![Using 15 Million LEGO Bricks, Artists Create World’s Iconic Skyscrapers
Artist and architect Adam Reed Tucker—who’s also one of 11 LEGO Certified Professionals in the world—along with other LEGO artists, have recreated the world’s tallest skyscrapers using more than 15,500,000 LEGO Bricks. The collection—currently exhibited at the National Building Museum in Washington DC—features detailed LEGO versions of iconic skyscrapers, such as the Empire State Building, the John Hancock Center, the Petronas Towers and the Burj Khalifa. Tucker himself created 11 of these buildings—each of which took about 200 hours or more to complete. The exhibition called ‘LEGO Architecture: Towering Ambition’ runs through ‘til 3 September 2012. [via Gizmodo and DVICE]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2jwxa5P0g1r7ujw5o1_500.jpg)
Using 15 Million LEGO Bricks, Artists Create World’s Iconic Skyscrapers
Artist and architect Adam Reed Tucker—who’s also one of 11 LEGO Certified Professionals in the world—along with other LEGO artists, have recreated the world’s tallest skyscrapers using more than 15,500,000 LEGO Bricks.
The collection—currently exhibited at the National Building Museum in Washington DC—features detailed LEGO versions of iconic skyscrapers, such as the Empire State Building, the John Hancock Center, the Petronas Towers and the Burj Khalifa.
Tucker himself created 11 of these buildings—each of which took about 200 hours or more to complete.
The exhibition called ‘LEGO Architecture: Towering Ambition’ runs through ‘til 3 September 2012. 
[via Gizmodo and DVICE]
{EAV:68bdb91ebe1a5bb3} Wildrose Bus: Wheels On Danielle Smith’s Campaign Ride Prompt Chuckles On Twitter
EDMONTON - Alberta’s Wildrose party campaign bus is getting a re-do after the first version went viral Monday for its unintended display of leader Danielle Smith’s twin tire decolletage.
“We’re just looking into getting it adjusted so we can get it fixed for the election,” said party spokeswoman Shannon Stubbs.
“Hopefully we’ll have it ready for the campaign launch.”
The bus was wheeled out Monday morning outside the legislature to provide the backdrop for a news conference. Polls have Smith and her party challenging the long-governing Progressive Conservatives in the yet-to-be-called provincial election. The Wildrose was announcing it now has a full slate of candidates.
The sides of the bus feature the Wildrose logo along with a torso picture of Smith — the bus’s two rear wheels over her chest.
Pictures of the bus began circulating on the Internet and went viral on Twitter.
Comments ranged from pre-adolescent chortles and jokes to those urging people to grow up.
Some rewrote the words to “Wheels on the Bus.” Another PhotoShopped tassels on the hubcaps. There were barbs from both genders.
Stubbs said they were caught off guard.
“Nobody really noticed it in the proposals,” she said, adding Smith had a good laugh over the controversy.
“We figure if this is the worst thing that were to happen in the campaign that’s a good thing.”
Later in the day Smith tweeted: “Glad to see everyone is so interested in our bus. Guess we’ll have to make a couple of changes, huh?”
Heather Forsyth, the only woman in the four-person Wildrose caucus, said she was left shaking her head.
“We have to start talking about the bigger issues — that’s health care, it’s about seniors, it’s about education,” said Forsyth.
“When I looked at the bus I didn’t see it as everyone else has seen it.
“I found (the controversy) offensive to begin with, and now I think it’s humorous that people have spun it this way.”
NDP critic Rachel Notley said the issue is not about sexism, but bad management.
“They need to question the quality of their election team in allowing the bus to go forward like that,” said Notley.
She said it’s inevitable in elections when the stakes are high, the debate will hit the gutter.
“As it gets increasingly competitive, sometimes the discussion is going to degrade somewhat and obviously that’s a little bit of what happened here.
“But I suspect it’s not going to have a big impact on the campaign unless her election team continues to make the same kind of errors.
“If you come up a configuration that was embarrassing to a man, probably people would have gone on that as well.”
One picture posted on Twitter bore that out.
It depicted the back of a United Kingdom transit bus, featuring a head to thigh shot of a policemen, a grey exhaust tailpipe peaking out from under his belt buckle.
