If you couldn't afford to pay $6000 for the "art edition" of Mark Ryden's book Pinxit (it's sold out anyway), Taschen has thoughtfully introduced a popular-priced edition of the 366-page book, for $1000.
Many books have been published on Mark Ryden before, but none like this large-format monograph, released in a boxed Collector’s Edition of 1,000 numbered copies, each signed by the artist; and also available in an Art Edition of only 50 copies, which come with an artwork. This sweeping retrospective brings together nearly two decade’s worth of Mark Ryden’s paintings and works on paper, broadening the horizons of his uncanny universe and bringing it to the world, one big page at a time.
Collector's Edition – No. 51–1,050
Limited to 1,000 individually numbered copies, each signed by Mark Ryden
Printed on archival-quality paper
Quarter-bound book with leather spine
Front cover features gold-relief embossing crafted by the master printers at Pressure Printing
Comes in a clamshell box covered in cloth fabric
Also available in an Art Edition of 50 copies with a silk screen print
Apps for Kids is Boing Boing's podcast about cool smartphone apps for kids and parents. My co-host is my 8-year-old daughter, Jane Frauenfelder.
In this week's episode In Jane and I talk about two games. One is called Windosill and the other one is called Feed the Head. Both are made by Vectorpark, and are available both as desktop games and on the iPad. Feed the Head is available in an iPhone version as well.
If you're an app developer and would like to have Jane and I try one of your apps for possible review, email a redeem code to appsforkids@boingboing.net.
To get a weekly email to notify you when a new episode of Apps for Kids is up, sign up here.
My daughter Jane told me she wanted to build something "electronic," and luckily, I had a sample of the Solder: Time kit. It looked like a fun thing to make, and it turned to be so.
It's a large digital wristwatch and the $35 kit (available in Maker Shed) contains everything you need except the tools (a soldering iron and wire cutters).
Jane is 8 years old and I decided to do all the soldering, but she enjoyed loading the printed circuit board with components.
Pril, a brand of dish soap in Germany, had an online competition to create and vote for art to run on the label. The winning art is just so-so, but a few of the runners-up (shown here) are great.
In our Hall of Fame, we present a small selection of very creative, beautiful, sophisticated and witty designs, which have unfortunately not made it into the trade, but the jury greatly admired, appreciated and rewarded are! Thanks to all the creative designers - just phenomenal, which have arisen for design!
Gweek is a weekly podcast where the editors and friends of Boing Boing talk about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff.
My hosts on episode 40 are are cartoonist Ruben Bolling, whose comic, Tom the Dancing Bug premieres weekly on Boing Boing, and Dean Putney, Boing Boing’s coding and development wizard. Our guest this week is two-time Eisner Award winning cartoonist Derf Backderf, creator of the amazing comic The City, which has been running in alternative weekly newspapers for 22 years. He’s the author of the graphic novel Punk Rock and Trailer Parks, which was selected for The Best American Comics 2010. He’s got a new autobiographical graphic novel out about his high-school friendship with the infamous serial murder and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, called My Friend Dahmer. Robert Crumb, who rarely gives endorsements for anyone or anything, says My Friend Dahmer is a “well-told, powerful story. Backderf is quite skilled in using comics to tell this tale of a truly weird and sinister 1970s adolescent world.”
Below is a list of the things we talked about in Gweek episode 40. (Sure, you could just click on the links below to learn about them without listening to the podcast, but then you will miss out on our discussion about whether or not Terry Richardson owns more than one flannel shirt.)
Most of this episode of Gweek is a fascinating discussion with Derf about his high school pal Jeffrey Dahmer, and Derf's new graphic novel My Friend Dahmer.
Dean turned us on to Maddie on Things, a blog of photos of a coonhound named Maddie who likes to stand on things that dogs don't normally stand on. What will Maddie stand on next?
Mark likes Comic Viewer, an iPad app for reading digital comics.
And once you've installed Comic Viewer, head over to The Big Blog of Kids' Comics! and fill your iPad with mid-century four-color wonder.
Ruben likes Sugar & Spike comics so much that he's willing to pay $59.99 for this archive edition. But who can blame him? This is one of the best kids' comics of all time!
