Handknit in a silky purple, this shiny octopus seems to have slithered up from the deep to perch upon your head — via Etsy
Four original crochet amigurumi patterns: Octopus, Squid, Cuttlefish and Nautilus — the complete Baby Cephalopods collection by June Gilbank. These mini amigurumi take only 25-30m of yarn apiece, and work up quickly with minimal finishing, as they only have 2-3 pieces each — via Etsy
Paul Eppling is a St Petersburg sculptor, well known in Florida for his metallic animals. According to blogger Mark Ruffner, Paul Eppling was working in a metal shop in the 1970s when he first had the idea to fabricate an animal from metal parts and scraps. Since then he’s welded hundreds of animals, big and small
— via What The Wig?
These fabulous aubergine (eggplant) colour dragon, dinosaur or monster fingerless mittens will fit a medium female adult hand and are made from 75% wool, 15% mohair, 5% alpaca, 5% silk. They were designed and handmade in the tropical north of Australia and are ready to ship — via Etsy
On the fourth floor of an office building on Northbourne Avenue, in what passes for Canberra’s CBD, is an outpost of a much talked-about company that has so far gone under the radar in Australia. It is, however, unlikely that many Australians have avoided the company’s forensic gaze.
Palantir Technologies was established in 2002 by a clutch of US information analysts to explore the potential of datamining tools developed for Paypal. The CIA was a foundation investor, providing $2 million, and for several years its only customer. However, unusually for a company that has become a key vendor to the US military-industrial complex, its senior ranks are almost entirely men (and they’re pretty much all men) with Silicon Valley-style IT or financial backgrounds; the revolving door to the US military and foreign policy establishments that typifies most defence and intelligence companies doesn’t appear to be in full operation (yet).
Palantir does datamining, and does it very, very well. So well, in fact, that the US government and major companies have hungrily devoured its data search tools (for an account of what exactly its products can do, try this). As we’ve since learnt courtesy of Edward Snowden, agencies like the NSA are compiling vast amounts of personal information on most of the planet’s internet users. Palantir’s products help agencies effectively search through huge amounts of different information and collate them with other agencies’ data. It has rapidly become a key player in the establishment of the US surveillance state and a poster boy for what smart people and lots of computing power can do to strip away privacy and garner intelligence down to the individual level. And it has rapidly become an attractive investment: two weeks ago the company, now estimated to be worth $8 billion, announced it had raised nearly $200 million in capital.
And behind a unicorns-and-rainbows façade (Palantir is a Lord of the Rings reference; its California headquarters is called the Shire
) is a ruthless player in cybersecurity. In 2011, as Crikey reported at the time, the company joined with Berico Technologies and HBGary Federal to develop a multi-million dollar plant to disrupt WikiLeaks and discredit journalist Glenn Greenwald. The plan, only revealed when Anonymous hacked into the IT system of HBGary Federal’s Aaron Barr, involved proposals to feed false information to WikiLeaks, break into its servers and wage a media campaign against it and Greenwald — via redwolf.newsvine.com
This black ceramic mug with white interior has a hand painted pink octopus with wiggly tentacled arms and a wide staring eye — via Etsy
This must be the most cringe-inducing interview by a senior journalist I’ve ever seen.
It’s conducted by Kirsty Wark, one of the BBC’s top presenters, and takes places on Newsnight, the BBC’s flagship nightly current affairs programme.
It truly makes me more ashamed of the profession
of journalism than I already was — and I didn’t think that was possible.
Throughout the interview, Wark abandons even the pretence of doing what journalism is supposed to be about: interrogating the centres of power and holding them to account.
Instead Wark mimics adversarial journalism by interrogating the US journalist Glenn Greenwald about his role in the NSA leaks, as though she’s a novice MI5 recruit. To do this she has to parrot British government misinformation and fire at him questions so childish even she seems to realise half way through them how embarrassing they are — via redwolf.newsvine.com
One of Australia’s most notorious standover men and self-confessed hit-man Mark Chopper
Read has died.
The 58-year-old had been diagnosed with liver cancer last year.
Read claimed to have killed 19 men, but he was never convicted of a single murder.
Following a hard upbringing in Melbourne, Read was a ward of the state by his early teens.
He turned to a life of crime, stealing from drug dealers, and later kidnapping and assaulting criminals who had outstanding debts.
