Have you vomited uncontrollably and at such length as to leave you shaking and in tears lately? Try it! Amazon can help by shipping you vintage milk, "Used & New" from $45. (more…)

Women Who Draw is a directory of illustrators interested in accepting work. You can filter by location and minority status. It's well-designed, too, displaying a straightforward example of each artist's style in a lazyloading grid layout.Women Who Draw is an open directory of female* professional illustrators, artists and cartoonists who take freelance work. It was created by a group of women artists in an effort to increase the visibility of female illustrators, with an emphasis on female illustrators of color, LBTQ+, and other minority groups of female illustrators. We hope this directory will be used by publishers, art directors and editors to find less visible illustrators, and encourage them to work with these illustrators more frequently.The BBC's Vicky Baker reports on an enduring problem: why do certain high-paying gigs in illustration get consistently assigned to men, when so many top-flight illustrators are women?Ms MacNaughton and Ms Rothman, who are both successful illustrators, said they were motivated to create the project after noticing certain publications were dominated by male artists."We counted a certain magazine that often has illustrated covers, and noticed that in the past 55 covers, only four were by women," said Ms Rothman.Something seemed to be amiss, considering that the arts field within education is often dominated by women.In the UK, data from higher-education admissions service Ucas shows that in 2016 the number of women enrolled in design studies courses (including illustration) was more than double the number of men.

Television anchors on San Diego's CW6 were discussing how a young girl "accidentally" ordered a dollhouse and four pounds of cookies by talking to Amazon's Alexa when one of the anchors said "I love the little girl, saying ‘Alexa ordered me a dollhouse." Oops. From CW6 San Diego:As soon as (anchor Jim) Patton said that, viewers all over San Diego started complaining their echo devices had tried to order doll houses... Amazon says shopping settings can be managed via its Alexa app, including turning off voice purchasing and creating a confirmation code before any order.The company also says any “accidental” physical orders can be returned for free.

Oliver Schmidt led Volkswagen regulatory compliance office from 2014 to Mar 2015, and it was he who issued statements dismissing the initial West Virginia University reports of cheating in the emissions control systems of the company's cars, lying to US regulators and insisting that the systems were merely buggy, and not deliberately designed to get around emissions testing; after the company admitted to the fraud, he appeared before the British Parliament and insisted that the fraud didn't violate EU law. (more…)

A few months ago I was introduced to a magical, magnetic toy called the Feel Flux and the folks who invented it just sent their newest invention – the Feel Flux Skill Set.It’s the same toy as before except now, there are two tubes to play with – and since it’s a bit like juggling, the gravity-defying effect can be virtually endless.Each time you drop the metal ball through the tube you’d expect it to zip out the other end but instead, it lazily creeps from one end to the other and dribbles out into your waiting hand. [embed]https://youtu.be/eq9bpu3zArI[/embed] I can’t wait for the inevitable three-tube version to hit the market!

Many people are surprised to learn that George Miller directed both Mad Max and the animated penguin film Happy Feet. Maybe that's why they work so well combined in this trailer mashup by Nico Bellamy. (more…)

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Internet of Shit (@internetofshit) is at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, the annual festival of stuff not made by Apple. This year's big themes include drones and home automation, but there's an ocean of bizarre, obviously-nightmarish Internet of Things crapgadgetry. And they found all of it.Hot take: contraptions are what makes CES fun. When it's just this year's TV sets and spec-bumped laptops, CES is like staring in to the sun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYtg_C3ZxrAA followup from last month's warning that San Francisco's beloved DNA Lounge -- a legendary space for dance, conversation, pizza, counterculture, tech, and lulz -- may have to close: the proprietor, JWZ, is now accepting support and sponsorship through Patreon. (more…)

