1. "Ford Motor Company is teaming up with San Jose-based solar panel maker SunPower to offer a rooftop solar system option which will be sold alongside the upcoming Ford Focus EV."



2. A look at Ink.Sack, Michael Voltaggio's new sandwich shop in Los Angeles.



3. Tenacious Toys is selling open boxes of the adorable Tokidoki x Marvel Frenzies minifigures.

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1. Jane Eyre cover redesign contest.



2. LEGO Universe is now free to play. Via.



3. Sign of the times: Serious Eats now has a column focusing on cereal.

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1. Salt water shrimp farm in the middle of the desert in Las Vegas. Via.

2. Two conflicting posts I read yesterday - - A. All able adults work, so there's a growing job market for sophisticated assistants like yoga instructors, artisanal cheese makers, travel agents, etc (because people don't have time to do that stuff themselves anymore). B. Two income families will increasingly realize that it's foolish to work two jobs and give away the second salary in taxes, so they'll turn into one-income families. (My family came to that conclusion.)

3. A look at summer camps for rich kids - - well, specifically, a look at how rich kids increasingly arrive at summer camps by private plane. Via.

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Part of of a series of magnified photographs by Caren Alpert. Via.

*Previously: Very stuffed Oreo.

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1. Llama overlooking Machu Picchu.

2. Apparently I need to eat at Black Market Liquor Bar in Studio City. Via.

3. Another Google+ horror story. I have no idea why they delete not only your G+ account, but also your Google Reader account.

4. And this is why Google wants so bad to force people to use their real names on their social service. Via.

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Blog devoted to scanned sandwiches. (Mmmm, lobster roll.) There's a companion book, too. Via.

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1. You can read Neil Gaiman's excellent short story, The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains.

2. Halekulani Coconut Cake recipe. (My second favorite hotel on Oahu.)

3. Laker Andrew Bynum was photographed parking across two disabled parking spots in a largely empty lot.

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1. Webcomic: Zero Suit Samus Googles herself for the first ... and last time. Via.

2. Three fairly lackluster reviews of SVK by Warren Ellis and BERG.

3. "There are two lessons here. The first is that Gatorade is a waste of money. If you really want to improve performance, gargle with something that actually tastes good, since it was the activation of reward areas that allowed the cyclists to exert maximum performance."

*Buy Metroid toys at eBay.

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1. Lamborghini is apparently going to stop making manual transmissions.

2. Emily Shur talks about photographing Sarah Palin for Newsweek.

3. Recipe for Coffee Bean's Sunrise. Is there a recipe for their Black Forest?

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1. Johnny Depp has apparently made $350 million from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

2. The Netherlands is apparently the world's third largest agricultural exporter, despite having little land, thanks to hydroponic agriculture that uses computer-controlled feeding of high-quality chemicals. (Presumably such techniques could be applied elsewhere if there was a serious danger of food shortages.)

3. For Los Angeles residents, if there's a police helicopter hovering over your house, you can call 213-485-2600 to find out why. (I had need of this today.) Via.

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1. Cookies N’ Cream Cake recipe.

2. Mike Krahulik's positive comments about playing The Old Republic for a month.

3. Signalnoise logo desktop and iPhone wallpapers.

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1. Incredibly cute guinea pig. Via.

2. How to make a cheap Frappuccino. Also, how to make a frappuccino on a stick. Via.

3. FYI, Tenacious Toys has in stock for $40 my favorite vinyl toy. (I liked it so much, I made my own miniature version before buying the real thing.)

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1. Read this if you want to feel better about not eating vegetables.

3. Tenacious Toys has Doktor A's Humphrey Mooncalf figure in stock.

3. You can now claim your free games, movie rental, etc from Sony. It's not a smooth process and if your download doesn't start, go into account management>transaction management>services list>SCEA Promotions to download the games (I had to do this). Via.

