LEGOdometer

Image at right is from Brickshelf...

I'm slow. This has been buzzed up already, and I'm late to add my raves. But for the benefit of my paltry readership, if you like LEGO at all, you need to go check this out. Read the LUGNET posting.

Shaun Sullivan of NELUG has built a LEGO based odometer for measuring distance that trains run on exhibition layouts.

Note that an odometer was used at the PNLTC Guinness record attempt but it was electronic.

This one is purely mechanical. It's testimony to Shaun's addiction that he chose to do it this way... but ironically used significant computer time to calculate the gear ratios needed to get to within 8 feet per mile of accuracy in his measurements.

xkcd and obsession

Sample xkcd comic.
Image from CommonsOK, so xkcd is a webcomic. If you don't know what that means, follow the links.

Anyway, the author of xkcd understands Wikipedia. Consider this comic. (Is there anyone reading this blog who hasn't seen it yet? Oh please! Cap yourself immediately) Consider this reference to xkcd from Wikipedia's Administrator's Noticeboard/Incidents... clearly Wikipedia administrators understand where he's coming from too.

The xkcd author surely understands obsession. Consider this image... how long did it take someone (him) to draw that? Any why? On a whiteboard, no less. Sure, it's a great joke, but was the time spent worth the laughs? To him it was.

Some of you may know that webcomics got me more involved in Wikipedia than just a drive by fixer-upper... reading webcomics used to be one of my obsessions. LEGO still is. But over time, it seems that obsessions change and shift. What drives obsessions? What causes them to change? These are good questions. And important ones to many hobbies...

Wikipedia would not survive without a core of people who were not at least slightly obsessed with it. The same is true of many other hobbies... the NMRA relies on a core of folk who give their time and energy to an organization that ultimately, is all about something not essential to survival. But ultimately, that's a tribute to the success of our civilization. Instead of being obsessed with gathering food and staying alive, that can take up only part of our time and attention, allowing most of it to focus on what really interests us.

What are your obsessions?