Kevin Kelly has a great find over on his site Cool Tools. It’s an $11 book from author Norbert E. Yankielun that teaches the art of the igloo and other snow shelters. After reading the 208 page novel, all you’ll need to do is wait for the next Nor’Easter and you’re ready to build a house that isn’t affected by sub-prime mortgages. Suh-weet!
LEGO furnishings for your house can’t possibly be comfortable. Unless you’re a LEGO nutcase like that guy who makes LEGO gummies, there’s no way you could argue that the couch shown above is either visually or aesthetically pleasing. Yet, people all over the world decorate their homes with LEGO furnishings of all varieties.
The French company Luna Blocks specializes in selling life-sized LEGO building blocks for the purpose of assembling furniture. It’s like IKEA except with LEGOs. From safes to low riders, LEGOs come in all shapes and sizes. The same can be said of LEGO’s versatility when coupled with interior design.
We’re in dire need of some new LEGO stories here at Gearfuse, so be sure to send us some tips. In the mean time, check out this awesome LEGO Safe. It features a working electronic lock and weighs 14.3 pounds, making it quite the usable safe. It uses the LEGO Mindstorms NXT system, allowing for a fully programmable safe. Of course, if you really wanted your roommate’s stash inside, you’re probably better off introducing it to a crowbar.
I know, I know. I keep thinking this photo is some leftover crew picture from the original Jurassic Park. It looks like a wild zoo of sorts too, doesn’t it? It’s neither. It’s the newly designed California Academy of Sciences. I used to go to the Museum of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia but goddamn this has so much more. Hit the jump for more photos. That green hill with the wacky-looking holes in it? That’s actually the roof. What amazing architecture.
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So looks like we’ve all got a nice gift from Santa this year in the form of Spore, the much awaited game from Will Wright. Sure, it’s due out on Monday, September 7th but who wants to wait the entire weekend? Hop on your favorite Bit Torrent site like I did and grab a copy. RELOADED is the only scene group that’s released a working copy and crack right now, so buyer beware.
My torrent is still downloading despite being on a private site, so I’m afraid I can’t let you know if it’s a decent game right now. If it is and you really end up enjoying it, buy a copy of the Galactic Edition.
If you’re an avid LEGO fan, you’re probably aware that the largest LEGO set you can buy in stores nowadays is the 5195 piece Millennium Falcon. For awhile, it was the cream of the crop. But next month, things are going to change. LEGO is introducing the Taj Mahal in all its glory. A whopping 5922 pieces, you’ll be building this one for months to complete the 20″ x 16″ structure.
At $300, it’s actually an affordable project for the amount of work you’ll end up doing. If you’re broke or too cheap, you could always painfully recreate it in Bricksmith. I wonder if it comes with enough LEGO workers to staff the place…
In construction work, it always helps to have a blueprint of your plans before you start building. Well, the same goes for LEGO construction, too. A new updated version of Allen Smith’s LEGO design freeware, Bricksmith was just released. Now, you can generate mini figures and add them to whatever it is you design in this virtual brick builder.
Do you find that you just don’t own enough LEGOs to build that dream scanner of yours? That’ll never happen with Bricksmith 2.0.. Not only will you never run out of LEGOs to utilize, the software also has a drag and drop building procedure. It might as well be real LEGOs. It’s free to download at the link provided but you’ll need a Mac.
On the official website for HOPE, it said there would be a special table for adding to one gigantic LEGO creation. We arrived yesterday and saw little more than a pile of bricks. Today, there was progress but very little. By the time we started heading back home, I noticed someone had completely destroyed the sculpture and was rebuilding it from scratch.
We love LEGOs and while we’re partial to the Mindstorms set, Anders Søborg has built and programmed his own NXT scanner comprised mostly of these bricks. For those not familiar with NXT scanners, they’re a “standalone” scanner that can scan and save images as BMP-files. The images scanned can be saved in either 24-bit true color, 8-bit color or gray scale.
Although the device isn’t faster than any other scanner on the market (it’s quite slow actually), cut it some slack: it’s made out of toy blocks. Anders was also nice enough to include DIY instructions on making your own, complete with programming instructions and all, on his website.
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Some theorists worry that in the not-so-distant future, self-replicating machines will continue to reproduce until the entire world is overrun by machines. While this makes for a great addition to “The Matrix” trilogy, it’s probably not going to happen in our lifetime. If there were anything to worry about though, RepRap would be it.
RepRap is a rapid-prototyping machine that allows for the 3-D printing of objects. As of writing, it can currently reproduce every piece of itself, including its brain. Now keep in mind, it needs plastic to build parts, so with that said, I think we’re going to be OK.
