Markku.lempinen

A person who "works for the TSA" accidentally posted a public comment to Facebook excoriating Rebecca Hains for expressing skepticism about the TSA's efficacy. Read the rest

A particularly depressing addendum to the story of a passenger jet shot down in Ukrainian air space: Of the 298 people on board, roughly 100 were people flying to an international conference on AIDS research.

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Ah! Cthulhoo and the Nazis. I always wanted to make this strip, but it took forever to be completed. There are less WWII/Mythos stories than we could expect (there are games settings such as Achtung! Cthulhu, or Delta Greens stories, and some novels), maybe because it's difficult to avoid a disturbing imaginary/reel horror clash. Anyway, thanks to Jeremsoft JunkyJoe, who draw the accurate warmachines here, and Bobby D. for the clever corrrections.

 

While cleaning out my storage unit in Seattle, I came across a treasure trove of original documents and backup disks from the early days of Lucasfilm Games and Humongous Entertainment. I hadn't been to the unit in over 10 years and had no idea what was waiting for me.

Here is the first batch... get ready for a week of retro... Grumpy Gamer style...

First up...

A early mock-up of the Maniac Mansion UI. Gary had done a lot of art long before we had a running game, hence the near finished screen without the verbs.

A map of the mansion right after Gary and I did a big pass at cutting the design down. Disk space was a bigger concern than production time. We had 320K. That's right. K.

Gary and I were trying to make sense of the mansion and how the puzzles flowed together. It wouldn't be until Monkey Island that the "puzzle dependency chart" would solve most of our adventure game design issues.

More design flow and ideas. The entire concept of getting characters to like you never really made it into the final game. Bobby, Joey and Greg would grow up and become Dave, Syd, Wendy, Bernard, etc..

A really early brainstorm of puzzle ideas. NASA O-ring was probably "too soon" and twenty-five years later the dumb waiter would finally make it into The Cave.

I'm still amazed Gary and I didn't get fired.

In 2011, when Google launched its Google+ social network, the search giant angered many users by requiring that the page include their real name.

Google had the novel idea that if your real name was attached to a comment you were making, you were less likely to be belligerent (or violent). It turns out, more than a few people are still willing to make awful comments, even with their real name attached.

The restriction hurt users that had to use other names for safety reasons, and many commentators, especially on YouTube, just stopped commenting. Google has heard the complaints for years and has now decided to drop any name restrictions for Google+.

Reads the Google+ post:

When we launched Google+ over three years ago, we had a lot of restrictions on what name you could use on your profile. This helped create a community made up of real people, but it also excluded a number of people who wanted to be part of it without using their real names.

Over the years, as Google+ grew and its community became established, we steadily opened up this policy, from allowing +Page owners to use any name of their choosing to letting YouTube users bring their usernames into Google+. Today, we are taking the last step: there are no more restrictions on what name you can use.

We know you've been calling for this change for a while. We know that our names policy has been unclear, and this has led to some unnecessarily difficult experiences for some of our users. For this we apologize, and we hope that today's change is a step toward making Google+ the welcoming and inclusive place that we want it to be. Thank you for expressing your opinions so passionately, and thanks for continuing to make Google+ the thoughtful community that it is.

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The FCC's site has been so hammered by comments from people angry about its plans to enact Cable Company Fuckery that many haven't been able to get through. Read the rest

An amendment introduced by Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) will block the FCC's plan to allow cities to set up their own broadband connections, competing with Comcast and other monopoly/duopolies. Read the rest

In Oconee County, South Carolina, some residents report to have encountered bags tossed at their homes containing candy and a flyer inviting them join the KKK. Ku Klux Klandy? Read the rest

Where is your god now? [CaliG831 via Reddit]

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Toronto awesomedad CGS1 created an amazing Lego minifig costume for his son, documenting it on The Dented Helmet. Read the rest

Well, OK, just in theory. But this amazing NXT-controlled LEGO robot by Hknssn can build its own tower, and since the robot rides up the tower with each new piece it places, there’s theoretically no limit to how high it can build as long as it continues to be fed pieces.

