James Salsman sez, "I've been working for decades on a free speech recognition-based game to teach English reading and pronunciation, and this year it is going to happen, thanks to… Read the rest of the article: Kickstart a free reading and pronunciation game

A Chinese property developer called Minmetals Land Inc secretly built a copy of a picturesque Austrian village called Hallstatt, building it in Guangdong province, the white-hot center of the Chinese… Read the rest of the article: Picturesque Austrian town secretly cloned in China

For $150, Etsy seller Nerdalertdesigns will whip you up one of her clever, furry Ewok/Wookiee dresses (you wear it with the bandolier for Wookiee, with a cute hat for Ewok).… Read the rest of the article: Ewok/wookiee dresses made to order

The Art of Manliness makes a good case for carrying tampons in your camping/survival kit, with ten woodlands uses for them, ranging from sterile field dressing to kindling to blowgun-dart… Read the rest of the article: Why you should keep a tampon or two in your survival kit

In a series called Hagiographies, an Italian artist called Igor Scalisi Palminteri reinterprets the pantheon of saints by repainting religious statuettes as superheroes. They're really very well done. Igor Scalisi… Read the rest of the article: Religious statues in superhero costumes

Mashup virtuoso djBC sez, "Here's a new mashup album- and it's legal. I merged the concious raps of Boston MC Moe Pope with the soulful 'Fluent In Stroll' record from… Read the rest of the article: Moe Pope mashed with Big D and the Kids Table

PES, a very talented animation director, shows how you can make guacamole out of hand grenades, casino dice, and Monopoly houses. Imaginative, well-executed, and genuinely funny stuff. SHORT stories :… Read the rest of the article: HOWTO make hand-grenade guacamole

This video from Herrenknecht AG shows the operation of the enormous tunnel boring machine that will conduct the deep tunnelling for San Francisco's new subway lines. The machine obviates the… Read the rest of the article: Exciting boring video

Michael sez, Loved your piece about the Trinity graphic novel this morning, and thought you might find this interesting. MuckRock has published the FBI files of noted physicist, esteemed author… Read the rest of the article: Feynman's FBI files

An anonymous AP story tells the life story of Kim Phuc, the "napalm girl" seen running naked down a village road in Nick Ut's 40-year-old Pulitzer-winning photo. Phuc went on… Read the rest of the article: Napalm girl's life and times

Glen Goon Trevithick, a friend of Geekologie, had a highly detailed full-back Garbage Pail Kids inked. It's quite a piece. Garbage Pail Kids (via Geekologie)

Michael Geist sez, The IFPI, the global recording industry association, recently released its Recording Industry in Numbers 2012, which provides detailed sales data from countries around the world. Years ago,… Read the rest of the article: Lobbynomics refuted: "Pirate Canada" actually a world leader in digital music sales

As part of the celebration for the 75th birthday of the Golden Gate Bridge, a group of artists led by Stephanie Syjuco have set up an imaginary gift shop for… Read the rest of the article: Imaginary orange gift-shop for the Golden Gate bridge

I wrote a piece for MIT's Technology Review on the way that Internet privacy works, and the deficiency of our tools — browsers, phones — in protecting it: Even if… Read the rest of the article: Internet privacy: a hard bargain

Louis Theroux, who produced a documentary on the US porn industry 15 years ago, has revisited the industry, and found it in severe decline. The proliferation of free Internet porn… Read the rest of the article: Internet killing porn

Google believes that it can distinguish run-of-the-mill hack-attacks on Gmail accounts from state-sponsored spies trying to gain access to dissidents' email. When it detects the latter, it will display a… Read the rest of the article: Google now warning people whose Gmail has been targetted by suspected state-sponsored spies

Ray Bradbury is dead. He was 91 years old. He wrote some of the most inspiring and beautiful stories I've ever read. He fought for libraries. He changed my life… Read the rest of the article: RIP, Ray Bradbury

Avi sez, "Michael Hutter makes (and generously shares) his re-imagining of searing Bosch-like art." These are amazing — instant clicktrance. Kunstkrake – Painting – Purgatorium (Thanks, Avi!)

Jonathan Fetter-Vorm's Trinity is a nonfiction book-length comic for adults about the birth of nuclear weapons. It covers the wartime events that spawned the idea of a nuclear weapons program,… Read the rest of the article: Trinity: the birth of nuclear weapons in graphic novel form

The town of Dull, Scotland has become a sister community with the Oregon town of Boring. They have joined forces to promote their inherent interestingness. Alexandra Topping writes in The… Read the rest of the article: Dull town and Boring town find common cause