Thank the gods. The Battlestar Galactica toaster has arrived.

For a mere $65 you can now scorch Cylons onto bread. Sadly, the device lacks the familiar roving red light and ominous hum. And it seems that Pop-Tarts may be incompatible with the technology.

Related: Conscience in Extremis, Things to Come, Big Hair and Ray Guns.

Toe Jam. Amusing nakedness. Let it load. (Low-res version here.) // CERN rap. The Large Hadron Collider gets superfly. // LHC centrefolds. (h/t, Andy.) // The mathematics of origami. // More wall-climbing robots of note. // Photographs of Iceland. // Britain, from above. With GPS ‘trails’. // A bubble map of Olympic medals. // The Hand Drawn Map Association. (h/t, Coudal.) // The Egyptian Unique Moustache Association. See if you can spot where it stops being funny. // An interview with Geert Wilders. Michael Buerk, aghast, repeats usual guff. // Calligraphy with light. // Lightmark. // Total solar eclipse, China. // Japanese sex museums. // When viruses get sick. // More ancient cities of colour. // Bug sculptures. How to make your own. (h/t, Drawn!) // One man and his dog. // Give yourself elf ears. // Martha Nussbaum kicks sand in the face of Judith Butler. // Then Peter Risdon swipes her towel. “It is always a pleasure to read a self-refuting argument.” // And, via The Thin Man, it’s Ms Marlene Dietrich.

Busy today, but here are a few ditties from the ephemera archives.

Kirstie MacColl: In These Shoes. (2000)

Greta Keller: Blue Moon. (1935)

Flanagan & Allen: Any Umbrellas. (1939)

Noise of Human Art: Balkan Hot Step. (2003)

Xiao-Peng Jiang and the Chinese Orchestra of Shanghai Conservatory: Tune for Chinese Opera. (2005)

The Reverend Robert Wilkins: That’s No Way to Get Along. (1929)

The Ink Spots: Pork Chops n’ Gravy. (1938)

Sun Ra and the Blues Project: Batman. (1966)

The Lovers: La Dégustation. (2005)

Scala and the Kolacny Brothers: Teenage Dirtbag. (2002)

Ah. Something for everyone.

12 Glowing Men. Still angry, but now glowing. (h/t, Coudal.) // The Microsoft Surface Sphere. // Unnecessary knowledge. // The musical Pikachu. Oh, you’ll never tire of that. // Social skills 101 for Japan’s hikikomori. // A keyboard without keys. // Meet Gore-Al. // When galaxies collide (2). // The 50 megaton Tsar Bomba. “Its enormous size made the bomb impractical for warfare purposes.” (h/t, Things.) // Soviet atomic weapons tests. // Filmed effects of atomic weapons. // Details of warp drive remain somewhat sketchy. Requires energy equivalent to entire mass of Jupiter. // At last, the jetpack. // Zoom with Motorola. They’re saving the world. // Fallen. A meteor’s tale. // Beluga whales and bubble rings. // Guardian hypocrisy shock #37. // The periodic table of videos. // The periodic coffee table. // The table is melting. (h/t, Artblog.) // An archive of magazine first issue covers. // Heather MacDonald on maths and gender. // The political correctness of academic disciplines. // And, via The Thin Man, it’s Mr Fats Waller.

Television without context. // 8mm cameras we have known and loved. // A $24,000 turntable. // Some jaunty speakers. // “I heard the pipes rumbling a bit, and suddenly hailstones the size of golf balls started exploding out of the toilet.” // Inside the Lego factory. // Unlikely office space. Shoreditch, East London. (h/t, Andy.) // Lunar transit of the Earth. // Hubblefest. // Brace for impact! Doin’ the spaceship shake. // “Manhattanhendge.” (h/t, Stephen Hicks.) // Typewriters of noted figures. // Detecting academic imposters. (h/t, Vitruvius.) // Extra tentacles. // Rendering things unseen: the flying spaghetti monster. (h/t, Dr Westerhaus.) // Fire hydrant collections. (h/t, Coudal.) // “How much tax would ‘the rich’ have to pay before it becomes fair?” // Myron Magnet on victimhood and responsibility: “It’s not what they’re doing to us. It’s what we’re not doing.” // Great moments in internet history. // Ryan. An animated short. (h/t, Drawn!) // And, via The Thin Man, Did You Ever…? (Unknown, 1933)

