Coloring the Dinosaurs

Here's the possible coloring, feathering, and anatomy of anchiornis (the "near-bird" dinosaur), scientifically deduced by a team of scientists using geologist Jakob Vinther's research on dinosaurs.  

According to National Geographic, this marks the first scientifically reconstructed dinosaur. 

Incidentally, Jakob Vinther's findings also overhauls the fearsome Tyrannosaurus Rex, now sporting tufts of feather and a plumage (dinosaurs need weather-proofing too), a bird-like posture, and a dash of coloring.  That certainly dampens the T-Rex's scare factor.

If that's the case, Jurassic Park should have a re-edit.   And Satoshi Kamiya might have to redo his T-Rex diagram too.

Cartoon by Gary Larson

Maybe I Should Have Bought That Dinosaurs Sticker Album After All

Tangled in Metal

The next time you're at National Bookstore check out the Kaisiqi metal puzzles (only PhP 25).  They've devoted (at least in the branch I went to) an entire island to the toys, so it's pretty hard to miss.

There are about ten different puzzles-- basically 2 identical pieces of stubbornly interlocked and hopelessly tangled hardened steel in various shapes (I bought the one that look like a pair of eights for infinity and beyond!).  They look deceptively easy and innocent enough, but I'm wrong. 

I wish I could tell you the secret of how to solve the Kaisiqi puzzle, but I've locked and unlocked the damn thing about ten times already and I still can't get the underlying principle.  I twist and turn nonchalantly and the whole thing comes off on its own accord.  When I concentrate all my powers, the metal pieces stays impossibly tangled.

Sometimes I think I'm just tugging.  Must exercise the right brain hemisphere more.

* * *

Did I tell you they're just PhP 25?  I should have bought two then, or three, or four (they'd make perfect Christmas gifts--I can go like, Here, I have a gift for you.  Go knock yourself out).  The solitary puzzle I bought is still puzzling as hell, so it's pretty safe to assume this Kaisiqi will pay for itself for the months to come.  In other words, sulit.

There's one thing though: the Kaisiqi puzzles are made in China.  It may mean nothing, but history has taught us that the poisonous melamine in milk came from China, that China-made toys were tainted with lead, and quite recently, Chinese rice has been deliberately faked by contaminating it with plastic resin.

At the back of my evil hypochondriac mind, I'm thinking the damn metal puzzles are tainted with radioactive material.  Which is why they're so cheap.  Every time I toy with it for a couple of minutes, I have to go to the faucet to wash my hands feverishly--which, should the metal toys prove to be radioactive after all, I know is quite pointless

Actually, the very chair we're sitting on can contain some radioactive material, as do the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the consumer products we buy.  I wonder how do we know whether something has unsafe levels of radioactivity.  I'm dying (pun intended) to have the Kaisiqi toys tested, and if they're clear then I'll buy the entire series and wrap it up for Christmas, never mind if it's still nine months away.  If we happen to share some kind of affinity and you're reading this, then you already know what you're getting.

P.S.  I'm uninspired.  I should have have watched Disney's Tangled. 

The Iron Man Makeover

Stan Lee reveals that of all the superheroes they've created at Marvel, Iron Man received the most fan mail, usually from women. 

Below is the original costume of Iron Man when he first appeared in Tales of Suspense #39 (March 1963).  Evidently, they took iron too literally.  The costume looked unmistakeably iron, and so bulky and cumbersome, it makes the knights of the Middle Ages seem graceful and flexible.

Thankfully, on the next issue (see below) he had a makeover--from a gray armor suit to a golden one. 

Tales of Suspense #40

Thankfully again, eight issues later (December 1963), Iron Man gets his present day look: the sleeker, more badass red and gold suit.  Lucky for Robert Downey, Jr, and lucky for us all.

The Ten Crappiest Villains of Iron Man:

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2008/05/the_10_crappiest_iron_man_villains_who_wont_and_sh.php

Eat This

If you're a purist, minimalist or just plain no-nonsense, chances are you don't approve of Rube Goldberg machines.   But hey, they still make for a nice smashing music video by OK Go.  Or a bowl of ramen such as this.

Metropolis and Robot City | Two 10 Pesos Robot Books

Something I picked up for 10 Pesos at Booksale: Isaac Asimov's Robot City.

