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Physical ASCII Mosaic
An anonymous submitter, who might be Eric Harshberger, writes: "Some of my past LEGO whackiness seemed to make a few Slashdot readers chuckle, so I thought I'd pass along this link to my latest creation: A mosaic built of thousands and thousands of tiny little letter bricks. Kind of a weird turn on the ol' ASCII artwork." You may remember this guy from the famous Lego desk.
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Physical Graffiti ASCII
The adage states that 'a picture is worth a thousand words.' I'm not sure about that, but I can say one's worth about thirty thousand letters...
Question: What should one do with about a quarter million Modulex bricks?
This is not a question that most people will face in their lifetime. For that matter, few LEGO collectors will need to consider it. However, last fall I was sent a couple small Modulex bricks in the mail by a fellow, Ted, who had worked for LEGO some time ago. Ironically, my first thought when seeing the tiny bricks was, "these are so small, they're like toys!" -- as if the standard LEGO brick is not meant to be a toy.
Anyway, my interest was certainly piqued by these 'elfin sized' bricks, and I started doing some investigation. After a couple months of searching and researching, I stumbled into quite a find: for a (fairly reasonable) price I managed to put myself in half-ownership of approximately half a million Modulex bricks. Old, yes, but sealed in boxes and in mint condition.
So, I then had to ask myself what I would do with my new 'toys.'
What should one actually do with a quarter million Modulex bricks?
Some type of mosaic came to mind as the Modulex bricks are smaller than typical LEGO bricks, and the colors are different (more pastel).
What really intrigued me, though, was the fact that among the many, many bricks were some tiny 1x1 smooth bricks (tiles) that were white with black letters and numbers imprinted upon them.
What are "Modulex" bricks? Modulex bricks are smaller 'cousins' of LEGO bricks . They were originally developed by the LEGO company (many decades ago) and marketed to professional architecture firms and such (not as a retail toy). Possibly to the surprise of many LEGO collectors, these bricks are still manufactured today (by the now independent, but LEGO-related, company Modulex).
Modulex bricks are not compatible with typical LEGO bricks. The standard 1x1 Modulex brick (or 'component' as the company refers to them) is 5mm cubed (yes, they are perfect cubes, unlike LEGO unit bricks which are taller than they are wide or deep).
The colors are also different than LEGO colors... much more in the 'pastel' frame of mind they are.
Buying new Modulex bricks is not cheap; piece by piece they would end up being more expensive than LEGO bricks on average.
There are Modulex collectors about, however, and if one searches hard enough, one can sometimes find old ones for sale. The eBay auction site can be quite handy in this instance. I got my idea.
I'd do a mosaic, but instead of using colors, I'd use the letter and number tiles to create a picture reminiscent of the old 'ASCII art' one can find on the web (and which was certainly around long before the web).
Physical ASCII. How pseudo-retro-techno.
Okay then, a physical ASCII mosaic. But a mosaic of what?
I was sick of building LEGO cartoon/comic characters, so that was out.
I considered a picture from another fascination of mine: Alice in Wonderland (qq.v. Alice, White Rabbit Mosaic ), but the original Tenniel drawings that I like are all pretty much black and white with little gray shading... not very conducive to ASCII art really.
So, with cartoon characters and Alice discarded, I turned to the next obvious thing: an actress (this may not be too obvious, but for anyone who knows me, this should not be a big surprise).
I decided to use a picture of Calista Flockhart.
Okay, I had my picture. Next I downloaded a freely available software program: ASCII Generator.
This nifty tool did just about all that I needed. I could specify what letters to use (and which were 'darkest' and which 'lightest'). I could specify how many pixels of width to give each letter (when printed normally, most fonts have letters that are taller than they are wide; my bricks, however, were square, so I needed to be able to adjust accordingly). All in all, the program was invaluable.
I did run into one snag, however.
See, in all the little letter tiles I had obtained, the distribution of particular letters and numbers was far from equal. For example, I had over five thousand U's, but only twenty-four C's (not twenty-four thousand, just twenty-four... two dozen).