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1. Great article at Wired. Here's the start:

James Scott encountered that scent for the first time a decade ago in a town called Lakeshore, Ontario. Just across the river from Detroit, Lakeshore is where barrels of Canadian Club whiskey age in blocky, windowless warehouses. Scott, who had recently completed his PhD in mycology at the University of Toronto, had launched a business called Sporometrics. Run out of his apartment, it was a sort of consulting detective agency for companies that needed help dealing with weird fungal infestations. The first call he got after putting up his website was from a director of research at Hiram Walker Distillery named David Doyle.

Doyle had a problem. In the neighborhood surrounding his Lakeshore warehouses, homeowners were complaining about a mysterious black mold coating their houses. And the residents, following their noses, blamed the whiskey. Doyle wanted to know what the mold was and whether it was the company’s fault. Scott headed up to Lakeshore to take a look.

When he arrived at the warehouse, the first thing he noticed (after “the beautiful, sweet, mellow smell of aging Canadian whiskey,” he says) was the black stuff. It was everywhere—on the walls of buildings, on chain-link fences, on metal street signs, as if a battalion of Dickensian chimney sweeps had careened through town. “In the back of the property, there was an old stainless steel fermenter tank,” Scott says. “It was lying on its side, and it had this fungus growing all over it. Stainless steel!” The whole point of stainless steel is that things don’t grow on it.

2. Broccoli Gratin recipe.

3. Negative review of the new Games Workshop resin finecast miniatures.

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1. Sky on fire. Via.

2. Fast Company has a great article about Cargill's creation and marketing of the sweetener Truvia:

TRUVIA HAS ITS OWN tribute message, an ode to the comfort Cargill wants to provide. "Have you ever cured bad news with hot choc-olate? Ever snuck downstairs to eat a cookie before breast-feeding the baby at 3 a.m.?" If the answer is yes, you are part of Cargill's new demographic, the Yoga Momma, the company's name for the typically harried but well-intentioned working woman.

On a recent day, McFerson and Truvia's marketing director, Ann Tucker, explain the tao of Yoga Momma-ism. "The Yoga Momma wears yoga pants but may never make it to class," Tucker says. "It's more about a mind-set," McFerson adds. Both readily admit this sounds like them. "I've never been to class, but I have the pants," McFerson deadpans.

The brand homage was conceived by mothers at Ogilvy & Mather in Chicago. "What is cool about Cargill is it's a pretty female-based group," says Donna Charlton-Perrin, one of the campaign's architects. "There is a line in there about how women have a complicated relationship with sweetness. Everyone just had this autobiographical understanding of how that goes." Not surprisingly, Yoga Mommas tend to be prime spenders on health-related supermarket goodies. To reach them, McFerson spent lavishly to secure a name (which sounds like true plus stevia, and was devised by Lexicon Branding); a logo (light green type with a tiny stevia leaf, by Pentagram); and clever print and TV ads designed by Ogilvy.

3. Goofy mystery awaits Detective Rex Starbuck in House of Mystery #251.

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Monstrous cupcakes by Scribe for a show at Gallery 1988.

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1. Portrait series:

I went to all of the Kmart department stores in and around Los Angeles and asked employees there to help me chose an outfit for a family picture saying, "All of my cousins are taking a picture for my grandmother, and I don’t know what to wear. They always say I look frumpy and like a lesbian, and I don’t want to look that way, I don’t want my grandmother to think I’m a lesbian. Can you help me choose an outfit?"

(Use the big arrows to scroll.)

2. "America now produces 50% more corn on the same land as it did in 2000. Remember the corn fields you ran through as a kid. Impossible today! Why? Dense rows of plants."

3. The classic adventure game Syberia is available for download for $5.

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1. Time-lapse videos of mushrooms growing.

2. Homemade oreo recipe.

3. The BBTS has various Alice: Madness Returns items available for preorder (vorpal blade, tea pot).

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Irresistible packaging by Jen Wick for Fifty Licks ice cream.

*Buy ice cream makers at Amazon.

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1. A recipe for hardtack. (If you don't know what that is, you really should run out and buy a couple Patrick O'Brian novels.)

2. (New, specific) Assertions that FIFA demands massive bribes from potential host countries.

3. "Frank McCourt's motives and methods for potentially putting the Dodgers into bankruptcy."

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