How It’s Made: Baseballs.

via Kottke.

From Tumblr’s Storyboard blog: The Fine Art of Portraiture… in coffee. 

Meet Mike Breach, barista extraordinaire, who “paints” everything — and everyone — into his lattes. “I’m an esspressionist,” he proudly proclaims. Just last year, Breach was idling away his customer-less hours in the back of a hotel kitchen with only a dormant espresso machine for company. He was “so, so bored.” So he taught himself how to inscribe ornate hearts in coffee foam, with a bamboo skewer as his paintbrush.

And that was just the beginning… check out baristart.tumblr.com for more portraits, animals, and lovable aliens…

via Colossal.

2 pears, 1/2 cup Gorgonzola, 1/2 cup of butter, 1 baguette and some honey: Pear & Gorgonzola Crostinis

Quality wood, a few craftsman with serious skills, computer assisted design, and large machines in factories! Take a factory tour with player Graeme Swann in The Art of Bat Making… cricket bat making!

And if you’ve never seen it before, watch a few minutes of cricket here — South Africa vs New Zealand:

This video demonstrates how to tie a Figure 8 knot, one of the Basic 8 knots that lead to a huge catalog of useful tying skills for boating, climbing, scouting, search and rescue, and more.

The Figure 8 is a stopper knot — it prevents the end of a rope sliding through a pulley or it can be used to add security to another knot. It is relatively easy to undo, is preferred to the Overhand Knot, but is not as secure as the Double Overhand.

These videos are from AnimatedKnots.com, where they believe that it’s “Better to know a knot and not need it, than need a knot and not know it.” And don’t forget, safety first!