Hasta La Gadget!

Shotaro Kaneda’s red motorcycle has become the unofficial symbol of Katsuhiro Otomo’s cyberpunk masterpiece Akira, beating out its memorable characters or even its visionary plot and themes. Two highly talented LEGO builders going under the name The Arvo Brothers pay tribute to Otomo by constantly working on a LEGO model of the bike.

The Arvo Brothers have been working on the scale model for more than a decade and are now on their fourth version. Writing about their latest build on HispaBrick Magazine, the brothers describe it as “a stylised model that is not very aggressive, homogeneous, without excesses, but it works as a whole.” Their dedication to this single build led them to create a 200-page book about it.

HispaBrick Magazine writer car_mp summarized the Arvo Brothers’ book as follows: “It isn’t a book about ideas, although in its pages you can find many, nor is it a book about building techniques even though from its pages you can decipher the way these guys build. It isn’t an instruction manual either, even though one is included. It is all of that and more. It is a book about an evolution, the evolution of a model and its builders, about a constant search for perfection to confer physical qualities to a dream that arose from a manga.”

The Arvo Brothers will release a digital copy of their book for free. You can get it from them starting December 14 by contacting them at arvobrothers[at]hotmail.com. They will also make it available on their website, although they didn’t say when. Meanwhile you can read more about The Arvo Brothers and their scale model on issue 18 of HispaBrick Magazine, which is available as a free PDF.

If you think that car_mp’s description of the book is mere hype, read the magazine and you’ll see just how passionate the Arvo Brothers are about their project. For instance, they wax poetic about the beauty of their model’s disproportionately large rear wheel. For better or for worse, these guys are consumed by their obsession.

[The Arvo Brothers & HispaBrick Magazine via Gizmodo]

A small group of DMCA activists and device accessibility advocates are raising funds to reward anyone who comes up with an free, open source and untethered iOS 7 jailbreak. In case you’re not familiar with the term, jailbreaking iOS devices opens it up to software modifications that Apple would never officially allow. They can be as big as file managers, new gesture commands and even shortcut settings (which Apple clearly copied in iOS 7).

The prize was the idea of Chris Maury, an entrepreneur who believes that iOS devices will be more useful to disabled people if combined with jailbreak apps. The other proponents of the fundraiser are Boing Boing editor and author Cory Doctorow, iFixit co-founder and CEO Kyle Wiens and professor and author Biella Coleman.  Head to the fundraiser’s website if you want to donate or check out the criteria for submissions.

[via Boing Boing]

Let’s say you have a small walk-in closet. There must be something you can do with it besides just store clothes in it. There is, and author Noah JD Chinn is here to show you the way. He took his small closet and turned it into a geeky work area.

He started with a small desk, a typewriter, and some shelves, before adding duel screens, some art, blasters, swords of course and then the best part. He turned the doors into TARDIS doors to complete the effect.

This is a small office that any timelord can work in and feel great. See what you can do with a bit of inspiration and hard work?

It looks like it has everything needed for a geeky and productive work day.

[Viral Nova via Her Universe via Nerd Approved]

Programmer Paul Koller managed to make a full-fledged Commodore 64 demake of Terry Cavanagh’s beloved Super Hexagon. For the record, I behate it. It’s so freakin’ difficult. But I love Paul’s demake because even if it turns out to be as hard as the original game, at least it won’t take up a lot of my hard drive’s space. Micro Hexagon clocks in at a mere 16 kilobytes.

For comparison, the Android version of Super Hexagon is 28MB while the iOS version is 23.3MB. Another reason to love Micro Hexagon? The bangin’ soundtrack by Mikkel Hastrup aka Encore64.

You can download Micro Hexagon from the C-64 Scene Database for free. You can play it on your PC using a Commodore64 emulator like micro64.

[via Benjamin Wimmer via Joystiq]

We’ve already seen Etsy seller Philip Isherwood’s Saberforge Battle Sabers, a series of very original prop weapons. While I’m still researching how he came up with his utterly unique designs, Philip already upped the ante. He’s now making Saberforge Staffs, which have not one but two blades. This changes everything. This guy is a genius. A genius I say!

Philip is well aware that his props are used by people who like to play both heroes and villains, so he again fired up his innovation engine and came up with two distinct designs. The Decimator Staff, shown above, looks unmistakably evil, while the Grand Master Staff, shown below, is for those who (pretend to) fight for good. Philip’s imagination truly knows no bounds.

Seriously though, these seem like durable and beautiful props. Not only do they have aircraft-grade aluminum handles, they also have force- and motion-sensitive sound effects, meaning they play appropriate audio effects when swung and when their blades clash. Speaking of clashing, the staff’s coupler can be removed if you want to dual wield or share a saber with a friend. Each staff comes with two sets of blades, a pair of 36″ blades and a pair of 32″ blades. A 10w dual-color LED on each hilt provides the lighting.

Here’s Philip demonstrating the Decimator Staff…

…and the Grand Master Staff:

If you’re ready to take your pretend interstellar armed conflicts to the next level, head to Philip’s Etsy shop Saberforge. The staffs cost $850 (USD) each.

[via DudeIWantThat]