The Toon Treasury of Classic Children's Comics, edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly is a massive anthology of old comic book stories for kids, and is a big hit around Mark's house. The oversize format and 350 pages make for a delightful reading experience.
I'm so happy that lots of old comic book stories that otherwise would have been forgotten are being reprinted in fat, inexpensive anthologies like this one: The Golden Treasury of Krazy Kool Klassic Kids' Komics, edited by Craig Yoe. My daughter and I are having a wonderful time reading these funny and deeply weird children's comic book stories from the 1940s and 1950s, featuring art by some of the tops names in the field: Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Carl Barks, Walt Kelly, Frank Frazetta, Wally Wood, and other cartoon giants. At 304 pages, we'll get many nights of entertainment out of this collection.
Western Sky Loans boasts that it's "not a Payday Loan!" Whatever it is, a 116.73% APR on a $5,075 loan seems a bit steep. After 84 monthly payments you'll have spent $40,872.72 paying it back.
Tim O'Reilly tweeted: "Quantified self for caffeine addicts -- IOS app to optimize intake. (Didn't know half-life in body was 5 hours!)"
Two doctors at Penn State University have developed Caffeine Zone, a free iOS app that tells you the perfect time to take a coffee break to maintain an optimal amount of caffeine in your blood — and, perhaps more importantly, it also tells you when to stop drinking tea and coffee, so that caffeine doesn’t interrupt your sleep.
More fun from the self-loathing society: This American Life had a show about how young female undercover cops infiltrated a high school and flirted with boys to entrap them into selling pot, so they could charge them with felonies and destroy their lives at an early age.
Last year in three high schools in Florida, several undercover police officers posed as students. The undercover cops went to classes, became Facebook friends and flirted with the other students. One 18-year-old honor student named Justin fell in love with an attractive 25-year-old undercover cop after spending weeks sharing stories about their lives, texting and flirting with each other.
One day she asked Justin if he smoked pot. Even though he didn't smoke marijuana, the love-struck teen promised to help find some for her. Every couple of days she would text him asking if he had the marijuana. Finally, Justin was able to get it to her. She tried to give him $25 for the marijuana and he said he didn't want the money -- he got it for her as a present.
A short while later, the police did a big sweep and arrest 31 students -- including Justin. Almost all were charged with selling a small amount of marijuana to the undercover cops. Now Justin has a felony hanging over his head.
For people who still think it's important to shower with soap, this is neat: a piggybacking soap bar system. When the bar of soap becomes a sliver, you just stick it into the hollow part of a new bar of Stack soap.
Gever Tulley, co-founder of the Brightworks K-12 school, says:
The whine and growl of high-performance electric motors, the smell of ionized air, the squeal of rubber on pavement, the roar of the crowd and the thrill of the checkered flag -- this is the inaugural Grand Prix de la Mayonnaise!
Imagine a shipping crate: smaller than a refrigerator and larger than a microwave. This is the Super Parts Kit -- it contains all the tools and parts to construct a two, three, or four-wheeled vehicle large enough to carry an adult. Every team receives the exact same parts, but what they choose to do with those parts will determine the outcome of the race. Teams, from companies around the Bay Area, will spend all day Saturday, March 17, building hybrid electric/human-power vehicles of their own design. On Sunday, March 18, the street in front of Brightworks will be closed and transformed into a street track in the Grand Prix racing tradition.
Join Brightworks, the Bay Area’s newest alternative K-12 school, for the most exciting DIY racing event of the year. Music, food, and exciting up-close street-side viewing -- fun for the whole family!
Virginia Prescott of New Hampshire Public Radio interviewed me today about the Apps for Kids podcast that my daughter Jane and I do each week.
With developers pumping out an estimated 2,000 applications daily for use on smart-phones and tablets, reviewers and web-critics are keeping busy sorting out what’s worth downloading, and what’s worth squat.
While some app-surfers could be overwhelmed by the chaos of the digital marketplace, Mark Frauenfelder saw a job opportunity for his adorable 8-year old-daughter, Jane. Together, they co-host Apps for kids, an app-review podcast for both kids and parents. Mark is the founder of Boing Boing, where you can hear the podcast.
