What a pleasant thing to see in my feeds; I’m doing my PhD and live at Trinity and this is my library (both as academic library and indeed as former employer).

The Death Star reference is a popular one – indeed I recall a video for a political campaign making that joke in a particularly funny way.

The sculpture is Sfera con sfera by Arnaldo Pomodoro. I used a very nice shot of it as the theme/logo for a website I designed last year (explained here; in fact, I have a small collection of set that I’ve taken of others in the series from around the world (so far, I have Washington, New York and Rome).

The sphere used to rotate freely, in fact. Over time that has changed and we had a particularly amusing sight last year when engineers tried to get it moving again (with the help of a crane – I believe the base has become clogged). It didn’t work, but I’m sure new efforts will be made.

Within sight of this piece, incidentally, we have a lovely work by Alexander Calder (you can see it, with the Pomodoro in the background, in this snowy shot). Certainly can contribute to the sci-fi theme…

As a final bonus link, here’s a close-up of Pomodoro’s work: http://www.tcd.ie/iss/avms/photocentre/gallery/m73.jpg