Posts
Recap posts of the past few days are coming, but first, here's an exciting piece of art I accidentally saw on Saturday. This "Street Knight" was built by Joe Carnevale of Barrel Monster fame. Apparently it was installed Saturday morning as an Earth Day festivity (you have to love the recycled art tone of it). In any case, it's spectacular and you can appreciate it even with a quick drive by (it's on a street corner in the Cameron Village mall, and I was able to admire it for a minute while I was sitting at the red light on my way to Maker Faire NC from the NCLUG meeting).
Here are a few links to news coverage (with any luck at least one of them will keep the page live for a while):
WRAL
News & Observer
Raleigh Telegram
Green Diary
This is apparently not a permanent exhibit, that last link indicates plans to sell it to a "local" (I'm assuming Raleigh-area) gallery in the next few weeks if a permanent location at Cameron Village cannot be found.
Showing posts with label not mine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label not mine. Show all posts
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
Interesting Links
Time for a new link dump. Are you enjoying these?
The Internet Archive recently announced a new project called OpenLibrary. It's essentially Wikipedia for books. That's still needed, since LibraryThing lacks a good way of summarizing things for people interested in discovering books in a non-social manner (not that there's anything wrong with using social networking to discover interesting books - if you ask me, LibraryThing is an example of social networking done right because it actually uses the social model to purposefully manage meaningful data).
For April Fool's Day, XKCD decided to change the site's format to a command line interface. In addition to commands that were functional (and a few that just appeared to be), there were also jokes and games. That interface is still available for those of you who missed the joke or want to relive it (more than I can say for YouTube's TEXTp feature by the time I blogged about it at LMOTD). Most of the source code (some last minute changes were made during the day) is available on github. Naturally, the next step would be to build a version of this that can be used with YubNub - then you will have a true command line for the web (I'm not up for coding this myself due to lack of time, but I'm definitely excited about the idea).
YubNub is worth trying out anyway, if you're not familiar with it. The description of it on it's website probably isn't appealing to most, but trust me, it's worth it (I intend to revisit the topic in a future post and describe why I think all LEGO fans should use it - type "ls lego" into it if you want a taste of that).
The Internet Archive recently announced a new project called OpenLibrary. It's essentially Wikipedia for books. That's still needed, since LibraryThing lacks a good way of summarizing things for people interested in discovering books in a non-social manner (not that there's anything wrong with using social networking to discover interesting books - if you ask me, LibraryThing is an example of social networking done right because it actually uses the social model to purposefully manage meaningful data).
For April Fool's Day, XKCD decided to change the site's format to a command line interface. In addition to commands that were functional (and a few that just appeared to be), there were also jokes and games. That interface is still available for those of you who missed the joke or want to relive it (more than I can say for YouTube's TEXTp feature by the time I blogged about it at LMOTD). Most of the source code (some last minute changes were made during the day) is available on github. Naturally, the next step would be to build a version of this that can be used with YubNub - then you will have a true command line for the web (I'm not up for coding this myself due to lack of time, but I'm definitely excited about the idea).
YubNub is worth trying out anyway, if you're not familiar with it. The description of it on it's website probably isn't appealing to most, but trust me, it's worth it (I intend to revisit the topic in a future post and describe why I think all LEGO fans should use it - type "ls lego" into it if you want a taste of that).
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Interesting Links
I'm trying to get out of the habit of keeping links open for long periods of time and not really reading them. So I'm posting these here for my own later reference and for the benefit of anyone else who is intrigued by them as I am.
Isogawa Studio Model Gallery - original LEGO creations by the author of Tora no Maki. Tora no Maki is the fantastic book on mechanisms that everyone who thinks they don't know enough techniques to build with LEGO Technic and Mindstorms parts has been looking for. It's largely pictorial, so the language barrier is a non-issue.
Crowkillers is the website of the famed LEGO builder who designs original super cars that are at, near, or in some cases even beyond the level of quality of set 8880. I had previously only known about his Brickshelf page and sparsely-updated MOCpages account. Now that I've put in the time to provide more background for you, I've also discovered that he's on YouTube. Those of you who aren't supercar geeks can see an overview of his work at TechnicBricks. I fully intend to soak a few more months into the field of building fantastic functional cars at a scale of roughly 1:20. I'm modding my 8880 ever so slowly, trying to improve the suspension and add extra features...
