Last chance to join us at our 3-day extravaganza this weekend in Southern California!

Meet the SKEYE Pico Drone, the smallest drone in the world

Some special elements are coming together in these final days leading up to the event that are just-- well, wonderful. And you should not miss them.

Starry Kitchen, the fun-loving pan-Asian pop-up restaurant darlings of social media, will be joining us at Boing Boing's Weekend of Wonder. Om nom nom!

Our friends at Plugable, maker of the super-cool 250X USB microscope I reviewed in July, are sponsors of our upcoming Weekend of Wonder. (Attendees will be very happy that they are.)

I just found out that Plugable's design intern made a 3d printed stand option for the USB microscope. He wrote a post about the project with links to the files on Thingiverse. Bob Boerner of of Plugable told me, "The short version is we wanted an option with something more stable than the goose-neck in the box that looks like the microscope stands of old. Since I saw that you were having fun with your Printrbot I thought you might want to give this a shot."

I'm looking forward to making it!

Register here to join us at Boing Boing's Weekend of Wonder!

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In the garden behind Tio's Tacos, the owner has created a phenomenal folk art installation.

Our Weekend of Wonder extravaganza in Riverside, CA is a just couple of weeks away! Attendees are going to be treated to all kinds of cool stuff, one of which is a signed, limited-edition print by the artist Coop.

Coop's art will be printed on panels of wood at Prints on Wood, where we will all get to see this unique printing process first hand when we have dinner there. Coop will be with us, signing prints as they come off the press.

We'd love to have you join us for Weekend of Wonder. Here's how to register.

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Comic Book Resources gives our new “extravaganza” a thumbs-up. Come join us for the fun Sep. 18-20, at Southern California's historic Mission Inn Hotel and Spa.

Artist Thomas Kuntz constructs fantastic animatronic mechanisms that recreate scenes from the best nightmares you've ever had.

Starting tomorrow the Oceanside Museum of Art plays host to Weekend of Wonder co-creator Baby Tattoo's Carnival of Astounding Art! Read the rest

The Weekend of Wonder will be held at Riverside, California's incredible Mission Inn. Often compared to the Winchester Mystery House, this amazing resort has everything a Happy Mutant could need, from engineering marvels to secret passageways! Read the rest

The editors of Boing Boing have always wanted to create an event where people can enjoy a weekend of wonderful, magical, mindblowing, inspiring experiences. Guess what? We're doing it, and you're invited.

Andrew Mayne's Name of the Devil is available from Amazon.

Andrew Mayne is a magician, author, and TV show host. He's also coming to our Weekend of Wonder (September 18-20) to teach us all how to escape from a straitjacket. Andrew just wrote an intense true story for The Life Sentence about the time he was seventeen and invited an adult man who was selling a used straitjacket to come to his house so Andrew could try it out and possibly buy it. His parents weren't home at the time, and when Andrew was strapped in and helpless, he had an "Oh shit" moment:

I was unaware of the “handcuff tricks” employed by Corll and Gacy when I was being strapped by a stranger into a straitjacket, a restraint that made me extremely vulnerable.

“This came from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital,” the man explained as he yanked on the leather buckles, cinching them tight around me. “That’s where John Hinkley, Jr., the guy who shot Reagan, is held.

“One more strap.” I couldn’t feel my arms. “They’ve got lots of serial killers there. You ever heard of William Minor?”

“No … Was he a killer?” I nervously asked while trying to see if there was any slack at all in the jacket.

“No. He helped write the dictionary while he was there. Ended up cutting his own dick off because he had bad thoughts about children.”

“Huh … ” I replied, attempting to slide one numb arm under the other.

“Can you get out?”

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We are thrilled to announce that our friend Coop, famous rock poster illustrator and fine artist, is joining us at our Weekend of Wonder extravaganza, September 18-20 in Riverside, California.

Cute pictures of cats are such a big part of what makes the internet great, to Boing Boing anyways, that we couldn't possibly put on the Weekend of Wonder with out "kittehs" being involved. Luckily for us, we happen to be friends with Perre DiCarlo!

Perre’s book Kick Litter won nine design and comedy awards and was featured in HOW’s Design Annual. At Weekend of Wonder, he’ll present his 9 steps to convince your cat to give up the litter box and use the potty instead.

We couldn't be more excited, the Weekend of Wonder is packed with incredible presentations, workshops and group activities! For three days Happy Mutants are taking over a fantastic resort we have already visited and fallen in love with. You will too. So come play with us!

Register here to join us at Boing Boing's Weekend of Wonder.

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Manipulating safe locks can be fun and profitable! It also takes practice. I recently bought a used safe combination dial lock and mounted it to a  piece of reclaimed wood. Mounting a dial lock involves threading the dial spline bolt through the combination wheels, and then hammering a soft, brass "spline key" into the spline's notch so that the dial will turn the wheels.

My lock came without a spline key, so I searched around the house for some brass to use. I found a spent bullet cartridge casing, and attacked it with a rotary tool cutoff wheel to get a sliver of brass.

After sanding off the rough edges, I folded it over to the proper thickness to fit snugly in the threaded spline.

One solid blow with a deadblow hammer, and the soft brass wedged in place. The dial now turns beautifully.

I'll be bringing this and some other cutaway locks to Boing Boing's Weekend of Wonder, where I'll be teaching lock picking workshops, so if you're attending, please come check it out. Read the rest

Andrew Mayne, star of A&E's Don't Trust Andrew Mayne and a guest at our upcoming Weekend of Wonder, is doing a Twitter Q&A today starting at 3PM EST. You can use the hashtag #AskAndrew, and ask him about his books, magic, and awesome monkey walking imitation.

See Andrew Mayne, magician, TV show star, novelist, and inventor, at Boing Boing's three-day extravaganza, the Weekend of Wonder, running Sept. 18-20. A weekend of workshops, tech demons and wild performances, there'll be plenty of fun surprises!

Interview with Andrew Mayne about his favorite tools on Cool Tools. Read the rest