danah boyd writes, "Yesterday, a group of us at Data & Society put out six essays on 'media, technology, politics.' Takentogether, these pieces address different facets of the current publicconversation surrounding propaganda, hate speech, and the US election. Although we only allude to specifics, we have been witnessingmis/disinformation campaigns for quite some time as different networksseek to manipulate both old and new media, shape political discourse,and undermine trust in institutions and information intermediaries. Inshort, we are concerned about the rise of a new form of propaganda thatis networked, decentralized, and internet-savvy. We are also concernedabout the ongoing development of harassment techniques and gaslighting,the vulnerability of old and new media to propagate fear anddisinformation, and the various ways in which well-intendedinterventions get misappropriated. We believe that we'rewatching a systematic attack on democracy, equality, and freedom. Thereis no silver bullet to address the issues we're seeing. Instead,a healthy response is going to require engagement by many differentconstituencies. We see our role in this as to help inform and ground theconversation. These essays are our first attempt to address theinterwoven issues we're seeing. (more…)

Now that’s how you build a wall.

Instagram user Sarah shared this delightful video of her dad, adding: “This is what happens when you give your dad something he's wanted for about 8 years, but he always thought they made them just for kids. He was wrong... They make them for big kids too.”https://www.instagram.com/p/BH-mfPYgfRt/

J.Nathan Matias takes a clear-eyed look at The Real Name Fallacy, the belief that forcing users to communicate using real names will improve online conduct. In my experience, the biggest problems come on platforms like Twitter where it's a mix of real and pseudonymous users. (more…)

The Guggenheim has Sun Yuan & Peng Yu’s installation "Can’t Help Myself" on display through March. The robot arm monitors and attempts to contain a viscous blood-red liquid as it spreads out from the base of the arm, spattering more liquid around its enclosure. (more…)

I bought this adjustable thickness rolling pin for my mother last year and she told me it is excellent. I just bought one for our home, too. It's a long wooden rolling pin with removable discs of different diameters so you can make dough 1/16, 1/6, 1/4, or 3/8-inch thick. Or don't use any rings and roll bareback. It's $16 on Amazon.

Attention, fellow mad scientists and monster creators! It’s time to put down our scalpels and electrodes and move into the twenty-first century. We need to upgrade our bio laboratories, transforming them into modern mechanical/electrical engineering labs. Anybody can pump several thousand volts into a creature created from spare parts. But, it’s the modern robot that gives us true control over every tiny detail of our creations, right down to the 1’s and 0’s of their digital brains. Imagine the horror and chaos that we can unleash with an army of mass-produced metal-monsters . . . mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Papertoy Glowbots is a collection of forty-six robot designs by fifteen notable papertoy artists from around the globe including the author, Brian Castleforte. These robots glow, taking the previous book, Papertoy Monsters, a step further. Some have glow-in-the-dark stickers while others require the use of glow sticks, night-lights, or battery-operated tea light candles. One way or another, they have the ability to light up in some fashion.Every robot is printed on both sides, so the finished toy has colorful graphics inside and out. Pieces are perforated for easy punch-out, and they are pre-scored for easy folding. Even the slots are pre-cut for easy assembly (no dangerous craft knives to contend with). Construction difficulties range from easy to advanced, and is recommended for everyone nine years or older, but my seven-year-old nephew gets a kick out of them too.The book contains a variety of robots ranging from cyborgs to fully autonomous metal bots and mechanical horrors driven by living beings. Some are extraterrestrial in nature, and each one has its own back story for added fun. Choosing your next robot to build can be hard, but worth it in the end.The really fun part is seeing your finished creations glow! Here’s a pro tip from one mad scientist to another: use a black light to make the glow-in-the-dark stickers spark and sizzle with intense light. It’s awesome!Papertoy Glowbotscontains hours of tinkering fun at home, at school, or on the go. And, you don’t have to raid your father’s tool box or take apart the toaster looking for spare parts. The only tool you’ll need is glue.Papertoy Glowbots: 46 Glowing Robots You Can Make Yourself! by Brian CastleforteWorkman Publishing Company2016, 196 pages, 8.4 x 0.7 x 11 inches, Paperback$19 Buy one on AmazonSee sample pages from this book at Wink.