Premier Alison Redford is expected to call an election within days to send voters to the polls for late April.
Three of the main parties have full slates of candidates.
Smith announced the last of their 87 candidates at the bus news conference. Redford’s Tories and the NDP have previously announced full slates.
The Liberals are lagging behind with 57 candidates, but Leader Raj Sherman says they’re growing quickly and will have 87 in place when voters go to the polls.
The Alberta Party has 26 candidates and the EverGreens 15.
Redford unveiled her bus last month with a picture of her in the middle — away from the wheels.
Source: huffingtonpost.ca
March 13th, 2012
I’m sure at one point somebody thought ring tones were pretty stupid. Today we have all sorts of ring tones for music the other things that we hear everywhere we go when someone’s phone rings. I think Swann may have just kicked off a new fad for doorbell ring tones. The company has unveiled a new wireless doorbell called the MP3 DJ doorbell.
The doorbell sells for $49.99(USD) and is designed for quick DIY installation. You can slip a SD memory card up to 32 GB into the doorbell and it will play the music on the card when someone presses the button. I can think of a bunch of music I’d like to have only push my doorbell. Maybe Lurch’s “You rang?” or “Ding, dong, the witch is dead.” That last might offend my mother-in-law though.
The doorbell will play polyphonic tones as well. The doorbell activator switch has a range of 330 feet from the base and is powered by three AA batteries. I only hope that custom doorbell tones are available soon. Something along the lines of Yoda saying, “Sell me crap, you will not” would be right up my alley or maybe Mr. T saying “I pity the fool that rings my bell again, sucka.”
Source: youtube.com
Is This the Best Startup Launch Video Ever?
March 06, 2012 by 60 A dollar a month for razors, shipped to your door? Most thrifty guys and gals who wield a blade in the bathroom won’t need much convincing that that’s a good idea for a startup. But how to ensure that they hear about it, and that they have enough confidence in the company to sign up?
Simple: create a funny YouTube video — one with so much swagger, sight gags and bear costumes that it seems poised to go viral.
That’s the apparent strategy behind Dollar Shave Club, a startup from LA-based Incubator Science. The company just scored its first $1 million in funding from heavyweight VCs including Andreesen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins. We wouldn’t be surprised to learn that much of that cash was handed over after a viewing of this video.
Dollar Shave Club is the brainchild of Michael Dubin, the suave guy explaining the concept. Granted, not every founder could carry off a performance with this much deadpan humor and well-timed stunts. But Dubin seems a star in the making, whether or not the Club takes off.
If there’s one lesson we’d like CEOs to learn from the Dollar Shave Club, it is this: don’t take yourselves and your product so seriously. Either that, or pretend to take yourselves and your product so seriously that you go over the top and venture into the world of parody. Have fun with it, and your potential customers are much more likely to pay attention.
Dubin isn’t the only entrepreneur to find success solely on the basis of a well-crafted video. Remember adventure game veteran Tim Schafer, whose amusing Kickstarter vid won him more than $1 million in seed capital overnight — the fastest funding ever seen on the service?
We’ve assembled a gallery of other amusing startup videos — including one that started out as a parody and became a real service. Let us know if we’ve missed any of your favorites.
Source: Mashable
What are years… and the galactic supermassive black hole!
Source: youtube.com
Coming soon to Whole Foods: Kinect-powered shopping trolleys
This is one of the stories where you start by thinking “why has no-one done this before?” and quickly end up thinking “why is anyone doing this now?” But the craziness of the concept hasn’t put Whole Foods off. They’re rolling out Kinect-enabled shopping trolleys in their stores soon, just to make your food shopping just that little bit more interesting. Using the motion sensors on Microsoft’s Kinect, the shopping trolleys will identify your loyalty card, scan items as you put them in the trolley and will even follow you around the shop:
It is an early prototype version so you would expect some glitches, but nonetheless some of the features are pretty impressive, such as reminding you that you normally buy gluten free pasta. Well, they’re either really impressive, or just really creepy. I’m not exactly sure I want my trolley following me around a store, or reminding me I might want to think twice about my guilty food shopping and dietary needs.
While it’s great to see companies innovating with Kinect, this seems to be going a little too far. Is this something that we really need, or is placing items into a trolley without having a conversation about it fine as it is? And I can only imagine some of the embarassing things your Kinect trolley might remind you of as you pick out certain items. Having said that, I would of course try one out.
