Links of the Weeks

Sorry for the last of posting for last few weeks. I have been on vacation and then pulled my back so frankly just didn't feel like it.

Giant Lego Map of Europe
Hit the link for a gallery of images that creates Europe on a 157 square foot Lego map with little miniature Lego creations to represent the various major cities. The map took 53500 bricks and about 6 months to build. The cool part is the way it was built allows them to take it apart and literally file it away.

Life and Death of the One Dollar Bill
Click the link for a very cool graphical breakdown and the life and times of a single dollar bill. Fun facts include the cost of a single bill to produce (6.4 cents), amount printed each day (16.6 million) and how to read some of the coding on the bills.

Republicans Continue Their Rich First Priority
Only in American is people stupid enough to not only vote against their own self-interests but then nod along when the people they voted for pretty tell them to their face that they are not important. The current big battle is to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Now the Democrats have no problem with that for 98% of the country. The sticking point is that top 2% of the richest. Dems want to use that 2% to pay for leaving the cuts in place for the other 98%. In other words be fiscally responsible and make sure the cuts are paid for. The Repubs, which ran on platform of fiscally responsibility (even though historically never has been), want to not only keep those cuts but add another $700 billion on top for just those 2%. That cost would go directly to the deficit, which was something I thought the whole Tea Party thing claimed to be against (but then again that "movement" was supported by that top 2%...). So the lesson learned from the recent elections? Not a thing. The Bush tax cuts did nothing to create jobs or help the middle class for 10 years and yet Americans are truly stupid enough to think giving it another 10 will be different.

Fan-Made New Super Mario Bros 3
It takes a dedicated game to have created this game. It uses the New Super Mario Bros (DS) engine but completely re-creates it as homage to SMB3 from NES days with a lot of additional bells and whistles. If the trailer is any indication of the love, it is a shame that something like this will never be made legally by Nintendo. The video description has a link to the downloads but I don't know enough about ROMs and the like to play it.


Cat vs. Alligator
Interesting video of a cat showing two alligators who the boss is. Not really sure why it worked but I guess the alligator's confusion on what was attacking it made it back down.