I've never read a sci-fi story by Isaac Asimov before, so imagine my dismay when I found out he just lent his Robot City universe to Robert Thurston.  I misread the book's title "Intruder" as Foreword.

But Intruder is surprisingly good, philosophically tackling the curious question of "What is truly human?", but without sounding like an underpaid high school science teacher.

The robots are interesting too, reprogrammed by a Big Brother-like Watchful Eye who's now taken over Robot City.  Now the robots deviate from their usual boring routinary selves: Timestep tap dances, and Bogie, now with a penchant for slang, quotes lines from old movies left and right.

Ironically enough, the Watchful Eye suspects the real humans Ariel and Derec--prone to indecisiveness, outbursts and violence as they are--to be inferior and consequently less than human than the robot Silversides named Adam and Eve, who are suddenly now discovering they have a capacity for caring and concern after all.  All these for 10 Pesos.

Come to think of it, the only other book I've read that sort of featured a robot was The Wizard of Oz.  (In Wizard of Oz, the Tin Man wants a heart to become a human, while in Robot City, the crazed Dr. Avery wants a positronic robot brain to become a full-fledged robot.  They could just swap.)

* * *

Actually, thanks to Wired's list of sci-fi best robots (lots of robots on the list, by the way, with a blatant disregard for the Three Laws of Robotics)--if it weren't for it, I'd have forgotten about the robot in Metropolis.  Another book I bought from a friend--again, for just ten Pesos--during my high school days.  

I remember reading Metropolis with pervading admiration every single page.  It read like a parable.  The repeating verses were like a mantra, hypnotic, but also mirroring the mechanical fate of the slave workers in the dystopian city.  The book's prologue goes:

This book is not of today or of the future.
It tells of no place.
It serves no cause, party or class.
I has a moral which grows on the pillar of understanding:
"The mediator between brain and muscle must be the Heart."

Maschinenmensch

From Wired.com

Source code: Fritz Lang's 1927 silent sci-fi labor allegory Metropolis.

Execute win! The most notorious of cinema's robot pioneers.

Major malfunction: A terrorist gynoid straight outta Pygmalion, who performs riot-inciting erotic dances to destabilize the social order? Paging Dr. Freud!

* * * 

In the film version by Fritz Lang (the author's wife) , the robot's name is Maschinenmensch (German for machine human); in the book, she is called Parody or Futura, and is made to become  a doppelganger of Maria the leading lady.  This fake Maria thus proceeds to mislead the workers of the catacomb cities, revolt against the city's creater Joh Fredersen, and destroy the source of their scourge: Metropolis itself.

Metropolis the film was beautifully avant garde and amazing.  Every five seconds or so I kept wondering how the hell they made this so and so special effects back in the 1920's, which can be sort of distracting from the whole point of the film, but then with a fantastic film as Metropolis, awe is simply inevitable.

I liked the book better though.  I was so engrossed in Parody's deceit I completely forgot she was a robot.

Soft and Mental

So we already got stuffed toys in the shape of bacteria and subatomic particles plushies.  

Next up, stuffed toys with mental illnesses.

Meet Lilo, for instance, the blue hippo diagnosed with OCD.  How do we know he has OCD, apart from his insatiable obsession with his jigsaw puzzle?  I'm not really sure.  I'm guessing Lilo also washes his hands thirty times a day and folds the blanket ever so neatly and perfectly.

And there's Dolly, the split-personality sheep can't decide whether she's really a sheep or a wolf in sheep's clothing.  (Actually, she's cloned, but let's not tell her.)

These sick-in-the-head plushies are from German toy company Paraplush--which also felt it their mission to throw in the mix a severely-depressed turtle, a hallucinating snake (fixated on his rattle), a paranoid hydrophobic croc, and a megalomaniac raven named Dr. Wood.  Hmmmm.


Each stuffed toy comes with a medical history and a prescribed treatment plan.  A nice harmless toy, if you can take a joke, but apparently there are some who aren't amused and instead offended.

Of course we all know psychiatry is chock-a-block with other mental disorders--some too morbid to objectify and immortalize in a stuffed toy.  There's exhibitionism, narcissism, catatonia, kleptomania, anorexia nervosa, Munchausen syndrome, psychopathy, and necrophilia--to name a few.  So we're guessing Paraplush has a few more stitching and controversial stuffing to do.