The ASCII Generator program did not care what my supply actually was, so it just used as many of each letter as it deemed necessary. As a result, the output (which was 140 letters wide and 240 letters high) did not come close to matching the letter supply I actually had.
I solved the problem by grouping certain letters together into groups based on their darkness (so, say, the W's and X's and H's were in one group at the dark end while the I's and L's and J's were in the lightest group). With about 6 groups formed using all the tiles I did have, I then wrote a Perl script that analyzed the output from the ASCII program.
My script would look at the letter in each space as designated by the ASCII Generator and then see to which group it belonged. Next, it would randomly pick a letter from that group. This 'randomness' however was weighted so that the letters within the group of which I had the most would be most likely picked. Letters of which I had very few were proportionally less likely to be picked.
The picked letter from the group (which might, in fact, be the same as the original letter analyzed) was then substituted in the ASCII picture.
When the whole text file was thus filtered, I ended up with an ASCII image in which the darkness and lightness was pretty much the same as the original ASCII output, but I was guaranteed to have the necessary letters.
Whew.
With all that done, I could then actually start building.
Oh wait. There was one more problem. I had about 60,000 letter tiles at my disposal, but I had no baseplates to which I could attach them.
I ended up ordering some from the U.S. importer of Modulex products. This was not particularly cheap or timely, but about five weeks later I managed to get the baseplates I needed.
And I began the actual building of the mosaic.
I have constructed plenty of LEGO mosaic in the past (qq.v. New York City, Mona Lisa, San Francisco ), so I was almost prepared for this task. There are notable differences between Modulex mosaic building and LEGO mosaic building, however. Most noticable is the fact that the minute Modulex bricks are *that much harder* to pick up and maneuver. Nimble fingers are required.
Modulex bricks also seem to attach more securely to the baseplates (more securely than LEGO bricks do to LEGO baseplates), and this is nice. However, it also means that a bit more force is need to make each little click. Tough fingers are required.
And finally, since I was creating a mosaic with little letters and numbers, I had to be sure that each brick was positioned with the correct orientation (no upside down P's for me, buddy).
Anyway... in the end, I got the darn thing done. The final 'Calista mosaic' is currently hanging on a wall in my house, and I hope to transport it to the Brickswest (2002) convention.
The mosaic used about 30,000 pieces (the 140 by 240 area for the letters, with some of the white spaces filled by larger tiles, and finally a border).
This, of course, means that I have about 30,000 or so letter tiles remaining. Enough for another mosaic! Heh... not one for myself, but I'd could always do one on commission, by request. Such a commssion would not be cheap of course (for a similarly sized mosaic -- 30 inches by 50 inches -- you could expect a price tag of many, many thousands of dollars).
But if you're game, let me know... I obviously have a limited supply, so it'd be first come, first serve... requests from actresses would get preferential consideration, of course [grin].
What I'm going to do with the rest of my Modulex stash (the non-letter bricks)... well, I'm still trying to figure that out.
"Are you on some kind of medication?"
"No"
"Well, you should be."
--Bean
You can't just post ASCII art or else you will get the following error:
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
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|__)|'(__((__| (__)
You fucking bitch. This POS post makes slashdot almost completely unreadable at -1, with the fucking width. Why the fuck are you doing it anyways, didnt having a long post fucking suffice? I cant wait until the lameness filter destroys you, fucker.
A thing of great beauty.
you have way too much free time on your hands
Good job!!!
Get help.
Yeah, Rollins would own ass. That dude must have been born big. His neck could kick danzigs ass.
Next up Dave Lombardo vs. Paul Bostaph.
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so then dont read at -1 stupid.
"His neck could kick danzigs ass."
You ever watch WWF? Kurt Angle's neck is bigger than his damn head! He looks like a thumb. Not even Rollins has that huge of a neck.
Henry Rollins should become a boxer. We would finally have a white heavyweight champ. White power!
