It's hard not to watch this video of DIY robot Readybot and think "sweet... what's the next version like?" Looking like everyone's favorite trashcan-shaped sci-fi droid has collided with a dishwasher, Readybot's intended to be a home-assistant 'bot doing a maid's job, cleaning your house. It may be slow and primitive now, but it looks pretty adept at grabbing stuff from the floor. And deploying a Roomba to do the vacuuming is genius. Actually an on-going development by makers The Readybot Robot Challenge, the robot will get more sophisticated, and we'll be watching for Phase 2 later this year. I'll get excited when it can put my clothes away and clean the cat litter tray. [Readybot]

I have to confess that life hasn't been very good lately. Work around the clock, not enough free time, trying to have kids and crashing badly. All while moving to a country I don't particularly like, away from my best friends and family. Maybe that's why visiting Lego's Memory Lane—the secret vault guarding almost every Lego set ever manufactured—touched me in a way I didn't expect. This wasn't amazement or simple awe. I was already astonished to no end by the tour of the Lego factory. No, this was something else, something bigger than the impressive view of the 4,720 Lego sets inside this lair. These weren't just simple boxes full of bricks. These were tickets to ride a time portal to emotions and simpler days long forgotten.

I didn't know that when I was curiously ogling the oldest sets, from the 1950s. Jette Orduna—the curator for the Idea House, Lego's history museum set in the old family house of the owner, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen—was explaining the first Lego sets, obviously enjoying my enthusiasm. "Here's the wooden box that some shops around Denmark had, usually hairdressers or general stores" she would say while carefully opening it for me to see its contents, simple red and white bricks without tubes, some of them with windows on them, "they contained individual Lego bricks. Back then, parents bought them regularly to their children, so they could keep expanding their Lego system." Then she would turn her attention to another set, as I kept asking what was this or that. "Yes, it's called 'electronic' because this train could be activated by whistling," she would explain, whistling herself.

I was just enjoying it like an archeologist. Her explanations, the cool box designs, the quick evolution of the first years... I was amazed by the ingenuity of it all, curious about the origins of the myth. But that was it. Just simple curiosity. Until we got to the 1970s.

Knowing my previous comments, Jette went straight to one of the shelves, at the end of the long aisle. She looked up and down, her lips pressed together, concentrated in finding something. While she was doing this I was filming around, eyes wide open, thinking "oh, is that?" and "nah, that can't be... can it?" my excitement growing by the second. It was then when she took out a large rectangular box with yellow sides, saying "a-ha! Here it is."

I turned around and I saw what she had in her hands: the Lego Space Galaxy Explorer.

And then it hit me. Lift off. Godspeed. Boom.

A wave of emotions took control, hitting my head like a Lego Airbus 380. Dozens of images started to appear in my head, Polaroids of Xmas and birthdays that I thought were faded, completely fresh, color-corrected, and restored by the damn Lucasfilm for a Blu-ray re-release. I could even see the Hollywood quote whores saying "Better than ever!", "The past never looked better!", and "Five stars!" embossed in silver on the special edition boxed set:

You know what I'm talking, those were the days and all that jazz. But for real. Feelings and moments from times when everything was innocent and your only concern was the amount of cocoa in your cereals, your bike, and a big carpet full of Lego bricks.

After that, it was one wave after the other, jumping from Lego Space to Lego Technic to Lego Town to Lego Castle and Lego Pirates and Lego Star Wars. Each set a memory, a particular Kodak moment blurred by the occasional teary eye.

Soon, too soon, it was over. And as I was walking up the stairs, back to the present, slowly letting the past fade back into the treasure chest, I thought: "This must be it. This must be reason why Lego is so loved by almost everyone in the planet." Sure they are fun. The details, the incredible designs, the way you physically touch them, how they make you use both your hands, creativity, and logic. All that is there, all are parts of their universal appeal.

But there's a lot more. Something more fundamental, bigger than the sum of all those qualities. Underneath all that there's a primal connection, something that makes everyone tune into the childhoods when they see the bricks, and get back into brighter, careless moments, even at the subconscious levels.

And thinking that, I joined Jette and Jan in the Real World, with a grin on my face. Life wasn't that bad, after all. Not if something as simple as a colored brick can make me smile again.

