Found some awesome instructions for origami lotuses, which I think will look awesome on a holiday tree with a Buddhist slant. Will post the results soon!

Rae630 Paper Lotus

Green Acroyear figure from the Micronauts Home Page.

Back in the late 70s, I had a few of the Micronaut toys. Until today, I had forgotten how many I had, and couldn’t find them on the net because I kept thinking they were called “Microbots,” which is a different toy altogether. Today, the neurons fired in the proper sequence, I remembered the correct name, and hit The Google.

The Micronauts Homepage
Inner Space Online
MicroHeritage Micronauts

Rummaging through the sites, I remembered the toys I had: the Acroyear (I) figure, the Mobile Exploration Lab, Crater Cruncher, and Hydra vehicles. My dream was to have the Battle Cruiser and the Micropolis Megacity.

Because all the parts used connectors that were the same size across the toys, you could build new things by taking bits of one toy and putting them on another. These combinations made it easy to come up with new ways of imaging how to play with the toys. To me this was better than Lego’s because instead of being generic blocks, the were bits and pieces that were shaped like things (and yeah, I never got into the Lego play sets, either). You could take rocket nozzles off one toy and put them on another, propellers off another, and so on, and build something completely new.

I wish the Micronauts would come back in to production. They were the best toys ever!

I worked for Staples for a while back when the “That was easy” campaign started, and the Easy Button ads started airing. People started showing up in the store wanting an Easy Button, and finally Staples started selling them. (Staples is a great company to work for, and I had an awesome boss, and they are giving at least part of the proceeds for the Easy Button to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Yay!)

Needless to say, if something has batteries and a button and does something, it will be hacked by geeks. Here’s a quick roundup of interesting Easy Button hacks found on the web. Buy one and hack yours!

• Change playback speed of pre-recorded message (and a custom message mod)
• Replace circuit with custom recording module
• Easy Button Escape Key (this guy also made a giant (non-functional) SD card)
• Another custom recording circuit on Instructables

I’d like to make something like an office WTF? counter with an Easy Button, actually. What other interesting things can be done with a giant red button?

So, I got an email about a free t-shirt at ThinkGeek. The shirt features a 2D code glyph in QR code format, and the email said, “The QR Code on the shirt in this image is *not* the QR Code on the free shirt. Cause that’d just be lame.”

(more…)

Have you seen this? OMGWTF!

Via Countdown with Keith Olbermann

I consider myself a martini purist. If it’s something other than gin and vermouth, or vodka and vermouth, it’s not a martini. Not appletinis, not chocolatinis, none of those things–they’re just cocktails served in a pointy glass (and there are many non-tini drinks served in that glass, by the way). I say this as a purist who has to get hammered before he can actually drink pure straight-up alcohol, or has to have it dirty.

However, because of its sheer audacity, I hereby accept the McNuggetini into my martini lexicon, if only as an awesome joke.

Via DListed.

WTF LOL!

Sign hackage in TX, IL, and IN. Best so far: DAILY LANE CLOSURES DUE TO ZOMBIES. Best idea not yet done, on jalopnik.com’s “How to hack an electronic road sign” article: WARNING: SIGN, BARRELS, NO WORKERS.