Dynamic Subspace

LEGO 8099 Midi-Scale Imperial Star Destroyer Built with Spare Bricks

LEGO Millennium Falcon is fleeing a pursuing Midi-Scale Imperial Star Destroyer

Thankfully, LEGO provides digital copies of their set instruction books online. This means that if you have the bricks, you can build anything in the LEGO catalog. Of course, it might take time and energy to hunt down each individual brick and element that you might need to assemble a given set if your collection is as disorganized and binned as mine is. Nevertheless, it’s satisfying being able to build something new with what you have instead of having to go out and buy it.

In this case, I assembled a set that didn’t buy when it came out in 2010: 8099 Midi-Scale Imperial Star Destroyer. It took a considerable amount of time to find all of the bricks that I needed to complete it, and I had to cannibalize some other sets to get all of the parts. Eventually, it came together. However, I did have to make one off-color substitution deep within and hidden from external view.

LEGO 8099 Midi-Scale Imperial Star Destroyer front view

LEGO 8099 Midi-Scale Imperial Star Destroyer rear view

October 20, 2023

Yorick, a Human Skull and Brain Teaching Aid for Cognition and Neuronarrative Related Lessons

Anatomically correct human skull with working jaw and brain, front view

    Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
    of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
    borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
    abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
    it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
    not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
    gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
    that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
    now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?
    Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let
    her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must
    come; make her laugh at that. -Shakespeare, Hamlet

I bring my trusted skull and brain model nicknamed Yorick to my writing and science fiction classes when I want to talk about something related to cognition–e.g., how our attentional focus works, cognitive costs of switching cognitive tasks, time delay from sensory perception to processing to conscious awareness, where are the speech regions–Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area–located, etc. Yorick’s skull and multi-component brain gives students something that they can see and feel and manipulate when it gets passed around the classroom.

And when students leave a hat behind, Yorick gets a treat.

human skull model wearing a knitted Michael Kors hat

October 19, 2023

LEGO R2-D2 10225, a Reliable Desktop Companion

I picked up this faithful R2 unit from LEGO when I began my position as a Brittain Fellow at Georgia Tech in 2012.

It’s the 10225 R2-D2 set that was released in 2012 (shortly before I moved back to Atlanta).

It features a turning head, a little bit of wobble, arms, saw, data port interface, and a retractable third leg. It’s blockier looking than the 2021 R2-D2 75308 set, but its the blockiness that makes it endearing.

Though, be warned that R2, when left to his own devices, might try to hack your computer . . .

October 18, 2023

Star Wars the Exhibition, London, 26 Jun. 2007

Almost ten years before I went to the Star Wars and the Power of Costume Exhibition in New York City, I attended Star Wars the Exhibition in London, England on 26 June 2007. It was held in County Hall, Westminster, which is across the Thames from Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster and near the London Eye.

I had a half day for sight-seeing, so I made the most of it–riding the Tube, visiting 221B Baker Street, walking through St. James Park, passing Buckingham Palace, paying respects at Westminster Abbey, and ending up at Star Wars the Exhibition.

Star Wars the Exhibition was held in an old building with fine wood detailing and fireplaces throughout the smaller rooms. It was tight in places and open in others. It was dark and the lighting produced shadows and a variety of dramatic colors, which created challenges for my camera. As you’ll see in the photos, it had some amazing life-size artifacts from The Phantom Menace (1999).