From Flashbak:Računari was a computer magazine of the former Yugoslavia which lasted from 1984 until the late 1990s – surviving the economic turbulence and wars of the 1980s-90s, and even outlasting the country itself. The title simply means “computers” – and its content was just that: very bland, very technical, nothing flashy… but its covers were another matter entirely.Despite the very low-key tech content, the guys at Računari decided to put some spice on just about every cover. Nearly every issue featured a ravishing Eastern Bloc Beauty straddling computer hardware. Let’s have a look at some of these covers spanning the late 1980s and into the early 1990s. Enjoy.

Reporting from the bustling Chicago Board of Trade, Scott Cohn relays news about the strengh of Japanese Yen futures. Then a wild dick appears. [via]

Cynics will argue that Trump's followers don't care if he's lying, but they assuredly care if he's lying about the stuff they're hoping he'll do (otherwise there'd be no trumpgrets); what's more, there's no hope of having a US politics based on rationality and reality if we stop paying attention to facts -- otherwise, we're surrendering to the "we create our own reality" army. (more…)

Qongqothwane is a cover of a famous Xhosa click song performed at weddings. In it, you can hear click consonants found in two language groups in southern Africa. Here's a nice overview. (more…)

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Although Hillary Clinton was the first female presidential nominee of a major party in the entirety of U.S. history, I keep seeing the suggestion that gender wound up playing no role in the 2016 election. The evidence cited for such a claim usually includes the fact that more white women voted for Donald Trump than for Hillary Clinton. But in a fantastic piece for Vox called “Why misogyny won”, Emily Crockett takes a detailed look at the ways in which both men and women can be influenced by sexism.Crockett writes:To understand how sexism played into Trump’s victory, first you have to understand that there are two basic types of sexism—“hostile” and “benevolent”—and how they work together.If you have some “hostile” sexist attitudes, you might mistrust women’s motives and see gender relations as a zero-sum battle between male and female dominance. You might agree with statements like, “Many women get a kick out of teasing men by seeming sexually available and then refusing male advances,” or “Most women interpret innocent remarks or acts as being sexist.”If you have some “benevolent” sexist attitudes, you might endorse positive—but still patronizing—stereotypes of women. You might agree with statements like, “Women should be cherished and protected by men,” or “Women, compared to men, tend to have a superior moral sensibility.”Crockett notes that while the two ideas might seem “diametrically opposed to one another,” they are actually “two sides of the same coin” and many people hold both at once. For instance a man can wear a “Trump That Bitch” shirt while also proudly announcing how much he cherishes his wife and daughter. The system operates by elevating “good” women, who fulfill traditional gender roles, against “bad” women, who don't. And women are just as capable of buying into this line of thinking as men.Crockett explains:“Trump's strategy was to ramp up anxiety about a dark, dangerous world,” [Peter Glick, professor of psychology and social sciences at Lawrence University] said. “When women are under threat, their benevolent sexism scores go up.” Specifically, he said, showing women survey data about men’s hostile sexism makes women more likely to endorse benevolent sexism out of psychological self-defense. It may be ironic to turn to men for protection from male hostility, but it’s how the cycle works. This also helps explain why so many women hold sexist biases against women, Glick said. If women themselves enforce gender norms and punish deviants, it reinforces the social order that guarantees them protection. And it separates them from the “bad” women who are deemed unworthy of that protection. But that protection can still come with a cost, Glick said—which is also where sexist stereotypes about men factor in. The idea that men have to be providers and protectors, Glick said, goes hand in hand with the “boys will be boys” attitude that’s often used to excuse men’s bad behavior. “Men are bad but bold. That’s the stereotype,” Glick said. “He’s not a very good protector if he can't beat up on other men.”Glick said that Trump’s more positive masculine traits — boldness, change, willingness to defy tradition — may be seen as inextricably linked with his more negative ones, like his boorishness and cruelty. Trump may not be a nice guy, the thinking goes, and we may not like some of the things he says. But that just comes with the territory if you want a strong male leader.Crockett’s piece goes much more in-depth on the issue and is a must-read in its entirety. You can find the full article on Vox. And you can find more of my thoughts on how sexism shaped Clinton's public persona right here.

