… Lawyer-turned-LEGO® Sculptor, Sci-Fi Writers Help Homeland Security, Lucy and Ricky and Ford, and MORE!

In celebration of National Donut Day today, which is celebrated annually on the first Friday of every June, participating Krispy Kreme stores throughout the United States are offering customers a free doughnut of their choice, according to a corporate press release.

National Doughnut Day was established in 1938 by the Chicago Salvation Army to raise much-needed funds during the Great Depression and to honor the work of WWI Salvation Army volunteers who prepared doughnuts for thousands of soldiers.

We at IMT would NEVER encourage taking advantage of such a sweet offer by stopping at every Krispy Kreme you pass today (Dooooo it — it’s free doughnuts!).

Green Finger
Dear IMT readers, we hope your index fingers are well-rested, because now all it takes to “go green” in your home is the press of a button.

This concept “off” button is a simple, very cool design by Jack Godfrey Wood. Upon pressing the button, which you place at the door of your house, it will turn off all your non-essential electricity users. So rather than making sure all of the lights, appliances and domestic gadgets are turned off, this House-Off Switch can do it all with a simple push.

Credit: Yanko Design, via Gizmodo

So You Had Better Do as You are Told/You Better Listen to the Radio
When New Scientist magazine and Audi teamed up to offer a contest with the first prize a free ride into space, 2,500 people entered.

By choosing the “best invention of all time” and presenting the most imaginative arguments in favor of it, Ian Anderson won a seat on a pioneering Xerus rocket plane, according to BBC News.

Anderson explained how the radio “had opened up new scientific horizons to transform the world. Radio was a catalyst for some of the biggest technological advances in the 20th Century, including television, radar, mobile phones and hospital scanners,” BBC reports.

The 32-year-old British data analyst will have to wait until 2009 to join the ranks of astronauts and multi-millionaire businessmen flying 62 miles above earth, according to ThisIsLondon.co.uk.

Runner-up inventions included the steam engine, the camera, oral rehydration salts, Internet search engines, the silicon chip and, of course, the tin can.

Paper-thin, Bendable TV Screen
In the race for super-thin displays for TVs, cell phones and electronic toys, Sony Corp. recently announced a new 2.5-inch display. In the video below, a hand squeezes a display that is 0.01 inch (or 0.3 millimeter) thick.

While flat-panel TVs are getting slimmer seemingly weekly, a display that is so thin it bends in a human hand must mark a breakthrough. Right?

Homeland Security Enlists Aid from Sci-Fi Writers
Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is tapping into the wild imaginations of a group of science-fiction writers.

The writers brought in — Jerry Pournelle, Arlan Andrews, Greg Bear, Larry Niven and Sage Walker — make up a group called Sigma, put together 15 years ago to advise government officials, USA Today recently explained. The group’s motto is “Science Fiction in the National Interest,” and to join the group, you must have at least one technical doctorate degree.

The group last gathered in the late 1990s, when members met with government scientists to discuss what a post-nuclear age might look like, until last month when the government brought the writers to Washington to attend a Homeland Security conference on science and technology.

“The 9/11 Commission called the 2001 terrorist attacks a result of the government’s ‘failure of imagination.’ For this group, there’s no such thing as an ‘unthinkable scenario,’” said Walker.

I wonder why Tom Clancy is missing from the list of authors involved. In his novel “Debt of Honor” — published seven years prior to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks — a Boeing 747 is used as a cruise missile to take out the U.S. Capitol building.

One Less Lawyer in the World, One More LEGO Artist
Nathan Sawaya left a career as a lawyer in 2004 to become a LEGO® artist. He’s doing pretty well at it, too.

“Currently my pieces are selling for up to tens of thousands of dollars, so the future looks bright,” the LEGO art sculptor recently said in an interview with CNN.

In addition to creating a functioning industrial air conditioner (that produces “a slight breeze”) from LEGO bricks, Sawaya was commissioned to build a permanent work of art for the New Orleans Public Library that would focus on the rebuilding of post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. As part of the project, thousands of drawings by children from across the country were collected in which the children were asked to draw what they thought would be important for the rebuilding of the city. Sawaya then interpreted these drawings to create the sculpture.

Click image for larger view.
Credit: BrickArtist.com

And now people can get a closer look. Sawaya’s national touring exhibit, “The Art of the Brick,” is making the rounds. The collection was viewed by tens of thousands at the Lancaster Museum of Art in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Its next stop, on June 15, is the Discovery Center Museum in Rockford, Ill., where it will stay until September 3.

Speaking of LEGOs…
Lego Star Wars II made it into MSNBC’s “Top 5 Games to Play with Your Kids” feature.

Rain, severe showers and thunderstorms are expected to roll across almost every region of the U.S. very soon. Which means you may want to put off those summer picnics (Do people still picnic?) for a few days. While you’re staying indoors, consider this:

Video games can be so much more than a “babysitter” for your kids while you do the dishes. They’re a great opportunity for you to interact with your kids, to start conversations and strengthen bonds.

In addition to Lego Star Wars II, other games that “appeal to both kids and adults” are:

• Wii Sports, a series of games in which you can play golf, baseball or boxing. Plus using the two-piece controller makes it exercise in addition to a video game.

• Dance Dance Revolution is also exercise, as you’ll dance on a giant mat in time with the music and with the graphics on the screen. It’s simple to learn, and the various games in the Dance Dance Revolution franchise are full of songs in different musical genres.

• Mario Party “brings board games into the 21st century,” as you still roll dice to see how many moves you can take around the board, but now the dice are virtual, and “the route you have to take changes during game play.”

• Cars, based on the Disney/Pixar animated film, uses all the same voice actors so the kids feel like they’re playing the movie. But really they’re playing a NASCAR-like racing game. And “unlike harder, button-heavy simulator-style games,” this game’s simplistic controls should allow kids to have no trouble learning how to play.

Lucy Finally Gets to ‘Be in the Show’
In one of IMT’s posts yesterday, it was noted that perhaps Ford Motor Co.’s “expected slight increase in sales” could be chalked up in part to “some well-placed ads and product placements during FOX’s ‘American Idol’ show, which regularly draws tens of millions of viewers on a weekly basis.”

After some time wasting on YouTube deep-digging, hard-hitting journalistic research, we discovered that Ford has tapped into the zeitgeist of unexplainably wildly popular TV programming in its strategy for at least half a century. And this revelation came in the form of… Lucy and Ricky, in the following vintage 1950s commercial for Ford’s retractable hardtop:

Cheers.