Woody Allen interviews Billy Graham. // NASA wants your urine. For the toilets of tomorrow. // Wine in a can. // Toys for cats. // Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes. Part 2, 3, 4, 5. // Stephen Salmieri’s photographs of cadillacs. (h/t, Coudal.) // Build your own giant cardboard Ghandi. // 100 ways to draw manga eyes. // “My boots are all sticky.” // Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along. It’s tough being evil. // The Victim Privilege Checklist. (h/t, Anna.) // Communist Loser: James Kirchick on the delusional Eric Hobsbawm. // Cultural imperialism! // Latte art and assorted cakes. More. // The German Hosiery Museum. // World’s largest subwoofer. (h/t, Chastity Darling.) // Colour flipbook. // 696 book covers. // San Francisco panorama. // Skyscraper earthquake dampening. A 728-ton sphere should do it. // Dismantling old buildings, from the bottom up. // Ship graveyard. (h/t, Tim239.) // Steve Reich: Piano Phase. // And, via The Thin Man, it’s Ms Ethel Waters.

At last. David Cronenberg’s The Fly is now an opera. Get those tickets booked. // The Danvers State Insane Asylum. (h/t, Coudal.) // Tentacles. // Behold the amazing Shit Box™. Oh, don’t look so indignant. // Bubble-wrap calendar. Imagine the fun. // TomTom hidden features. (h/t, Andy.) // Ideal wheels. (h/t, Vloody Cloody.) // Indian comics from the 1970s. (h/t, 1+1=3.) // Off-duty superheroes. // Chess + boxing = chess boxing. // There are waves on Saturn’s rings. // Satellite imagery as art. // The art of the tracking shot. From Touch of Evil to Boogie Nights. // Das Rad. // The abbreviated Plan 9 from Outer Space. (h/t, Matt.) // PES: Western Spaghetti. // Caffeine usage, visualised. // Avoid cramping at crucial moments. // If you’re tunnelling to the other side of the Earth, you’ll be needing a map. // Neo-NeoCon on arguing politics. // Fabian Tassano on academic “progress”. // The art of Chris Appelhans. // The colour of money. // Translucent creatures. // Robot calligraphy. // And, via The Thin Man, it’s Mr Ray Charles. 

Steve Schofield photographs British science fiction fans who like to dress up.

I rather like the images, the discomfort and the hint of tragicomedy. But I’m less convinced by the predictable spiel about “globalisation and America’s ongoing ability to infiltrate all cultures via various channels of media.” Are we supposed to believe that these people are in some way being oppressed by international mass culture? Why don’t artists fret quite so much about the globalisation of, say, Chinese restaurants? Or doesn’t that count? And why does no-one want to dress up as Naomi Klein?

Via Coudal.

The American Family Association experiences technical difficulties. // Sweden’s classroom esteem police. // Excuse me, sir – do you have any cigarette in your marijuana? // Medical mannequins. // Kubrick. // Abandoned hotels. (h/t, Things.) // Impressive swimming pools. (h/t, Coudal.) // Pencil sculptures. // A very large drawing. (h/t, 1+1=3.) // The Metzo School, Doetinchem. // Undersea internet cables. // The Amazon bookstore browser. With virtual shelves and everything. // Vintage comic book covers. // Vintage gay paperback covers. // Porn for the blind. (sfw) // Two decades of party flyers, 1987 – 2007. // Hey, mobile DJ. // 120 years of electronic music. // Faces and pocket contents, scanned. (h/t, Quipsologies.) // Octopus jewellery. Precious tentacles. // And, via The Thin Man, it’s Ms Greta Keller.

A mobile in a microwave – what could possibly go wrong? 

(h/t, Ace.)