Luke.stirling

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This is how he has learned to love his commute.

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There's a good ten trillion word thinkpiece to be written about how all conspiracy theories are at their core delusions of grandeur.

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Via BoingBoing.

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If you ever want to see some sheer brutality, watch an ecologist come across a nest of invasives.

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The images are "before and after" photos of the "El Castillo" step-pyramid at Chichen Itza.

The lower photo reveals the incredible workmanship and brings to mind the probably decades of human labor required to create this magnificent structure.  The upper photo shows how the natural world "reclaimed" the pyramid during a thousand years of rampant growth, giving just a hint of what can be accomplished given enough time.  Extend that to tens of thousands of years, or hundreds, and wonder how much of the "anthropocene" will be detectable in our planet's future.

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I've also gotten reviews that say that my comics not meant for kids are, in fact, inappropriate for kids.

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Thanks everyone! We hit #13 on all books on amazon yesterday. Hope you like your books!

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I am available for this job, TV.

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Thanks, geeks!

... someone posts a photo of a yapok (water opossum).

Being a marsupial and at the same time an aquatic animal, the water opossum has evolved a way to protect its young while swimming. A strong ring of muscle makes the pouch (which opens to the rear) watertight, so the young remain dry, even when the mother is totally immersed in water. The male also has a pouch (although not as watertight as the female's), where he places his genitalia before swimming. This is thought to prevent them from becoming tangled in aquatic vegetation and is probably helpful in streamlining the animal as well.

Created by humans with selective breeding.

The Onagadori (Japanese: 尾長鶏, "long-tailed chicken") is a historic Japanese breed of chicken, characterised by an exceptionally long tail. It was bred in the seventeenth century in Kōchi Prefecture, on Shikoku island in southern Japan, and was designated a Japanese National Natural Treasure in 1952. It is one of the ancestors of the German Phoenix breed.

The principal characteristic of the Onagadori is its exceptionally long tail, which exceeds 1.5 metres, and has been known to reach 12 m. The tail consists of about 16–18 feathers, which under the right conditions never moult, and grow rapidly, gaining some 0.7–1.3 m per year.

In the news recently for having the world's loudest birdcall.  Of more interest to me because of its unusual appearance...

Besides the screams, the male bellbirds display another weird trait the researchers suggest they evolved as a lure for females: long dangly nose ornaments called wattles, which make the males appear to be perpetually finishing up a lizard meal.

 More about wattles.

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Failure is not an option because we no longer have a rocket large enough to attempt something we could fail at.

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If you replaced the term 'space' with 'everywhere-in-the-universe' I feel we'd get more funding for everywhere-in-the-universe exploration.

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Discussed at the Funny subreddit.

Or a raviolo, to be more precise.  Image cropped for emphasis from the original.

The average person now carries more computing power in their pocket than what it took to put the Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon. However, Johan Alexanderson takes us back to a time when ties were wide, comb-overs were a thing, ashtrays were piled high with cigarette butts, and data was stored on reel-to-reel. This is the kind of vintage computer room my dad worked at in the 70s. A vehicle door makes an excellent spool of continuous feed computer paper. The green screen, the big cabinets, the data reels, even the color aesthetic and the utilitarian swivel chair all seem clunky and outdated to us, but at the time it all went together like swingers and fondue.

It should come as no surprise that Johan is a computer programmer who also seems quite inspired by a retro aesthetic. This wouldn’t be the first time he had delighted us with computing nostalgia. Check out this free-to-play “Classic Space Adventure” LEGO-inspired computer game he created utilizing over 400 pages of programming.

The post The Future: 1972 appeared first on The Brothers Brick.

I’m more than one-hundred articles into this gig and I’m still finding things to go absolutely gaga over. My case in point, these adorable animals as rendered by Instagram user Legotruman. It is so hard to pick a favorite so we’ve constructed a composite image showcasing most of the animal renders here. My heart melts when I look at each of these portraits, which totally wreaks havoc on my hard-edged, devil-may-care image, let me tell you.

If I had to pick just a few favorites, I’d go with this adorable little tiger…

This adorable little panda bear…

Also this adorable little giraffe…

This adorable little sea turtle…

And finally this adorable little kookaburra.

Is that a tear welling up? (Sniffle) I think it is. This is hands down the best thing I’ve seen all day and I’ve seen two squirrels fighting over a grape.

The post Feeling cute. Might growl later-idk appeared first on The Brothers Brick.

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I'm informed that technically an order of magnitude down would be 1/10th of a deity. But, if you just physics the number one more time, you arrive at exactly 0.

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It's a double update day, thanks to early buyers!

When building with LEGO, one of the more frustrating things is when the bricks just don’t seem to line up right. Oh, sure, LEGO has amazing interlocking technology built in, and that helps. But when you’re trying to do something fancy with half-stud offsets or SNOT, sometimes those joins are a little less than static. El Barto has taken this pain point and turned it into something lovely with their rendition of the David E. and Stacey L. Goel Center for Theater and Dance at Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH. Built with meticulous attention to detail, the walls use a repetitive mis-alignment to create a zig-zag pattern that matches the textures of the real building. Even better, the whole build sits askew on the display stand, mirroring those interesting angles.

The sides and back of the building also have that great texturing. The rest of the landscaping is also well executed, with brick-built trees and curving walkways.

If you’d like to see it in person, this creation will be on display in the lobby of the Goel Center for the remainder of the academic year. I just wonder if the display table is also at an angle…

The post This groovy exterior will make you dance appeared first on The Brothers Brick.

(She was a "hundred-and-one" years old.)

Via Neatorama.

Related:  It takes guts to make a cake like this.

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Actually, cognitive neuroethics says only the neurons involved in bad behavior should go to Hell.

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Author Frank Herbert was first inspired to write the epic Dune novels by the sandy dunes on the Oregon coast in the United States. As a struggling sci-fi writer early in his career, it seems doubtful that Herbert would have had the means to live in such a wonderfully architected home as this exquisite LEGO house among the dunes by Sarah Beyer. Sarah’s house features stone walls built from plates, plus geometric white sections and a garage door built on its side. The square stone arch at the roofline is particularly striking.

The landscaping around the home is no less noteworthy, with an irregular base that looks exactly like sand spilling all around the base of the structure and scrubby plants rooted in the loose soil.

And be sure to check out all the other LEGO Architecture by Sarah that we’ve featured previously.

The post A lovely home far from Arrakis appeared first on The Brothers Brick.

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I think there could be a whole field of study based on analyzing what pets are afraid of and assuming it exists in the fossil record.

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As those with some knowledge of Latin might expect from the user name, Corvus Auriac seems to have a thing for crows. Crows are among the most intelligent of birds and are often known to make use of tools. Corvus the builder is also a tool user, as demonstrated by this lovely digital render of Arminius, The Crow. Creating a recognizable avian can be a challenge, yet Corvus manages it in only 20 pieces. Among the creative part choices are Minifigure wings, a tooth for a beak, and a flipper for the tail. Even the branch is a nice little build, making use of an elephant tail and carrot top.

Although this is just a flight of fantasy (brick) at present, Corvus says that a real-world version is on the way. I’m looking forward to seeing it!

The post 20 pieces to crow over appeared first on The Brothers Brick.