Lego Factory Makes Lego Cars

I think I may have seen this before we started Pieces of Things. Otherwise I would have jumped to post this here. There's something nice about how slow and deliberate the factory is, but if you don't have seven minutes to watch this, letting it load all the way and scrubbing through it is still pretty neat.

Guys? It's Maru.

Look. It's the weekend. I don't know how it happened, but I just noticed that so far our blog has not yet posted about Maru. This is failure, guys. So here is some Maru.

Legohaulic blew my mind again.

01
Originally uploaded by Legohaulic

There's so many good little details involved with this. Please check out his gallery. Worth the trip, I assure you.


(Totally pissed as I was going to make a chain golem out of all these chains Beeeye gave me. Now I'd look like a hack.)

I dun get it.

Seriously, so what do you guys think is going on in someone's head when they park like this?

Possibly noteworthy points to note:

1. This parking lot is notorious for filling up quickly in the morning. If you don't find a spot, the other lot is very far away.

2. It may be hard to tell, but the space to the right was completely unparkable because of him.

3. His car is a very shiny mercedes.

4. There were a few notes stuck to his windshield (I may or may not have written one). By the time I left, the notes were gone, but the car had not been moved.

5. The driver is male.

Get out of my way, media!

Chris Anderson, Wired's editor-in-chief says:

Sorry, I don't use the word "media." I don't use the word "news." I don't think that those words mean anything anymore. They defined publishing in the 20th century. Today, they are a barrier. They are standing in our way, like a horseless carriage.

I read lots of articles from mainstream media but I don't go to mainstream media directly to read it. It comes to me, which is really quite common these days. More and more people are choosing social filters for their news rather than professional filters. We're tuning out television news, we're tuning out newspapers. And we still hear about the important stuff, it's just that it's not like this drumbeat of bad news. It's news that matters. I figure by the time something gets to me it's been vetted by those I trust. So the stupid stuff that doesn't matter is not going to get to me.

I don't get how he can think the words "media" and "news" are a barrier and then shortly afterward say he reads lots of articles from mainstream media. It's like he's dissing the very thing he relies on for "important stuff." Right?

And I can understand tuning out inane TV news, but tuning out newspapers? It's kind of like saying, I want to be oblivious. I'll just read what my friends think is neat.

Yes? Or am I the ignorant one here? Please help me understand the ways and thoughts of this Internet wise man.

Da Mystery of Chessboxin'

The game of chess, is like a swordfight. You must think first, before you move.

Toad style is immensely strong, and immune to nearly any weapon. When it's properly used, it's almost invincible.

Costumes from Comic-Con 2009

Hey, here's a roundup of the costumes this year at San Diego Comic-Con. Some pretty great stuff, although I think that Firestorm may be my favorite.


We really should go, sometime. Followed a lot of the SDCC news via radtke327.

Female flying spaceships

I'm not entirely sure what's happening here.



* This doll is really named "Rika-chan" or "Licca-chan" not Barbie. But she's kind of like the Japanese version of Barbie.

Lego Store Swag

Yay!

Ala Moana LEGO store is open

Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming

Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming was apparently a project helmed by Richard Hatch (the original Apollo), around 1999. Had not heard of this until now!

TARANTULA!

Friend of mine sent me this picture from his office. He works for an animated educational web site. Moby and Tim are characters there.

This is not an actual spider that Laura sent through the mail. It is, in fact, her pet tarantula's exoskeleton, sloughed off during molting, which tarantulas do every couple of years. Still, it caused quite a stir in the office. There was screaming, I heard. My friend was very touched that Laura thought to send such a wonderful and personal gift. My friend feels a great deal of pride over this event.

Hello, "World"

With an irony too delicious not to report the hell out of, last week Amazon reached into the electric minds of its Kindle book readers and deleted copies of George Orwell's 1984. These were copies that users had paid for, and thought they owned. They did not, it turns out! Granted, these were unauthorized copies of 1984 and Animal Farm, and users in question were refunded the purchase price, so maybe it was more like a recall, except under cover of darkness and completely involuntary.

Had the books not been Orwell's, and instead, say; Dr. Phil's, the act would not have echoed so loudly in the Blongoverse. They were, though, and they did, and today Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos gave the increasingly common Big Giant Apology to make up things.

