Do you remember the scene in The Return of the Jedi when Emperor Palpatine arrived at the second Death Star? Using a huge supply of minifigs and a detailed setting totaling 30,000 pieces, LEGO artist Jay Hoff recreated it. You can see several other photographs at the link.

Link via The Mary Sue

At 2.7 meters in height, Krittayakorn Chaijit's sculpture of Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean is perfect for the tasteful living room. It's made from recycled car and machine parts and coated with lacquer to protect it from rust. At Chaijit's website, you can see his other sculptures of Optimus Prime, the alien queen from Alien, and the Predator.

Link via Technabob | Artist's Website

CatherinetteRings, an Etsy seller from Montreal, made this music box that looks like a robotic spider. When wound, it plays "Frère Jacques." I think that taxidermed eye really sets it apart from other steampunk spider music boxes.

Link via Boing Boing

Barn Bocock remade six corporate logos for Star Wars fans. You can probably guess what Pizza Hut was turned into.

Link via Fanboy

Back in the early 1970s, an illustrator named Phil Kirkland created some amazing textbook illustrations, mostly for psychology and health books. Pictured above is his "Moving from Youth to Adulthood". I think that I missed this section of adolescence, because I don't remember it at all.

Link via Ace of Spades HQ

(Video Link)

Back when I drove a forklift for a living, we had driving contests, like picking up and transporting an egg without breaking it. Helicopter pilots, however, are a more daring breed, as you can see from this video. Among other tricks, the pilot shaved a man on the ground. No -- not with the blades of his aircraft. Presumably he's still working on that stunt. Rather, the pilot had a safety razor attached to a landing strut and maneuvered the chopper so that he shaved a volunteer's face without drawing blood.

via Geekosystem

German photographer Markus Reugels specializes in high-speed photography, and captures a lot of images of water drops. By adding chemicals to the water and raising his shutter speed to one sixteen thousandth of a second, he's been able to take some truly amazing shots:

By thickening the water with guar gum he was also able to alter the shape of the splashes, making some of them take on the bizarre look of something from a science-fiction film or a nuclear mushroom cloud.

The shapes, which varied from 3cm to 15cm, were altered even further by adding sugar and, by putting rinse aid in the dish, he was able to increase the height of the droplet splashes.

His images on Flickr are really amazing. You really should check them out.

Article Link and Flickr Photostream via reddit

Ah, The Addams Family! Although this show lasted only two years -- 1964 through 1966 -- it has endured as a pop culture phenomenon, spawning movies, cartoons, revivals, and comics. Let's take a look at some things you might not know about that show.  

1. The show was preceded by the one-panel cartoons of Charles Addams, which made their debut in The New Yorker in 1937. These works of dark humor featured the same characters that would later grace the show. Addams was known as a man of ghoulish if playful interests, and his house was filled with instruments of torture and medieval weapons, particularly crossbows. He hoped to someday put his crossbow collection to practical use:

“I have this fantasy,” he said, smiling, “A robber breaks into my apartment and just as he comes through the door, I get him -- right through the neck. Always through the neck.”

2. John Astin, who played Gomez Addams, was initially offered the role of Lurch.  

3. Astin’s crazed, maniacal look as Gomez Addams had prior service. While living in a rough neighborhood of New York City, he would get between his apartment and the subway station safely by acting a bit deranged. No one bothered him.

4. Fans sometimes stop Astin, speak French to him, and expect him to react as Gomez did when Morticia spoke the language of love. Ringo Starr from The Beatles once grabbed Astin’s arm and started kissing up its length before Astin stopped him from going past his elbow.

(Video Link)

5. Ted Cassidy released a 45 rpm single consisting of a dance song called “The Lurch”. Here he is demonstrating it on a 1965 episode of the variety show Shindig!

Emily Jagoda, an architect, designed this bathroom's tilework. It's for kids, but I'd love to have it in mine.

Link via Technabob | Jagoda's Website

(Video Link)

For the first twenty seconds, she bores her way in. Then she starts to tank up, and her body swells with blood. This is an everyday event, but it's so fascinating at this close-up view.

via First Things

(Video Link)

Students at the University of Maryland build a functional helicopter that is powered only by human exertion:

The X-shaped helicopter, called Gamera, has 42-foot diameter rotors at each end of 60-foot long crossbars. A pilot's module is suspended from the middle, where Wexler, a biology student, sat and pedaled with feet and hands. Pilot included, the contraption weighs just over 200 pounds.

Judy Wexler pedaled hard enough to lift the craft (just barely) off the ground for four seconds. Skip ahead to three minutes into the video to see the flight.

Link via Walyou

(Video Link)

You may have encountered people who can't walk down a hallway without running into other people, or waddle down the center at the slowest possible speed. Or maybe it's just me. I walk fast, so this is a pet peeve of mine. Anyway, this flooring surface developed by researchers at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo is an attempt to solve the problem. The stuff is made of lenticular lenses -- the same material used in 3D holographic cards. It's supposed to subconsciously guide you to the right side of the hallway.

via OhGizmo!

Get in my mouth! But first, dunk yourself in chocolate.

Granted, this isn't as classy as deep fried butter and deep fried beer, but hey, I'll try anything once. There's a recipe by Bellalimento at the link.

Link via Craft

I do not know the origins of this picture, but the dog's owner should be commended for providing much-needed protection from arrows and bladed weapons. She is ready to go to both the dogpark and the Ren fair.

via Geekosystem

In the past, Scott Blake made composite portraits of people using barcodes. Now he's getting with the times and using QR codes instead. Pictured above is a portrait of radio show host Amy Goodman. Each one links to segments from her show over the past nine years.

http://illusion.scene360.com/art/17770/bar-code-madness/ via Dude Craft | Artist's Website | Photo: Scott Blake