arriving in Sofia, I have been at a bit of a loss for what to do with myself. I have built up quite a bit of the conceptual framework for the distributed system I was working on, but I haven't been able to bring myself to actually open up the repo and continue coding. I just can't concentrate well enough and my motivation to do it is very low.

So, after @huntiii replied to some comments I was making on this post: https://steemit.com/life/@l0k1/re-huntiii-re-l0k1-re-huntiii-re-l0k1-re-huntiii-re-lifeworship-the-calcium-paradox-heart-disease-and-misplaced-calcium-20170624t195112411z I have returned to something that first came to me during my time locked up in remand, in fact, less than an average sniper's kill distance from where I sit righht now. Being forced to do pretty much nothing, you become very motivated to do almost anything, and one of my favourite things was dreaming up designs for boots and gloves.

I had this idea, that I would develop a service where people provide an extensive set of photographs of their legs, completely bare, from the knee down, and then I feed that into a program like Autodesk Remake, generate a reasonably high resolution mesh model, and then 3d print it somehow.

Well, after reading the first article @huntiii pointed me at: https://www.jackkruse.com/emf-1-does-your-rolex-work/ this project has just leaped to the top of my agenda. I'm not really so interested in the money. Right now, I would guess that I probably will be able to entirely live off my mining profits, which allows me to start thinking about stuff that's really important to me.

Well, that article, and I have good reason to believe that this guy Jack Kruse is spot on, says that simply spending a lot more time in electrical contact with the earth can resolve a lot of health problems, especially ones that involve circadian cycles - and I know my circadian system is all screwed up, here I am at 1am in the morning, not asleep, but kinda wishing I could be.

So, part of my designs for making boots, aside from using a precise last to form them on, was to make them entirely out of leather. I thought through all the processes for making the soles, and I just was not happy with the idea of using rubber, but instead, a double layer of leather. Probably the inner part from kangaroo leather (the strongest leather for the weight, and it's used to make australian army boots) and the 'slipper' cover over it made of the thickest cowhide I can find, that serves in the place of a rubber sole.

So I thought also of possible ways to improve the grip of these hypothetical boots on wet grass and slippery surfaces, and I figured, some kind of very small cleat-spikes of some kind, and the way I designed the boot in two pieces, possibly even the 'sole' could be a separate part that you first put your feet into the 'leather sock', and then you can put this slipper over top that gives you whatever specific type of sole you want. Well, it may not be the best idea, and considering how thin the soles are going to be, it probably would just cause pain.

The best solution for preventing falls on slippery surfaces is to be situationally aware, and not take the grip on the ground for granted (I managed to work 2 weeks in a restaurant kitchen that had steps right next to the oven, and were slippery as hell. I never once dropped a load of dishes, because I was wearing barefoot boots (i forget which brand, but it was the closest thing I could find to my dream boots) and I could feel the ground better...

So, anyway, first I am getting my lower leg and feet digitised as well as I can, and then I will probably try to find someone who has a CNC that can carve wood, and get them to carve this replica of my lower legs and send it to me by courier. Just to prove the concept. I thought of doing polymer or plaster casting for this, but after watching a video of a CNC carving wood, I think wood would be better, and it's the traditonal material for making lasts for leather shoes.

Once I've made myself a few prototypes, maybe I could get some seed funding to develop it into a service for people, so they can either have a go at taking the 40 or so photos of their, or alternatively, finding some place near them that will do a precise digitisation, then carve the last from the model, and then make the boots, which when they get them, will slip on like gloves and probably last 5 years before the 'slipper' sole outer part needs to be replaced.

The picture above, is a very rough approximation of the style, but I want it taller, I like my boots to be about 10-11" tall - for reasons of preventing ingress of dirt and foliage and rubbish, and I also want to design these things, possibly in the digitisation phase, editing the model, to add rows of sorta pleating on the areas where the ankle bends, so the boot can be made without any kind of closure, just basically a leather sock... And not split toe like that picture. Just a very soft, flexible toebox that fits snugly. The split toes are in fact only for wearing wooden clog/sandals anyway, that is what the japanese make them like that for.

Well, now I have got something meaty to chew on, maybe I will be idling here and posting way too much and actually do something I consider valuable. I will of course also be now going out to some nearby parks and maybe do some practise of low acrobatics... why not! I think getting grounded is something I have subconsciously known I need to do...

And if the benefit of this is as great as I suspect it will be (and it was already a pretty big benefit, at least for someone like me with unusual shaped feet (very wide and thin vertically) feet, the general rule with shoes is there is no such thing as an end to the time breaking in the shoes - because they are so wrong for my feet, they make me hate walking... Considering how many thousands of kilometers I have probably walked in the last 3 years living on the street, you might be able to imagine why this is such an important subject to me). So the ergonomics is a big deal, of course, but if being electrically grounded is good for your health, then I've got, right there, instant marketing schtick!

I will update on this project as I move it forward, first is learning how to digitise using my camera. Since I bought a cybershot with the zeiss crystal lenses, it should be pretty good, the tricky part will just be in getting the exposures correct so the models that are derived from it are as accurate as possible.