With a motion-control camera, a printout under glass, and some gaffer’s tape. It’s one of several completely nerdilicious photos from a new book called The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back by J. W. Rinzler. More pics and anecdotes over at Vanity Fair. I especially like the long shot of the iconic Luke-I-Am-Your-Father scene that shows the big pile of mattresses on the floor in case Mark Hamill falls. [via Core77]
Nathan Roberts wrote a great step-by-step on how he revamped a plain bedroom into something special for his son. And with the pixelated retro Super Mario theme, this should appeal to some older “kids” in our audience as well.
Very cool design from Thingiverse user msruggles, printed as shown above by user Linkreincarnate, who reports some reification issues with the model requiring hand finishing. Gonna keep an eye on this as it develops.
Via Nature comes this amazing video of an x-ray trip through a barnacle-encrusted lump from a 17th century shipwreck. It reveals the workings of a very sophisticated, gorgeous watchwork mechanism inside. The researchers (from National Museums Scotland in Edinburgh) who used this x-ray technology are excited about the prospects of using it on future, similarly […]
The collection, housed at the University of Padua’s Center for the Study of the Alpine Environment, was manufactured in the 19th century or before. Each specimen consists of a 7.5x5x1.5-inch book-shaped box, executed in the wood of the subject tree, which opens to display samples of that tree’s seedling, leaves, flowers, seeds, fine roots, sawdust, charcoal, and ash. The spines are bound with samples of the tree’s bark, and of course everything is labeled. [Thanks, loondawg!]
Software is a mix of computer instructions and data, but rarely do you get to see how the two interact in memory. Ben Fry visualized the code of several classic video games, giving insight in to the complexity of the code and how the programmer arranged the graphical elements. It’s also amazing how little was […]
Made from cardboard, styrofoam, and aluminum tape. Another eBay listing by the same chappy who brought us that duct tape AT-AT. [via Boing bada Boing]