Just like Mother always said: "If you have to deliver bad news, use a gif." Crawl, the monster-infested multiplayer dungeon crawler from Powerhoof, won't launch on its promised July 17 date. Powerhoof is an independent studio in Melbourne,...

I worked at a place where it actually was a rule that you refilled the coffee machine if you took the last drop of coffee. That shit was serious biz.

Keith Skretch combined Ennio Morricone, a sander, a camera, and infinite patience to create this incredible video.

To create this strata-cut animation, I planed down a block of wood one layer at a time, photographing it at each pass. The painstaking process revealed a hidden life and motion in the seemingly static grain of the wood, even as the wood itself was reduced to a mound of sawdust.

Yep, it's called "Waves of Grain."

Hi guys,

I'm back from Barcelona and at the bench again---yay!

Got into some weathering now....lets see, what have I done?./...OK, I did some metallic sponge-chipping all over the tank. Secondly, I added pin washes in black-brown, and in some dark rust tones in different places for variety's sake.

I added some "Bright Green filter" from Adam Wilder's Nitro Line to alter the inner parts of the green patches. I also added some Gray Brown filters over the sand and gray colors.

I also used the "Spatter method"--loading up a stiff brush with paint and then flicking it to transfer the paint in small drops against the model--to ad some rusty micro-chips to the hull and to tint the tracks.

The wheels got hair-spray treatment first, a wash of gray-brown and then rust, and then flicked with rust. Still quite a bit to do here....

It's starting to look grimier.The rear is going to be a BIT cleaner, obviously.

SStill much to do in terms of adding actual dust, dirt, etc.  I'm hoping to make good progress tomorrow and with a little luck get the track on. Stay tuned!!! 

Jerry Lodriguss, digital astrophotographer, captured this stunning image of our Moon passing close to the planet Mars on July 5, 2014. Read the rest

Tasan viisi vuotta sitten kirjoitettiin ensimmäinen merkintä Kiinan auringonpimennysmatkaan liittyen. Silloin blogin oli tarkoitus toimia ainoastaan pari viikkoa ja niin se tekikin. Reissukertomus talteen ja se oli siinä. Sitten saatiin ajatus lähteä Pohjois-Norjaan kuvaamaan Venuksen ylikulkua. Blogi heräteltiin henkiin jo reissuun valmistautuessa ja suunnitelmia laatiessa. Taas, kun matka oli ohi, alkoi hiljaiselo.

Viime kesänä Harri Haukka esitti ajatuksen, jos alkaisin koostamaan tänne havaintoja ja mietteitä tähtiharrastuksesta – siitä se sitten lähti. Nyt viisi vuotta Kiinan reissun jälkeen kasassa on 277 artikkelia, joista suurin osa havaintoja ilmakehän ilmöistä tai tähtitaivaan kohteista. Näiden lisäksi pilvisinä päivinä olen kirjoitellut artikkeleita kokoelmassani olevista meteoriiteista, ihan vain niistä itsekin lisää oppiakseni. Ei niiden kaikkien taustoja muuten tulisi kuitenkaan niin tarkkaan selvitettyä.

Pilvisten iltojen ratoksi aionkin jatkossa kirjoitella myös esittelyjä tähti- ja avaruusharrastukseen liittyvistä vierailukohteista, kuten jo tuossa reilu viikko sitten kirjoitinkin käynnistäni Archenholdin Observatoriolla. Esiteltävät kohteet tulevat olemaan sellaisia, joissa olen itse käynyt.

Muistutetaan tässä yhteydessä tulevasta Kassiopeian Aurinkopäivästä Härkämäen Observatoriolla 27. päivä kuluvaa kuukautta. Tapahtuma on ilmainen ja kaikille avoin, joten tervetuloa! Mielenkiintoisten luentojen lisäksi nähtävillä tulee olemaan ainakin allekirjoittaneen meteoriittikokoelma ja toivottavasti myös parin muun keräilijän kokoelma. Taivaalta tippuneita avaruuskiviä on siis luvassa hyvän kokoinen kasa nähtäväksi.