Tripe H, has a bigger nose than Angle's neck. He can just peck everyone to death with that righteous beak.
Danzig walks next to any room, building, or any other object that has paint, and the paint pells off and runs with its tail between its legs.
Henry Rollins Band
Song: Liar
you think you're going to live your life alone
in darkness and seclusion... yeah, I know
you've been out there and tried to mix with those animals
and it just left you full of humiliated confusion
so you stagger back home and wait for nothing
but the solitary refinement of your room spits you back onto the streets
and now you're desperate and in need of human contact
and then you meet me and yur whole world changes
because everything I say is everything you've ever wanted to hear
so you drop all you defenses, I'm perfect in every way
'cause I make you feel so strong and so powerfull inside
you feel so lucky
but your ego obscures reality that you never bothered to
wonder why things are going so well
you want to know why?
'cause I'm a liar, yeah, I'm a liar
I'll tear (rip) your mind up, I'll burn your soul
I'll turn you into me, I'll turn you into me
'cause I'm a liar, a liar, a liar, a liar...
I'll hide behind a smile and understanding eyes
and I'll tell you things that you already know so you can say:
I really identify with you, so much
and all the time that you're needing me is just the time
that I'm bleeding you, don't you get it yet?
I'll come to you like an affliction then I'll leave you like an addiction
you'll never forget me... wou wanna know why?
I don't know why I feel the need to lie and cause you so much pain
maybe it's something inside, maybe it's something I can't explain
'cause all I do is mess you up and lie to you
I'm a liar, ooh, I'm a liar
but if you'll give me another chance I swear I'll never lie to you again
'cause now I see the destructive power of a lie,
they're stronger than truth
I ca't believe I ever hurt you, I swear I will never lie to you again
please, just give me more chance, I'll never lie to you again, no,
I swear, I will never tell a lie, I will neer tell a lie, no, no
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! Sucker! Sucker! Sucker!
I am a liar, yeah, I am a liar, yeah, I am a liar
I lie you, I feel good, I am a liar, yeah
I lie X4 ooh, I lie, yeah, I lie
I'm a liar, I lie, I like it, I feel good, I like it, and again
I like it again and I'll keep lying, I'll promise
Henry Rollins Band
Song: Alien Blueprint
you reached out, you got burned, made tough by the lessons you learned
you never thought they could be so mean,
be so hard and cause you so much pain
like a fool you tried again, you really wanted to be their friend
but looking back you see they just wasted your time (X3)
self loathing, the anger inside, you covered it up with pride, you always
found a way to
blame it on yourself, on yourself, blame it on yourself
looking back you get yourself together...
looking back you get to go on...
looking back you see that you
get to change your mind about yourself and you get to go on...
so mad, so mean, the pain remained unseen
all that time pent up wanting to explode (X3)
what they did, the things the said, you wished that you were dead
anything not to have to deal with them (X3)
they made you hate, you couldn't wait to go out and do something great
turn around and throw it right back in their face (X4)
looking back you get yourself together
looking back you see all the hatred inside
now you see that you get to change your mind about yourself
and you get to go on, so go on..!
looking back you see you just wasted your time
buying into the talk and the lies
looking back you see all you've got is yourself
you can tell by the look in their eyes
alien man, I'm an alien man, I'm an alien man, I'm an alien man... yeah!
now you see how you are, the wisdom mixed it with all the scars
go on out and watch all the fools passes souls on by
they never knew, they never do, it was always up to you
you gotta go out and get it for yourself (x3)
you never were one of them, they could have never been your friends
the best revenge is to always survive yourself (X bunch of times)
I'm so tired of myself
I'm so tired in my sleep
I'm so tired of my lies
I'm so tired of all the secrets I keep
I'm so tired of looking inside myself
Trying to find something
I'm tired... so tired...
And I know I need something
Because the grind is just burning me out
And I don't wanna have to hurt one of them
But I'll do it 'cause I'm tired...
Real tired...