Expensive, yes, but I heard the public schools in the area are very good. It's 35,000 square feet and includes a a three-bedroom caretaker's house.
It was part of the divorce settlement between Texas billionaire David Saperstein and his wife Suzanne. In 2008, David abandoned his wife for their 32-year-old Swedish nanny and now Suzanne is sharing the mansion with her 33-year-old former soccer playing boyfriend until it is sold.
Do you want to add a more "human element" to your next project? The Pulse Sensor, available in the Maker Shed, measures subtle changes in light from expansion of the capillary blood vessels to sense your heartbeat. Gently place the sensor on any area of skin (such as a finger or earlobe) and it will transmit pulse data to your Arduino for processing. The downloadable sample Processing / Arduino code lets you visualize your pulse data right on your computer. It's a simple, non-invasive, inexpensive way to incorporate biofeedback into your projects. Need some great project ideas? Check out Becky Stern's Beating Heart Headband project from MAKE: Volume 29!
NEW - Maker Shed now carries a 3.3V version of the Pulse Sensor that's perfect for Lilypads and other 3V Arduinos!
Here's the 5th episode of MAKE's podcast, Make: Talk! In each episode, I'll interview one of the makers featured in the magazine.
Our maker this week is Carol Reiley (@robot_MD and @tinkerBelleLabs). She's a surgical roboticist at Intuitive surgical and the founder of Tinker Belle Labs. Carols's on the cover of the current issue of MAKE, Volume 29, and is the co-author of two how-to projects in this issue: Air Guitar Hero, which is a way to control video games with the electric signals from your muscles, and an easy to use electronic blood pressure monitor.
[Video Link] Adafruit's Circuit Playground looks like a major update to Collin Cunningham's earlier circuit design assistant app.
Circuit Playground simplifies electronics reference & calculation so you can have more fun hacking, making, & building your projects! This app is designed for both iPhone and iPad.
Decipher resistor & capacitor codes with ease
Calculate power, resistance, current, and voltage with the Ohm's Law & Power Calc modules
Quickly convert between decimal, hexadecimal, binary or even ASCII characters
Calculate values for multiple resistors or capacitors in series & parallel configurations
Store, search, and view PDF datasheets
Access exclusive sneak peaks, deals & discounts at Adafruit Industries All that, plus updates with additional features & enhancements.
"Code Hero is a game that teaches you how to make games so you can learn to code while you play with a Code Gun that shoots Javascript in Unity 3D." I was very impressed with the demo of Code Hero that Alex Peake showed me at Maker Faire last May. It's on Kickstarter now.
Today Cartoon Movement launches the first monthly installment of Army Of God, an ambitious 100 page work of comics journalism by David Axe and Tim Hamilton focusing on the Lord's Resistance Army in the Congo, the people they've terrorized, and the people fighting back.
[Video Link] Neal Stephenson talks about "our society's inability to execute on big stuff, to get big stuff done. In the first two thirds of the 20th century we went from not believing that heavier-than-air-flight was possible to walking on the moon."
Solve for X is a forum to encourage and amplify technology-based moonshot thinking and teamwork. G+.
For thousands of years the imagination of storytellers has been a guiding light for people trying to change the world. In the last decade or two science fiction has almost fallen behind the work of technologists and entrepreneurs. For the sake of a more interesting tomorrow, we need to get the proverbial horse back out in front of the cart with our imagination professionals building a vision of the future to inspire the builders of the new world.
Neal Stephenson is the author of the three-volume historical epic "The Baroque Cycle" (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World) and the novels Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, and Zodiac.
Hot on the heels of Adam "Ape Lad" Koford's Unizilla T-shirt comes this piece of formal attire: Skullcap. Designed by Sarina Frauenfelder, the design represents the relationship between the universality of myth and life as performance.
With influences as diverse as Rousseau and Roy Lichtenstein, new variations are synthesized from both mundane and transcendent meanings. What starts out as triumph soon becomes finessed into a cacophony of power, leaving only a sense of unreality and the chance of a new beginning. As shifting forms become undefined through wavering derivatives, the viewer is left with a glimpse of the corners of our culture. (For the full artist's statement, please click here.)