CineFix makes their arbitrary choice of the best movie end credits in five different styles. Along the way, it's a pretty good survey of the history and styles of end credits. Lots of honorable mentions, though a few good ones inevitably got left out. (more…)

Flow state, the harmony of action and awareness (i.e. focusing), can seem impossible to achieve these days. From texts to social media, staying on-task can be difficult. Fortunately, the founders of Brain.fm found a solution for being more productive in the form of AI-generated music.Putting on headphones to shut out the world is a common tactic for focusing, but sometimes podcasts and music can have the opposite effect. Brain.fm acts like a radio station that you tune to your desired state-of-mind, be it sleeping, mindful meditation, or intense study. Their AI composer creates music in real-time that is specifically tailored to get you in the zone in less than fifteen minutes.Whether designing, coding, or writing, Brain.fm will help you lock into your creative groove with music. Take pleasure in your work with a lifetime of access to Brain.fm for only $39, a limited-time discount of over $160 off its normal price.

Whenever a new presidential administration takes office, there’s a surge of gossip in the space exploration community about what the new president’s ambitions will mean for NASA. More funding to study climate change? Additional robotic exploration of the solar system? Renewed interest in manned spaceflight? A manned trip to Mars? A return trip to the Moon? Many people speculate that there’s even a “red/blue” dynamic to space exploration — that Republicans tend to like the idea of returning mankind to the Moon, while Democrats prefer pushing on to an asteroid, or perhaps even Mars. Much of this is really a false dichotomy, based almost entirely on very recent history. In 2004 President George W. Bush announced that the United States would retire the space shuttle program in favor of building Apollo-style capsules and launch vehicles that would return human beings to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972, with the idea of setting up a permanent manned colony. President Barack Obama, shortly after taking office, scrapped Bush’s plan to return the Moon in favor of going first to an asteroid and eventually Mars in the 2030s, using the same Apollo-inspired spacecraft. Space exploration, particularly of the manned variety, has never really been a red/blue thing. It has always been more a mingling of genuine scientific inquiry, national pride and a desire to maintain American dominance in advanced technology and scientific research. NASA was founded in 1958 under a Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, with the goal of overtaking the Soviets in space technology and establishing a human presence on the Moon. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, declared that the United States would put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade. Lyndon B. Johnson, Kennedy’s Democratic successor, insured NASA had all the necessary funding to make sure that would happen. And all of the Apollo lunar landings occurred between 1969 and 1972, which Republican Richard Nixon was president. Since that time, however, manned spaceflight has been confined to low-earth orbit (LEO). The space shuttle — one of the most complex machines ever designed — never left this relatively close area of space. And the International Space Station — the largest manmade object ever built in space — also maintains its presence in orbit around the Earth. The exploration of our solar system by human beings, therefore, has not been a priority of presidents, Republican or Democrat, in almost 45 years. In writing our sci-fi thriller Ocean of Storms, my coauthor, Jeremy K. Brown, and I gave an impetus for humanity to return to the Moon: something cataclysmic happens on the lunar surface that compels us to send astronauts back, to understand what had occurred. Naturally, neither Jeremy nor I want a global threat to occur just so manned space exploration becomes a priority once again. But it’s important to bear in mind that we human beings tend to need an existential threat to get us to come together and do something extraordinary: think of the Allied response to the aggression of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan during World War II or of all of the Soviet successes in spaceflight that marshaled American efforts to put Neil Armstrong’s boot print on the lunar surface. Space enthusiasts like ourselves, scientists, engineers and researchers may clamor all we want for the human exploration of our solar system, but the only thing that will likely move the needle in the direction of making manned space exploration a U.S. priority again is a perceived threat to American dominance. That threat may well come from China. Since 2003, when China put Yang Liwei, its first taikonaut into orbit, the Chinese government has funded a vigorous space exploration program. In 2013 the Chinese Space Agency landed Chang’e 3, a robotic lander and rover, on the surface of the Moon, the first such object to soft land on the lunar surface since the Soviet Union’s Luna 24 did in 1976. The Chinese have planned a robotic lunar sample return mission for 2017. A Chinese manned lunar mission is expected to occur as early as 2025 — just eight years from now, or about as long as it took from JFK’s declaration to the first Apollo lunar landing in July 1969. Any incoming presidential administration should sit up and take notice of China’s successful manned space program, especially in light of the current state of ours. While there have been American astronauts on the International Space Station since its inception, they have not flown there on a U.S. space vehicle since 2011 — when the last space shuttle was decommissioned. Since that time, the United States has paid for seats to fly our astronauts to the space station aboard Russian Soyuz spacecrafts. The U.S.’s next-generation spacecraft, Orion, is not expected to fly with a crew aboard until 2021 — ten years after the shuttle fleet was decommissioned. (Private companies, like SpaceX, are also developing manned space vehicles but are also years from test flights.) As Americans, Jeremy and I believe one of the best ways to ensure our country’s competitive edge in technological innovation is through a robust space program. As human beings, we want to ensure the long-term survival of our race, and the only way to do that is to grow the human presence in space, in colonies across the solar system. And as fathers both, we want our kids to understand that anything is possible — and there’s no better way to show them that than to point to the Moon or Mars and say: “Once upon a time, no one lived there. And now we do.” Christopher Mari was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and was educated at Fordham University. He has edited books on a wide variety of topics, including three on space exploration. His writing has appeared in such magazines as America, Current Biography, Issues and Controversies, and US Catholic. His next novel, The Beachhead, will be published by 47North in 2017. He lives with his family in Queens, New York.

