Time for another tutorial! I made this lineup of baby monsters for my Basic Amigurumi class at The Knitting Nest. I think they’re a pretty good beginner project because it teaches how to start crochet in the round, how to single crochet, how to increase, and basic construction and customization of amigurumi — via CRAFTYisCOOL
Hiné Mizushima created this wonderful Squid Hat costume for Halloween 2011 using a cheap knit hat, thick felt, an Amu-amu Pokemon
toy and yarn — via Laughing Squid
Vértice Arquitectos designed this house in Cerro Azul, Peru — via CONTEMPORIST
The calm, industrious mood inside Double Fine Production’s office masks the elation that erupted into champagne-splashed toasts earlier this month.
The San Francisco-based video games developer is making history by bankrolling its next title using only crowdsourced cash.
Within 24 hours of seeking pledges over the internet it had bagged more than $1m (£630m), overshooting its initial target of $400,000. By the campaign’s end it had reeled in a total of $3.4m from more than 87,000 supporters for its point-and-click adventure game.
The studio’s founder, Tim Schafer, is legendary in gaming circles for titles including Psychonauts and Brutal Legend, but he had still found it hard work to secure funds through traditional means. So the idea of going direct to his fans had obvious appeal.
It felt great because it was like getting validation for a project at the beginning instead of the end,
he told the BBC — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Police pulled a man over on Route 29 in Silver Spring last week because of a problem with his plates. This would not ordinarily make international news, but the car was a black Lamborghini, the license plate was the Batman symbol, and the driver was Batman, dressed head-to-toe in full superhero regalia.
HOLY MOVING VIOLATION!
It didn’t take long before images of the Dark Knight’s encounter with law enforcement began turning up in Facebook news feeds, on CNN and the London tabloids. The episode even made it into Jimmy Fallon’s monologue on NBC earlier this week.
Jokers emerged instantaneously too. Let him do his job,
one commenter urged on the Post Web site. Batman has expensive taste,
noted another. Meanwhile, questions about Batman’s identity mounted: Did they make him take off his mask? someone asked.
No, they did not. Even Montgomery County police honour a superhero code of conduct, just like the Howard County officers who once helped him with a flat bat tire. Batman told officers his real name was not Bruce Wayne but Lenny B Robinson, and that his real tags were in the car. (He was not ticketed then, but has been before for a heavy bat foot.)
The Caped Crusader is a businessman from Baltimore County who visits sick children in hospitals, handing out Batman paraphernalia to up-and-coming superheros who first need to beat cancer and other wretched diseases.
I actually know Batman. His parents are dear friends of my wife’s family, and I see him at holiday dinners where my 4-year-old son believes he is the real-life Bruce Wayne. Daddy, he’s Batman, too,
my son will whisper to me. Though Batman has long been aware that I’m a journalist, he has never suggested I write about him. He does not crave publicity. Like his comic book namesake, he doesn’t seek credit for what he does — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Children of sperm and egg donors who donated anonymously before 1988 should have the right to know the identity of their biological parents, a Victorian parliamentary committee has recommended.
But doctors warned the proposal could jeopardise patient confidentiality and breach the privacy of donors previously guaranteed anonymity — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The Chicago Zoological Society, which manages Brookfield Zoo, is happy to announce its newest addition, and a first for the zoo: a Black-footed Cat born on 14 February — via ZooBorns
Intensive research around the world has focused on improving the performance of solar photovoltaic cells and bringing down their cost. But very little attention has been paid to the best ways of arranging those cells, which are typically placed flat on a rooftop or other surface, or sometimes attached to motorized structures that keep the cells pointed toward the sun as it crosses the sky.
