Horizon Factory

Cube Dudes

Steve — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:00:00 +0000

On September 21, 2009, Angus MacLane, Pixar animator and Lego tinkerer extraordinaire, unveiled Cube Dudes, an awesome super-deformed format for DIY Mighty Mugg-style brick sculpture.

MacLane and his acolytes have created a huge number of these guys, drawing from assorted geekery, including Star Wars, Comics, and other sundry pop culture sources.

I think Greedo, by onosendai2600, is my favorite, and Ira Glass (MacLane) pretty sweet, and the rogue’s gallery of bounty hunters from Empire (MacLane, again) is breathtaking.

Oh, and bow down to everyone’s favourite heavy metal band:

Aside from MacLane himself, Larry Lars has some great ones, like good ol’ 2-1B:

And Reasonably Clever Chris’s “disarmed” Black Knight is python-tastic. “None shall pass!”:

There’s a great interview with Angus at BricksABillion.

Be sure to check out the flickr Cube Dude pool for a growing collection, and start building your own…

POLYCHORD SELECTOR

Steve — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:40:33 +0000

I’ve been meaning to put this up for a couple weeks now, but as this is the busy season for me, I just haven’t had time.
But better late than never…

Here is the cream of my Black Friday haul:

I saw it sitting on the floor in the local goodwill for $9, but initially walked on by. I was sure it didn’t work, and besides, I have little to no idea how to play the piano.

But, while waiting for the familia to get done shopping, I asked if there was a place I could plug it in. When I did, the little fan whirred to life, and, lo and behold, it worked. And sounded great.

So, I bought it.

I haven’t been able to find out anything about it on ye old internet, so all I know is that it was made by Sears, and has a little chord keyboard, entitled: “POLYCHORD SELECTOR”

So, I’ve been learning some ABBA, Bee Gees, and Neutral Milk Hotel songs (with the help of my talented wife).

Here’s a shot of the front, with a nice plastic filete:

If anyone knows anything about this little guy, please leave a comment. I’m guessing it’s early 80s in vintage.

Patent Documents + Printer + Frame = No More Blank Walls

Steve — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:16:05 +0000

One of my favorite recent activities has been trolling Googlepatents, looking for beautiful, interesting, and strange patent documents that I can print off, pop in a cheap certificate frame, and put on the wall.
All of this was inspired by a Make post about the LEGO minifig patent a couple weeks ago.
Here’s the minifig patent on my wall:

Go take a gander and see if you find anything worth adorning your walls.

I love this Eames table:

It’s especially cool because it has Eames’s own signature at the bottom of the design:

The diagrams of this “Toy Building Brick” (which may be familiar to some) are also beautiful:

And finally:

We don’t make much.

Steve — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:53:14 +0000

Nope.