How to turn a plastic bag into a jellyfish

Instructions for turning a water bottle and a plastic bag into a jellyfish. Via.

How to make a Mechanical Iris Greeting Card

Instructions for making a Mechanical Iris Greeting Card. Via.

Link roundup

1. How to create a snow globe that looks like your own home. Via.

2. How to fix Android's GPS.

3. "Parasitic flies turn bees into zombies before wiping them out completely."

*Buy snowglobes at eBay.

Link roundup

1. "The 30 most important cats of 2011."

2. "A masterly crafted catalog of the 100 most unusual happenings from the year 2011" part 2.

3. How to print and bind your own book.

London Underground Map made out of drinking straws

London Underground Map made out of drinking straws by Kyle Bean, who has various prints on sale here.

How to make a Golden Snitch ornament

Instructions for making a Golden Snitch Christmas ornament.

*Buy Hallmark Christmas Ornaments at Amazon.

Link roundup

(I don't know if my starred items are going to survive the upcoming changes to Google Reader, so I'm slowly clearing them out and posting the best ones.)


The winner of Gizmodo's holiday card contest 2010.




Hamster-powered walker. Via.




Mirror monster comes to life practical joke. Via these sites.




Beyonce surprises a middle school class and dances with the kids. Via these sites.




Lioness stalks baby at zoo. Via these fine sites.

Link roundup

1. Some people take Jurassic Park very seriously.

2. Provocative theory about the cause of early onset of puberty.

3. Jetpackage Project:

Back at the beginning of Summer, I started a project called 'jetpackage'. I was sat in my office one day and I was severely lacking in inspiration, so I looked around me at all the objects I have collected over the years and it got me thinking about how I am inspired. My office is full of collectable items that I have gleaned from car boot sales, flea markets and charity shops, whenever I am feeling uninspired I look at them and it spurs me on.

So I thought "What if a package came through the post, containing these things?" - what would they inspire me to create.

I have got a LONG list of designers, illustrators, artists, creatives that I would like to work with, and who inspire me with my work, so I decided to see how they would react to one of these packages.

4. "Parasite Turns Wasps Into Outsider Zombie Queens."

*Buy Mondo's Jurassic Park posters at eBay.

Link roundup

1. Watch a Laika artist turn a cereal box into a tree.

2. After reading this, I was intrigued as to the new interactive features in Disney stores. They actually sound a lot better than they look.

3. Now bankers jobs are being outsourced.

How to make Captain America's shield out of duct tape and cardboard

Here's an Instructable showing how to make Captain America's shield out of duct tape and cardboard. It's one of several custom made shields made from odds and ends.

Link roundup

1. Doktor A. posted his sculptures from this weekend's show at Oh No Doom.

2. Pretty cool science experiment - - heating paperclips to learn about swordmaking.

3. M.S. Corley posted a preview of the latest issue of Dark Horse's The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde.

Link roundup

1. If you like scholarly analysis of comic books, then you should definitely check out Andrew Hickey's multi-part analysis of Grant Morrison's excellent Seven Soldiers of Victory. For example, here's a provocative theory:

The question of abiogenesis has never properly been resolved – we know that at some point a set of non-self-replicating molecules became a self-replicating molecule, from which all further life on earth evolved (at least all the evidence points to life having only arisen once on the planet, though it’s possible this happened multiple times). One of the neatest hypotheses that I’ve heard was one from the chemist Graham Cairns-Smith. He pointed out that clay has two interesting properties. The first is that it’s made of crystals – which grow in consistent shapes. If you break a crystal, but allow it to continue growing, you get two crystals with the same basic pattern.

The second is that silica – which clay is made of – is a catalyst for all sorts of interesting chemical reactions.