This, along with my net connection crapping out every 20 minutes yesterday, and the island-wide AT&T outage the day before, got me thinking, that hey, a lot of who I am exists in that digital space--not just work, and email, but goals, and plans, and memories, and friends. This is a common modern realization, I know. But now that a good chunk of what I consider to be my mind is subscription-based, I wonder if I've made the right move, here. I couldn't tell you my wife's phone number. I mean, I can access it, and my expanding definitions of what it is to know something make me okay with this.

But every disconnection from the network leaves me a little clammy, and power outages have become downright existential experiences. And if my life is so easy to remove, is it still my life? If I back up properly, will I live forever?

So is this a lot of eggs in one basket, or just the price of doing business? Or perhaps... An entirely different clichéd metaphor, heretofore unexplored, ladies and gentlemen?

MANDOM

Commercial by the director of Hausu featuring a very manly Charles Bronson. Review of product here.

Sam Raimi to direct the WoW live action Movie

For the WoW heads and various intrigued parties, here's the press release. This could be bad, this could be good. Hopefully it will have some god damn trolls in it.
Anyone want to start a pool for what role Bruce Campbell will make his cameo as?
Here's my favorite part of the release.
"Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements: Information in this press release that involves Blizzard Entertainment’s expectations, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future are forward-looking statements that are not facts and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Blizzard Entertainment generally uses words such as "outlook," "will," "could," "would," "might," "remains," "to be," "plans," "believes," "may," "expects," "intends," "anticipates," "estimate," future," "plan," "positioned," "potential," "project," "remain," "scheduled," "set to," "subject to," "upcoming" and similar expressions to help identify forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause Blizzard Entertainment’s actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements set forth in this release include, but are not limited to, sales levels of Blizzard Entertainment’s titles, shifts in consumer spending trends, the impact of the current macroeconomic environment, the seasonal and cyclical nature of the interactive game market, Blizzard Entertainment’s ability to predict consumer preferences among competing hardware platforms (including next-generation hardware), declines in software pricing, product returns and price protection, product delays, retail acceptance of Blizzard Entertainment’s products, adoption rate and availability of new hardware and related software, industry competition, rapid changes in technology and industry standards, protection of proprietary rights, litigation against Blizzard Entertainment, maintenance of relationships with key personnel, customers, vendors and third-party developers, domestic and international economic, financial and political conditions and policies, foreign exchange rates, integration of recent acquisitions and the identification of suitable future acquisition opportunities, Activision Blizzard’s success in integrating the operations of Activision Publishing and Vivendi Games in a timely manner, or at all, and the combined company’s ability to realize the anticipated benefits and synergies of the transaction to the extent, or in the timeframe, anticipated, and the other factors identified in Activision Blizzard’s most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The forward-looking statements in this release are based upon information available to Blizzard Entertainment and Activision Blizzard as of the date of this release, and neither Blizzard Entertainment nor Activision Blizzard assumes any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements believed to be true when made may ultimately prove to be incorrect. These statements are not guarantees of the future performance of Blizzard Entertainment or Activision Blizzard and are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond its control and may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations."

TRULY NSFW, But OH MAH GAWD.

Look and learn!


via Ryan, of Gruntled Funk Fame.

Man not Superman

Arthur Jones illustrates Man Not Superman, by Jonathan Goldstein; one of my favorite This American Life stories. It's about the guy who dates Lois Lane after she and Superman break up, and it's drawn on Post-it-Notes.

via @NathanBowers.

More of a good trauma game!

The Space Game 2 is out!

Wondermark-David Malki.

My malaysian friend tipped me off to this funny cartoon thing. It's sort of in the lines of David Rees in that it uses clip art from times past with imaginative text to accompany the images. I think it's chuckle-worthy, what say ye?
Wondermark!
There's other stuff going on on this blog/comic site. It's like a thing. But the comics are the catalyst, I believe.

Vanity Fair Editors offer corrections to Palin speech

Using what looks like a whole pen's-worth of red ink! Here.

Touch Face?

Via @tamarakong via @marisanakasone via Gawker.

Pig hunting in Palolo

Pig hunting may expand to Palolo.

David Rees vs. Jamba Juice

Here's a great post about how the intro for Jamba Juice's Cubicle Picnic ad campaign totally rips off David Rees in its animated intro.