From KQED’s Film School Shorts, "a forlorn/funny Frankenstein style tale called Timmy II, directed/written/starring a Pakistani-American filmmaker named Imran J. Khan."Timmy II is a comedy about a robot struggling to find acceptance in the human world. But when he’s given a Pakistani face on the same day as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he learns that fitting in isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRPfudNNd8YInhabitat's video explaining the "burrito" method for getting a duvet into its cover is both excruciatingly slow in places, and also fantastically baffling: how the actual fuck does this topological exercise work? (via Kottke)

https://youtu.be/LGPrDMkzioII Killed Einstein, Gentlemen is a 1969 Czechoslovak science fiction comedy film directed by Oldřich Lipský. Wikipedia says "it became known for the scene showing the first selfie stick."Here's the full movie. The opening seconds probably raised some eyebrows at the time:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QFboY7MKx4

China has adopted stringent new anti-money-laundering rules that will make it nearly impossible for small investors -- for example, middle-class families who pool their savings -- to get their money out of the country in order to buy condos in Canada's superheated property market (not just Canada, of course!). (more…)

Ten years later, BBC News presents one of its funniest mistakes.It's 10 years since Guy Goma became a celebrity after he was mistaken for an internet expert and interviewed on BBC News TV.The unemployed computer technician had been at the BBC for a job interview. But the graduate from the Congo gained worldwide attention after a mix-up saw him interviewed on air instead of Guy Kewney

Last August, ZTE used Kickstarter to poll internet users for their wish-lists for an Android handset, and now they're taking pre-orders for Hawkeye, a $200 phone whose interface is controlled by gaze-tracking using the front-facing camera, and whose case will allow users to stick the phone to various surfaces for easy use. (more…)

The Russian Bank Deposit Insurance Agency has demanded repayment by French National Front leader Marine Le Pen -- daughter of open neo-Nazi and party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen -- of €9m borrowed from the First Czech-Russian Bank, which is now defunct. (more…)

Draw a line between the two boxes labeled 1. Draw another line between the boxes labeled 2. Draw a third line between the boxes labeled 3. The lines can't intersect. The lines can't go through, along, or outside any of the boxes or the rectangle enclosing them. There's nothing tricky or disappointing about the solution. (Here's the solution.)

