KALQ is a keyboard layout designed to replace QWERTY for thumb typing on a tablet. The creators of KALQ say that eight hours of use will train you to be able to enter text faster than you would be able to with a QWERTY layout. Android users can install it for free. Leo Kent of Humans Invent has more.

Weird Wheels was a Topps trading card series issued in 1980, with art by Norm Saunders (of Mars Attacks! fame) and Gary Hallgren. The delightful Karswell has scans of the entire series.

Weird Wheels

It's 185 feet below the surface of Lewis NY, and comes with "Strangelove-ian clocks that show the time in cities around the world and gun-metal gray consoles covered with analog switches and dials for you to flip and turn while making blastoff noises with your mouth." You also get 8 acres with a "waterfront view." Asking price: $750,000.

Live in the Launch Control Center of this Cold War Missile Silo

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PBS Digital Studios has launched a biweekly series called Under H2O, and the first episode is called "The Intertidal." It's only five minutes long, and well worth watching.

‘The Intertidal’ features rare underwater footage of a part of the marine world that often goes unexplored by scientists and cameramen alike: the intertidal. In this episode, Dr. Musburger and his team take cameras underwater as they sneak into this largely unexplored habitat during the short window of time when the tide is out and tide pools are accessible. With unmatched wave energy, temperature fluctuations, and salinity changes, only the hardiest plans and animals survive.

A gimmick lens from my favorite purveyors of craptastic plastic, Brando. It attaches to a smartphone camera lens so you can take photos at a 90-degree angle just like Weegee did!

(Image from photo.net)

Excellent for Your Spy Activities in taking pictures & video!

Snippet from a book proposal by fraudulent journalist Jonah Lehrer:

"I feel the shiver of a voice mail message. I listen to the message. I have been found out. I puke into a recycling bin. And then I start to cry. Why was I crying? I had been caught in a lie, a desperate attempt to conceal my mistakes. And now it was clear that, within 24 hours, my fall would begin. I would lose my job and my reputation. My private shame would become public."

Simon & Schuster bought the book.

From the New York Times: “Jonah Lehrer is an unusually talented writer,” Jonathan Karp, the publisher of Simon & Schuster, said in an e-mail Thursday night. “We believe in second chances.”

I hope it will be as good as The Hoax, Clifford Irving's thrilling memoir about writing a fake biography of Howard Hughes and almost getting away with it.

A Fallen New Yorker Writer Signs With Simon & Schuster

Apps for Kids is Boing Boing's podcast about cool smartphone apps for kids and parents. My co-host is my 10-year-old daughter, Jane.

In this episode of Apps for Kids, we talk about Kingdom Rush Frontiers for the iPhone (and iPad)

If you're an app developer and would like to have Jane and me try one of your apps for possible review, email a redeem code to appsforkids@boingboing.net.

Listen to past episodes of Apps for Kids here.

To get a weekly email to notify you when a new episode of Apps for Kids is up, sign up here.

RSS | iTunes | Download this episode | Stitcher

The Grey Lady at her best: regurgitating Harry Anslinger's press releases in 1927. (Via The World's Best Ever)

Quarterly.co is a subscription service for wonderful things. People can subscribe to a curator (such as me, Joel Johnson, Veronica Belmont, Tim Ferriss, Joshua Foer, Gretchen Rubin, and others) to receive a box of items selected by the curator.

In my most recent mailing (MLF03), I sent my subscribers a fungal infection. From my letter:

Before you call a hazardous waste team to dispose of it, though, read what what Chandler Burr, author of the fascinating book, The Emperor of Scent, has to say about the odor of oudh:

It's a drop-dead smell, very complex, honey, fresh tobacco, spices, amber, cream. ... Incredibly strong, first of all. It knocks you over, clubs you like a falling stone. But its vast dimension is what astonishes: a huge smell, spatially immense, and incredibly complex, a buttery layer as deep as a quarry…

Oudh grows inside a particular species of evergreen tree in south Asia. When the fungus attacks the tree, its wood becomes dark and resinous. Oudh is arguably the most-highly prized ingredient for perfume makers and a pound can cost as much as $25,000 (making it over six time more costly than high-grade medical cannabis).

Below, more photos from my mailing.