and make NBK's _____ 2 DVD. I mean Knock us all down wth a sweet DVD and then take the half of stuff that you never got around to put in the first and blow us away again, after the fanbase and customer loyalyty you would build fomr the first one, and word of mouth the second should be a smash hit.

Plus if he waits to long the Blue Ray disc burner will be with in price reach and then we will all be screw as it would give him alomst 20 more Gigs of room to and, yep we would all be old and moldy when he finished a 23gig version of the DVD.

But hey man all jokes aside Godspeed to the DVD project NBK.

[nbk2000]

The last time I compiled the PDF, with ONLY the new content (none of the old file content included), I had about 230 pages. That was also more than a year ago. I've probably added another hundred pages since then.

As for when...I'm not even going to guess. I know there's going to be a time when I'll have to say enough is enough, and send it out, otherwise it'll never be finished because I'll always be trying to perfect it. The classic engineers fetish.

As for blue ray, I could fill the disk, but who'd be able to afford buying to buy such a huge DVD from me? :D As it stands now, I've got like 50 CD's full of files, plus two HDD's full. This is my problem, and a happy one it is to, of having TOO much information. I'm drowning in the shit!

As I randomly poke through any of the tens of thousands of files I've got, I get new ideas for articles, interesting tid-bits to include in existing articles, pictures to illustrate points, and so on.

Then I've got to edit or create an HTML file, photoshop the pictures, etc...time...lots of it. Then throw in the job, the daily hassles, and my Forum duties (which I'm slacking on), and it's a miracle I've gotten as far as I have with it.

And I'm not even close to doing the videos. :(

And, unless I win the lottery and don't have to worry about money ever again, I'm not going to be able to do the kind of testing I'd like to be able to do.

See, what I can envision doing using the available technology, and what I can afford to do on peon wages, are worlds apart! I'd LIKE to be able to have professionally illustrated schematics, with Toastmaster CGI graphics, animated walkthroughs, high-speed/slo-mo video, et al.

But you're getting LEGO-CAD and MS-Paint (;)) instead, oh pooh! :( But it's STILL going to be orders of magnitude better than anything you'll find being offered at ANY price on the subject matter.

And even though it'll have been a few years in the making, that's just par for the course when you consider how it's ONE person writting a book the size of clancy novel, only with hundreds of illustrations, also being done by the same ONE person. Oh, and video editor, sound mixer, publisher, printer...:p Get the idea?

And I'd also like to point out that the 2nd ed. is building on 3 years of constant expansion of my knowledge base. The original was hacked out in a few months, using a lot of (what I now consider) filler that was copied from other sites. It wasn't even originally intended as a stand-alone document, having originally been a website that I made into a PDF after the punks at 50megs.com 404'd it for being "unsuitable content". :mad:

Also, at that time, I had only had a computer, as well as dial-up access, for a few months, and hadn't even found the Forum yet. I had yet to become proficient in searching the 'net, and didn't have any knowledge base beyond my folders of clippings and photocopies.

How three years makes the difference!

This version is being made specifically as a PDF document, after having years of practice with PDF authoring, as well as in use of PS for illustrating.

I've had years of watching and discussing the results of hundreds of experiments conducted by Forumites, as well as the Q&A's, ranging from the moronic to the brilliant.

Whereas my first digital KB (Knowledge Base) files were typed up copies of old Paladin Press books, the dreaded "anarchy" type files, and whatever useful tid-bits I'd run across, my KB now includes information gleamed from such sources as military contractor symposiums, national weapon labs, phone discussions with the people who build and design weapons, and even high-speed test footage sent to me by a BIG name in the weapons business.

If I'd tried this years ago, I'd have been shot down from the git-go, since I was ignorant compared to what I know today. And you can't talk to people from ****, asking them for 30mm depleted uranium penetrators, or tritium lamps, or the kind of stuff I'm getting now, if you sound like an idiot who managed to get a hold of their phone number.

You've got to speak the lingo, be confidant in your skills, project an image of being one of their peers, and be able to run a good con. Only then will the spice flow. ;)

Comparing my knowledge of 3 years ago with what I know now, would be like comparing a "styrofoam+gas=C-4" k3wL to...well...me! And in three more years, what I know now would be equally trivial to what I'll know then. It goes into that whole Tofflerian "Future Shock" concept that knowledge increases exponentially with increases in existing knowledge. I just want to reach the point of infinite increase, where the base of existing knowledge is such that knowledge increase is a straight line UP!, rather than just a curve.

But knowledge is useless without the means to use it, and that means money. But I'm working on that. For while I've been getting "samples", I've also been establishing rapport with the players in the arms biz, with the goal of eventually becoming a Big Boy (as I refer to them), just like James Barrett went from a basement tinkerer to a Big Boy with his .50 rifles.

One day you may be seeing Trinades listed in Janes Infantry Weapons, or perhaps an ad for one of my products in Aerospace Weekly, though you'll never know it's me.

When that time comes, my days at the Forum will be over, since I'll no longer be able to look to my amatuer past, but must look forward to my professional future...a future of meetings with 4 star generals to discuss procurement schedules, rubbing elbows with the Sandia boys at an arms conference in Florida, and whatever else Big Boys do. :)

This isn't to say I'll forget my friends (or enemies), just that my active involvement in a "pyromaniac/bomberz" board (as seen from the perspective of the Big Boys) would be detrimental to my future if discovered, thus too much of a risk to justify continuing with.

[darkdontay]

When that day comes will you pass on the book to another to work on and finish or just send it out? ....or possibly keep workingon it with your Enhanced Expanded KB?

[Energy84]

Godspeed NBK! And I sincerely hope that one day we will be able to get a whole biography on the Life & Times of NBK2000, (insert real name here).
That would be totally awesome!

[nbk2000]

If I became a Big Boy before the DVD was finished, then it'd just have to be re-written to include all the NEW information I'd have access to. :)

But, regardless, the 2nd ed. would be distributed, either by me or someone else, finished or as-is, if I ever had to stop working on it. Otherwise I'd have wasted years of my life working on something no-one else would ever have seen, right? ;)

And the only time a "Life and Times" of my life would be available would be after I'd (temporarily) died.