Speaking of Etsy promos and cool things on Etsy, Bre Pettis came across this fantastic animated promo for Etsy made by ALSO. I want the soundtrack, it rocks!

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NeedleNoodles has created an awesome crochet twenty-sided die (d20) that they are selling on Etsy, perfect for your next craft-themed D&D game.

They also made three really cool Amigurumi Octopus.

via Bre Pettis on Twitter

photo by NeedleNoodles

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Michael Biven, our Chief Technical Tentacle of Laughing Squid, recently wrote an excellent post on “Optimizing Performance for WordPress”, where he explores various ways to improve the performance of WordPress by keeping it updated, installing a caching plugin, decreasing comment & pingback spam, outsourcing media & javascript and a bunch of other great tips.

We use almost all of these recommendations on Laughing Squid (the above graph shows Laughing Squid’s blog traffic the last 30 days), which has helped to keep server loads low and things running smoothly when it comes to front page Diggs and ongoing high traffic from sources like Google search and StumbleUpon.

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“Meet the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats” is a new book published through Lulu by Adam Koford (aka Ape Lad) featuring over 250 comics from his wonderful Laugh-Out-Loud Cats comic strip series (see my previous post). Both signed and unsigned copies are now available.

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The New Yorker recently hosted a contest asking artists to come up with their interpretation of Eustace Tilley, the mystery man viewing a butterfly through his monocle created by Rea Irvin that appeared on the cover of their very first issue in 1925 and every anniversary cover since.

Here are all of the entries that were submitted, the winners will be announced on February 4th. There are some really great entries, including a bunch from Ape Lad.

In 1994 Robert Crumb created a fantastic Eustace Tilley cover for The New Yorker.

illustrations by Ape Lad & Robert Crumb

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You Suck at Photoshop #4 (Paths and Masks) is the latest in the series hilarious Photoshop tutorials by Donnie Hoyle.

For the full experience and backstory, you should watch them all in order.

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Improv Everywhere has just launched the new site Improv Everywhere Global to help agents connect with each other, as well as plan and organize Improv Everywhere events around the world.

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Seattle based book and comics publisher Fantagraphics Books recently launched their re-designed website with a bunch of new features, including membership registration, new-and-improved FLOG! blog, event listings, artist bios, integration with their Twitter and Flickr accounts, a wide selection of RSS feeds, avatars and some really cool desktop & mobile wallpapers.

illustration by Daniel Clowes for Fantagraphics Books

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Carsonified, our friends who produce the excellent series of “Future of…” conferences, are interested in finding out what people’s favorite web applications are for their Web App Charts. So cast your vote for your favorite web app and be entered in a chance to win a Nintendo Wii.

While researching potential speakers for our next event, Future of Web Apps Miami, we were frustrated by the lack of quality information about popular and successful web apps. The Web App Charts are here to change all that!

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“Safe Baby Handling Tips”, by Wry Baby founders David Sopp and Kelly Sopp, features a series of hilarious visual baby instructions for new parents.

Thanks to Christopher for the tip!

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