Man Made DIY

Face it. It's 2011, and Photoshop tutorials need more street cred.

Enter CYMKilla, the Photoshop master pixel pushin’ eye thrillah, who, along with his crew Masta Bevel,  Filter Phil, DJ Dodge, MC Burn, and Rastorvizer, will get you 'shoppin' right.

So crop that tongue and sit back...it's about to get educational.

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Even with newer LED string lights, nearly all of our electricity bills go up during the holiday season. Of course, that wouldn't be the case if you had an eel that sent an 800 watt zap to power your tree each time it moves.

See how it works in this… read more

Using a GPS-enabled briefcase as a pen, Erik Nordenankar created a self portrait across the face of the entire globe. With the help of DHL, Erik created the 110664 km portrait in 55 days and with a continuous stroke.

Check out the video to see how it was done:… read more

I hate all those email forwards that try to update folk tales and ancient narratives into contemporary language. I mean, I hate email forwards in general, but those ones in particular. The cheesy clip art, the fact that Snow White and Moses always say "OMG", the repetitive jokes...and mostly that they aren't funny.

But, for some reason, I find this take to be clever. I appreciate the various approaches to the social networks and digital tools, love that Melchior checks in with Caspar and Balthazar to see what they got the baby, and think the message is clear: "Times change...feelings remain the same."

Really, you want to watch the… read more

According to YouTube, it was a year of the Old Spice guy, multiple rainbows, and hiding children and wives. The official YouTube blog has gathered their top ten most watched videos of 2010.

"It’s time to rewind back through the YouTube videos that people in the U.S. and around the world were watching and searching for in 2010. These lists of most-watched videos reflect the people, places and events that captured our collective attention and imagination throughout the year. During 2010, you all watched more than 700 billion YouTube videos, and uploaded more than 13 million hours of video."

Watch… read more

Sometime in the early 2000s, some genius low-level worker at RCA decided it'd be a brilliant idea to re-release the "Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth" collaboration by David Bowie and Bing Crosby from Crosby's 1977 holiday television special in the US. In the last five years or so, it's moved from a mostly unknown gimmick to, dare I say, the standard pop rendition of "Little Drummer Boy" on holiday radio.

Comedians Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly have re-created the entire scene, shot for shot, and play it straight for a full five minutes, proving that there's plenty of humor in staying small.

See both… read more

Normal touchscreen devices operate by passing just a small bit of current through the users finger or stylus...which is why you can't work your fancy smartphone with your mittens on, or when your hands are particularly cold.

But the Teslatouch uses "an electrostatic force [that] physically attracts the finger (almost like a magnet) to the interactive surface. Additionally, the input signal is uniformly propagated across the touch surface; therefore, the resulting tactile sensation is spatially uniform."

I'm not entirely sure what all of that means, but this video that shows it in action is… read more

The songs of Jonathan Coulton aren't novelty music, but they don't really ask to be taken seriously. Songs like "Re: Your Brains" and "Code Monkey" feature humorous lyrics , but the melodies are really quite complex (from a songwriting standpoint) and unbelievably catchy. In many ways, they serve the same function that children's music did to us as kids: funny bone-tickling ear candy.

This new take on one of Coulton's most awesome is perfect ManMade material - super cool kinetic typography, lots of clever brand references, and...it's a song about a Shop Vac.

You simply gotta watch… read more

I have no commentary, so just the facts:

A 20 lb. pig, stuffed with an 8 lb turkey, a 6 lb duck, a 4 lb chicken, a cornish hen, a quail, a bacon and croissant stuffing, held together with bacon and sausage glue, and a glaze of 6 lbs. of butter and Dr. Pepper.

79,046 calories, 6892 grams of fat

I *guess* I appreciate the ambition, but I'm more impressed that they got the cooking times and temperatures all figured out.

And what sort of gravy for this guy? 

See it… read more

Chloe Fleury has creative a very watchable short stop motion animation film about...the history of stop motion animation.

Now, what do you think about… read more

Growing up in a Roman Catholic household with eleven brothers and sisters, Stephen Colbert learned a thing or two about creating delicious, wholesome meals on a budget.

Last night, he showed Martha Stewart everything he knows.

From yellow mustard on saltines, to Wonderbread with mayo and Kool-Aid, this is funny regardless of your politics, or your opinions on Martha… read more

I'm still young, so I haven't yet had trouble seeing things on or manipulating my iPhone. Thought, that doesn't mean I wouldn't like a giant 58" version of it as my dining table.

"Table Connect for iPhone is a superb project which makes an exact copy of the iPhone onto a huge 4 feet 10 inch table.  All of the same mulitouch movements (swipe, pinch, etc.) apply.  We have seen some epic DIY furniture before, but nothing comes close to this fully functioning 58″ capacitive multi-touch surface."

Check out the… read more

Today, we're enthralled by "Layers" a short film about artist and illustrator Jake Early  and his serigraphs, made by Steven Holmes.

The film documents Early's process of printing by hand: the cutting of film, burning screens, mixing custom ink colors from scratch, and printing each color by hand.

Click through to… read more

We have no idea if this is the world's smallest functioning and firing cannon, but as far as we call tell, it's the only one that's been captured and uploaded for all to see.

It's built of brass, and can fire tiny steel balls (3.2mm/0.126inch) with enough accuracy and strength to pierce an aluminum can, break an egg and shatter a light bulb from over three feet away. "The cannon was built and works exactly like the antique cannons of Napoleon's time or the mortars used in the American Civil War."

Click through for two videos of it… read more

Build Anything is a super short film/advertisement that replaces real objects with tiny LEGO versions.