LEGO​ cyborgs coming soon to a store shelf near you?

LEGO​ cyborgs coming soon to a store shelf near you?
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/man-controls-robot-with-lego-exosuit/

I couldn't decide whether to post this to my LEGO G+ collection or my Technology G+ collection.

I couldn't decide whether to post this to my LEGO G+ collection or my Technology G+ collection. 
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/lego-block-pc-computer

"From the public-sector perspective, the expected value of a future with 6°C of warming represents present value...

"From the public-sector perspective, the expected value of a future with 6°C of warming represents present value losses worth US$43trn—30% of the entire stock of manageable assets. By way of scale, the current market capitalisation of all the world’s stockmarkets is around US$70trn."

Originally shared by Brian Gauspohl

#PDF  Entire 63 page file uploaded to Google Drive
Publication Date -- July 24th 2015: The Economist Intelligence Unit Report on the Cost of Inaction on Climate Change



global warming extreme weather environment environmental science scientific scientist world globe global international trade networks fiduciary politics political politician govt government economy economics economical finance financial market mercantile currency money account accounting accountant stocks bonds commodity invest investor investment portfolio brokers stockbrokers stockholders investments dollar dollars us america credit rating debit debt exchange insurance insurer bank banking banker business corp corporate company inc administration management NYSE New York Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange FTSE Footsie Tokyo Stock Exchange Tōshō Tosho TSE Nikkei  Shanghai SSE Composite Index SZSE Component Hong Kong HKEx Euronext Deutsche Börse Boerse DAX Toronto TSX Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA NASDAQ NDX Standard & Poor's S&P 500 Moody's Investor Service Fitch Ratings #Economist   #TheEconomist  
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-1LBLn6lT7sbFVPZ3pYTWtIWk0/view?usp=sharing

How a warming climate and the war on terror are linked together

Originally shared by Brian Gauspohl

How a warming climate and the war on terror are linked together
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/07/23/3683536/omalley-climate-change-isis/ terrorism islamic state daesh is isis isil
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/07/23/3683536/omalley-climate-change-isis

oh my lord, this is PRECIOUS!

oh my lord, this is PRECIOUS!

#starwars   #lego  
https://ideas.lego.com/projects/110091

Old Lego ad for #ThrowbackThursday.

Old Lego ad for #ThrowbackThursday.
205 piece set for $5.00

Attn Craig Froehle​ check out the price.

When the End of Human Civilization Is Your Day Job

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a36228/ballad-of-the-sad-climatologists-0815

This isn't just about climate change, and it's striking.

This isn't just about climate change, and it's striking.

Originally shared by Motavis Jones
http://www.hefty.co/truth-in-pictures/?fb_ref=Default

During an earlier break between conference sessions, I sat down and caught up on the last few days’ RSS feeds of the...

During an earlier break between conference sessions, I sat down and caught up on the last few days’ RSS feeds of the scientific journals I keep an eye on, flipping through tens of new climate studies. I thought about the fact that few attendees of this conference would ever know that any of them existed. That’s a shame, because reality is simply more interesting than the angry axe-grinding of the “climate realists.”
http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/07/i-rejoice-that-it-is-warm-ars-attends-a-climate-contrarian-conference

The scale on this is wonderful.

The scale on this is wonderful.

Originally shared by Beyond the Brick

Chicago's North Loop in 62,000 #LEGO pieces at Brickworld Chicago 2015 https://youtu.be/vrDV7WqO0ho 
https://youtu.be/vrDV7WqO0ho

New Ferrari F40 (10248) now available to LEGO VIPs.

New Ferrari F40 (10248) now available to LEGO VIPs.
$99.99
1158 pieces
Age 14+ (experts only; I presume my 7-year-old would chew threw it in about an hour ;-)
http://shop.lego.com/en-US/Ferrari-F40-10248

The horror!

Originally shared by Tim S

The horror!

Beyond the Brick has another short video from Brickworld Chicago 2015 -- a MASSIVE Star Wars spaceship with...

Beyond the Brick has another short video from Brickworld Chicago 2015 -- a MASSIVE Star Wars spaceship with incredible attention to detail.

Originally shared by Beyond the Brick

6-foot-long #LEGO Venator ship - #StarWars at Brickworld Chicago 2015 
https://youtu.be/VCdKkRYg9AY

Chris McVeigh brings us another set of highly artistic builds. Love the Intellivision!

Chris McVeigh brings us another set of highly artistic builds. Love the Intellivision!

Originally shared by Chris McVeigh

Yesterday's post of the mini-consoles is actually part of a tweak I've made to My Old Basement. It's now a series of models, which you can get either individually or as a bundle from shop.chrismcveigh.com. And four new building guides are also available at chrismcveigh.com!

