I.Z. RELOADED : DAILY ONLINE REFRESHMENTS

Download and print these cute Star Wars themed Valentine's Day Cards by artist Katie Cook for the bright center of your universe! Comes with print it yourself envelope too! Katie had her work featured in the Star Wars: 30th Anniversary and the Star Wars: Galaxy 4 Trading Card Sets. She is one of the four artists working on The Clone Wars web comics.

Roses are expensive on Valentine's Day so why not make them yourself using duct tape. Yes, duct tape! Dude says, "With Valentine's Day coming up, I decided to try my hand at making some roses out of duct tape. Most designs out there don't look much like an actual rose. So I tried to figure out a way to make them as realistic as possible."

The Macbook Dye Project teaches you how to dye your Macbook for those of you who are bored with its original colour: "Try to keep the destruction to a minimum so your Mom/Girlfriend/Boyfriend/Roommates don’t want to kill you. I also wouldn’t use anything you use for this again for food. RIT dye is toxic, and is meant for things that don’t normally touch your mouth."

Super Mario fans will love these new Converse Super Mario Bros themed sneakers. They come in black or white and are made of premium leather. In place of Converse's familiar star logo is the star icon from Nintendo's Mario franchise. Pixelated versions of Mario and Luigi are at the back above the heel. Converse Japan will release these sneakers in March 2012.

Six of Roald Dahl’s most popular children’s stories feature on the Official Roald Dahl Stamps - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Twits and The Witches. Each stamp features original illustrations by Roald’s long-time friend and collaborator, Quentin Blake.

The DC Chess Collection Batman set pits the Dark Knight and his allies against the twisted agents of crime spearheaded by the Joker. Each superbly detailed chess piece has been sculpted by expert modellers, cast in metallic resin and then hand-painted - the white team with a silvered finish, the black with a bronzed sheen.

Jirka used a combination of photo compositing and digital painting to create real life versions of female Disney characters like Ariel and Ursula from The Little Mermaid, Belle from the Beauty and the Beast, Princess Jasmine from Aladdin, Alice from Alice in Wonderland and much more. I really dig his Little Mermaid!

Holly teaches us how to make a plush alphabet magnet set. She writes: "Who can resist a little plush alphabet? I made some plush letters for my blog header, and liked them so much I knew I had to make a whole set — only with the addition of magnets." Go download her tutorial.

Each Tipsy Glass is unique and original. These out of shape glasses were made by putting them in a kiln at a very high temperature until reaching their melting point. The process resulted in a slow deformation of the glasses caused by gravity. The studio behind these glasses LORIS&LIVIA create uncommon objects and unexpected spaces that inspire simple human interactions.

This midsagittal section of the head and chest is created by Lisa Nilsson as part of her Tissue Series which are anatomical cross-sections in paper. The pieces are made of Japanese mulberry paper and the gilded edges of old books. They are constructed by a technique of rolling and shaping narrow strips of paper.

Dude has a collection of cute vintage Valentine's Day graphics on his Flickr. He says: "Strange and wonderful Valentines I have collected from days gone by and some art by yours truly." I like his Valentines: Space Cowboys photoset the most which has cowboys, astronauts, aliens, rocket ships and robots!

An egg and an apple build competing broadcast towers that vie for the attention of a transistor radio. With its complex characterization and narrative of animal evolution, competition and reproduction, SEED is a beautiful and sinister stop-motion story about the struggle to survive.

Pop superstar Madonna dazzled American football fans and millions of TV viewers on Sunday when she performed during a spectacular Super Bowl halftime show. Madonna's halftime show averaged 114 million viewers in the US which makes it the most-watched halftime show in history. Go watch her Halftime Show which features a medley of her hit songs. Are you watching Lady Gaga?

Osim's uPixie is the world's 1st laptop massager. And it's small! The thumbdrive sized USB massager lets you ease stiff muscles to the rhythm of your favourite music played on your computer! Osim calls it their Music Synchronised massage technology. The massager also functions as a mass storage device with a micro SD card.

Can't remember when to change your contact lenses? Lens Date Case will help you with that. It has a 2 wheel movement that sets either the date you started wearing your lenses or when to change them. The outer ring goes clockwise to set the day and inner ring anticlockwise to set the month. Also comes with a mirror that flips up.

Daniel Weil's Clock for an Astronomer is 600mm in diameter and 712mm in height and it is a celebration of astronomy and geography. He says, "The sun is the celestial time setter, and timekeeping is its terrestrial reflection." The clock's dial meets the compass. Twelve o’clock is north.