[Giz's Lego Trip]

Adrienne So over at Slate has used her natural gifts to come up with the most genius idea yet: an energy-generating bra. Instead of just holding her boobs in place and dispelling that excess kinetic energy into, I don't know, heat, why not use it to power a gadget? According to a breast specialist, a D-cup in a lousy bra moves up to 35-inches up and down during exercise. Professor Wang of Georgia Tech is working on just this problem, using nanowires inside fabric to convert that visual spectacle into something useful. But is it enough to power an average iPod? This Wang says yes. [Slate]

Sometimes it's nice to just sit and consider exactly why you don't do so many of the things that you don't do. (That's why I don't tie my nipples to doorknobs! Of course!) This is a useful exercise that the guy behind Portable Gaming Solutions has apparently never tried. As a result, he is offering to convert your perfectly functional Xbox 360 into a strange-looking laptop for more than the cost of the original console.

Ben Heck's previous efforts reflect a great deal of ingenuity and were skillfully executed. The results were interesting, but mainly as a feat of engineering and design. PGS will do a similar mod for anyone who is willing to cough up the cash, but the end product is more functional than it is attractive. And by functional I mean, well, it functions. To give the company credit, though, you can still connect to external displays and the prospect of (giant, hulking, hot) in-car Xboxing, which PGS claims is possible, is somewhat exciting. See the video below. [PGS via Engadget]

HD-DVD was declared dead a long time ago, and the last film to be released to the US on the format will hit (roughly three to five) shelves tomorrow. Disco Pigs was originally released in 2001 and very appropriately stars Cillian Murphy and Elaine Cassidy as friends who were born in the same hospital, at the same time, and who grew up next to one another. Unfortunately, as they reach adulthood it is apparent that their relationship has become dangerously volatile. It doesn't end well. (Spoiler alert: Cillian Murphy's character is the HD-DVD)

[Crave]

HD DVD was declared dead a long time ago, and the last film to be released to the US on the format will hit (roughly three to five) shelves tomorrow. Disco Pigs was originally released in 2001 and very appropriately stars Cillian Murphy and Elaine Cassidy as friends who were born in the same hospital, at the same time, and who grew up next to one another. Unfortunately, as they reach adulthood it is apparent that their relationship has become dangerously volatile. It doesn't end well. (Spoiler alert: Cillian Murphy's character is the HD DVD.) [Crave]

It's well known that the biggest bump in the road to developing an awesome all-electric car is the battery. The only ones juicy enough are a) big b) expensive and c) not so durable. Not easy. But science is no match for the American spirit! If elected, John McCain is promising $300 million to whoever develops a next-gen battery that "has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars." Totally coincidentally, that same battery will also power the next generation of life-extending cybernetic cryo-suits. [Detroit News via Jalopnik]

Destruction therapy has been around for a while now, but is only just starting to hit its stride. On June 21st, a large group of variously frustrated individuals converged on Castejon, Spain to launch the town fiestas with the coordinated destruction of an entire field of appliances and cars. Mainstream medicine has yet to recognize the efficacy of destruction therapy, but hey, I'm sure frontal lobotomies took a few years to catch on too. Gallery after the jump. [Reuters]

A 22 year old British adventurer by the name of Rhys Jones may have made a name for himself as the youngest person to to climb the world's seven highest summits, but he may end up being known as the youngest lunatic to ever drown in a juice carton boat on the Mississippi if his plans for this weekend don't pan out. Actually, the idea was conceived by his father after he received a book about origami. Naturally, his first thought was to build a 12 foot raft with a wooden cabin and a paper hull lined with juice cartons and sail 3700 miles down one of the most treacherous rivers in the world.

As mentioned, the father and son team plan to set sail this weekend on what will undoubtedly be a 3-4 month trip down the river. In the end, Rhys and his father hope to recycle the boat and raise awareness about conserving the Earth's natural resources. So remember kids, not recycling is bad, but risking your life for no apparent reason is still a-ok. [Metro]

A 22-year-old British adventurer by the name of Rhys Jones may have made a name for himself as the youngest person to climb the world's seven highest summits, but he may end up being known as the youngest lunatic to ever drown in a juice-carton boat on the Mississippi if his plans for this weekend don't pan out. Actually, the idea was conceived by his father after he received a book about origami. Naturally, his first thought was to build a 12-foot raft with a wooden cabin and a paper hull lined with juice cartons and sail 3,700 miles down one of the most treacherous rivers in the world.

As mentioned, the father and son team plan to set sail this weekend on what will undoubtedly be a 3-4 month trip down the river. In the end, Rhys and his father hope to recycle the boat and raise awareness about conserving the Earth's natural resources. So remember kids, not recycling is bad, but risking your life for no apparent reason is still a-ok. [Metro]