Further to this, here’s another cavalcade of gaiety. From New York Comic Con. 

Admit it, you’re tempted.

Webcam and volcano. // The Yellow Treehouse Restaurant. // How to make giant fruit pastilles. // Matchboxes from the Subcontinent. (h/t, Coudal) // Movie title screengrabs. // Opening titles of The Conversation. (1974) // Everything you should know about speech balloons. // Voice-based drawing. More. // Lovely bunkers. // It’s bacon, man, and the 5000 calorie bacon explosion. (h/t, Franklin) // Baby elephant and ball. // The Rubik’s 360. // Snow and ice. // Transformers! // Zoybar! // Taking pencils seriously. // More anamorphic pavement art. // The future of newspapers, 1981. // And, via The Thin Man, it’s Mr Jimmy Smith & Mr Elmer Bernstein.

Some film-related items.

Attack of the remakes. Does the world really want a live-action Akira or another Logan’s Run? Can The Thing be improved upon? Flash Gordon without Brian Blessed? Er, Romancing the Stone?

A gallery of bewildering foreign film posters. Guess which films are being advertised below. And wait ‘til you see Bullitt.

And in one of Watchmen’s more disquieting scenes, Dr Manhattan turns his hand to crime-fighting. Disintegrations ensue.

One for camera enthusiasts. A Nikon D3 very neatly cut in half. 

(h/t, Dr Westerhaus)

Baby, toys and time-lapse. // A year in photographs: 1, 2, 3. // Age your photos. // Zoom into this 1,474 megapixel image. (h/t, TDK) // Leap between buildings on Google Earth. // It’s a rainbow, or a cloud with a tractor beam. // Your very own Louis Vuitton caviar case. // How bacon is made. // Unfeasible teapot. // Fun with centrifuges. // Red square, a game. (h/t, Tim) // The perils of electrocution. (h/t, Things) // The scourge of cello scrotum. (h/t, Ephemeral Zed) // The Brain That Wouldn’t Die. (1962) // The eyeballing game. // Jazzmutant. More. (h/t, Coudal) // TV science fiction from the Seventies. // Asian film posters. // Alan Moore, avert your eyes. // And, via The Thin Man, it’s Mr Henry Mancini. 

More musical oddments from the ephemera archives.

Valaida Snow: Caravan. (1939)

Margaret Whiting & Johnny Mercer: Baby, It’s Cold Outside. (1949)

The Vince Guaraldi Trio: Linus and Lucy. (1965)

Astrud Gilberto: Agua de Beber. (1965)

Burl Ives: Ugly Bug Ball. (1963)

Ray Charles: It Should Have Been Me. (1954)

Lalo Schifrin: Shifting Gears. (1968)

The Flying Lizards: Money. (1979)

Les 5 De l’Harmonica: In the Mood. (Circa 1947)

Annette Lajon: Chanson Gitane. (1942)

By all means add your own. Previous mixtapes here, here and here. 

Having noted this site’s frequent references to fine meat products, Anna thinks we should see how hot dogs are made. Brace yourself for the “liquid smoke shower” and alarming quantities of thick, pink slurry, otherwise known as “meat batter”.

Don’t look directly at it, children.

Dr Westerhaus alerts us to the Museum of Retro Technology and in particular this gallery of sound mirrors and acoustic location devices, used to detect enemy aircraft prior to the development of radar.

Related, and a little more discreet: Concealed hearing devices of the 19th century, including the amplifying vase and the acoustic beard.

Flash Earth. // 10 years of Dr Manhattan. // Male monkeys prefer boys’ toys. // Ducks and mice and mirrors. // Fire-breathing robot dog. // Flexible computer screens. // Origami sculptures. // Monumental video projection. // Manhattan water systems. // How to Make Noise. // Razor blade packaging. (h/t, Coudal) // A history of cereal commercials. // Camera cake. // Chocolate skulls. // Cooking with semen. (h/t, AC1) // Why artists are unloved. // More film titles of note. // The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. (1919) // Trainers that transform. // And, via The Thin Man, it’s Edmundo Ros and his Rumba Band.

Several readers have steered my attention to the new Fake Charities website. It’s a directory of consultants, lobby groups and quangos that receive substantial funding from either the UK or EU governments, and thus from thee and me. One featured charity is Alcohol Concern, which, according to its 2007/08 accounts, received £515,000 from the Department of Health. It received just £4,991 in public donations. This dependence on state subsidy, as opposed to public donations, raises the question of just how independent such organisations are, and whether “charity” is the word we should be using.

Anna thinks some of you may be interested in a gallery of rolling papers and smoking paraphernalia, which includes products by Rizla, Abadie and numerous other brands.   

And, thanks to Candice, I’ve discovered a compendium of superpowers with somewhat limited applications. Among them: the ability to levitate the left side of your body, ultra short-range teleportation, and an imperviousness to helium. 

Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments.