Awesome Etc

The Empire apparently dominated the ’08 Olympics, as these Lego dioramas by Alan Chia show. Most memorable moment: stormtrooper spoofs the relay, gets throttled by Vader.

Their ollie days are over, but these skateboards have found a second life as stairs; they’re found at the offices of Roarockit, a Canadian outfit that sells DIY skateboard deck kits.

Onion Maps initially reminds us of Google Earth, minus many features — but its simplicity and focus on isometric views works, especially for tourists who just want landmarks.

Whether you’re a fan of the Man or not, Matador Nights has a gallery of the 13 coolest structures ever built at the Burning Man. Big Rig Jig (2007), above, is our favorite.

Created by German graphic designer Heiko Klug for Desktopography, Tiny World is a brilliantly executed wallpaper, even with all the balloons. You can also purchase a print here.

Ashley Payne’s Zune Bug is a modern take on the nightlight. The concept is actually a speaker that streams music from your Zune; it adjusts its volume based on ambient lighting.

Not that Japan doesn’t have enough monsters, but the Water Dragon hologram above was filmed in Tokyo Bay. It’s actually part of a Sony ad campaign for The Water Horse movie.

We’re totally digging these fantastic lightpainting photos by artist Andy Hill, who makes and sells retro sci-fi Saucerbots from LED lights, leftover CDs, DVDs and hard drive platters.

Art director and 3D animator Emmett Feldman’s Interstellar Sugar is fantastic in monochrome; the visual style seems perfect for a remake of the classic shooter Asteroids.

Citylight is a trippy, sci-fi meets aurora borealis meets urban graffiti wallpaper by Polish graphic designer Kamil Kotarba. Click here to download the wallpaper (it’s a RAR file).

There’s nothing like creating a work of art with brute-force: the gang at Mythbusters painted the Mona Lisa in less than a second with an 1100 barrel paintball gun.

The ESA continues to handily best NASA in terms of style with its ExoMars Rover, which has more bling than an Escalade at a Lakers game. It’ll arrive at the Red Planet in 2014.

On display at the BMW Welt conference hall in Munich, this undulating kinetic sculpture is composed of 714 steel balls suspended on strings; it gets wild about 50 seconds in.

Gizmodo has the results of their latest Photoshop contest up: how to ruin the recent Olympics in Beijing with technology. Still, nothing beats China’s own faked footprint fireworks.

Vivien Muller’s concept Solar Tree is like a bonsai tree for charging your gadgets, with 54 solar panels and an array of modular “branches” that can be connected however you like.

This trailer for Fast and Furious 4 has Vin and the gang raiding a gas tanker, Mad Max style. It’s not exactly Oscar material, but who cares: car chases and hot chicks make us happy.

The above video celebrates the 30th anniversary of the iconic Lego Miniman; it’s even available in 3D. We didn’t know he even had a name; that being said, Go, Miniman, Go!

It ain’t called The World’s Handiest Ladder for nothing — this 12′ telescoping ladder can retract to the size of a small suitcase, making it extremely portable. It supports up to 250 lbs.

Real space vehicles generally pale next to their sci-fi counterparts. The ESA’s Ocean Circulation Explorer satellite (or GOCE) bucks the trend; hell, this baby comes with wings!

Furby Gurdy is a twisted take on a medieval noisemaker known as a hurdy gurdy. Twisting a hand-crank forms and breaks circuits; the result … well, just watch the video above.

Situated in Terminal 5 of London’s Heathrow Airport, Cloud is a kinetic sculpture with 4,638 flip dots. They’re so mesmerizing that folks are liable to miss their flights.

Funky Flickr group The iPod Mirror collects photos of the world, as reflected on the backs of iPods. We know how smudgy they get, so props for all the buffing that went into these shots.

Proof that companies have a sense of humor: above is EA’s response to a user who YouTube’d a video showing a Tiger Woods PGA Tour glitch where players could walk on water.