YouTube user akiyuky has created what he calls the LEGO Great Ball Contraption. It’s a series of various contraptions that all serve to push small balls through a cacophony of moving parts until they reach their destination. I don’t want to spoil it so just watch the video. It’s absolutely mind blowing.

I don’t want to put in the 600 hours construction time it took him to build this. I do, however, want to play with it. This is the kind of automated LEGO machinery that delights me to my very core. Of course, now I want to see somebody top this. Don’t disappoint me, Internet. I know you can do it.

[Thanks Reddit]

Being that large and in charge, Saturn also boasts a ton of moons. 62 moons, in fact (that we know of, at least). And these moons aren’t just slouchy moons, either. For example, Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, is bigger than Mercury, the smallest planet in the Solar System. Saturn has a moon that’s bigger than a recognized planet.

Given the scale of size that we’re talking about here, it makes the new photo that NASA shared today of Saturn all the more awe-inspiring.

Captured by the Cassini spacecraft on December 7, 2011, “using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelenghts of near-infrared light centered at 752 nanometers,” the image shows just how colossal Saturn is when compared to two of its moons, Tethys (right) and Pandora (left). As if Saturn didn’t didn’t already look gargantuan enough, the Cassini spacecraft was approximately 1.3 million miles away from Saturn with the picture was taken. This is the second time in a month that Cassini has put Saturn in the news. Last month, the spacecraft helped scientists discover a “lake” on Saturn’s moon, Titan.

Seriously. Those two moons look like flecks of crumbs tumbling off the chin of a very corpulent Saturn. In other words, that is one monster planet.

[Via NASA's Official Twitter.]
Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.

Twitter’s rooftop deck, which, after you see it, will probably make you look at your backyard with disdain. The lead image is a snippet of the 360 degree panoramic view of the Twitter roof deck, taken and posted on Dru Miller’s Twitter account. Take a moment to play with Miller’s image because it gives a great idea just how accommodating Twitter has made their roof.

Also, for this particular view:

Image courtesy

Image courtesy

Image courtesy

Image courtesy

[H/t to HuffPo for additional images]

Among those 90 finalists, 13 of them have been nominated for a Scientific American Science in Action Award.

The projects that these youngsters are worthy of the most utopia-laden science fiction stories you’ve ever read. A pair of collaborating entrants, for example, Emily and Trevor Wang, are investigating whether a substance collected by bees may have anti-cancer properties.

Seriously, how does anybody even think of that?

Another fantastic idea comes from Mark Liang, who’s project centers on whether sunflowers can be used to absorb and neutralize a nasty chemical that’s currently been getting dumped into the soil across California.

Here, one more in case you weren’t feeling enough inferiority about your middling lifetime accomplishments. Ivan Ang Jie Xiong explored the possibility of using robots to help keep our environment clean.

Google posted an interactive map so you can browse through all of the finalists depending on the region they’re in. Go check it out so you can start getting acquainted with your future bosses.

[Via Google's Official Blog.]

All that being said, perhaps the most impressive piece comes from Deviant Art member, AgarthanGuide, who, by combining The Avengers with Sendak’s Wild Things, you get this incredible homage to the great children’s author. I would recommend clicking the image for its full-size version, because some things are better appreciated in their original state:

Two things on my mind today-

RIP Maurice Sendak.

Yay Avengers.

Okay – I put together some wallpapers using the original – I tried to make them as big as possible and cover the major aspect ratios. You can download them here. Enjoy!

Also- I don’t have any plans to print it. The Avengers don’t belong to me, I feel like I got lucky, and I would rather share the nostalgia, you know? … Tom Hiddleston and Joe Hill both saw fit to tweet this. I just can’t…

(Hewitt’s tweet was retweeted by Hiddleston)

In case you’re unaware, Tom Hiddleston is the actor who played Loki in the recently-released Avengers movie. Joe Hill is Stephen King’s son, and is an accomplished author in his own right. As for the awesome creation, like I said, if you don’t view “Avengers on Parade” in its full size, you’re only cheating yourself.

As pointed out by Geek Alerts, these mash ups were penciled by Jon Bolerjack and inked by JJ Kirby, and well, their work is something your inner Star Wars/Marvel geek will absolutely love. That being said, it wouldn’t be surprising if some of the more hardcore Star Wars fans took issue with the use of Clone Troopers as opposed to Stormtroopers, but hey, you can’t please everyone.