Oooooh!

Oooooh!
http://lego.gizmodo.com/its-the-tiny-tourists-that-make-this-lego-eiffel-tower-1717545248

This is often what it feels like trying to have a polite, reasoned discussion about climate change on Google+.

This is often what it feels like trying to have a polite, reasoned discussion about climate change on Google+.

Holy crap...that's a great idea!

Holy crap...that's a great idea!

Originally shared by Thund3rbolt

A Lego-Friendly Prosthetic Arm Lets Kids Build Their Own Attachments

A new mindset from what current prosthetics are. Missing a limb shouldn't be a disability for a kid when you have the opportunity to explore and augment their potential by creating, playing and learning.

The needs of a kid in disability are not always related to physical activity but often alternatively the social and psychological aspect; sometimes a functional element is everything they need, but some other times it might be a spaceship, or a doll house, or a telescope, or a video game controller, or a swim fin...

What if kids could use their imagination to create their own prosthetics, their own tools according to their own needs? Learning. Creating. Being kids.

#prosthetics   #lego   #creative   #science   #disabilities

Impressive! I really have to start making it to brick cons.

Impressive! I really have to start making it to brick cons.

Originally shared by Beyond the Brick

Huge #LEGO #FrankLloydWright Wingspan house at Brickworld Chicago 2015 https://youtu.be/uLyp5WsHJxE
https://youtu.be/uLyp5WsHJxE

Here's what Lars Fosdal said in his share of John Baez's post:

Here's what Lars Fosdal said in his share of John Baez's post:
---------------------------------------------
Winter is ... unpredictable

The possible impacts of the most serious scenarios are so grave that they appear to be almost unthinkable.

I guess that's why it is so easy to take to denial over acceptance.  But the scientists are right - we need to focus on the opportunity for change and deal with it as it comes, rather than to go into full panic doomsday mode.

Terrifying post by John Baez and don't forget to read his sources as well.
---------------------------------------------

Originally shared by John Baez

Global warming: managing the terror

Climate scientists have been working hard to understand global warming.  But they have a lot to deal with.  First: hacking, lawsuits and death threats.  And second: the stress of trying to stay objective and scientific when you discover scary things.

Jason Box is studying how Petermann Glacier, in Greenland, is melting.  He caused a stir when he read a colleague's remarks about newly discovered plumes of methane bubbling up through the Arctic ocean.   He tweeted:

"If even a small fraction of Arctic sea floor carbon is released to the atmosphere, we're f'd."

His remark quickly got amplified and distorted, with headlines blaring:

CLIMATOLOGIST: METHANE PLUMES FROM THE ARCTIC MEAN WE'RE SCREWED

Notice this is not what he said.  He said if.  In fact, it seems that human-produced carbon dioxide will be much more important for global warning than Arctic methane release, at least for the rest of this century.   A few centuries down the line, if we don't get a handle on this problem, then it could get scary.

But when it comes to emotions, the issue tends to boil down to: "are we fucked?"

Gavin Schmidt, one of the climate scientists whose emails got hacked, had this reaction:

"I don't agree. I don't think we're fucked. There is time to build sustainable solutions to a lot of these things. You don't have to close down all the coal-powered stations tomorrow. You can transition. It sounds cute to say, 'Oh, we're fucked and there's nothing we can do,' but it's a bit of a nihilistic attitude. We always have the choice. We can continue to make worse decisions, or we can try to make ever better decisions. 'Oh, we're fucked! Just give up now, just kill me now,' that's just stupid."

This is from an interview with John H. Richardson in Esquire. Richardson probed him a bit, and that's when it gets interesting:

"The methane thing is actually something I work on a lot, and most of the headlines are crap. There's no actual evidence that anything dramatically different is going on in the Arctic, other than the fact that it's melting pretty much everywhere."

But climate change happens gradually and we've already gone up almost 1 degree centigrade and seen eight inches of ocean rise. Barring unthinkably radical change, we'll hit 2 degrees in thirty or forty years and that's been described as a catastrophe—melting ice, rising waters, drought, famine, and massive economic turmoil. And many scientists now think we're on track to 4 or 5 degrees—even Shell oil said that it anticipates a world 4 degrees hotter because it doesn't see "governments taking the steps now that are consistent with the 2 degrees C scenario." That would mean a world racked by economic and social and environmental collapse.

"Oh yeah," Schmidt says, almost casually. "The business-as-usual world that we project is really a totally different planet. There's going to be huge dislocations if that comes about."

