The best things in life last forever when captured by camera. But even with the iPhone 4S's 8 megapixel camera and faster CPU, it takes practice to get even reasonable results. But you don't need to spend hundreds on a point-and-shoot to get great shots on the go: get there faster with Boing Boing and MyLifeScoop's look at the best apps and add-ons.
The publicist for the James Renner's novel, The Man From Primrose Lane, sent me an old 8-track tape cartridge player along with a few different tapes, including one with the first chapter of the novel. My kids were fascinated by the device, and I enjoy ed pressing the spring-loaded lever to switch programs on the tape. The clunking sound it makes when it switches programs is deeply satisfying.
Lucy McRae was trained as a classical ballerina and an architect, and her work as a "body architect" incorporates these interests and more. She is the recipient of a TED Fellowship. I interviewed her at TED 2012.
Frank Warren is the founder of Post Secret. He's received over 500,000 postcards from anonymous people around the world who have shared a secret they've never told anyone before. I interviewed Frank right after his fantastic TED talk, which got standing ovation.
Ayah Bdeir is the founder and lead engineer of littleBits, an open source library of electronic modules that snap together with tiny magnets for prototyping and play. littleBits won Popular Science's "Best of Toy Fair 2012" and Ayah was named a TED Fellow this year.
Gregory Gage of Backyardbrains.com showed me how to measure the electrical activity of a neuron in a cockroach leg. At around the 12:00 minute mark, Gregory pumps the electrical signal from music on his iPhone into the cockroach's leg, causing it to twitch in time with the beat. (The cockroach's leg will grow back.)
I'm here at TED2012! Here's a short interview with Bre Pettis, co-founder of MakerBot Industries. Bre shares news about the new Replicator 3D printer, and the printing of an old school mechanical clock with an escapement mechanism. (I called it a "catchment mechanism" in the video -- oops.")
Boing Boing presents the US premiere of Mastodon's "Dry Bone Valley, from the album The Hunter, available on Reprise Records.
Directed and animated by: Tim Biskup
Mastodon: http://www.mastodonr ocks.com/
Tim Biskup: http://timbiskup.com /
Boing Boing: http://boingboing.ne t/
"Spoiler Alert," from the 2011 They Might Be Giants album "Join Us." Buy the album on Amazon http://goo.gl/cbFRg or via TMBG, direct: http://goo.gl/qOWg1. And more about the band, including tour dates, at
http://www.theymi ghtbegiants.com/
Video directed by Amy Hobby, edited by Tony Zajkowski.
The new album from Tinariwen, a group of contemporary Touareg musicians from northern Africa, is out August 30, 2011, and features contributions from US artists Kyp Malone and Tunde Adebimpe of TV on the Radio and Nels Cline from Wilco. Here's a taste of that new record, courtesy of the band and Epitaph records, via BoingBoing.net.
![Pesco\](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/mC8PU8gJxGo/2.jpg "Pesco\")
![Boing Boing Video: Mastodon - \"Dry Bone Valley\"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wBIDmUoTYqQ/2.jpg "Boing Boing Video: Mastodon - \\"Dry Bone Valley\\"")
![Tinariwen: an introduction to \"Tassili\"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dC_DTotQUWU/2.jpg "Tinariwen: an introduction to \\"Tassili\\"")