The Point of Muscles

from  A Look Back on Some of the Best Superheroes of the 80's.

He-Man

"By the power of Grayskull...I have the power!". A classic line which brings us back to the land of magic, sorcery, of castles and kingdoms, and once again, good over evil.

No doubt, He-Man is your quintessential alpha-male, complete with bulging muscles, magic sword and unbeatable superpowers. Never mind that he was rather cliché—only big muscled guys get to be heroes—inspiring in skinny little boys (including me) an insecurity that were to surface later in our teenage years. The power of cartoons.

Dolph Lundgren as He-Man

But wait, there's Sheera too, a princess and He-Man's battle partner, not to be confused with some other helpless female character who gets in trouble and needs to be rescued from time to time. At least, there was Sheera to shatter the stereotype. If anything, He-Man was that cartoon that doesn't rely on violence, no matter how perfectly able the lead hero was.

Notably, his most violent act was picking up an enemy and tossing him away as you would a doll. Violence was only used as a last resort, and there we have a bulky superhero racking his brains instead on how to outwit the evil Skeletor. Yehey for that.

* * *

I'm not sure I'm excited to see GraySkull, the new He-Man movie set to be released on 2011, unless it has all the right grit and darkness--the way Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by Alfonso Cuaron--and the last one by David Yates--were dark and gritty and still catered to kids. 

The original He-Man movie in 1987, Masters of the Universe, starring Dolph Lundgren, disappointed.  All muscles and no point.

Play with a Samorost Today!

Two years ago I took this photo of tree stumps that looked like they were up to something.

Don't ask me what they're up to, but it looked pretty scandalous to me.

Now I'm playing Jakub Dvorský's award-winning game Samorost--which in Czech means a root or piece of wood that resembles a creature.

Mmmm, a samorost*.  So, thanks to the Czechs, this gnarled thing has a name after all:
* * *

Back to the game by Amanita Design.  It's set on actual pieces of knobby wood you might find lying on a forest, with a few weird creatures to boot. 

Up-close the samorost landscape looks otherworldly and surreal ( It's like René Magritte and Tim Burton were the consultants), and the story that unfolds is whimsical, exotic, and downright funny.  (Think giant slugs with hammers and flatulent platypuses)

Your goal is to guide your all-white pyjama-clad character through the convulated strange world and execute a series of actions to a. deflect an oncoming meteor-samorost from your samorost-home planet (in Part 1), and b. to save your kidnapped dog (in Part 2).

If you were bred on McGyver episodes (which I was not), and know a thousand possible uses for a cork, for instance, Samorost is peanuts.

But for the rest of us who think a cork is just for plugging bottles, Samorost is a heady challenging game as you rack your brain trying to figure out where else you can put your hot little fingers on just to get you out of trouble.  Plus you have to do things in a certain order, or you can't progress to the next level.

Yes, it's a point-and-click puzzle, but clicking blindly on the whole surface area of your screen until something interesting happens is not the point.

The point is: Samorost is fun, (both 1 and 2--and the third sequel called Machinarium, featuring a discarded robot this time, even more so).  The graphics is artfully and unapologetically gritty, it's almost like 3D.  And the soundtrack by Tomáš Dvořák--luxurious, ethereal, and first-rate (as if Björk will cut in any time).  

Just listen to one of the tracks, Podzemi, will you?

	Tomas Dvorak - Podzemi .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Samorost may be a fleeting and one-time thing (you can finish the game in just a couple of hours), but one thing's for sure, it's unforgettable.  You won't look at a decaying piece of log or a washed-up driftwood the same way again.


* * *
This is what happens when I thumb through an old issue of Wired magazine--the paper version, with recommended links on the Web, but which you can't click because, hello, it's paper--not unless you drop the magazine and actually head over to your PC.

