Etsy seller UntamedMenagerie has a wide variety of intricately cut acrylic jewelry, but I'm best fond of this ribcage, entitled "Thoracic." Thoracic (Thanks, Alice!)...

Ah, just look at this fantastic artifact from the innocent era before the War on Fun kicked off -- a beautiful big bangy chemistry set, advertised in the September, 1955 Popular Mechanics. Are you looking for a WONDERFUL FUTURE that can start at home right now? The NATIONAL SCHOOL OF CHEMISTRY offers a fascinating: correspondence course in PRACTICAL CHEMISTRY which will give you a wonderful education that can be used almost immediately to increase your income and your position in life, with prospects of a GLORIOUS FUTURE! The course is very THOROUGH, yet specially prepared to be easy to all regardless of lack of previous training. Very little theory . . . this is a PRACTICAL course with HUNDREDS of fascinating EXPERIMENTS and valuable FORMULAS! Students learn, almost from the start, how to make chemicals and chemical products of commercial value, how to convert wastes into money, etc. THERE IS A GOLD MINE IN CHEMISTRY! Why not share in it? We will open your eyes to GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES you’ve never dreamt of; for this is a GOLDEN AGE for those who possess special KNOWLEDGE! CHEMISTRY - BIG LABORATORY GIVEN FREE! (Sep, 1955)...

Bleep Labs, maker of the Thingamagoop musical robot is selling a kit to make your own light- and knob-controlled music synthesizer. Only $65 for the complete kit with metal enclosure. Thingamakit synthesizer toy from Bleep Labs...

Teach your kids to digitally encode music with this 20-note music-box/player piano that recapitulates the first digital music format -- the piano roll. Included is the Music Box, one pre-punched strip which plays Romeo and Juliet, 2 blank strips, and a hole punch, so that you can create your own tunes! The strips are 66 x 7cm. We can also supply more blank strips. Link (via Red Ferret)...

Wired's current reader photo challenge is to send in pics of cityscapes that epitomize your town. There are some beautiful little urban valentines in this lot -- I love cities on general principles, and it's pretty clear to me that these photos are shot with a lot of affection. Shown here, by Kristoffer N's "Mumbai India." Link...

Modofly -- who laser-etch designs into moleskine covers -- are hosting a contest for new designs for the next batch -- one of the themes is steampunk: Get your steampens and steambrushes (maybe steampunked computer?) ready artists! We are looking for steampunk art in a BAD way. We are really excited about this. We already have some of the hottest steampunk artists working with us, but maybe we don’t know about you, we have been trying to get you, or maybe this will be your first steampunk attempt. We are looking for artwork with airships, gears, steam engines, steampunk fashion, anything fun and retro-futuristic (we aren’t going to get too picky as long as its super cool). We can’t wait to unveil these books and showcase the artists, so make sure you have a shot at the action and send your stuff in today! Link See also: Dan Hillier's tentacle horrors -- now on moleskine notebooks!...

Make contributor Larry Cotton says: I built this bizarre musical instrument--based loosely on the playing-card-in-the-bicycle-spokes principle--a while back, shot a quick video, then cannibalized it for parts. As you'll see, the bicycle spokes were scaled down to a small white plastic gear. The card remained. I called it a screechophone for reasons which will become obvious as you watch (and listen) to the video. The whole thing was synced to accompanying music from a mini-CD through an ancient Commodore 64 computer, programmed in BASIC. A transparent disc printed only with black arcs spun with the CD and was read by a photocell....

Emmanuel Goldstein will release The Best of 2600 at this year's Hackers on Planet Earth conference in NYC -- this is a three-decade-spanning, 900-page anthology of the best articles from the venerable hacker 'zine 2600. As a one-time contributor, I am stoked. Link (Thanks, Aestetix!)...

Here's a video for a Conway's Game of Life (wiki) kit from Make. In 1970, John Conway came up with a 1-player game called Game of Life. The Game of Life is a mathematical game that simulates 'colonies' that grow or die based on how crowded or lonely they are and is known for the way it creates a beautiful organic display out of randomness. Here is a fun electronic kit that plays Conway's Game of Life. Make one kit and keep it on your desk, or attach multiple kit modules together to create a large display, like a cube. Link...

Dug sez, "I gather that you can do two things with the machine. First, the machine will produce various sine waves for you on paper after you set values for the amplitude and phase angle. Second, in a reversal of this process, you can trace a curve and use Fourier analysis to extract the phase and amplitude of the curve. All of this is done mechanically. There are tons of great pictures of the device on this site." This isn't a vintage piece, either -- it was built recently, and the makers provided extensive material documenting the process. Link (Thanks, Dug!)...