Hasta La Gadget!

Flickr member Julian Fong aka levork makes custom minifigures that look like they were released by LEGO itself. Over the last one and a half years, Fong has been working on a set of Street Fighter II minifigs. He’s now done, but at the same time he wasn’t able to fully realize his project.

With 16 actual prototypes in hand (he has big hands), Fong submitted a project proposal for an official set to LEGO by way of Cuusoo. Sadly, LEGO swiftly turned down the proposal. In their message to Fong, the company stated that the project “refers to a brand or licensed property that contains content or themes that do not fit the LEGO Group’s standards for appropriate content.” LEGO went on to say that it “will not accept a project submission based on this brand or licensed property”, and that “LEGO is a toy company, so we’re careful to only produce products we deem appropriate for children.”

Fong stated on Flickr that he respects LEGO’s decision. It is after all their prerogative; their brick house, their rules. But I do agree with Fong that LEGO broke its own rule when it released official Lord of the Rings figurines because the source material is also filled with violence. I’d even argue that the Star Wars and DC LEGO toys also fall under the same trap. Not that I want those toys to be canceled, just that I also believe there’s been a lack of consistency in enforcing the rule. I wonder if BrickArms can release the set instead?

[via Julian Fong via Kotaku]

You’ll find over 35 different billboards in the streets of Toronto which are ironically called ‘Info Pillars’, considering the fact that they’re used to display ads and not information. So what’s an urban hacktivist to do, when the redesign of these Info Pillars have replaced bike parking and caused the cutting down of trees by the sidewalks? Occupy the pillars, that’s what!

Members of the cARTographyTO creative team took down the ads that previously occupied these Info Pillars and instead replaced them with art installations, some containing actual bikes and art maps.

The more entertaining ones include interactive chalkboards where passersby can write down their own thoughts, opinions, or messages to the rest of Toronto. Through their efforts, cARTographyTO has managed to raise public awareness regarding the issue, encouraging the city to use them for disseminating information, as their name asserts.

[via Pop Up City]

They told him it was impossible – three engineers that is. Engineers may be smart, but obviously these ones lacked vision. After his wife persuaded him to give it a try, designer Giora Kariv got to work on a bicycle made out of cardboard, with a cost of less than $9 to manufacture.

Kariv was inspired by a man who made a canoe out of cardboard, and since he himself had a passion for bicycles and recycling, he wanted to create a functioning cardboard bike. Mission accomplished. Surprisingly, it can even withstand water, humidity, and it’s pretty strong. Kariv had to work through several generations of the design to get it just right. It had to be strong enough to hold a person of up to 300 pounds after all.

Folding the cardboard is what makes it so strong. Kariv compares folding the cardboard to origami. With a total materials cost under $10, Kariv sees much potential here. Assuming the labor costs aren’t prohibitive, stores could sell them to consumers for around $60 depending on what they wanted to add to the bike over and above the original design. The cost is great, especially if it should be stolen, you won’t be out as much money.

[via No Camels via Geek]

We’ve featured Richard Nagy aka Datamancer’s steampunk laptop before, but like most modern gadgets, Datamancer’s products evolve. Unlike most modern gadgets, the second revision of his laptop is encased in wood and adorned with brass and gold.

The laptop has a full wood chassis, lacquered brass keys, semi-precious gems in place of LEDs and a gold foil map design on the lid. Good thing its hardware is far from antique: the laptop is based on an unspecified model of ASUS’ gaming laptops. It has an Intel I7 2670QM processor, NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M GPU, 8 GB DDR3 RAM, a glossy 17.3″ 1920×1080) screen and a Super-multi DVD drive.

The laptop will sell for the wallet evaporating price of $6,850 (USD). Leave your email address on Datamancer’s website so you’ll be notified as soon as it’s available.

[via Luxatic]

Say the words Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Dig Dug, Centipede, Galaga or Joust, and you’ve just named some of my all-time favorite arcade games. So when I stumbled onto these unusual variants of these 1980s classics, I was at once befuddled and at the same time intrigued.

These mash-up prints were created by 9times1minus1 (also known as “eight”) over on Etsy, and they envision the characters from iconic arcade games invading other games. So for instance, there’s Donkey Dug, which puts Pooka, Fygar and Dig Dug on Donkey Kong’s girders.

Then, there’s Joust Bros., which is the perfect synthesis of Joust and Mario Bros. I always thought those levels looked similar, and flinging turtles into the lava pit below makes just about as much sense as ostriches anyhow.

Other mashups include Donkey Burger (DK x BurgerTime), and the oddly named, but somehow appealing Ms. Paciaga (Ms. Pac-Man x Galaga).

While I’m not sure that I would have wanted to play all of these games, I have to say that some of them look like they would have worked just fine as 9times1minus1 envisions them. When you really think about it, did the plots and characters in any 1980s video game really make that much sense? Why couldn’t Jumpman have been a chef on a quest to make the perfect hamburger? I would have ponied up a quarter to try my hand at that.

If you’d like to line your walls with these unusual video games, they’re available for $25(USD) each as 16×20 digital prints over on Etsy.