So Wired had a nice thumbnail review of Samarost 2 (a charming blend of mushroom-and-moss naturalism and retro sci-fi).  Four years the magazine's been collecting dust on the shelf, and it's only now I decide type in that link.  It's never too late

________
* An alternate meaning is a person who doesn't care about the rest of the world.

Toys in Uniform | This Used to Be My Childhood Toy #8

from cousin Jason:

"I remember then I had toy soldiers, the green ones with a platform.
I'd have them fight each other with matching sound effects. TUUUUGSH! EEENG TAAGSH! hahaha


Why did I like that (toy)? I don't know, I guess at that time that was what fueled my imagination.

Sometimes, I'd put them in the drainage canal and pretend it was a sea.


And then Ate Elvie the maid would catch me and pinch me and have me go back inside the house.


My toy soldiers had only one pose--combat mode.  I'd have them walk, as if they can walk despite their platform."

* * *

This is off our chat on Facebook (I've had to ambush interview my cousin because in case you've noticed I'm running out of toy confessions to squeeze out of people).  Anyway, cousin Jason's been living in California for the last seven years or so with his family, and unlike other Pinoys, does not believe in abandoning his Filipino tongue.  

So the confession above is just a translation.  Forgive me for any lapses.

Surprisingly enough, when we chatted about toy soldiers and all a month ago, there was still no talk about corruption in the AFP military ranks, no senate hearings, no generals committing hara kiri.  

Makes you miss those honest-to-goodness toy soldiers of your childhood.

Mortal Kombat is Back, Gorily So

"The title says it all: Mortal Kombat. Not Mortal Kombat 9 (as it's the ninth proper beat-'em-up in the series) or Mortal Kombat: The Explodering, or anything so outlandish. Just Mortal Kombat.

It speaks volumes about the need to get back to basics, to deliver a purer fighting experience than we've seen in ages. But with lots and lots of gore, naturally.

Because after years of babalities, animalities and drifting away from the core ultra-violence of a spine-ripping 2D beat-'em-up, Mortal Kombat is getting back to its roots - roots that happily include Raiden using his razor-edged hat to buzzsaw an enemy in two from the groin up, and then hefting the two bloody sides of his fallen opponent skywards in damp, dripping victory..."

Review of Mortal Kombat

* * *

Yie Air Kung-Fu

Now, for the $1,000,000 question: do violent video games trigger real-life violence in kids? 

I grew up playing Yie Air Kung-Fu (too crude to be violently suggestive), Street Fighter (a little violent but Chun Li and Blanka were fun, so what the hell) and Mortal Kombat (gory, what with Reptile's head-devouring fatality moves) on Nintendo Family Computer. 

Maybe, yes, I have that occasional urge to slap someone silly or step on their toe with a heavy-soled shoe or like Reptile, bite their head off, but other than that I'd like to think I'm as peaceable as a cookie crumb.

And the latest on gaming violence:

"Media Psychiatrist" Ratchets Up Anti-Videogame Rhetoric"

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/02/rape-videogames-carole-lieberman/

Chapter 5: In Which Woolly Laments His Papery Fate

--So let's hear about your Valentine's date, Woolly.

--Woolly's distraught, Stop.

 

--I hate being paper!

--He can't stand wet kisses.  Not even a lousy sweaty handshake.  All the moist goodness of love denied from our good friend.

--Why! Oh why must I be paper!!

 --Relax.  At least you can give a paper cut.

Yike(s) Bike!

YikeBike

Afternoons in our subdivision, you'll see a bunch kids riding bikes with the handlebars deliberately stripped off, kinda like a monocycle in a circus act, except the bikes still have two wheels--so no, scratch the monocycle reference.

Anyway, apparently, they rent the bikes for P5 an hour, which, to a kid, is already an eternity.  The bicycles look precarious, but the kids seem to enjoy them.  Why else would they keep scooting around?  

This is the sad truth: there are kids in the world who don't have a bicycle of their own, and who have to rent out a bike if only to experience a ride.

 
When I was twelve, my dad gave my sis and I bikes.  It took me forever to figure out how to ride one.  On the day I finally did, I looked back to check if Daddy was still helpfully behind, found him far far back, panicked, and fell--the bike crashing on me promptly. 

I had to wear a cast for about a year.  After they sawed it open, I rode again.

* * *

And then there's the YikeBike--a super-lightweight, folding bike.  