Remember when Donald Trump tweeted that there would be no cuts to "Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid?" So does Bernie Sanders, and he wants us all to bear this in mind as the Republic Congress prepares to gut all three. (more…)

There's really nothing not to love about vertical farms -- multi-story hydroponic operations, usually sited in dense urban areas -- they borrow their best tech from the space program, they're water-conserving, they don't have runoff, they're energy efficient, and they're super land-efficient, meaning we don't need to turn forests or wetlands into fields. (more…)

On January 2, YouTuber Chas Pope captured a noxious cloud of Beijing smog rolling toward his building.I made this earlier today - a bank of AQI400+ smog arriving in Beijing within the space of 20 minutes. It's already gone viral on the Chinese internet, let's see what happens internationally...Luckily, Beijing subways have the answer: your own anti-smog rebreather!• Beijing Airpocalypse Arrival (YouTube / Chas Pope)

In The Value of a Vote: Malapportionment inComparative Perspective, published in the British Journal of Political Science, two scholars from the University of Minnesota Department of Political Science document more than 20 industrial democracies where the votes of rural citizens -- who skew older and more conservative than their urban counterparts -- carry more weight than city-dwellers' votes. (more…)

A thread on 4chan's trollish /pol/ board has organized trumpist white-supremacist/alt-right types to find unlicensed venues and spaces and narc them out to city authorities in a bid to shut them down, because they serve as "open hotbeds of liberal radicalism and degeneracy...These places hold Black Lives Matter meetings. These places plan protests that disrupt our cities. These places illegally house our enemies." (more…)

Nerdcore Medical and Tabletop Whale created this handy and informative graphic of all the important concepts in immunology. It's part of a series of one-pagers on topics of interest to medical students and the terminally curious layperson. (more…)

The housing recovery has been famously uneven, in every way: for one thing, it's allowed hedge-fund and publicly listed landlords to acquire a greater proportion of America's housing stock than ever, even as mass foreclosures created a new class of desperate tenants who pay rent to these corporate giants, who charge higher rents than ever. (more…)

This week's Judge John Hodgman podcast is a live show recorded in Brooklyn, with guest music from the Pitch Blak Brass Band, whose music was so fantastically good that I immediately purchased their debut album, You See Us, and I am listening to it right now and loving it. (more…)

The start of a new year is a great time for reorganizing, and in this new video Elle Walker of What’s Up Moms offers five helpful tips for getting rid of counter clutter. As someone who just spent the day organizing her closets, I can personally attest to the therapeutic power of a good decluttering.

As Cassian Andor in Rogue One, Mexican actor Diego Luna decided to use his natural accent rather than adopt an American or British one. And that fact was particularly meaningful for one fan and her Mexican father. Tumblr user riveralwaysknew wrote a touching post about her father, which Luna himself shared on Twitter, noting, “I got emotional reading this!”https://twitter.com/diegoluna_/status/816479341588709377The post reads:I took my father to see Rogue One today. I’ve wanted to take him for a while. I wanted my Mexican father, with his thick Mexican accent, to experience what it was like to see a hero in a blockbuster film, speak the way he does. And although I wasn’t sure if it was going to resonate with him, I took him anyway. When Diego Luna’s character came on screen and started speaking, my dad nudged me and said, “he has a heavy accent.” I was like, “Yup.” When the film was over and we were walking to the car, he turns to me and says, “did you notice that he had an accent?” And I said, “Yeah dad, just like yours.” Then my dad asked me if the film had made a lot of money. I told him it was the second highest grossing film of 2016 despite it only being out for 18 days in 2016 (since new year just came around). He then asked me if people liked the film, I told him that it had a huge following online and great reviews. He then asked me why Diego Luna hadn’t changed his accent and I told him that Diego has openly talked about keeping his accent and how proud he is of it. And my dad was silent for a while and then he said, “And he was a main character.” And I said, “He was.” And my dad was so happy. As we drove home he started telling me about other Mexican actors that he thinks should be in movies in America. Representation matters.Riveralwaysknew also posted a follow-up video where she told her dad about Luna's response:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e8GzAPdiS0[via The Huffington Post]