Source: simplyzesty.com
Video with 1 note
Michael Jordan Lists Chicago-Area Home for $29 Million
By Maya Pope-Chappell
Michael Jordan has put his longtime home in Highland Park, Ill., on the market for $29 million, according to the company marketing the listing, Luxury Portfolio International.
The former NBA player, widely regarded as the greatest basketball icon of all time, has lived in the compound with more than 56,000 square feet of space for more than 15 years.
Constructed between 1993 and 1995 and extensively renovated in 2009, the house in the Chicago suburb has nine bedrooms, more than 15 bathrooms and five fireplaces. Mr. Jordan, who in his 15 seasons as a player led the Chicago Bulls to six NBA Championship titles, has “23″—his famous jersey number—engraved on the gates of the property.
In addition to the main house, the more than 7-acre property includes a three-bedroom guesthouse and three separate climate-controlled multi-car garages.
An indoor basketball complex, which has a separate entry and nearby parking area, was completed in 2001. The facility features a full-size regulation basketball court with specially cushioned hardwood flooring, adjustable backstops and baskets and competition-quality, high-intensity lighting. The complex has a sound system tuned to provide perfect acoustics within the court space.
Other amenities include an entertaining and pool area, an outdoor tennis court, a putting green and a deep water pond.
Associated PressMichael Jordan’s compound has nine bedrooms and, of course, a sophisticated indoor basketball complex. Slide showMr. Jordan, who is the majority owner of the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats, agreed to a $168 million divorce settlement with his estranged wife of 17 years, Juanita, in 2007. The former couple sold the property in 2007 to a trust, according to public records. Mr. Jordan is currently engaged to longtime girlfriend Yvette Prieto. A spokeswoman said Mr. Jordan was not available for comment.
Katherine Chez Malkin of Baird & Warner Real Estate is the listing agent for the property.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Apple’s Market Cap Shoots Above $500 Billion
By Steven Russolillo
Associated PressApple shares are up yet again, officially pushing the company’s market cap above the $500 billion barrier.
As we noted last night, Apple is only the sixth company ever with a market cap above the half-trillion mark. Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Intel, GE and Exxon Mobil are the others in this exclusive club.
Apple shares are up about 1.5% in early trading. The stock is up more than 35% this year. To put the rally in perspective, it only took Apple 34 trading days to go from $400 to $500. More recently, it’s only taken eight days to go from $500 to today’s intraday high of $547.61.
Apple current has a market cap of about $505 billion, according to FactSet Research.
The company’s valuation is now worth more than the GDP’s of countries such as Poland, Belgium, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, or Taiwan, CNNMoney says. For a great list of stuff Apple is worth more than, check the great blog “Things Apple Is Worth More Than.”
Apple’s rally has helped briefly push the Nasdaq Comp above 3,000 for the first time since December 2000.
A one-year chart of Apple’s stock price is at the bottom of the post. As the chart shows, the stock has gone nearly straight up over the last three years.
MarketBeaters, what’s next for Apple? $600 in March? Do we hear $700, $800…?
U.S. war machine news: $1 trillion Stealth Fighter program cleared for flight. $1 trillion was not a typo…
Trillion-Dollar Stealth Fighter Cleared for Flight Training
The Air Force’s F-35A Joint Strike Fighter is finally cleared to begin introductory flights at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida — four months late.
The belated “Military Flight Release” is a big step forward for the stealthy JSF, which is slated to replace almost all of the Pentagon’s tactical jets over the next 30 years but has been plagued by design problems, safety concerns, delays and cost increases.
Initial flights by the first dozen planes will be “limited” and “scripted,” the Air Force said. Marine and Navy versions of the new warplane could also take to the skies over Eglin before too long. The flying will slowly become more realistic as Lockheed Martin improves the jets and pilots and ground crews grow more comfortable using them.
The military estimates buying and flying the full fleet of roughly 2,500 F-35s could cost $1 trillion over 50 years. A program review in November found 13 expensive design flaws, some of which had caused the F-35 to be briefly grounded last summer.
