Thumbtack Press, which sells art prints of contemporary artists has been sold to a new owner and redesigned. They do great quality work and sell a bunch of my art. Check out all the great work on the site!

Mark's art on Thumbtack Press

Josh Klein — the fellow who trained crows to collect quarters and wrote an article for MAKE on how to toilet train your cat — and Bill Jensen wrote a new book called Hacking Work — an "instruction manual for getting your work done faster, more efficiently, and with more fun no matter what your company manual says." — Read the rest

Spots Unknown has a short film about John Mola and his relationship with North Beach, an Italian neighborhood in San Francisco. He talks a little about the way Chinatown businesses have moved into some of the old Italian owned businesses. (I thought it was ironic that the T-shirt Mola wears while talking about this trend appears to have Chinese on it!) — Read the rest

Ben Cosgrove of LIFE says: "Our gallery of unpublished photos of the Hells Angels from 1965, along with the incredible story of the writer and photographer who worked on the original article (which was unceremoniously spiked by the editors of LIFE) is now live." — Read the rest

David sez, "Maker Faire UK (Newcastle) is coming back for its third year. Over 150 Makers came earlier this year to show their creations. We had everything from arachnid robots, lollipop pies, mechanical horses and musical Tesla coils.

This year we are looking for more creative makers, talented tinkerers, nifty knitters, boffin bakers, hardware hackers and ingenious engineers. — Read the rest

Leaf-carving is one of those art-forms that looks like something cool the wacky kids at Adafruit Industries decided to try on their laser-cutter, but is actually painstakingly hand-crafted with clever little knives. Unfortunately, most of the subject matter seems to be somewhere on the kitsch scale between sheet-cake inkjet printing and airbrush van-art. — Read the rest

Anil Dash hits one so far out of the park it attains orbit in this response to a silly Malcolm Gladwell column that decried Internet activism as incapable of achieving meaningful change. It's all must-read stuff, but here's the bit that made me want to stand up and salute:

Today, Dale Dougherty and the dozens of others who have led Maker Faire, and the culture of "making", are in front of a
movement of millions who are proactive about challenging the constrictions that law and corporations are trying to place on how they communicate, create and live.

Hold this thing in your hand, aim it at a fast, moving object and it instantly gives you the speed of that object — either coming or going. Not only big objects like cars, but little ones like golf balls, too. — Read the rest

An update on a story blogged earlier here on Boing Boing by Beschizza. BB reader Alex says,

A judge in Harford County, MD, threw out felony charges against motorcyclist Anthony Graber for taping a policeman who stopped him using a helmet-mounted camera.

[ Image: Common Langur, a CC-licensed photo by Art G. ]

Authorities in Delhi have sought assistance from langur monkeys (a rather large species) to keep other animal pests away from the athletic venues at India's Commonwealth Games. This is no joke: wildlife in the area including other monkeys, dogs, and snakes, have caused big headaches for the beleaguered organizers of the sporting event, which critics say is rather a big mess. — Read the rest

I gave a talk at the MIMA Summit in Minneapolis today. The event has been a lot of fun, and included some creepy-weird cool science about "neuromarketing," and presentations by @garyvee and @baratunde. My presentation was, in large part, about Boing Boing. — Read the rest

Molly from Rocketboom came to Maker Faire 2010. Here's her report.

  Molly Goes to the Maker Faire — Read the rest

ThinkGeek is offering this fun Star Trek Enterprise pizza cutter. It's all-metal and features a 4" steel blade.

Look at these entrancing photos by Carl Kleiner's for Ikea's new cookbook, Hembakat är Bäst (Homemade Is Best).

Carl Kleiner's photography (Via Animal New York)

Rob Cockerham of Cockeyed.com created the "incredibly depressing Mega Millions Lottery simulator." He says, "You'll be able to try the same numbers over and over, simulating playing twice a week for a year or 10. You'll never win."

In the 191,904 times this simulation has run, players have won $19,126.

The following started out as an announcement of a new partnership between between Boing Boing and Cool Tools, which was founded by my friend Kevin Kelly. It turned out to be a much longer story about the origin of Boing Boing, Kevin's important role in it, and why it is only natural that we are going to start running Cool Tools reviews on Boing Boing. — Read the rest

Shoes are bad for you. Thus sayeth the science. A study published in the journal Foot entitled "Shod Versus Unshod: The Emergence of Forefoot Pathology in Modern Humans?" concluded that Zulus, who often go barefoot, have healthier feet than shoe-wearing Europeans. — Read the rest

Podcast sf doyenne Mur Lafferty has recently launched her latest novel/podcast serial: "Marco and the Red Granny." It's part of a larger cycle of stories about Mollywood that I had the real pleasure of workshopping with Mur at the Viable Paradise workshop some years ago. — Read the rest

Titan books has published a new collection of Joe Simon & Jack Kirby golden age comic book stories called Simon & Kirby Superheroes, which features an introduction by Neil Gaiman. Titan Publishing has kindly allowed us to present a complete story from the book. — Read the rest

Mark Racop works out of a shop in small-town Indiana, turning out incredibly accurate, driveable 1966 Batmobile replicas. The bodies are modified castings from an old Futura and all the fittings and parts are functional and styled to match the prop Batmobile from the series (you can also buy these individual fittings — "Bat Parts" — for your modern car). — Read the rest