Now, a team of MIT researchers has come up with a very different approach: building cubes or towers that extend the solar cells upward in three-dimensional configurations. Amazingly, the results from the structures they’ve tested show power output ranging from double to more than 20 times that of fixed flat panels with the same base area — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Giant Squid Triptych is a set of 3, 13 x 19 prints. Add a fresh pop of colour to your little one’s nautical nursery or room décor with this detailed silhouette of Giant Squid — via Etsy
Looking for something crafty to make during a rainy weekend? Why not rev up an old stuffed animal into your very own Backpack Buddy — via MAKE
Simon and Pixel, my two wonderful kitties, are convinced that my worktable is the very best spot for napping. So, to give them a comfy place where they can still be close, yet well out of harm’s way, I designed this simple, compact 3-in-1 cat bed for my desk. Even my furry snobs — who prefer cardboard boxes and freshly washed laundry to plush cushions any day — couldn’t wait to snuggle in. Now, several days out, I can happily report that the kitties are still in love with their new bed, and I couldn’t be more pleased — via The Zen of Making
The building’s geometry [CMA] mediates between the neighbouring structures. A white, L-shaped volume — containing the bedrooms on the upper floor — hovers over the U-shaped living area on the ground floor. The basement is extensively inscribed into the slope and contains the guest- and the Wellness/SPA-area — via ArchDaily
The Labor Government is tightening up Australian law in areas that will have a direct impact on organisations such as WikiLeaks. Only the Greens are challenging the new bills in parliament, and they are receiving scant media attention.
There’s a new extradition law that will make it easier for foreign governments to request extradition of Australians and a new spying law that broadens ASIO’s reach, which has been dubbed the WikiLeaks Amendment.
And finally there’s a bill that will make it easier to retain digital data for Australians, and easier also to pass that information to overseas law enforcement agencies. Senator Scott Ludlam, the Greens’ spokesperson for communications, told New Matilda that the Attorney-General wants all digital records for all people for all time to be trapped and recorded so that intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, and welfare agencies can mine the data.
The new extradition law contains elements that make it easier for foreign governments to request that people be extradited from Australia. The new federal law also enables people to be prosecuted in Australia for alleged crimes overseas — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A skin-like plastic that bleeds
when cut or scratched and then heals has been developed by scientists.
The material could provide self-healing surfaces for a multitude of products ranging from mobile phones and laptops to cars, say researchers — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Reintroducing predators such as dingoes and tasmanian devils into landscapes may help protect Australia’s diminishing biodiversity, researchers say.
A new paper to be published in the May edition of Trends in Ecology and Evolution suggests dingoes and tasmanian devils could control invasive species, such as cats and foxes, as well as over-abundant herbivores.
We need to be quite bold and allow predators back into the landscape and see if they can reverse some of the damage we’ve done,
said Dr Euan Ritchie, ecologist at Deakin University in Melbourne and lead author of the paper — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Belfast Zoo’s recent baby boom has continued with the birth of Marjorie, the Malayan Tapir. Marjorie was born on 4 March to parents Gladys and Elmer.
Zoo Curator Andrew Hope said, Malayan tapirs are a beautiful but slightly unusual looking species. They are related to horses and rhinoceroses. The adults have a distinctive coat pattern and are black on the front and white on the back. However, when the calves are born they have beige spotted and striped markings, which make them look incredibly like ‘watermelons on legs’. Marjorie will begin to lose her markings after a few months. When she is six months old, she will look like a miniature adult! — via ZooBorns
Under a new law, doctors in Pennsylvania can access information about chemicals used in natural gas extraction — but they won’t be able to share it with their patients. A provision buried in a law passed last month is drawing scrutiny from the public health and environmental community, who argue that it will “gag” doctors who want to raise concerns related to oil and gas extraction with the people they treat and the general public — via redwolf.newsvine.com
52 years after a Rolex watch accompanied the Trieste on its historic descent to 10,916 metres in the Mariana trench, National Geographic explorer-in-residence James Cameron, on board the Deepsea Challenger, prepares to go even deeper. This time again, a Rolex watch, the Rolex Deepsea Challenge, is part of the expedition; watch that’s rated to 12,000 metres — via Perpetuelle
Long before squid ink became a hot ingredient in modern cuisine, being shaped into mousses and foams and adorning baby sea scallops, the drunkards of the world knew the culinary value of this commodity. Except they just called it whiskey
— via Etsy
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