Lavonardo

This week’s thursday challenge is black.

My take on the subject is one of the darkest pictures I’ve taken, of a leopard in the Singapore Night Safari. Definitely a location recommended to all visitors, but do bring a camera that can cope with the pitch-black conditions, my S3 was by far not adequate.

This week’s photo thursday challenge is force.

My take on the subject is a bud, anticipating its burst into a new leaf to celebrate the arrival of spring.

The archives of the previous challenges remain a mess, and as usual, the full-size photograph is available by clicking the picture.

Sock monkeys are so last season.

A sock zombies might just be the thing to push me towards a first purchase from etsy.

And being small and puny woolen critters, they’re pretty easy to outrun or burn should a zombie outbreak occur.

Say it ain’t so.

Implemented with the aid of O’Reilly Maker.

The resizing algorithm didn’t work too well, so click on the image for the full frontal experience.

[ via Virallisten Linkkien Kokoelma. ]

Just when the Black Library had announced that the first printing of the Dark Heresy game had been sold out in a day, follows the announcement that the entire role-playing game line of the company is effectively terminated.

No proper explanation is given, just a vague statement to the effect that the company will focus its resources on fiction and fiction alone. But a good assumption is that the financial distress of the parent company is the root cause.

As expected the relevant fora - both in-house and independent are bursting with perplexed and pissed off gamers, a good fraction of whom suffered under the definitive period of non-support for the preceding fantasy game for two decades.

But after the significant commercial success of both games, I would be very surprised if they wouldn’t already have suitors lining up at the door eager to pick up the licenses. My bet is on Green Ronin, who actually wrote the games - Black Industries acted merely as publishers.

Until Tetsuo Mizoguchi, the designer of Rez is featured on a shirt, I probably can control my shopping urge. Probably.

At least until I actually try out the alleged genius that is Loco Roco.

[ via wonderland. ]

Lego turned 50 years yesterday.

And what a ride it has been, gizmodo’s illustrated timeline barely covers some of the events that occurred.

Like many others, I was a fan. Pretty much from when I could walk. And were there a list of career choice influences, Lego would probably feature quite high on the list (higher than MacGyver at least).

I’ve been hankering for the ultimate Millennium Falcon, and if the attention the Mindstorms kit has received lately is an indication - the time to build Han Solo’s craft would have to be measured on a geological scale.

But here’s a virtual Guinness to the studded plastic brick.

Seems that Wired issue 12/2007 is stuck somewhere in transit, and not available in Helsinki (nor elsewhere in Finland, if a brief visit to Tampere proves anything).

Trying to procure the magazine from ebay failed, as the shipping/handling fees for a single issue are a whopping $24.

I may be addicted, but not that bad.

And anyway, with the contents of the magazine available on the web (minus the advertisements, of course), this might be just the spot to drop buying future issues. But somehow that idea seems very alien indeed.

Sightings of the magazine will be appropriately rewarded. Report via comments or e-mail.

The unexpected hobby (and corresponding flickr-group) of the month:Re-enacting bits of album sleeve art.

Vinyls, mostly, cd covers do not scale.

The week seems to be packed with science fictional freebies (information again courtesy of boingboing).

This time the loot is in audio form - as Neil Gaiman reads his genre-hopping short story A Study in Emerald. It is available in mysterious eAudio and fortunately MP3 format as well.

This week’s photo friday challenge is machine.

My take on the subject is the attached image, of a piece of kinetic art by Arthur Ganson. Sadly, the still image does no great justice to the twitching and rotating sculptures, but only conveys a hint on how complex these artifacts are. The photograph is available in full size by clicking the image.

The photograph was taken in the MIT Museum in Cambridge, MA. Definitely a worthy place to visit while in Boston.

Seems that my old (like, back from 2004) claim was jumped - so here goes for reactivation of Technorati.

Technorati Profile

This week’s thursday challenge topic is nature.

The subject of the image is an unknown lizard species, its photograph taken on a scorched rock in Clear Mountain, Queensland. I got quite close with the camera before the reptile stirred and slunk off to a crevice, periodically returning to bask in the sunlight, but not letting me get as close as on the first time.

To a cthulhu-savvy person, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo’s statement is very frightening indeed:

…the stars were favourably aligned for Nokia in Q4…

What next?

Should we nickname the next communicator “Hastur”?

The 2007-08 fantasy NHL campaign hasn’t started that well. While Hakkapeliitat is above the .500-mark, the position is by no means strong.

This week is shortened by the weekend’s All Star-game, and thus the 1-8 loss is a fact already.

And the titular swedish wonderboy would not have made much of a difference in this week’s tally - despite an amazing 3+4 point game against the Tampa Bay Lightning. I wisely had him benched, on account of some minor injuries sustained last weekend.

And while the seven points is a big score indeed, the NHL record for a single game is an amazing 10 points - Toronto Maple Leafs’ Darryl Sittler had six goals and four assists in a game against the Boston Bruins in 1976.