For the jaw-dropping price of $3,600 (the Yikes! part), you get to ride this strange-looking battery-operated contraption, sure to invite questioning looks from everyone.  Then, when you reach your destination (assuming the battery didn't die on you), you simply fold up the bike and put it in its special backpack.  Something this expensive, you carry it around with you (it's light-weight), not leave it on the street chained to post.

 

Obviously, the YikeBike is aimed at the moneyed yuppie or the rich urban dweller who's tried roller-blading to work before and now wants a bike.  If you're the old school type who firmly believes in pedal power, this bike isn't your thing.  

The inventors say they've trimmed down the traditional penny-farthing and turned it into a mini-farthing in response to congested cities needing a fast. convenient and portable means of transportation.  For $3,600 though, I'm thinking that's already a lot of perfectly good bikes to go around for kids.

UK's 25 Best-Selling Toys (The Toys R Us List)

Remember Furby, the part-owl part hamster interactive electronic hairy pet which became a hit in 1998?  Yeah, Furbies were a best-seller. 

Today's list: the 25 best-selling toys in United Kingdom in the last 25 years, as compiled by toy giant Toys R Us, which turned 25 in 2010:
 

25 Best-selling Toys in UK from the Last 25 Years



P.S. Did you play POGS (the milkcaps) too when you were in gradeschool?

How to Buy a Safe Stuffed Toy for Your Baby (and Have Peace of Mind)

Beware of the used stuff toy.

Remember that episode in House where germ-laden stuffed toys were the cause of a series of baby sickness in the hospital?  

Beware of the dangerous stuffed toy.

But, fret not.  It's still OK to buy your favorite cuddly teddy bear or cutest stuffed penguin and be safe from harm.  How to choose the perfect stuffed toy?

1.  Never buy a used stuffed toy.   

That rare vintage Smurfs stuffed toy or limited edition Raggedy Ann or the last existing Dora the Explorer doll on earth may look tempting--but only if it's going to go to your shelves collection.  If baby is going to play with the stuffed toy, ideally you should buy them new.  Remember, you have no idea where the used stuffed animal came from or what it's been through, so instead of taking chances, just buy a brand new toy your baby can form lasting memories with.


2. Don't just go after looks.  It may be the most adorable thing in the whole wide world, but don't just plotz with glee yet.  Never buy a stuffed toy just because you like the way it'd look in your baby's arms or in your baby's room.  Even if it's the coolest character from the latest Disney or Pixar movie, ask the store clerk if that toy is suitable for your kid's age.

3. Check age recommendations.  This is important because sometimes we assume it's just a lousy stuffed animal, so it's automatically okay for my baby.  But that kind of belief is far from the truth.  That's why toy manufacturers place age recommendations on their products, and that's why you should go by them.

4.  Inspect the toy carefully.   Particularly the seams, the eyes, nose, and any other attached parts.  Check for fine workmanship.  Gently tug the parts to see if they will come off easily.  Remember, babies and kids are notorious tuggers and pullers.  A poorly-sewn stuffed toy might easily come apart.  Not cute at all.  

5. Opt for hypo-allergenic.  Even if your precious baby is not susceptible to asthma, it's still a good idea to give him or her a hypo-allergenic stuffed animal just to be on the safe side.  Remember that babies and kids like to cuddle their beloved toys all day, or even sleep beside them, so you really can't go wrong with hypo-allergenic.

6. Check for wires.  Yes, some toys have wires in them to help the parts keep their shape, such as ears or tails.  Wires like these can poke out of their casing and pose danger to your baby and kids.  So it's probably a good idea to just stick with the pure stuffed toys, with no wires at all.

7. Make sure it is washable..   Yeah, that House episode again.  Everytime toddlers picks up their favorite stuffed animal, they're actually exposing themselves to a host of germs and microbes.  So now we know that the thick fur and down of stuffed toys are a veritable breeding ground for these bad bacteria, even those nasty dust mites, we'll be more encouraged to wash them more often.  So buy a stuffed toy that's okay to wash, whether by hand or machine.  

Some stuffed toys however are surface-wash-only, while others have electronics embedded in them, so check the manufacturer's warnings and recommendations on how to clean the stuffed toy.

How do you safely wash your kid's stuffed toy?   

