Build your own solar system

Neat interactive from National Geographic. Lets you choose different types of planets and then run the orbits. My worlds quickly crashed into the star. Good thing I don't really have god-like powers...it only seems that way ;)

A cool lego picture every day

Lego Diem

Comment -- I ran across this website when I was supposed to be doing something productive. The author posts a creative Lego picture every day. Who knew they could do some clever stuff with Legos (other than Lego Star Wars, of course.)

Jello Tetris, yum!

I thought this was an appropriate Memorial Day dessert for a geek: Jello that looks like little Tetris pieces. It makes me quiver with joy!

Really sexist advertising from days gone by

25 Horribly Sexist Vintage Ads | I Can Has Internets: "Since the 50’s, a lot has changed in way of women’s rights and their duties in and out of the house. I highly doubt any company could get away with phrases like “The Chef [mixer] does everything but cook – that’s what wives are for!” nowadays. Or how about an ad agency pitching a company an idea of a wife bent over her husband’s knee as he prepares to spank her."

Comment -- Wow, the ad pictured here is so wrong in so many ways!

Click over to see the entire list and you'll cringe at what advertisers got away with. Unfortunately they only reflected societal attitudes at the time. It does make you wonder, however, what people 50 years from now will think about our current advertising.

Gaming the system

Saving the world, one hit point at a time - tech - 25 May 2010 - New Scientist: "Another popular online game is Farmville, a Facebook application with more than 80 million players. Participants manage a virtual farm, cultivating crops and livestock and selling them for 'farm coins' which can be invested back in the farm. Edward Castronova, an economist at Indiana University Bloomington, explores why people play such games. There are several powerful motivators, he says, including immediate positive feedback from completing missions, a sense of empowerment and significance, adventure, the connection to others - and the taste of victory."

Comment -- I regularly play two computer games: Combat Mission: Shock Force, which I play-by-email with my pal Scottie in St. Louis, MO; and CIV-IV.

CMSF lets me move soldiers and tanks around and fight, much like I did when I was a little kid -- only with more verisimilitude.

CIV-IV is more cerebral, but just like in CMSF, I like the fighting parts the most.

By the way, CIV V is coming out in the fall and so far it looks awesome!

Pretty posies? Well, some kind of flower in downtown Lansing...

The City of Lansing planted these in front of our building. The downtown is looking pretty snazzy this summer!

Astonishing new pictures from Saturn

Checking in on Saturn - The Big Picture - Boston.com: "While we humans carry on with our daily lives down here on Earth, perhaps stuck in traffic or reading blogs, or just enjoying a Springtime stroll, a school-bus-sized spacecraft called Cassini continues to gather data and images for us - 1.4 billion kilometers (870 million miles) away. Over the past months, NASA's Cassini spacecraft has made several close flybys of Saturn's moons, caught the Sun's reflection glinting off a lake on Titan, and has brought us even more tantalizing images of ongoing cryovolcanism on Enceladus. Collected here are a handful of recent images from the Saturnian system. (30 photos total)"

Comment -- I guarantee these 30 photos will blow your mind. But as exciting as they are, I'm also discouraged to realize that humans won't be traveling to the Saturn system in my lifetime. We can't even get our act together to get to Mars, let alone Saturn. Maybe we'll be motivated to get out there if we spot some fish jumping out of those methane lakes on Titan...