In October, Dr. Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester, asked the Pentagon to consider delaying training flights at Eglin until the late summer of this year — 10 months later than planned at the time. Rushing into training could endanger pilots’ lives, Gilmore said. “Historically, flight training has not commenced for newly developed aircraft until 2,000 hours to 5,000 hours of monitored flight test have been accumulated,” Gilmore wrote. At the time, the F-35 had accumulated just 1,000 hours of testing — a number that has since increased.
Air Force Lt. Gen Thomas Owen and Navy Vice Adm. David Venlet rejected Gilmore’s advice, but assured him that training would not begin until they were certain the JSF was ready. They believe that moment has arrived. “The Air Force, Joint Strike Fighter Program Office and other stakeholders have painstakingly followed established risk acceptance and mitigation processes to ensure the F-35A is ready,” said Gen. Donald Hoffman, the commander of Air Force Materiel Command.
The training will proceed at a crawl. “The plan will be to start flying, not training, but to start flying with test-qualified aviators initially to do what we call local area orientation,” Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz said. “We will build to a threshold, which will allow the training leadership in the Air Force to declare ‘ready to train’ with other than test-qualified aviators.”
Really, there’s no rush. As part of the Five-Year Defense Plan published early this month, the Pentagon announced it would further slow down JSF production to allow more time for testing. The single-engine fighter is now slated to enter front-line service no earlier than 2018, seven years later than originally planned.
That means six years of pilots training on a jet that isn’t ready for combat. But even that is an improvement over the current situation. Eglin’s 33rd Fighter Wing has been borrowing old F-16s while awaiting clearance to fly its F-35s. ”The most-frustrated pilot is one who isn’t flying at all,” Marine Col. Arthur Tomassetti told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Video: Lockheed Martin
Source: Wired
Toronto’s Herd.fm Launches Mobile App to Set ‘New Standard for Music Sharing and Discovery’
Posted by Techvibes Newsdesk on Wed, February 29, 2012 9:38 AM · Filed under Toronto , Startups · 0 Comments
Toronto-based startup Herd.fm has launched an iPhone app that “promises to be the new standard for music sharing and discovery on mobile devices.”
Optimized for mobile, Herd.fm uses your iTunes listening history and Facebook sharing activity for a dual purpose: to display a snapshot of your recent favorites, and as a basis for “intelligent music recommendations from a proprietary algorithm.”
“For our new direction we took a hard look at the big picture of sharing and discovering music on your mobile device and how we could solve this problem,” says David Nam, newly appointed Herd.fm executive team member, formerly of MXP4 and Last.fm.
“Other sharing and discovery services were clearly invented for the web browser and not fundamentally designed for a mobile device. In the new app, we’ve taken this completely broken experience and created a legit mobile solution that makes it easy, fast, convenient and fun to discover new music by doing what you already do—share the music you love with the ones you love.”
Every time you share a song or mini-mix to a friend, Facebook or Twitter through Herd.fm, you’re rewarded with an instant and relevant music recommendation to your iPhone. Herd.fm also enhances music discovery by showing artist tour dates via Songkick’s concert API and enables song purchases through iTunes.
Herd.fm also uses your phone’s geo-location capability to visualize your musical influence with its patent-pending feature called a “Trak Journey.” Share a song on the app and Herd.fm displays a map showing where your song travels and who is listening across the country, and the world.
The latest Herd.fm is an evolution from the app’s earlier incarnation which launched at the SXSW Accelerator contest in March 2011, which used location as the basis for providing music recommendations.
“Herd.fm lets you broadcast recommendations like any other service, but we focus on person-to-person because sharing music is a global behavior, but the music you share isn’t globally liked by everyone,” says David. ”So instead of posting to a feed, post to the friends you think will like the music.”
Herd.fm was founded in 2010 by James Milward, David Lengyel, and Romeo Candido.
Source: ht.ly
Russian company hawking immortality via transplanting the human mind into a robot … US Department of Defence announces the Avatar Project …
Russian Mogul’s Plan: Plant Our Brains in Robots, Keep Them Alive Forever
The Pentagon’s new Avatar project, unveiled by Danger Room a few weeks back, sounds freaky enough: Soldiers practically inhabiting the bodies of robots, who’d act as “surrogates” for their human overlords in battle.