The TSA has demanded that overseas airports, like London's Heathrow, should require travellers to turn on their electronics before flying to the USA, and ban any broken or out-of-power devices. Read the rest

Good news everyone!
Adrian Drake (BrickFrenzy) is back with another MEGA awesome build for Brickworld this year. This time, it’s a life-sized Bender from Futurama:

At 6 feet tall (including antenna) and built with approximately 20,000 pieces – it may surprise you that this build only took about Adrian a month to build. I think this was the single most photographed build at Brickworld, and earned Adrian the Judge’s Choice Award and nomination for Best Mega Creation.

Of course no life sized bender would be complete without a functional chest cavity (featuring one of Brickworld’s finest traditional drinks).

As a huge Futurama fan, I couldn’t help but get caught up in life-sized-Bender Fever, and decided to build Nixon’s head (minus jar) to put on Bender’s body (ARROOOOO!).

Oh and Adrian totally trusted me enough to let me put on Bender’s Head.

A special thanks to Adam Myers for letting me build Nixon from his collection in Chicago, and for loaning out Nixon head to Adrian to display at BrickFair VA.

My friend Valerie makes one chocolate cake. No, I don’t mean one chocolate cake for school birthday cupcakes and one for grown-up dinner parties, one for wedding cakes and one for really decadent layer cakes, one for roulades and one for a Thursday afternoon, just because. I mean just one recipe. She serves it plain to guests after dinner, she makes it when she hears it’s your birthday and she stacks, and coats it hypercolored frosting and studs it with superheroes for her kids’ birthdays.

It’s incredibly simple, just butter (she’s French, so bien sûr), dark chocolate, sugar, flour, a bit of baking powder and her secret ingredient: water. A spoonful or two here and another there creates a decadent crumb you won’t read about in any cookbook. Sure, you could use milk or maybe replace a spoonful with some kirsch but she does not so I do not. The whole thing, save some hand-whisked egg yolks and machine-whipped egg whites (which gives it an airy lift and almost crackly meringue of a lid), is mixed in the pot where you melt the chocolate. It bakes in 30 minutes, which is convenient when your afternoon is rerouted, and tastes amazing. And I bet she regrets ever giving me the recipe.

... Read the rest of valerie’s french chocolate cake on smittenkitchen.com

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© smitten kitchen 2006-2012. | permalink to valerie’s french chocolate cake | 166 comments to date | see more: Cake, Chocolate, French, Photo

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It’s been barely a week since LEGO’s announcement about the new Mini Cooper creator set. Inspired by the pictures of that set, Miro Dudas built a mini-fig scaled version:

I haven’t decided yet whether this super little build is going to temporarily satisfy my craving for the real set, or just make waiting until August even that more hard to do!

The National Security Agency is using a new argument for not retaining the data it gathers about users' online activity: The NSA is just too complex.

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Mario Maker is coming to the Wii U console, and it lets you edit and play your own Super Mario Bros. levels easily.

At Nintendo's E3 press briefing it showed off gameplay footage of Mario Maker, displaying how easy it is to create complex environments and play them through.

The level editor shown looks like it will be a lot of fun to play with. You seem to be able to switch between "old" and newer graphics too.

Unfortunately this game doesn't come out until next year, however.

Check it out...

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Astronaut Steve Swanson, who is currently serving as commander of the ISS, designed original artwork for the Expedition 40 crew patch which pays homage to Star Trek.

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Beautiful new work from our good friend Fred Gambino. From the book Dark Shepherd.


















Keywords: concept spaceship environments space art illustrations design from the dark shepherd book the art of fred gambino hd high definition resolution portfolio image samples from artstation.com

Imagine the finesse of Jerac‘s spaceship building skills applied to a massive model: the result is this over 2 meter long Imperial Star Destroyer. It is the only large model of the ISD built using the SNOT technique. The result is a super smooth design that hardly looks like a Lego creation. Check out more photos on Jeraec’s Flickr photostream.

Check out this amazing edit by Jerac’s friend Migalart