In 1987 he shot and killed a man outside a St Kilda nightclub but was acquitted on the grounds of self-defence.
Read spent nearly half his life in jail but made efforts to rehabilitate after he was released from a Tasmanian prison in the 1990s.
He became a household name in Australia after the eponymous film Chopper, starring Eric Bana, became a cult hit — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Photo: Patrick Rivere / Getty Images
Yesterday, Fort Worth Zoo in Texas announced the birth of the zoo’s newest resident: a female Jaguar cub. The healthy cub, named Sasha, was born 16 July and weighed 0.9 kg. Sasha immediately began nursing and bonding with 4-year-old mother Xochi (zo-she). Xochi is a very protective mother; after giving birth, she cared for her cub in a private, off-exhibit area, mimicking natural Jaguar behaviour in the wild — via ZooBorns
AERO-1946 is a studio in Cologne, Germany. For six years, its two craftsmen have made household and workshop furniture pieces inspired by 1940s-era aviation. It often incorporates vintage remains of planes into the work.
The craftsmen made this lovely upright cabinet using the door of a Siebel Si 204, a German military and civilian transport in production from during World War II. The door sat in the basement of a home in eastern Germany for 70 years. AERO-1946 rebuilt it and fixed it into a shiny new cabinet body. The entire project took about 600 hours of work — via Neatorama
A number of early episodes of Doctor Who, which were believed to have been permanently lost, have been returned to the BBC.
BBC Worldwide is expected to confirm the find at a press screening in London later this week.
It follows weeks of speculation that some lost episodes had been located.
A total of 106 episodes featuring the first two actors to play the Doctor, William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton, are currently missing.
The BBC destroyed many of the sci-fi drama’s original transmission tapes in the 1960s and 1970s.
However, the majority of the episodes had been transferred on to film for foreign broadcasters. It is often these prints found in other countries that are the source of retrieved episodes — via redwolf.newsvine.com
On 7 June, Snow Leopards Dinah and Valo became the parents of three cubs at Germany’s Zoo Magdeburg — via ZooBorns
Kukula — via fuck yeah octopus
Guillermo del Toro creates the Couch Gag for this years Treehouse of Horror episode — via Youtube
What do you get when you put Applejack and Pinkie Pie in one automaton? I’m not really sure myself, but it certainly looks like a lot of fun! WOOOOO!!! Both ponies, stand, apples, balloons and trophy body are carved from Philippine mahogany. The gears and trophy figurehead are made of Narra hardwood. The figures are hand painted with enamel and protected with clear flat lacquer. Both ponies stand at 5″ and the whole piece measures 8 1/2″ long, 5″ wide, and 7 3/4″ high. It took 124 hours to make — via Youtube
There’s a Jaguarundi cub at Zoo Praha. The little male, born on 1 September, is perfectly cared for by his mother, Amálka. Over the past few days, the month-old cub has left the delivery kennel and started to explore his indoor habitat. He has also started to eat a little meat in addition to nursing — via ZooBorns
Think your fun-loving nature ought to only be reserved for a growing collection of graphic tees? Think again! These softly knit socks offer a quick dash of quirk to your looks in an unexpected way! Atop the black, cotton blend of these crew socks float colourful octopods swimming amidst sea stars and bubbles! Slip ‘em on under slightly rolled skinnies and lovely loafers for an instant addition of whimsy to your weekend looks! — via ModCloth
Trametes Versicolor, originally uploaded by Red Wolf
Behold the Mother of All Swiss Army Knives, a multi-tool created by John S Holler in Germany around 1880. The knife actually pre-dates the Swiss Army Knife, which started production about a decade later in 1890.
The knife has 100 functions, including every types of blades imaginable. It has a serrated blade, dagger blades, shears and scissors, an auger, a corkscrew, saws, a lancet, button hook, cigar cutter, pens and pencils, mirror, and straight razor. You can even use this tool to tune a piano, as it has a piano tuner built in. Hungry? It’s got a butter knife so you can butter your toast.
But that’s not all: This is a knife you can actually bring to a gunfight. It has a fully functioning .22 calibre five-shot pin-fire revolver. And as if that ain’t enough, the tortoise shell handle covers of the knife open up to hold picks, tools, and even mini folding knives — via Neatorama
Photo: Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, Kenneth E Behring Centre. Catalogue Number 1986.0101.03
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