But according to Dmitry Itskov, a 31-year-old Russian media mogul, the U.S. military’s Avatar initiative doesn’t go nearly far enough. He’s got a massive, sci-fi-esque venture of his own that he hopes will put the Pentagon’s project to shame. Itskov’s plan: Construct robots that’ll (within 10 years, he hopes) actually store a human’s mind and keep that consciousness working. Forever.
“This project is leading down the road to immortality,” Itskov, who founded New Media Stars, a Russian company that runs several online news outlets, tells Danger Room. “A person with a perfect Avatar will be able to remain part of society. People don’t want to die.”
Itskov’s project, also called “Avatar,” actually precedes the Pentagon’s. He launched the initiative a year ago, but recently divulged more details to a group of futurists — including Ray Kurzweil — at a three-day conference, called Global Future 2045, held in Moscow.
Until now, most of the work on Itskov’s Avatar has taken place in Russia, where he claims to have hired 30 researchers — all of them paid out of his own deep pockets. Now, Itskov plans to take the mission global. “I want to collaborate with scientists from around the world,” he says. “This is a new strategy for the future; for humanity.”
So how would Itskov’s “Avatar” work? Well, he anticipates developing the program in stages. Within the next few years, Itskov plans to deploy robots that can be operated by the human mind. That’s actually not too wild a proposition: Pentagon-backed research has already demonstrated a monkey controlling a robotic arm using some nifty mind-meld tech, for example. And one study on human patients, out of Johns Hopkins, is using brain implants to control artificial limbs.
After phase one of “Avatar,” however, Itskov’s ambitions arguably eclipse even those of the Pentagon’s maddest mad scientists. In 10 years, he anticipates “transplanting” a human mind into a robotic one. After that, Itskov wants to do away with surgical procedures and instead upload the contents of the mind into its brand new, artificial robo-body. And, last but not least, within 30 years Itskov anticipates developing hologram-type bodies — instead of tangible robotic ones — that can “host” human consciousness.
“Holograms give plenty of advantages. You can walk through walls, move at the speed of light,” he says. “Remember in Star Wars, Obi-Wan’s hologram? That was pretty amazing.”
Amazing, yes. Scientifically feasible? Certainly not right now, and maybe not ever. “I understand these are some very big challenges for scientists,” Itskov acknowledges. “But I believe in something you call ‘The American Dream.’ If you put all your energy and time into something, you can make it a reality.”
Itskov, who plans to open two American offices this year, even hopes to collaborate with Darpa on the agency’s ‘Avatar’ program. And he’s keen to talk to agency scientists about the next, more far-out stages of brain-machine interfaces that he plans to develop. “I’m sure someone at Darpa is interested in taking this further,” he says.
So far, at least, Danger Room hasn’t come across any Darpa-funded ventures to develop immortal hologram-brain interfaces. But the agency just might find a little extra blue-sky inspiration in Itskov, who likens Avatar to Darpa’s best-known innovation: The internet.
“Years ago, people didn’t believe the internet could work,” he says. “I think of Avatar in the same light. Right now, the idea is new and radical. It won’t always be that way.”
Source: Wired
PayScale’s 2012 Compensation
Best Practices Infographic
Each year, PayScale surveys thousands of HR and business leaders to learn about the workforce
and compensation trends they’ve experienced in the previous year, and to see how those trends
have informed their plans going forward. Below is a summary of those results.
Request the full report for the infographic.
Source: payscale.com
The Rainbow Walkway Panorama in Denmark →
Wow! Stunning!
our Rainbow Panorama by Olafur Eliasson is a permanent installation that provides a 360 view of the city of Arhus, Denmark. The glass is completely tinted in the various shades of the rainbow, providing magnificent views of the city with a painted twist.
The viewing platform sits atop the ARoS Museum of Art and measure 150 meters around (492 feet). The walkway itself is 3 meters wide (9.8 ft) and the total diameter of the installation is 52 meters (170.6 ft).
6 Terrifying New Creatures Science Just Discovered →
Nature is just one big arms race. You evolve thicker skin, they evolve bigger teeth. So while we at Cracked like to regularly terrify our readers with tales of all the frightening creatures we share the planet with, we should always keep one thing in mind:
Nature is always finding ways to top itself.
For instance, just recently scientists have discovered …
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