But things can change much quicker than people think, he says. Look at attitudes on gay marriage.

And the glaciers?

"The glaciers are going to melt, they're all going to melt," he says. "But my reaction to Jason Box's comments is—what is the point of saying that? It doesn't help anybody."

As it happens, Schmidt was the first winner of the Climate Communication Prize from the American Geophysical Union, and various recent studies in the growing field of climate communications find that frank talk about the grim realities turns people off—it's simply too much to take in. But strategy is one thing and truth is another. Aren't those glaciers water sources for hundreds of millions of people?

"Particularly in the Indian subcontinent, that's a real issue," he says. "There's going to be dislocation there, no question."

And the rising oceans? Bangladesh is almost underwater now. Do a hundred million people have to move?

"Well, yeah. Under business as usual. But I don't think we're fucked."

Resource wars, starvation, mass migrations . . .

"Bad things are going to happen. What can you do as a person? You write stories. I do science. You don't run around saying, 'We're fucked! We're fucked! We're fucked!' It doesn't—it doesn't incentivize anybody to do anything."

So you see, Schmidt had made up his mind to be determinedly optimistic, because he thinks that's the right approach.  And maybe he's right.  But it's not easy.

Jason Box doesn't actually run around saying "we're fucked".  But here's what he says:

"There's a lot that's scary," he says, running down the list—the melting sea ice, the slowing of the conveyor belt. Only in the last few years were they able to conclude that Greenland is warmer than it was in the twenties, and the unpublished data looks very hockey-stick-ish. He figures there's a 50 percent chance we're already committed to going beyond 2 degrees centigrade and agrees with the growing consensus that the business-as-usual trajectory is 4 or 5 degrees. "It's, um... bad. Really nasty."

The big question is, What amount of warming puts Greenland into irreversible loss? That's what will destroy all the coastal cities on earth. The answer is between 2 and 3 degrees. "Then it just thins and thins enough and you can't regrow it without an ice age. And a small fraction of that is already a huge problem—Florida's already installing all these expensive pumps."

and:

"It's unethical to bankrupt the environment of this planet," he says. "That's a tragedy, right?" Even now, he insists, the horror of what is happening rarely touches him on an emotional level... although it has been hitting him more often recently. "But I—I—I'm not letting it get to me. If I spend my energy on despair, I won't be thinking about opportunities to minimize the problem."

You should read the whole article:

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a36228/ballad-of-the-sad-climatologists-0815/

"Internal fossil fuel industry memos reveal decades of disinformation—a deliberate campaign to deceive the public...

"Internal fossil fuel industry memos reveal decades of disinformation—a deliberate campaign to deceive the public that continues even today."

Just like the tobacco industry knew for decades that smoking causes fatal diseases and lied to the public to protect its business model, the fossil fuel industry has mounted a long-running propaganda campaign to sow doubt about the existence and the true dangers of anthropomorphic climate change.

h/t Filippo Salustri​​
http://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/fight-misinformation/climate-deception-dossiers-fossil-fuel-industry-memos#.VZ3F43PD_qB

Progress.

Progress.

Originally shared by James Salsman
https://cleantechnica.com/2015/07/06/solar-wind-74-of-new-us-electricity-capacity-january-may-2015-exclusive/

Ever wanted to build life-sized stuff with life-sized bricks? Now you can.

Ever wanted to build life-sized stuff with life-sized bricks? Now you can.

h/t David Archer 

Originally shared by Thom Thomas

hmmm.
http://www.everblocksystems.com/

LEGO Americana Roadshow: Building Across America

LEGO Americana Roadshow: Building Across America
I just checked out this traveling exhibition from LEGO and was quite impressed. The scale of some of the builds are jaw-dropping. They also had a number of "Brickscapes," which are minifig-scale scenes showing minifigs participating in funny situations, like adding Pres. Business to Mt. Rushmore, operating a spaceship launch center, and building a giant snowman.

Schedule:
Kenwood Town Center, Cincinnati, OH:  July 3-19
Riverchase Galleria, Hoover, AL:  August 20 – September 7
Northpoint Mall, Alpharetta, GA:  September 17 – October 4
Christiana Mall, Newark, DE:  October 15 – November 1

Check it out. More details at http://www.lego.com/en-us/club/member/articles/details/americana-roadshow-schedule-897d257715ad4897b1744ca57df22e26

#art

#art

Originally shared by ThinkGeek

The gang's all here. Retro Gaming LEGO Mural by /u/soma_holiday: http://j.mp/1GSDzzI

Ha ha ha...superb detail on this build.

Ha ha ha...superb detail on this build.
https://ideas.lego.com/projects/107059