YouTuber 8booth runs a stunt channel where he's known for barely making jumps off cliffs and balconies into water. He almost killed himself over the summer with a cliff jump into Morro Bay. His luck ran out at a Laguna Beach motel. Videos below. (more…)

Designing for the web requires a mix of high-level planning, detailed mockups, and coding skills. Since such a variety of tools and skills are needed, knowing where to start can be overwhelming. This comprehensive Web Design bundle aims to demystify the process.Adobe Photoshop is a massive application with countless capabilities, this bundle starts off with a web-centric approach to using it. You'll then learn to craft elegant user interface elements and transform them into working prototypes with tools like JQuery UI and Bootstrap. You'll even study a range of design patterns employed by successful websites and mobile apps.Aside from learning the techniques of responsive design, this course bundle will prepare you for fast-paced commercial work by detailing rapid iteration methods and offering profitable freelance advice. For a limited time, pay what you want for this Learn to Web Design 2017 course bundle. Act now to lock in your low price for this brand new 2017 package worth over $1200.

Four parts hemp hurd, one part lime binder, and one part water is all you need to make hempcrete, a durable building material similar to pressboard or adobe. Just fill up the form with hempcrete, tamp it down, and once it's set, you're set! (more…)

My friend Kevin Mack (who did the Special Effects for Fight Club and many other movies) created a VR art experience called Blortasia for the HTC Vive. Here's a preview.​Fly freely through a surreal maze of evolving sculptures. Take a break from reality and explore an animated psychedelic sculpture park. Wander through the labyrinth, soar across the open space, or just hang out and let the mesmerizing ever-changing sculptures provide a rejuvenating refuge for your mind. Blortasia combines art and flying in virtual reality.

I posted this on Make: yesterday, but thought it was too good not to share here. A gamer named David Henning is in a gaming group and they exchanged gifts this past Christmas. Dave wanted to do something really special for his recipient, their new Dungeon Master, so he made him this amazing castle-themed DM screen. Not only does it act as a screen to hide the DM's dice rolls and campaign info, but it also includes a built-in dice tower, a lit dice display area, a place to mount quick reference material, a place to store non-playing characters (NPCs), and holders for pencils, erasers, and sharpeners.The screen was made almost entirely of foamboard (three 2' x 2' pieces) with all of the stonework made by drawing on the bricks and then using a foam cutter to burn in the mortar lines. The bricks were distressed with a ball of aluminum foil and a hobby knife. Popsicle sticks were used to create the wooden doors and hatches. The whole thing was primed black and then painted and drybrushed with lighter hues of gray up to white (with some green wash thrown in to add a hint of organic funk).More pics and information about the build can be found on Make:. I found out about Dave's project on the highly-recommend Facebook group, DM Scotty's Crafts N' Games (closed group, ask to join), a great place to find D&D-related terrain and accessory builds, miniature painting show n' tell, and gaming-related craft projects.

m0nster0 posted this 3mm-thick slice of a Seymchan pallasite meteorite to Reddit. He says its "one of my favorite bits of space rock." I can't argue with that! He bought it on eBay from this guy, who sells some stunning specimens.