Be sure to check the comments of the blog post. An odd debate rages over whether or not Rees' clip art-based comics can even be copyrighted. I think that doesn't matter--the primary purpose of an ad campaign is not to "be legal"; it's to "change minds", and for a company trying its hardest to be authentic, allowing this sort of thing to continue is a step in the wrong direction. Especially if enough people learn about it.

Only one thing missing in all this--I can't find if Jamba Juice has a position on the matter, or if they even know about it.

I just had a sad thought--this Flash intro is possibly the work of a a young animator, acting alone. Or a creative/editorial pair. They might get fired! That's a hard way to learn that this is a crappy--and inexcusable--thing to do.

via John Hodgman and James Urbaniak (the voice of Dr. Venture), oddly enough.

Firestorm is considering purchasing a Mazda

Living Ponds

Man, there are some interesting magazines at my local pizza place!

Emergent AI in Fleets

Kind of skimming the top of the Curated Internet today, but I saw this article on how the AI in the game AI War: Fleet Command. works. The title of the game is apparently to make up for the game's weird graphics, but the article from one of the game's designers may be very interesting to those of you currently developing games; looking at fleet command from a bottom-up approach rather than an entirely top-down command path.

Article here.

Nirvanaroll

Not a huge fan of Nirvana, but I think most would have to at least admit this was well-done.

via Mashable

Firestar has Hurt her Wrist

Guaranteed to make Fugu Smile.

Day 197 - A Good Kicking
Originally uploaded by KWG73

most intuitive new macbook

for those who know the horror that is WoW.

Link.

hope the link works. I laughed pretty hard.

HOLY SHIT IT WAS REAL???

Oh wait. That's right, it was totally real.

SUCK IT, conspiracy theorists.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has returned its first imagery of the Apollo moon landing sites. The pictures show the Apollo missions' lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon's surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules' locations evident.

My new favo(u)rite shirt

Hey, I just got this at a charity shop in Shepherd's Bush. !!!

Interisland Terminal

It's art day, apparently. This just in: New show from a new local art interest. Drawings by Rinus Van de Velde at a thing called Interisland Terminal. Do you know what's going on here, Galspanic? The location looks familiar.

via F.o.P.o.T. Sarah Honda.

Society6

Hi, artists and likers of art. There are a lot of sites like this, but society6 has a nice interface, community tools, and grants--both financial and non-financial opportunities. Also, some good work to browse.

Flip through the Discover link for a good time.

via @designmilk

Dave Sim is not a Misogynist

An interesting document from Dave Sim, creator of Cerebus (which I have not read much of) and Glamorpuss (which I personally enjoy). You must sign this contract certifying that you don't think of him as a misogynist before he will agree to correspond with you. Not knowing much about Dave Sim, I don't really know what to think of this, other than it is an interesting technique.

via Mike Dawson

Japanese Schoolboy Uniforms

After that last post drawing, I realized that I had no idea what boys in Japan wear to school. The uniform is called a Gakuran, and it is patterned after Prussian army uniforms; unlike the sailor uniforms worn to school by Japanese girls, which are based on a ubiquitous Internet fetish.

Miyazaki's Heroine Archetype

Sure, there are differences between them, but they're all charming, compassionate, resourceful, just, and brave; despite finding themselves in untenably strange or dangerous situations. Extremely positive female role models. I had this thought the other day, though--Hayao Miyazaki has two sons, but if he had a daughter, would she be, like, perpetually bummed; unable to live up to these impossible standards?

As a parent who sometimes makes stuff, I worry about these things.

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea

Hey, look, it's a new movie by Hayao Miyazaki. You guys probably knew about this. I didn't know about this! Why would you keep this from me? He says it's his last, apparently. But how the hell can he know that? He also says it's based on "The Little Mermaid". Well, okay!

A Picture of a Girl in a Prom Dress Falling from a Helicopter

Emoticons and Terminal Punctuation

Here is an interesting and stupid discussion regarding an emoticon's relationship to terminal punctuation. Certainly worth a skim. Also there is this.

Attention

link

OMGZ All U DTTD HEADS....

So, I'm totally into this show.

But to be fair I have a high tolerance for low budget gorilla costumes.

Born on the third of July!

Happy 6th of July, everyone. My pocket diary was made in Britain. Can any non-Canadian North Americans (NCNAs) spot the subtle error?

I went to a barbeque in a garden in Kent yesterday and there was a Hawaiian there! He knew about li hing powder and everything.