I'm so tired of all the things that I hear
I'm tired of the things that I fear
I've never seen the end so clear
And I'm tired... real tired
'cause I know I need something...
Something, wanna just this to keep me sticking around
But I'll do it...
'cause I'm getting real tired...
'cause I know I need something...
You want just this...
The grind is wearing me down
And I don't wanna kill one of these walking insects
But I'll do it...
'cause I'm real tired and I'm not getting any better
Yet Another Rollins Band lyrics for Slashdot geeks
Song:Civilized
I'm sitting in my roo in your prison doin' time
bars on my windows 'cause you got so good at crime
standing on the corner with nothing in your head
shirt on your back and a gun in your pants
thinking you're the man but you're only a stand in
standing in line to be the next bad guy
I see what you do when you use what you got
but what do you do when you do what you want
you're so civilized, you get brutalized
you're so civilized, man: I watch you get hurt down
getting your mind off some guy's record
he makes his money off fools like you
singing about killing like it ain't no thing but
you do the time when you live it for real
paying his way from your death row cell
you're the last 1 to see, you got sold out
I hear you say you hate pigs so much then
why the hell do you act like 1
I wonder what you're like without the gun
I'd like to see when you're not hiding behind the gun
how you've lived your life without the gun
'cause I know how I lived mine
because you got one, yeah, 'cause that's what it is
you hide behind your gun
you take life, you're just another pig to me
you think you're different but you're just another pig
yeah, a pig, yeah
you gotta have a gun then you're just another pig to me
you think you're different but you're just another pig
you gotta have a gun, you'rea pig to me, just a pig to me
you gotta have a gun, you're just another pig to me
you got a gun, you're just anothe rpig
a gun in your hand makes a fool out of you, oh yeah
a gun in your hand makes a target out of me, oh no
freedom, you ain't no freedom, you want your freedom,
your freedom is killing you man, freedom
you can't handle your freedom, hey
and now you're dying for it
Glen Danzig should become a boxer! He could be a white middleweight champ! These black people all think they are tough because all the niggers are good at boxing. They should watch Ultimate Fighting Championship to see all the blacks getting their asses handed to them by pasty white men. WHITE POWER!
Lyrics Guy, here are some great lyrics. I know you will like this:
LOVE DUMP - STATIC-X
hand me a line
really hand me a line
really hand me a line
hand me a line
really hand it to me
i've always loved you
love dumpling
your shit's like chocolate cake
and your ass smells like a rose
i really hate you
love dumpling
now my bowels ache
drop down in a line
really hand me a line
really hand me a line
hand me a line
really hand it to me
Band:Danzig
Song:Mother
Mother
Tell your children not to walk my way
Tell your children not to hear my words
What they mean
What they say
Mother
Mother
Can you keep them in the dark for life
Can you hide them from the waiting world
Oh mother
Father
Gonna take you daughter out tonight
Gonna show her my world
Oh father
Not about to see your light
But if you wanna find hell with me
I can show you what it's like
Till your bleeding
Not about to see your light
And if you wanna find hell with me
I can show you what it's
Mother
Tell your children to hold my hand
Tell your children not to undesrstand
Oh mother
Father
Do you wanna bang heads with me
Do you wanna feel evrything
Oh father
Not about to see your light
And if you wanna find hell with me
I can show you what it's like
Till your bleeding
Not about to see your light
And if you wanna find hell with me
I can show you what it's
Yea
Not about to see your light
But if you wanna find hell with me
I can show you what it's like
Till your bleeding
Not about to see your light
And if you wanna find hell with me
I can show you what it's like
Wo-oh
Mother
Yea
I have been trolling for a long time, will these idiots mod me down! Fucking Censoring bitches! Come get sum. Lik dun dip some!
Oop Ort, Quandy Wando Flu!
Trolls show your pride and post!
Koo Koo Ca Choo Koo Ko Ca Choo
Ignore reality. Support the murderous Israeli army! Woot! More arms for Israel, more death for Palestineans.