Furthermore, trying to do so will result in something much less awesome:

Check out the respective Deviant Art pages for more of each artists work. It’s worth your time, especially when you come across Kirby’s awesome Zombie Colossus:

Because math problems are difficult enough without the idea of infinite numbers, pi’s numeric value has been “shortened” to equal 3.14159, which is only five decimal places deep. However, when discussing their project, design firm TWO-N indicates pi has been verified up to 10 trillion decimals. To give people an idea of just how many numbers are represented with pi, TWO-N has created an SWF/image that visualizes 4 million of these decimals. According the page’s source code, the SWF is sized at 1170 x 600 pixels, giving them the necessary space to render each digit as a 1×1 pixel dot. As the file is moused over, corresponding numbers pop up, like so:

An average person can read out approximately 120 digits/min. Keeping this pace it would take more than 158,000 years to recite the 10 trillion digits of Π discovered this year and roughly 3 weeks to read out the 4 million digits visualized here.

If you want to test that idea for either the 4 million or 10 trillion, at least post a video of the numeric recital. As for the pi image, it is searchable, meaning if you want to see if a particular digit string appears in pi, you can find out. Consider the sheer amount of individual decimals featured in the irrational number, there’s a good chance the string will be found, as long as it’s not a repeating string of numbers (555555) for instance.

Lastly, the page’s HTML title will undoubtedly meet the approval of pi geeks everywhere. It is as follows:

3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164
06286208998628034825342117067982480865132823066470938446095505822317253
5940812848111

How long did it take for you to recite that particular string?

[Via Geek O System]

151 artists have each selected and created original works of art inspired by each of the original 151 Pokémon. From Bulbasaur to Mew, each Pokémon is represented and injected with the artists’ own aesthetic, style, and creativity, exploring just what made those little Pokémon so interesting and fun to catch.

What follows is a visual trip that shows Pokemon as you’ve never seen them before. The original designs were so simplistic yet awe inspiring that seeing them in this light makes you want to play a game featuring these version. Here’s a few of our favorites starting with the absolute best: Charmillionaire Charmeleon.

Fearow

Pikachu

Golbat

Diglett

Alakazam

Farfetch’d

Haunter

Gengar

Mr. Mime

Mewtwo

There are just our favorites. There are plenty more to look through at the gallery. If you find yourself attracted to any particular piece, you can buy an 8″x8″ print for $40. I think that’s a fair price for some of the best Pokemon art to ever hit the circuit. Excuse me while I get myself a print of Charmillionaire.

[h/t: Kotaku]

Here’s what they had to consider when constructing the super-awesome slingshot:

With a real slingshot, you tilt the slingshot and stretch sling. The idea to measure these was using:

An accelerometer – this can measure the tilt by tracking the gravity vector (which way is down!)
A rubber stretch sensor – this can be used as the sling, and measure how much it is stretched
That is the input, but to play Angry Birds, you actually click on the bird, then drag to the launch angle and strength you want, then release. This means we have to translate the real slingshot movements in to a series of different mouse movements.

For example, this means translating starting to stretch the slingshot to a mouse to click and hold, whilst the vector of the stretch determined by the angle of sling and how far it is stretched translates to mouse movements relative to where we started.

The resulting controller acts like a USB mouse. Check it out below:

You can build one for yourself, if you are so inclined. They’ve posted detailed instructions to their blog.

All I know is that I’ve got to build have someone build me one fo these before Gene Simmons drops a KISS-themed Angry Birds game on us.

[h/t Geek.com]

But once your molten hot factory-produced meat pastry is ready, another problem arises. In order to eat said device, you have to put down your controller and pause your game.

Well, not anymore. Thanks to Ben Heck of The Ben Heck Show, you’ll never have to stop playing to eat a Hot Pocket again.

That’s because he has engineered a Hot Pocket Dispenser that attaches to your Xbox 360 controller. The device allows you to mechanically feed yourself the Hot Pocket while you continue playing your game. It’s sort of like a meat and cheese push-pop.

Check out the entire invention/construction/demonstration below:

You’ll never have to grease up your controller with food fingers again.

[Via Geekosystem]