Martello

A group of LEGO enthusiasts from Hong Kong have constructed their own version of the Olympic venues from Beijing 2008.

By the looks of it, they’re made mostly from fairly common LEGO pieces and as a result, they’re both highly impressive (as it anything made from LEGO in my opinion) but also refreshingly simple. Far too many modern LEGO kits have pieces in them that are all to realistic, taking the fun out of it for me.

Source: SlashDot

Today will go down as a say day in the annals of Irish folk music as it marks the death of Irish musical legend, Ronnie Drew. Most famous for his role as the singer with the Irish folk group, The Dubliners, Ronnie passed away earlier today in Dublin after a long illness. He was just 73 years of age.

Ronnie was almost as famous for his immaculately groomed white beard as he was for his unique voice. Whether he was talking or singing, or looking down the lens of a camera, Ronnie was unmistakably himself. He was truly one of a kind in every way possible and his passing will leave a void in Irish life for some time to come.

As we say in Ireland, “Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam” which translates to, “May his soul be on God’s right side”.

They say that you learn something new every day. Today, that something new for me was the existence of a sport called Wife Carrying. Here, a male contestant carries his female team mate over an obstacle course in as quick a time as possible. Several styles of carrying are used, including piggyback, fireman’s carry (over the shoulder) or Estonian-style (where the wife hangs upside-down with her legs around the husband’s shoulders, holding onto his waist).

Whilst it is predominantly a Scandinavian sport, the inaugural Irish Championships were held in Co. Kerry earlier today as part of the Sneem Family Festival, with the winners going on to represent Ireland at the World Championships in Finland next July.

Source: RTE News

Wellboy at Up The Deise has truly outdone himself this time with this hilarious skit on the (likely) reaction of Waterford City Council to an objection submitted against the proposed new shopping centre on Newgate Street in Waterford City.

Some of you may have already seen a (cruder) variation of this same video based around Cristiano Ronaldo’s on/off move from Manchester United to Real Madrid (not for the faint hearted or easily offended though).

Gizmodo is back with another amazing LEGO exclusive and this time he has been afforded the opportunity to explore (and film) inside the LEGO factory itself. His report includes several short videos showing the LEGO manufacturing process as well as some astonishing footage of how the bricks are stored in massive silos where no humans are allowed.

Some interesting facts and statistics I took from this are:

• The plastic granules from which LEGO is made are a by-product of Diesel.
• The LEGO machines produce 600 pieces per second (36,000 per minute, 2.1 million per hour or 19 billion per year).
• The LEGO factory processes 60 tons of plastic  granules every 24 hours.
• The plastic granules come in 70 basic colours, from which all other colours are derived.
• The moulds that produce the LEGO pieces are retooled after 5 million uses.
• Decorating the pieces is the most expensive part of the process.

Having spent a number of summer months working at an Injection Moulding company in a past life, I recognised much of the machinery and processes used but it is clearly off the radar in terms of scale, with pretty much everything controlled by a mainframe computer system.

Source: SlashDot