I've been meaning to take some photos and post about the magnet set I made for my office recently. It's been surprisingly popular, and we wish we had a magnetic whiteboard to put them on. I found this how-to on making magnetic whiteboards to be a bit much to try at the office, but it's definitely an exciting idea. If I ever have kids, I'll definitely have to try to get that going in their play room. For now, I'm just sticking my magnets to the frame of the cubicle wall.
This last one I'm a bit less sure about, and frankly the "Featured sites" category looks a bit questionable to me. Supposedly Video Download Helper can work some magic with Flash-based streaming media to make files downloadable. I have no idea if this checks out, but if you try it let me know how it works for you.
Isogawa Studio Model Gallery - original LEGO creations by the author of Tora no Maki. Tora no Maki is the fantastic book on mechanisms that everyone who thinks they don't know enough techniques to build with LEGO Technic and Mindstorms parts has been looking for. It's largely pictorial, so the language barrier is a non-issue.
Crowkillers is the website of the famed LEGO builder who designs original super cars that are at, near, or in some cases even beyond the level of quality of set 8880. I had previously only known about his Brickshelf page and sparsely-updated MOCpages account. Now that I've put in the time to provide more background for you, I've also discovered that he's on YouTube. Those of you who aren't supercar geeks can see an overview of his work at TechnicBricks. I fully intend to soak a few more months into the field of building fantastic functional cars at a scale of roughly 1:20. I'm modding my 8880 ever so slowly, trying to improve the suspension and add extra features...
I've been meaning to take some photos and post about the magnet set I made for my office recently. It's been surprisingly popular, and we wish we had a magnetic whiteboard to put them on. I found this how-to on making magnetic whiteboards to be a bit much to try at the office, but it's definitely an exciting idea. If I ever have kids, I'll definitely have to try to get that going in their play room. For now, I'm just sticking my magnets to the frame of the cubicle wall.
This last one I'm a bit less sure about, and frankly the "Featured sites" category looks a bit questionable to me. Supposedly Video Download Helper can work some magic with Flash-based streaming media to make files downloadable. I have no idea if this checks out, but if you try it let me know how it works for you.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Another Option For Used Floppy Disks
What you're looking at in this picture is a painting by British artist Nick Gentry. He's a pretty skilled painter, and he shares my interest in reusing potentially discarded items instead of letting them rot in landfills. Nick Gentry paints directly on floppy disks (some bought, some donated) and creates surprisingly evocative work, frequently with parts of the disks forming or distorting parts of the image. More pictures of his work can be found on his website (where you can also buy some of his pieces).It looks like we do have to pay shipping (to the UK at that) if we pass along our extra floppy disks by donating them to Nick Gentry, but this is definitely an exciting alternative use for old floppies that I had not thought of before.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
"Instantly Recognizable"
If you've ever discussed LEGO blogging with me for any serious amount of time, you've probably heard me mention how difficult it is to find interesting things to say about other people's models. There are only so many complimentary words in the English language, and inevitably we end up repeating common phrases, descriptions, techniques, etc.
Over at The Living Brick, they've taken on one cliche I use regularly - "instantly recognizable". I would have linked to this over at LMOTD, but since that's supposed to be all kid-friendly and the link above used the word "testicle", it's off-limits there - so it shows up here instead.
Don't worry too much about this blog becoming an addendum to LMOTD - I'm working on some slightly longer-term projects lately, but I will post about some of them soon (most notably: Castle Window In the Community display and some updates on the still-unnamed robotic LEGO band).
Over at The Living Brick, they've taken on one cliche I use regularly - "instantly recognizable". I would have linked to this over at LMOTD, but since that's supposed to be all kid-friendly and the link above used the word "testicle", it's off-limits there - so it shows up here instead.
Don't worry too much about this blog becoming an addendum to LMOTD - I'm working on some slightly longer-term projects lately, but I will post about some of them soon (most notably: Castle Window In the Community display and some updates on the still-unnamed robotic LEGO band).
