After missing footage was found in Argentina, Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” has been restored and its narrative better understood (above).

Oxo Good Grips Designers Take on Tablet Magazines.

How Much Do Music Artists Earn Online?

Apple to xplatform developers: We’re no longer suicidal.

Create Your Own Virtual Instruments With Maize Sampler v2.0.

New Alarm Bells About Chemicals and Cancer: eat organic, drink filtered water, avoid plastic containers.

Dear nerd, start a nerd sash with nerd merit badges (nerd).

SKTCH is an interesting generative drawing iPhone app.

The lost culture of New Island is 43,500 years old (above).

Flaunt: Designing effective, compelling and memorable portfolios of creative work. Buy the book or PDF.

The doormat, the jerk and the lizard brain.

Livid Instruments’ new Builder is a line of DIY parts that make it easy for users to design their own USB MIDI control surfaces and devices using buttons, knobs, faders, and talkback LEDs.

Shifting Identities: From Consumer to Networked Creator.

NOBY NOBY BOY for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, from the creator of Katamari Damacy.

The Vitesse D7HG is for those who are looking for a great bike for urban commuting at a good value.

Research says users will pay for content online, with a few catches.

Nanoloop For The iPhone.

Sync/Lost (above) is a multi-user installation for immersion in the history of electronic music.

Philip K. Dick: A ‘plastic’ paradox. Sneak peek at an upcoming Philip K. Dick film, Radio Free Albemuth.

Steven Frank of Panic Software fame, on the next phase of computing.

Quieting the lizard brain.

The “My” water bottle from Stelton.

Researchers in Japan have shown that a slime mold can design a network in a day that is as efficient as one developed by humans over many years: the Tokyo rail system.

Imagine that instead of having just one wireless carrier, your phone would constantly search for the best connection. An algorithm on your smartphone would assess signal strengths, and balance that with roaming costs, and decide when to switch from one carrier to another.

Humor: Laugh at those quirky, Unhappy Hipster (mostly from the pages of Dwell, it seems).

A.V. Club interviews John Crowley on the occassion of the 25th-anniversary of Little Big (above)

We are all mutants say scientists.

Books to read now, from Seed magazine.

Forget design thinking and try hybrid thinking.

Human Centered Design Toolkit from IDEO.

Spirograph, spirographs, spirography.

Get your Philip K. Dick collection boxed set from The Library of America and save $30.

Researchers have imaged single molecules in unprecedented detail, showing the chemical bonds that hold them together.

Camera from Athens: the most artistic vacation photos you’ve never taken.

How freelancers can use active listening to improve business.

Functioning Form: Design at Facebook.

Design Tales: Designing a successful plastic pint glass.

Track and Field: Drawing from the Arena (above), by Cassandra Jones.

5 Reasons your marketing plan will fail.

New editions of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series let you create your own cover art.

An investigation by The Smoking Gun unmasks the leader of Pranknet and the miscreants behind a year-long wave of phone call criminality.

Nathan Shredoff has released a series of free syllabi and teaching materials to help instructors teach students key topics for the future.

Learn logo design from top brands.

Taking Steps toward zero waste.

Olympus announces LS-11, a compact digital audio recorder.

Hayo Miyazaki’s Ponyo (above), a story inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale ‘The Little Mermaid.’ (video)

Futurespeak: Shane Hope’s keywords defined.

Gary Hamel on managing Generation Y.

The evidence is growing that privately owned, consumer-driven, small-scale, geographically distributed renewables could deliver a 100% green-energy future faster and cheaper than big power projects alone.

The Sears Tower is going green.

How does our language shape the way we think? by Lera Boroditsky

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s video report from their alien adventure film, Paul

The Dirty Dozen: Top 12 Foods to Buy Organic

2009 Penguin Design Awards

Decorate your creative suite with hand-made pillows featuring some familiar design app icons (above).

Peruse pics from the First 100 Days in the Official White House Flickr Photostream.

25 years of logos from Duffy & Partners, one of our favorite agencies.

Rickshaw Bagworks’ Large Zero Messenger is cut and sewn from only four rectangles of fabric for zero manufacturing material waste.

Song of the Vine, an illustrated history of wine.

Skip Hulu Commercials with this nifty Greasemonkey script.

Five Ways To Market Yourself During A Recession.

jQuery Style is a resource for all things jQuery.

The history and cover art of science fiction published by Penguin Books from 1935 to 1977.

Babushka (above) is a modern, lit version of the classic Russian Doll. Turn Babushka on and off by pushing down on the top of the light, and watch it faze through its cycle revealing varied colors as it goes.

Field is an open source framework that combines code and visual views for creating dynamic media arts.

NYT food writer Mark Bitman maintains a vegan diet during the day, but says anything goes after 6 p.m.

One of our favorite sketch comedy shows, The State, is finally coming to DVD.

This Belkin surge protector is a great idea for turning off your electronics when they’re inactive.

Check out this Flickr set of vintage beer cans.

Amazing concept artwork from Andree Wallin (despite the huge, annoying site header).

The Teenage Engineering OP-1 is so cool we want one even though we don’t know what it does.

Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek have spent the last 15 years studying the dress codes of social groups and published a book and website featuring their photographs and findings, called Exactitudes.

’241543903′ is the tag for photos of people putting their head in a freezer.

MTV Cherry Girl is an impulsive character, who finds that her actions, which are seemingly self-indulgent, can have a positive effect on the people and environment around her.

Broadcast at Pratt Manhattan Gallery presents a selection of works, dating from the 1960s to the present, that interrupt broadcasting systems in order to examine or challenge the structure, influence, and power of mainstream television and radio.

Cut-up and pasted-together photos of locations in New York depict unseen herds.

J.G. Ballard proves you should live a bit before writing.