Ain’t that the truth.
Cyclon Love Triangle
Lego Compatibility
Recently, many users of the Lego Mindstorms kits have been somewhat frustrated by new versions of the products.
You see, Lego Mindstorms has seen three releases:
- Lego Robotics Invention System (RIS), which was released in 1998
- Lego Mindstorms, released 2006
- Lego Mindstorms 2.0, released late 2009
The RIS and Mindstorms series are very different. With many changes making it easier for kids to construct bespoke robots.
However, many 1.0 users were expecting to build the 2.0 robots using nothing but the 1.0 kit parts. It’s all a bit silly if you ask me - forward and backward compatibility with robotics kits isn’t something you’d expect. How can anyone innovate if you have to support the past, present and future?
The difficult thing with Lego these days is the availability of parts. You can’t simply walk into a store, jump onto eBay, or log onto the lego.com store and buy spare parts for the Mindstorms kits.
Sure, they have a few pieces, but I’ve been looking for particular cogs and parts for a long time now, and without them, I haven’t been able to build models uploaded by users to blogs, youtube and other parts of the web.
To be honest, I’ve been quite amazed at how well Lego has stood the test of time. They’re constantly evolving to remain relevant with the introduction of the console games, the pending MMORPG(which I’m pretty excited about), the Lego Builder(which allows you to build models on your PC/Mac in 3D and buy the parts needed to construct your creation), and more modern kits like the Mindstorms series.
I can only imagine the complexities of implementing a ‘complete’ online store which stocks all the Lego bits and pieces, but it would easily solve many of the complaints of long time Lego hobbyists.
Lego is definitely a brand worth watching. I wonder what they’ll build next.
</rant>
You get that thing I sent you?
Music Subscriptions
I’ve become a huge fan of music subscriptions of late.
I’ve been a long time subscriber of both Soma and Fabric, both of which give you complete access to their future catalogue for a (very affordable) subscription.
Fabric goes a few steps further than Soma, allowing VIP access to their clubs, as well as online streaming of live events & special “FabricFirst” DJ mixes.
At $3 (Soma) and $6 (Fabric) a month, it’s FAR cheaper than purchasing the titles through iTunes or Beatport.
Masahiro Hotta at Tohoku University discovers how to teleport energy.
→ Twitter Recommendations
Interesting recommendation engine from Tumblr.
They’ve done a great job of mixing a crowd-sourced style engine with a hint of authority (suspension of your account if you show bias or lie).
The sneaky side of the feature is it helps Tumblr categorise their content with some concept of authority.
LEGO elements have different weights depending on their COLOR! Red bricks weigh the most, and transparent bricks weigh the least! Cool.– LEGOLAND
A dynamically updating Credit/Debit card which shows you your live bank balance.
Quite an interesting concept really, especially if you the device had user specified parameters on spending allowances etc.
It could be a great way of monitoring your spending over time. For example, the card could transition from one colour to another as you spend throughout the week. Giving you a constant status update on how well you’re keeping on budget.
The technology doesn’t have to be as complex as they outline in the post. If they simply employed a e-paper like surface, they could update the status of the card when swiped or scanned.
I’ll be watching technology like this closely.
ZOMG - Can’t Wait!
I <3 Spongebob Squarepants.
I’m pretty certain the exoskeleton in District 9 is the most awesome robot/exoskeleton I’ve seen.
Be sure to click through for more awesome D9 concept art.
About Me
The life and times of Aaron Wallis
I'm...
Playing BioShock 2, listening to GU38 Carl Cox, playing with iPad SDK, working on Lexer, still wishing I was living in the future.