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Neurodiversity Article Spotted in LEGO's Internal Magazine
I know that I shouldn't have been able to get my hands on this, but it's thrilling nonetheless. Of course, it's not available online - or to the public (this magazine is only for the company's employees) - at all, and I'm not even sure if I'm technically "allowed" to see it (since I'm not an employee) - but it was still exciting to see.
The article was about video game testing and debugging done for the LEGO company, and they spent a few paragraphs out of the (IIRC) 4 pages focusing on how this one guy has an Asperger's diagnosis, what Asperger's and autism are, and how he's better at the job because of it. Granted, it's nothing I haven't said before, but it still surprises me when I see these things in print - not many people have much interest in these issues, and usually when they are covered, it's aimed towards parents and doesn't give a fair impression of autistic adults. Even though I am, of course, familiar with LEGO UK's work with the NAS last year, and with LEGO's overall excellent record of designing toys that autistic kids love and can learn from, it's still exciting to see the company take the initiative in talking about neurodiversity and employment.
I suspect that LEGO is trying to avoid getting involved with the politics of this, and the backlash tied into that. Those of you who follow politics likely saw the recent dust-up where an antivaccine lunatic on the Huffington Post confused change.org (a "social" site about various causes) with change.gov (the Obama administration's active democracy tool) and then proceeded to launch into a looong rant about how those of us who focus on autistic adults really just hate children (based on Change.org bringing in reputable pro-neurodiversity bloggers). I think it goes without saying that no toy company wants to get involved with that sort of negative PR, regardless of how discredited the quack touting it is.
Of course, the really funny part is that anyone wanting to pick at Obama for supporting initiatives that benefit autistic adults but not research into vaccines or less-than-solid medicine would have had more than enough ammunition on his campaign's website last year (in spite of all the "more affirmative action for black people" rants in the media, his actual policy of aggressive affirmative action for employment of people with all sorts of disabilities went unnoticed). While it's still shocking to see any company take a side on neurodiversity, we totally got the first national politician to take a stand on the issue into the White House. Frankly, the whole thing seems surreal, even as I try to keep my expectations realistic as to how much will actually get done.
On one last LEGO-related note, they've also gone all-out on celebrating the Obama inauguration in LEGOLAND California's Washington DC miniland. I'm probably going to write about that properly for LMOTD sometime tomorrow. To be honest, with any of those huge layouts, there's always a huge issue with not having enough photos. Politically, I'm inclined to be excited about the moment and tell everyone to check out the display. As a LEGO fan, I kind of want to wait until someone else LEGO-obsessed can get a few thousand photos and name most of the "guests" shown in the celebrations. This layout will be out for a few months - surely some of the best photos (and videos) are yet to come. As a reasonable person who recognizes I'm reading too much into things sometimes and then blogging about them, with all the potential for embarrassment that brings, I'm also interested in knowing if past Presidential inaugurations - or other transitions of power in the world - have been documented in miniland form. Sure, Obama's a "rockstar" and all that, but in terms of poll numbers in the election, he actually didn't get that much of a landslide - doing other swearing-in ceremonies in miniland form may have actually made more sense (except, of course, that this is happening now and is still exciting - and frankly, game-changing. People who don't like Obama will take advantage of his open-government ideas to their own ends anyway, and politics will, at least in the short term, have to adjust a bit to work with that). Of course, it's worth pointing out that the last time there was a clear landslide in a US election, there was no LEGOLAND park in the US. For what it's worth, the official spokespeople are saying that the inauguration display is supposed to educate youngsters about government (personally, I'll believe it when they release a minifig-scale senate playset - but then again, the lack of diversity in our political figures would likely not inspire kids the way LEGO likes to...but I suppose the gender balance is much different! Just saying...).
Sorry if you're not into this stuff, but I don't have a proper political blogging outlet and this serves as a bit of follow-up on a poorly-written earlier post. I've decided to go ahead and cover my political "projects" here and I've started tagging (or "labeling", whatever you prefer) the related posts as such. This should work for now, since I don't get into politics too much and I'm actually not very opinionated on most of the "hot button" issues (call me crazy, but I'd rather focus on issues I might be able to do something and stay away from partisan bickering when possible).
