Via BoingBoing, Lego projects that will bring back memories of the oft-repeated phrase...You'll put your eye out!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:26 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Via BoingBoing, not quite worksafe flowcharts. But ones that probably best describe your day-to-day crisis management...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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You can build anything with Lego! Feeling some pain in your chest?

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:44 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A medly of Pooh-ish whimsy in multiple literary genres. My favorite?

Pooh paced the deck, hands clasped behind his back. "Rabbit! Where's that blasted honey?"

Rabbit's whiskered face appeared in an instant, delivered the unwelcome verdict "Which it's already gone!" and disappeared again, leaving behind only muttering concerning something of a very little brain—fortunately at a low enough volume that Pooh could pretend to not have heard. Indeed, Pooh looked down and saw the honey pot was indeed there and empty. "Bother."

A sudden decision, and he swung his rather round and soft body into the shrouds and climbed to the crow's nest. There, he took out his glass and surveyed the horizon. Was that a sail? A sail that might be attached to a French merchant vessel, its hold stuffed full of honey? The crew hadn't had a real prize in months and Pooh's fortune at home could desperately use such a stroke of good fortune.

"Tigger!" he bellowed to the deck far below. "Fetch me Dr. Robin!" For he instinctively knew that he would need his friend's advice before proceeding.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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You can build anything with Lego! Even interstellar probes! Presenting a Lego version of the British Interplanetary Society's Daedalus probe to Barnard's Star.

Barnard's Runaway Star? You know the Medusae would never have stood for us poking around in their neighborhood!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:33 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Have you had enough of network TV yet? I sure have. Is this the best they can do for creativity? A television show based on a series of commercials?

What's sad is that this appears to be a better effort than what all the forces of network TV can muster.

Even sadder, a amateur (?) effort trumps them all.

I just want to run right out and get an HDTV just so I can watch this quality programming!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 01:39 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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At the end of the day, there's always room for a can or two of beer.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 12:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Via Ian's Messy Desk, an idea generator. As I watch the current market bubble deflate, I'm reminded of the heady days before the last bubble burst when this was probably all the business plan some dot coms actually had!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Via BoingBoing, a supercomputer has figured out how to unscramble a Rubik's Cube in 26 moves or less (one better than the previous record). How about those of us without supercomputers? Is there a SETI@Home equivalent for Rubik's Cubes?

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 12:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I've got a hand-cranked emergency radio. Now for our brave new century, a hand-cranked gadget that can play music files, videos and more! UK-only, though? What about us poor colonials?

(Via BoingBoing.)

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:12 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The mirror-world version of another famous online encyclopedia.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:23 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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2001: A Space Odyssey is coming to Blu-Ray and HD DVD. Hear my lack of enthusiasm? I have no interest in Blu-Ray, HD DVD (or HD TV) until these folks sort out their standards issues. Not only do I not see the need for turning over my collection (and making the landfills swell), but I see no real need for these new standards. See me rushing to convert my TV to HD even with the oncoming deadline when the airwaves will go dark? Yawn. Time to read another book.

Strange, huh? You'd think I'd be interested in the nifty stuff. But the entire industry (music, film, television) has turned me off with its persecution of grandmother's and children, their cries to "close the analog hole", DRM, spyware, malware (Sony, anyone), crappy hardware, clueless movies and shows.

Yawn. Time to read anohter book.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Several depictions of M.C. Escher's famous waterfall illustration (including the original). Now you can buy your own and have much in the way of cube coolness!

Addendum: Balcony. Relativity. Waterfall. Ascending and Descending. Belvedere.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:50 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Tonight's post-powerwashing listening is a couple of selections by Luigi Boccherini. Not as well known as Bach, Vivaldi and the other Baroque powerhouses, he's got a couple of pieces that continue to blow me away. In particular Quintettto No. 4 In Re Maggiore, "Fandango", Per Corda E Chitarra and Quintettino In Do Maggiore La Musica Notturna Delle Strade Di Madrid, Op. 30, No. 6 (G. 324). The first has some wondrous work between guitar and violin. The second is based on the night music of Madrid and would be familiar to any fan of the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, as the music that helped to close out that film.

Great stuff.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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(So what do you do after powerwashing the deck for 10 hours and developing one heck of a crick in the neck? Listen to Brian Eno, of course. Very loudly.)

It will shine and it will shudder
As I guide it with my rudder
On its metalled ways
It will cut the night before it
As it leaves the day that saw it
On its metalled ways
Nobody passes us in the deep quiet of the dark sky
Nobody sees us alone out here among the stars
In these metal ways
In these metal days.

Through a fault of our designing
We are lost among the windings
Of these metal ways
Back to silence back to minus
With the purple sky behind us
In these metal ways
Nobody hears us when we're alone in the blue future
No one receiving the radio's splintered waves
In these metal ways
In these metal days. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Friends keep recommending the site of one James Lileks. I'll read it, go "huh" and move on. Just doesn't do anything for me. Go figure!

On the other hand...this is funny...too funny...

Other funny stuff here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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