Now, the first of these things means that natural selection, of a sort, will act on clay – different shaped crystals will be more or less likely to be destroyed by weather conditions, and the ones less likely to be destroyed will be able to reproduce. Some of these shapes will also be conducive to the creation of some molecules than others. But those molecules cold, in turn, make it easier for clay to form the shapes which make it most likely for them to appear. Suddenly, those molecules are helping the clay ‘reproduce’, and so the clay which produces those molecules is being selected for. And the molecules themselves are being selected for – increasingly complex molecules that can produce increasingly stable clay formations, and play an increasingly important part in reproduction.

Until one day one of those molecules becomes so complex, and plays such an important part in the reproductive process, that it breaks away from the clay and carries on reproducing itself without any clay at all. The clay gets left behind, as organic matter goes on to become ever-better at reproducing itself, and the clay just stays clay. The pattern has moved from one substrate to another, and transcended its origins.

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

2. How to make a hedge maze area rug. Via.

3. Amazon is giving away $2 in music credit. (Here's my recent music recommendations.)

Link roundup

1. How to create "cinemagraphs" (animated gifs that look like photos with subtle movement). Via.

2. Big Sister maquette. (Bioshock 2.)

3. Sounds like this former AOL worker has quite an axe to grind, but read this if you're jealous of professional bloggers.

Link roundup

1. "Remember, when signing up for things with your email address, put the name of the company as your name so that you know who is leaking your email to spammers." More tips about spam here.

2. How to make a foam and posterboard mortar board graduation hat for kids.

3. "The Walt Disney Co.’s Imagineering research division, which develops new technologies for the company’s theme parks, is planning to open a small lab in East Cambridge next month, 11 years after Disney shuttered its last such facility in the city."

*Buy Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind the Dreams Look at Making More Magic Real at Amazon.

Portal 2 images/spoilers

The ARG seems to be a bit of a dud unless there's a true surprise waiting, but the game's tremendous. It has a strong feel of Bioshock, if Bioshock had a sense of humor (I hope someone puts together a video highlighting the dialog). Here's a few signs and other moments from Portal 2.


Safety first.


Test warning.


Repulsion gel.


Press to open.


In case of implosion, look directly at implosion. (Because implosions are awesome.)


GLaDOS emergency shutdown and cake dispensary.



Potatoes actually play a fairly large role in the game. Is it too late to make my son's science project a potato battery?

*Portal 2 is $35 at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. There's a Thor version of Angry Birds that you can play in your browser.

2. Here's a fun series of experiments to do with your kids over spring break - - use homemade play dough as squishy circuits and light up LEDs and spinning motors.

3. Last Exit to Nowhere is giving away 10 t-shirts.

Link roundup

1. Zero Punctuation reviews (and hates, really hates) Pokemon: White.

2. "This instructable will show you how to build a Legend of Zelda Treasure chest that makes the iconic treasure chest sound when you open it." Via.

3. New paintings by Kristin Tercek.

*Buy Legend of Zelda toys at eBay.

Link roundup

1. How to make a battery out of pennies. Via.

2. MSNBC:

The Los Angeles City Attorney's office is trying a new legal maneuver to try to stamp out graffiti — it's charging 10 graffiti writers with violating unfair competition laws because they're selling works on the strength of reputations built on vandalism.
Assistant City Attorney Anne Tremblay says these graffiti writers — all associated with the MTA tagging crew — have an unfair advantage over legitimate artists because they gained notoriety through crime.

Via.

3. WebMD:

Electronic faucets may be touch-free, but they are far from germ-free. In a new study, researchers at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine report finding higher levels of disease-carrying bacteria on hands-free faucets compared to conventional, manually operated faucets.

Via these sites.

*Buy chemistry sets at Amazon.

Make a Chewbacca sock puppet

i09 posted a few pages from the Star Wars Craft Book, including these instructions for making a Chewbacca sock puppet. You can preorder the book for $11 at Amazon.

Fun doodle games (taught at high speed)

It's awfully fun watching Vi Hart draw snakes and other complicated doodles. (And somehow it's related to math.) Via.

*Buy coloring boks at Amazon.