标签: lego

My chum Matthew Villeneuve sent me an email leading me to his brother Pierre's "Smoked Bits" blog, which keeps the reader informed as to Pierre's "Project du Jour." One entry I really enjoyed was Pierre's Dancing Lego and Five Servos column. This involves a Raspberry Pi, five servos, and Pierre's son's Lego set, with the whole thing being synchronised to some "Groovy Music" (Pierre's words, not mine :-). I wish I could have done stuff like this with my dad when I was a kid. Unfortunately, what we used to call Lego simply involved plastic blocks you clipped together – no servos or microcontrollers or anything like that. Thinking about it, the Raspberry Pi would probably have counted as a supercomputer in those days of yore. It truly is amazing how fast and how far we've come...

I just got an email from my chum Matthew Villeneuve pointing me at his brother Pierre's "Smoked Bits" blog, which keeps the reader informed as to Pierre's "Project du Jour." One entry I really enjoyed was Pierre's Dancing Lego and Five Servos column. This involves a Raspberry Pi, five servos, and Pierre's son's Lego set, with the whole thing being synchronised to some "Groovy Music" (Pierre's words, not mine :-). I wish I could have done stuff like this with my dad when I was a kid. Unfortunately, what we used to call Lego simply involved plastic blocks you clipped together – no servos or microcontrollers or anything like that. Thinking about it, the Raspberry Pi would probably have counted as a supercomputer in those days of yore. It truly is amazing how fast and how far we've come...  

Some days are indeed stranger than others. For example, I've just been copied on a series of emails that have left my mind reeling. It all started with an email whose subject line was "Allergic to cats?" Inside this email was the following image, which certainly made my eyes water...     Someone responded with an email containing another unusual image as shown below accompanied by a message saying "This was seen at the CPhI show here in Madrid ... can anyone suggest an appropriate caption?"   Well, as you can imagine, this sparked a flurry of email activity, with suggestions ranging from "Getting to the bottom of skin grafts" to "Porker? I hardly even knew her!" to "PharmASSeutical," "PharmaSOWtical," and "PharMOUSEutical" (all of which are rather clever, I have to agree ... much better than anything I could come up with). However I have to admit that my personal favorite was "A pig, a mouse, and two asses walk into a bar..." But wait, there's more, because then someone responded with a stop-motion video of a Lego version of the Titanic sinking (quite moving with the haunting music). And this is the point when things started to get very silly indeed. I don't have the time for all of this. I really will have to ask my 83 year old mother and her friends from church to remove me from their email distribution list!

It's true that some days are stranger than others. For example, I've just been copied on a series of emails that have left my mind reeling. It all started with an email whose subject line was "Allergic to cats?" Inside this email was the following image, which certainly made my eyes water...     Someone responded with an email containing another unusual image as shown below accompanied by a message saying "This was seen at the CPhI show here in Madrid ... can anyone suggest an appropriate caption?"   Well, as you can imagine, this sparked a flurry of email activity, with suggestions ranging from "Getting to the bottom of skin grafts" to "Porker? I hardly even knew her!" to "PharmASSeutical," "PharmaSOWtical," and "PharMOUSEutical" (all of which are rather clever, I have to agree ... much better than anything I could come up with). However I have to admit that my personal favorite was "A pig, a mouse, and two asses walk into a bar..." But wait, there's more, because then someone responded with a stop-motion video of a Lego version of the Titanic sinking (quite moving with the haunting music). And this is the point when things started to get very silly indeed. I don't have the time for all of this. I really will have to ask my 83 year old mother and her friends from church to remove me from their email distribution list!  

I'm always amazed at the creativity of people – I love it when I see things that make me say "Wow – I wish I'd thought of that!"   For example, I just ran across a website run by a guy called David Eger. This site hosts a photo project called 365 Days of Clones in which David posts a daily photo involving Star Wars clone trooper action figures.   Actually there are two different facets to this site: 356 Days of Clones and 365 Alternative Days of Clones . As David says:   365 Days of Clones is a daily photo project starring several Phase I Clone Troopers from the Grand Army of the Republic. The photo project began on January 1, 2011 and is scheduled to conclude on December 31, 2011. As the title suggests, a new photo is taken each day and added to the running total. Some photos relate to historical events or photos, some relate to what "day" it is and some feature the Troopers just fooling around.   David goes on to say: When creating a 365 day photo project, it can be very difficult to choose which images to use. This being the case, I decided to create 365 "Alternative" Days of Clones. This secondary daily photo series is a continuation of sorts of my original series, 365 Days of Clones. Our Phase I Clone Troopers from the Grand Army of the Republic still play a leading role, but are often accompanied by other characters. As an added twist, occasionally the 3.75 inch figures are replaced with their LEGO counterparts. This photo project also began on January 1, 2011 and is scheduled to conclude on December 31, 2011.   Of course, speaking of Star Wars and Lego immediately reminded me of that incredible funny video on: Lego Darth Vader Canteen Incident . I couldn't help myself. I just bounced over there to take another look. This always brings a smile to my face.   But wait, there's more... have you seen the Classics in Lego project by Mike Stimpson in which he recreates famous photographs using Legos. There are some amazing images here, but one of my favorites has to be his recreation of the 1948 photo Dalí Atomicus by Philippe Halsman.     Halsman was a Latvian-born American portrait photographer. In 1941 he met the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and they began to collaborate in the late 1940s. The 1948 work Dalí Atomicus explores the idea of suspension, depicting three cats flying, a bucket of thrown water, and Salvador Dalí in midair. The title of the photograph is a reference to Dalí's work Leda Atomica which can be seen in the right of the photograph behind the two cats.   I have to say that I think Mike Stimpson's recreation of Dalí Atomicus is very, very clever. I dare not think how much effort this took.   I also have to say that this has opened my eyes to all sorts of possibilities. The problem is that the Star Wars and Lego themes are already taken ... so let me here and now formally lay claim to two ideas: recreating famous photographs and works of art using (a) Smurf characters and (b) Troll dolls (you know, those cute ones with the wild hair as shown below).   This isn't a priority – I have so many projects on the go that I don't know whether I'm coming or going – but on my travels I am going to keep my eyes open for both Smurf characters and Trolls (if you happen to see a job-lot of these on eBay, don't hesitate to let me know).