1. Place the toy inside an old pillowcase and knot it tightly.  
2.Wash on gentlest cycle.
3. Rinse twice.  
4. On the final rinse, you might like to add a cup of vinegar, to effectively get rid of all soap residue (Don't worry, it won't smell funny when it dries).  
5. Air-dry, or much better, dry under the sun.
6. Use a gentle brush to restore the fluff.

It's OK to Fold a Butterfly

Something to do while you wait at the bank, at the doctor's office, or the dentist: fold a butterfly origami.

Apparently, origami diagrams are considered intellectual property and are protected by copyright laws.  Kinda like a trade secret.  The origamist took it upon himself figuring out the correct sequence of folds and what kind, and so he/she gets all the rights to the creation. 

It's therefore illegal to download origami diagrams not officially released by the authors themselves.  There's also an issue about selling an origami model.  On origami forums, people debate whether they can sell an origami model they laboriously folded for hours, say a koi fish complete with scales, using origami paper they bought, but whose blueprint they just borrowed from an original author.  Some say you can't make profit from something someone else had painstakingly engineered.  Some say go right ahead.



Should you feel the urge to show the world that you've successfully figured out how to fold Robert Lang's Housefly or Satoshi Kamiya's Samurai Helmet Beetle through a video tutorial, no matter how good your intentions are, that's not allowed too.  So the rule of thumb is just permission from the authors.




Back to the butterfly.  Here's Michael LaFosse anyway, an American origamist teaching us how to fold an Alexander Swallowtail butterfly himself.

Subatomically Yours

So they've made plush toys in the shape of microbes and pathogens.  Cool.  Next they're going to commercialize on subatomic particles (since no one holds the patent on them) and turn them into stuffed toys too.

Wait, someone has already done that.

Welcome to Particle Zoo.  They're--according to the website--hand-made subatomic particle plushies from the standard model of physics and beyond.  Beyond, meaning you don't just get the usual electron, proton, neutron, for that will be terribly boring.

Apparently there are other subatomic particles out there which you may have heard during your college physics classes, assuming you didn't doze off from the aircon and the nice comfortable chairs and the fact that there's 300 of you in the auditorium so how can the professor single you out?

But back to the Particle Zoo stuffed toys.  There's dark matter, tachyon, quarks (bottom, top, strange, charm, up--their differences, I don't know), higgs boson, tau-neutrino, muon, tau, etc--all turned into cute, not to mention geeky plush toys. 

Particle Zoo obviously look nothing like the real subatomic particles they're supposed to be imitating (unlike the GIANTmicrobes plush toys), but they make up for it in the weight department.  Particle Zoos plushies have weights according to their real counterpart's mass--so you can line them from lightest to heaviest (after you arrange the GIANTmicrobes from trifling bother to lethal).

Lunar Promises and Moon in My Room

In the old days, energetic young Filipino men wooed the girls of their dream by way of a serenade and sugar-coated poetry.

 

The boys' promise-laden spiels usually included a vow to do everything for the maiden--with a reference sometimes to plucking the sun, stars, and moon from the sky.

Amazingly enough, many women actually fell for this.

Now, with Uncle Milton's Moon In My Room, you unload the moon from its box, hang the darned thing on your wall, turn off the lights, and click the remote control.  Easy.

Guys should really make good their promises, astronomical or otherwise.

* * *

What's a fake moon hanging on your wall good for?, you  ask.  Well, besides being a fancy night light, and something you can use to teach a kid werewolf (the virtue of restraint, for instance), the Moon in My Room can teach kids the 8 (or are there 12) phases of the moon.  (Nah, it's still a fancy night light.)

* * *

Back to the courting young male.  Should their vocal chords and way with words fail, there's always the option to offer one's self for an indefinite period of back-breaking house work (plow a field, chop firewood, fetch water, build a missile silo, protect the family from vampires)--all rendered and suffered good-naturedly to wow the maiden's family.  Actually, this is obligatory, so they might as well skip the song and dance number and the long rambling speech (just like this entry.)

* * *

Fond of rainbows instead?  Uncle Milton also has a toy that projects, well, a rainbow on your kid's wall.

There's a Toy in Your Trash Can

At Toy Kingdom, they sell these Green Science kits for P200-P300 so little kids can a. purify water b. make a potato clock, c. make aerodynamic airplanes, d. recycle trash and turn them into toys, e. etc. 

