Start baking for Pride 2010 now!

This cake's designer may not necessarily have had Gay Pride in mind when she created it, but it sure would be fun to see at the next Pride Brunch that I get invited to - hint, hint!

Water flowing uphill? It's just WRONG!

Crowds at the Chelsea Flower Show have been queuing up 10-deep to see part of the Daily Telegraph's Silver Gilt award-winning garden - a fountain in which water apparently runs uphill. It is a sight which defies logic, and has become probably the most memorable image of this year's show.

A set of four glass ramps positioned in a square clearly show water travelling up each of them before it pours off the top, only to start again at the bottom of the next ramp.

Inventor James Dyson, he of the bagless vacuum cleaner, has stolen the headlines from the gardeners at this year's Chelsea Flower Show with his "Wrong Garden". Mr Dyson says his inspiration was a drawing by the Dutch artist MC Escher - an optical illusion that shows water going uphill and round and round the four sides of a square perpetually.

"I am not dumb!"

Helen Keller — inspiration to generations and inspiration for an entire genre of schoolyard humor — and her teacher and friend Anne Sullivan in a clip from 1930 in which they describe the way in which Helen learned how to speak ... It’s a fascinating little clip which pays homage to a woman who, even beyond her amazing circumstances, was a radical socialist, suffragist, and supporter of birth control, who was friends with the likes of Mark Twain and who worked tirelessly to champion the rights of both the downtrodden and the physically disabled.

Laughing in the Face of Racism

The repentant former KKK leader Johnny Lee Clary explains how Reverend Wade Watts, an NAACP leader, disarmed him by being cool, funny and brave, engaging in some first-rate psy-ops. Be sure to listen through to the end for the chicken story.

Video ad embedded in magazine

Shades of Blade Runner, Necromancer or Star Trek ... The current issue of Entertainment Weekly has a tiny video screen embedded in a two-page CBS ad that auto-plays when you turn the page. The screen is controlled by a slim PCB sandwiched between the pages. Have a look at the video to see what I mean.

Roses x Time = Art

Gus Harper is an LA/NYC artist who creates pop paintings of ordinary objects on large grids. This time-lapse video of Harper painting roses is quite entrancing. Gus Harper: Grid Painting video (Thanks, Jason Weisberger!)

Pickle-lovers unite!

Picklefest 2008 was a huge success. Held at Machine Project in LA, the public was invited to bring their produce (grown in their garden, or purchased at farmers' markets or a supermarket) and pickle it using the lacto-fermentation process.

From Machine Project's page about lacto-fermentation pickling:

Back before the advent of canning and freezing, folks preserved their vegetable harvest via lacto-fermentation. This process, once commonplace, survives today mostly in the form of sauerkraut and kim-chi. These days, almost all store bought pickles and contemporary pickle recipes are vinegar-based. Lacto-fermented pickles contain no vinegar at all.

In lacto-fermentation, salt is added to vegetables, either by covering them in salty water or by mixing them with salt to draw out their own juices. Either way, the vegetable ends up stewing in salty liquid. Lactic microbial organisms (the same beasties that spoil milk) take hold in this environment and make it so acidic that bacteria that cause food to spoil can’t live there. The result is a pickled food that will keep without canning or refrigeration.

Lacto-fermented pickles are also full of beneficial bacteria that, like the bacteria in yogurt, are good for your gut and make food more digestible.

Mad Magazine's War on Bush

Mad Magazine's "The Mad War on Bush" gathers a truly superlative collection of parody and satire from eight years' worth of Mad lampoons.

As Jimmy Kimmel notes in his introduction to the book, there are many things to hate about the Bush regime, but it has been very, very kind to political satirists.

Mad Magazine has had a glorious eight years with this presidency.

BoingBoing has added some great links to the story.