The article was about video game testing and debugging done for the LEGO company, and they spent a few paragraphs out of the (IIRC) 4 pages focusing on how this one guy has an Asperger's diagnosis, what Asperger's and autism are, and how he's better at the job because of it. Granted, it's nothing I haven't said before, but it still surprises me when I see these things in print - not many people have much interest in these issues, and usually when they are covered, it's aimed towards parents and doesn't give a fair impression of autistic adults. Even though I am, of course, familiar with LEGO UK's work with the NAS last year, and with LEGO's overall excellent record of designing toys that autistic kids love and can learn from, it's still exciting to see the company take the initiative in talking about neurodiversity and employment.
I suspect that LEGO is trying to avoid getting involved with the politics of this, and the backlash tied into that. Those of you who follow politics likely saw the recent dust-up where an antivaccine lunatic on the Huffington Post confused change.org (a "social" site about various causes) with change.gov (the Obama administration's active democracy tool) and then proceeded to launch into a looong rant about how those of us who focus on autistic adults really just hate children (based on Change.org bringing in reputable pro-neurodiversity bloggers). I think it goes without saying that no toy company wants to get involved with that sort of negative PR, regardless of how discredited the quack touting it is.
Of course, the really funny part is that anyone wanting to pick at Obama for supporting initiatives that benefit autistic adults but not research into vaccines or less-than-solid medicine would have had more than enough ammunition on his campaign's website last year (in spite of all the "more affirmative action for black people" rants in the media, his actual policy of aggressive affirmative action for employment of people with all sorts of disabilities went unnoticed). While it's still shocking to see any company take a side on neurodiversity, we totally got the first national politician to take a stand on the issue into the White House. Frankly, the whole thing seems surreal, even as I try to keep my expectations realistic as to how much will actually get done.
On one last LEGO-related note, they've also gone all-out on celebrating the Obama inauguration in LEGOLAND California's Washington DC miniland. I'm probably going to write about that properly for LMOTD sometime tomorrow. To be honest, with any of those huge layouts, there's always a huge issue with not having enough photos. Politically, I'm inclined to be excited about the moment and tell everyone to check out the display. As a LEGO fan, I kind of want to wait until someone else LEGO-obsessed can get a few thousand photos and name most of the "guests" shown in the celebrations. This layout will be out for a few months - surely some of the best photos (and videos) are yet to come. As a reasonable person who recognizes I'm reading too much into things sometimes and then blogging about them, with all the potential for embarrassment that brings, I'm also interested in knowing if past Presidential inaugurations - or other transitions of power in the world - have been documented in miniland form. Sure, Obama's a "rockstar" and all that, but in terms of poll numbers in the election, he actually didn't get that much of a landslide - doing other swearing-in ceremonies in miniland form may have actually made more sense (except, of course, that this is happening now and is still exciting - and frankly, game-changing. People who don't like Obama will take advantage of his open-government ideas to their own ends anyway, and politics will, at least in the short term, have to adjust a bit to work with that). Of course, it's worth pointing out that the last time there was a clear landslide in a US election, there was no LEGOLAND park in the US. For what it's worth, the official spokespeople are saying that the inauguration display is supposed to educate youngsters about government (personally, I'll believe it when they release a minifig-scale senate playset - but then again, the lack of diversity in our political figures would likely not inspire kids the way LEGO likes to...but I suppose the gender balance is much different! Just saying...).
Sorry if you're not into this stuff, but I don't have a proper political blogging outlet and this serves as a bit of follow-up on a poorly-written earlier post. I've decided to go ahead and cover my political "projects" here and I've started tagging (or "labeling", whatever you prefer) the related posts as such. This should work for now, since I don't get into politics too much and I'm actually not very opinionated on most of the "hot button" issues (call me crazy, but I'd rather focus on issues I might be able to do something and stay away from partisan bickering when possible).
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Track Designer
I'm not really working on this project (I need to try out Visual C++, but as of yet, I have not started using it) - but this is awesome. After years of being unable to update one of the most popular LEGO CAD programs for collaborative layouts - as well as a few competing software packages, including one where someone tried to reverse engineer TD - the Track Designer source code has finally been found. This LUGNET thread has the details. If you're new to all this, you're better off reading RailBricks issue 2 than anything else I have to say on the topic.
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