The Eco Science Toys (Letter d.) kit is nice and all.  Very D.I.Y.  They've included some of the parts (new, presumably) in the box, but you'll have to gather the rest of the parts (the recycling part) to make the toys.  But of course, you'll have to buy the kit first.

* * *

Fortunately, that's not how it goes at arvindguptatoys.com.  When Indian toy inventor Arvind Gupta calls his website Toys from Trash, he's NOT kidding.  You won't have to cough up a single cent (except maybe for the occasional glue and fancy paper).

For five years now, his Toys from Trash has been featuring, well, toys that are really from trash: paper plates, plastic cups, ballpen ink refills, coke cans, buttons, CDs, ink cartridges, matchboxes, ballpen caps, strings, broken electrical switches, old toothbrushes, ice cream sticks, PET bottles.   

Or else, he uses organic materials: seed pods, sticks, leaves, you name it.  You can't have a greener toy than the ones in his site.  The motto seems to be: you don't need brand-new toys from Toys R Us to have a happy childhood.  (Actually, the site's motto is: "The best thing a child can do with a toy is break it!")

I suspect Mr. Gupta is the kind of man you can put on a island and he can still make a toy out of a coconut.  Wait, he already has one.  

But more than just a collection of toys that inspire kids to save the planet, Toys from Trash is all about teaching science and making it fun for them.  So you get all these ingenious little contraptions and experiments with some underlying scientific principles in them, designed to explain magnetism and Newton's laws, for instance, or why the Earth's pole flattens as it spins.

* * *

In an interview, Gupta was asked why he chose to do something which most people don't do.  

His answer: I am a product of the seventies.  The political slogan in those days was: Go to the people. Love them, live with them.

Start from what they know.  Build on what they have.

Like many others, I just responded to a genuine need of my time.

______

For an eco-toy you don't have to build at all, heres the Mahogany seed helicopter

Plush Toy Cats with a Penchant for Ouch

Nowadays, it's not enough for plush toys to be cute and adorable.

They also have to have ample tolerance for pain.

From sheepielove on deviantart.

The one on the left, by the way, has 97 pins in his head.

LEGO for Adults | at the Ted Talks

1. At the TED Talks, Hillel Cooperman discusses Legos for grownup, with matching Powerpoint.  Hilarious, and the audience loves him, and by the time his talk ended, I--and I don't think I'm alone here-- had looked back to my childhood and missed all that carefree playtime so bad.

2.  Infinite possibilities you can do with Legos, not just with the LEGO Mindstorms NXT 2.0 robotics.  Cooperman means the reenacted famous movie scenes rendered in Lego style or original videos, the large scale brick architecture with lots of details,Titanic, etc.  No more innocent play.  The adults are too aware.  But that's okay.

3. As of 2007, if you combine all the Lego bricks ever made and distribute it equally among everyone in the planet, each one of us will have 62 Lego pieces.  It's 2011 already, but don't make me do the math.

4. "[Nerds are] like a couple levels above Furries."   Hahaha.

5. We're never too old to play with Legos.

 

Things You've Always Wanted to Know About Ultraman (But Were Afraid to Ask)

[from Wikipedia ]


Home Planet: "The Land Of Light," Nebula M78
Height: 40 meters (131 feet)
Weight: 35,000 tons (Earth gravitation)
Age: 20,000 Earth years old
Flight Speed: Mach 5
Jump Ceiling: 800 meters (2,600 feet)
Running Speed: 450 kilometers per hour (280 miles per hour)
Swimming Speed: 200 knots (230 miles per hour)
Physical Strength: Though never precisely measured in the stories, it is presumed to be enough for him to be able to lift (press) over 100,000 tons. He can lift a 100,000-ton tanker; Skydon was twice as heavy. 
Occupations: Teacher at Space University Chief of Space Garrison Milky Way Office

Ultraman has, more or less, 30 different special powers (including teleporation, dynamic size change, and his famous specium ray).  The only catch is that he can physically exist on Earth only for approximately three to five minutes of Earth time.  After that, the warning light on his chest begins to blink and he loses all power.


But that's okay because there are as many as 40 Ultraman versions in Japan.