If you're too young to remember it, the Banana Jr 6000 was a thing of beauty that appeared in the comic strip Bloom County, which used to run in these things we called newspapers. (You can find out more about newspapers on Wikipedia and by asking your older relatives.) To this day, Bloom County still cracks me up, and I can quote you more of those strips word for word than is probably healthy. Anyway, Bloom County featured a character/computer called the Banana Jr 6000. I loved him so. He made his grand debut just about the time that I got interested in the machines made by another fruit-named computer company. He was a clever little television worshipper who taught me that Dan Rather was a god, tequila hallucinations are to be avoided, and poor translations are hilarious. Eventually he strolled off into the sunset, and I always wondered how things went for him after that. At one point he was threatened with having his memory chips put into programmable toaster ovens, but thankfully that never came to pass. Instead, John from the RetroMacCast took his love of Bloom County and some free time and built his own Banana Jr 6000. It is a glorious thing to behold. He posted a few progress shots on his Ning blog, and getting to see it take shape is fun to watch. Get a good look at the gallery for the finished product and see if that last photo doesn't remind you of something. This is the sort of case mod that I love most. It's done with such care and attention to detail. It helps that it includes something I love (like that Millennium Falcon/Mac mini case mod from back in the day), but really, anyone who puts this sort of time and effort in deserves all the accolades they can get. I adore this case mod, and I love even more that it can actually be used with current software since there's a mini inside. I give this one four Basselopes. Thanks to exiledsurfer for the tip!

Bloom County's Banana Jr 6000 lives on as a fantastic case mod originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 26 Oct 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments   Found by The Dude

Are you a huge fan of the Stargate sci-fi series? Apparently, this dad is, which is why he decided to spend some quality time with his son to build up a replica Stargate using nothing but their hands and a whole lot of heart from scratch. There were no blueprints to refer to – only one’s imagination, and the materials required included wood, coat hangers, tubing and styrofoam. To make it all the more realistic, the gate will actually spin through and through, although it won’t transport you to a distant galaxy or universe, while there is absolutely no chance of hostiles coming through your way either. Source: DVice Found by The Dude

There’s something HUGE going down! For the first time in our blogging history, we’re having a COMPETITION. Yeah, it’s true. A competition. What can you win? A super-nerdy classy LED wristwatch from Runns webshop (that they so sweetly named “The Singularity”). This competition goes on for 3 weeks (from the 8th of March to the 29th of March). What do you need to do to be able to win this price? Ah, our dear apprentice, here’s the instructions:

1. Go to FaceBook and join this page: “Runns Webshop – www.Runns.se” (just make a search in the search field on FaceBook to find the page). If you do not join this page, you will automatcally be disqualified from the competition.
2. Answer this question: How many binary numerals are there in total?
3. Go to the following webpage (the answer can be found in the product description): http://tinyurl.com/y99czb7
4. E-mail your name, surname, adress, postal code, city, country, and telephone number together with your answer to: geekscorner@madeinmalmo.se
5. The winner will be notified on the 30th of March, and can expect to receive their price within 2 weeks from Runns webshop.

May the force be with you!
//The Dude and Dudette
PS: Don’t forget to invite your friends to this competition; the more, the merrier! DS.

Pickled 'Thulhu anyone? //The Dude

The Fiddly Bits

So far we have acheived something that floats. She’s ready to leave the dry dock and move on to fitting out. This is also the bit where your ship develops it’s distinctive character and identifiability.

Some recommended prep work. If you still have the deck plan view glued on to your hull you save your self some problems by marking out where your turrets will be centered and also your superstructure. This will help you greatly later on. You can use a scalpel to punch through the paper and then you simply clean off the paper and glue residue before you start mounting turrets and other bits.

Above you can see the marks that will help guide in the barbettes and superstructure drawn in red.

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Shaping the Hull

If you have a blueprint, printed to scale you can now proceed to making the hull of your ship. Quite naturally this is the first step in the process and also the step that most defines the look of your finished ship. This is where you’ll want to spend a little extra effort while shaping and sanding so that it gets the right look and feel.

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Part Two: Tools and Materials

I use a wide variety of tools for my ships but that is not necessarily the only or even the best tools for the task. Some you can do without if you like, or can’t afford them. I generally improvise and occasionally I whip out the Dremel when I feel lazy…
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Most recently, my fire for painting Warhammer miniature models has been re-lit. In fact, I have begun on a new project entitled “Project Gork” (Gay-Orks). Yes, I will paint about a 500point army of Space Orks with pink armour! Insane? I’d say: Adventurous. Furthermore, this is going to be the first full army that I have ever painted. Imagine the stunned looks on people’s faces when a gaming-beginner shows up with unconventionally painted Space Orks… Originally, I was going to paint them red according to the Speed Freaks scheme. But I wanted to do something of my own, since I never felt content with any “original” scheme that is out there.

To think of that this project begun with a bad joke of “I’m going to paint my Orks pink!”… Stay tuned for results further along the line of time.

//The Dudette

Part One: Gathering the Data and Producing Blueprints

The first thing you need to do is to do your homework. It’s critical that you get the facts right before you start commiting time and plastics to a ship that might otherwise turn out wrong.
Since War at Sea uses miniatures that are made to scale and are in general quite good and correct (except Zara which is a Pola *cough* ) it is imperative that you start out with finding the correct dimensions and preferably some plans for your project.

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Welcome to our nerdasmic geekisims!

This is it. We are going public. Up until now, geeks have been forced to hide in closets, in sweaty rooms with fruitful smells of… highly… intense… odors, in dungeons far far away in Fantasyland, in the cellars of their families… WE SHALL HIDE NO MORE!

(Be warned. This is not a test. For those who are about to Geek, we salute you!)

//the geeksquadron

(The Dudette & The Dude)