Apps for Kids is Boing Boing's podcast about cool smartphone apps for kids and parents. My co-host is my 8-year-old daughter, Jane Frauenfelder.
In this week's episode we have a special guest. He's Jane's friend and his name is Ronan Park. He's going to tell us about a terrific endless runner game for the iPhone and iPad called Jetpack Joyride. It's free in the iTunes store.
If you're an app developer and would like to have Jane and I try one of your apps for possible review, email a redeem code to appsforkids@boingboing.net.
To get a weekly email to notify you when a new episode of Apps for Kids is up, sign up here.
Following The New York Times Sunday profile on VICE's in house drug aficionado/chemist, Hamilton Morris and his original web series Hamilton's Pharmacopeia, VICE today premieres the latest episode where Hamilton travels to Amsterdam to discover the Philosopher's Stone of psychedelics -- the [psilocybin-containing] truffle.
In this episode of Hamilton's Pharmacopeia, Hamilton sits down and chats with the notorious Truffle Brothers in a quaint Dutch farm that also functions as the world's largest truffle factory, then proceeds to munch down 8 grams of the magical mushrooms and explore Amsterdam on Queen's Day (the Netherland's most chaotic and rampantly wild day of the year).
VeriSign Inc., the company responsible for assuring that more than half the world’s websites are authentic, was hacked multiple times in 2010, and the thieves succeeded in stealing information, reports Christopher Maag in Credit.com
When users click on a website, or on a hyperlink that would carry them to a website, their browser automatically checks the site’s security certificate to make sure that it’s authentic. If there’s a problem with the certificate, the browser may present a warning screen advising the user of possible security threats, or it may block access altogether.
If hackers gain access to those certificates however, they can make their own copy that looks exactly like the real thing. That would enable them to run a virtually fool-proof phishing scheme, diverting users to a fake website in order to steal account passwords, Social Security numbers and other valuable private data.
The Speal’s Tavern Cigar Box Guitar Museum near Pittsburgh, PA has been expanded and improved for 2012. The museum now sports over 40 handmade instruments, cigar box amplifiers, antique photos and artwork along with historical facts and discoveries. The 2012 exhibit will be unveiled this Saturday, February 18 at 6pm followed by a special Mardi Gras blues concerty by museum creator and cigar box guitarist, Shane Speal.
The centerpiece of the museum is a 92 year old cigar box guitar from 1910. It’s crude form features only a single string and is very similar to instruments performed in Vaudeville theatre at the turn of the Century. The museum is free and open to the public during Speal’s Tavern regular business hours.
[Video Link] "Dear God, we should not be putting civil rights issues to a popular vote to be subject to the sentiments, the passions of the day. No minority should have their rights subject to the passions and sentiments of the majority. This is a fundamental bedrock of what our nation stands for." -- Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker
Alarm Talk is a handsome iPhone app that reads the weather and your agenda to you in an appropriately lo-fi robotic voice. It's $2 in the iTunes store.
"From Public Radio International's Bullseye with Jesse Thorn: Mark Frauenfelder of Boing Boing and the Gweek podcast joins us to share his recommendations this week: the drawing game Depict and the Blackwing 602 pencil."
Listen to the whole Bullseye episode here: (with Daniel Handler, the Sklar Brothers and Nico Muhly).
"My wife could turn to me and she may say, ‘Why do you love me?' And I can with all honesty look her in the eye and say, 'Because our pheromones matched our olfactory receptors." - Robin Ince
One of many excellent quotes on the new TED Quotes site, which are excerpted from TED Talks.
Gweek is a weekly podcast where the editors and friends of Boing Boing talk about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff.
My hosts on episode 38 are Dean Putney, Boing Boing’s coding and development wizard, Rob Beschizza, Boing Boing’s managing editor (who gets cut of because he had a crappy Skype connection), and Michael Pusateri, a lifelong tinkerer and former television tech executive for Disney. Visit his blog, cruftbox.com.
Below is a list of the things we talked about in Gweek episode 39. (Sure, you could just click on the links below to learn about them without listening to the podcast, but then you will miss out on our discussion of a foolproof method for winning big at the horse races.)
Our pal Adam "Ape Lad" Koford managed to capture the elusive unizilla and draw it from life. (He released it safely into the wild so it could get back to the business of destroying cities). The result: this astounding T-shirt. Supplies are limited to the the amount of matter in the universe that can be used to make T-shirts, so act fast!
[Video Link] A fellow named Scott Cover noticed a group of Baltimore Police standing over a man handcuffed on the ground. He remembered reading that morning that the Baltimore Police department had told its officers they couldn't arrest people for taking photos or videos of them while they worked, so Cover pulled out his cell phone and began taping. One of the officers spotted Cover and order to him to leave, because he was "loitering." He argued with her a bit, but started to walk away, taping the officers has he left. That wasn't good enough for the officer, so she stopped him and asked for his ID. The video ends there.
The new rule says that citizens have an "absolute right" to photograph or video record the enforcement actions taking place in public view. The chief legal counsel for the agency called it "an extension of the citizen's right to see. [An officer] wouldn't go up to a citizen at a crime scene and tell them to close their eyes, so the officer can't tell them they can't film."
But the rules also says that the person recording may not "violate any section of any law, ordinance, code or criminal article" - such as loitering - while doing so. The officers on Cross Street seemed aware of that fine print.
The police union says the officers acted appropriately and professionally; the ACLU says it shows there's more work to be done.
Artist Mitch O'Connell opened his ephemera vault to find his sub-collection of unusual vintage Valentine's Day cards. Below, a small sampling from his post.
Many books have been published on Mark Ryden before, but none like this large-format monograph, released in a boxed Collector’s Edition of 1,000 numbered copies, each signed by the artist; and also available in an Art Edition of only 50 copies, which come with an artwork. This sweeping retrospective brings together nearly two decade’s worth of Mark Ryden’s paintings and works on paper, broadening the horizons of his uncanny universe and bringing it to the world, one big page at a time.
The January 2 issue of New Idea Australia revealed something surprising! (Via 
Most of this episode of Gweek is a fascinating discussion with Derf about his high school pal Jeffrey Dahmer, and Derf's new graphic novel 
Dean turned us on to 
Dean gives a thumbs up to fashion photographer 
Mark likes 
And once you've installed Comic Viewer, head over to 
Ruben likes 
I'm so happy that lots of old comic book stories that otherwise would have been forgotten are being reprinted in fat, inexpensive anthologies like this one: 
Two doctors at Penn State University have developed Caffeine Zone, a free iOS app that tells you the perfect time to take a coffee break to maintain an optimal amount of caffeine in your blood — and, perhaps more importantly, it also tells you when to stop drinking tea and coffee, so that caffeine doesn’t interrupt your sleep.
With developers pumping out an estimated 2,000 applications daily for use on smart-phones and tablets, reviewers and web-critics are keeping busy sorting out what’s worth downloading, and what’s worth squat.
It was part of the divorce settlement between Texas billionaire David Saperstein and his wife Suzanne. In 2008, David abandoned his wife for their 32-year-old Swedish nanny and now Suzanne is sharing the mansion with her 33-year-old former soccer playing boyfriend until it is sold.
Do you want to add a more "human element" to your next project? The 
The Speal’s Tavern Cigar Box Guitar Museum near Pittsburgh, PA has been expanded and improved for 2012. The museum now sports over 40 handmade instruments, cigar box amplifiers, antique photos and artwork along with historical facts and discoveries. The 2012 exhibit will be unveiled this Saturday, February 18 at 6pm followed by a special Mardi Gras blues concerty by museum creator and cigar box guitarist, Shane Speal.
The 
A partially crowd funded sci-fi epic called 
Michael says 
Mike also recommends 
Mike explains why the new 
Dean's listening to 
Mark's listening to 
Say hi to 
Dean leads us down the sometime NSFW but always fascinating 
The 
Back when Bill Gates was an indie game developer, he co-wrote the thrilling 
It's easy to make your own moonshine with gear from 