Molly Rausch has been doing Postage Stamp Paintings for 14 years. Yup, she's pretty good at it. An actual postage stamp is first glued down to the paper. Molly then paints around the stamp, extending the scene, with watercolor and gouache. Everything is done freehand with a brush. You can purchase them on her Etsy.

This 1/12 scale RX-78-2 Gundam model is 1.5m tall, comes with Beam Sabre, Beam Rifle, Gundam Shield, and makes 15 different kinds of retro sounds with its remote control, as well as featuring eye cameras and other parts that light up. It is also posable! You can move its head and waist to the left and right. Japanese human model not included.

Dude makes his own astronaut ice cream and is showing us how we can make one too. He says, "I managed to accomplish this with a harbor freight vacuum pump, some dry ice and various hoses and fittings. The process is known as freeze-drying and allows water to pass directly from ice to vapor."

Andy Baio has been tracking the online distribution of Oscar-nominated films for the last 10 years. He writes: "MPAA seems to be winning the battle to stop screener leaks. Online movie releasing groups are taking longer to pirate movies than ever. This year, only eight of the 37 nominees (21 percent) were sourced from camcorder footage."

The folks from Chinese gaming portal Game.163.com decided that their loyal readers deserve a new calendar for the new year so they are giving them a 2012 calendar to remember - one that features the hottest models from China! Yum. I couldn't decide which girl is my favourite. Maybe January girl Cynthia Gang.

I don't know why would anyone wanna go skiing with a long beard but if you are one of them, then the Beardski is just the thing for you. It is an insulated ski mask that covers the ears, face and neck from the cold. Made from woven thermal fleece, it has a comfortable lined neoprene and comes with a stylish 12" synthetic beard.

I know I could get into trouble for defamation by revealing the identity of the woman at the centre of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau's (CPIB) probe on the ex-heads of the Singapore Civil Defence Force Peter Lim and Central Narcotics Bureau Ng Boon Gay. The two top civil servants were linked to a woman working in the IT industry, who is alleged to have slept with both men. Oh well, I'm going to take a risk and reveal the mystery woman. According to my very reliable sources, it's Miss Piggy. There you have it. That slut!

Japanese pop singer DJ Ozma (yes that's him in that white Spiderman outfit) and friends teaches us how to do the Spiderman Dance from his hit song Spiderman. Please don't ask me where to buy the underwear like the ones they wore. I don't know!

Mastered the moves? Now watch his MTV. The Japanese are so strange.

Two overseas students who studied in NUS debate about the academic freedom at NUS. Walker Vincoli is a senior in the UNC-NUS (University of North Carolina-National University of Singapore) Joint Degree Program. He studied in Singapore in the fall semesters of 2010 and 2011 as a Phillips Ambassador. He wrote a letter to Yale Daily News about his experience studying in Singapore claiming that there is no student freedom at NUS.

He writes: "Singapore is not a free country and NUS is not a free university. The litmus test for academic freedom, to me, is the ability of students and faculty to engage their own country’s politics. In Singapore’s case, this happens in PS2249 at NUS: 'Government and Politics of Singapore.' I sat in stunned silence week after week as the professor recounted anecdotes of People’s Action Party interference in previous iterations of the class. Lower your criticism of the PAP, he had been told. Reduce your coverage of opposition parties. These little comments peppered the lectures as he covered the basic function of Singapore’s political apparatus.

When writing my midterm paper on press freedom in Singapore, I toned down criticism of the courts’ decisions in successful lawsuits against The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, partly due to a fear of retaliatory grading and partly because I worried my paper broke the law against scandalizing the court."



Another foreign student disagrees. Joseph Daniels studied at NUS in 2011. He is a junior in the UNC-NUS Joint Degree Program. He counters that academic freedom is alive in Singapore.

He writes: "Singaporean students I talked to when I studied at NUS never said they felt unduly restricted or pressured in their speech or votes. The May elections revealed some Singaporeans’ deep-seated dissatisfaction with growing inequality, the high cost of housing and general disconnect between the state and the people.

Singapore’s ban on spontaneous or non-permitted protest is a legitimate problem, but just because there is an apparent limitation on freedom does not mean that it is a debilitating limit or that Singaporeans do not have other avenues to express their concerns. December train breakdowns that left thousands stranded combined with a general economic slowdown triggered an uproar of dissatisfaction that led to a major review of ministerial salaries at the insistence of the general public.

Singapore, while by no means perfect, is not a country wholly without freedom. Freedom isn’t defined in a world of black and white but in a world of gray that lacks universal logics of societal comparison."

Industry Light & Magic (ILM) Visual Effects Supervisor, Scott Farrar and Animation Supervisor, Scott Benza, gives us a behind the scenes look at the Tilted Building sequence in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Three quarters of the film's effects were made by ILM. Digital Domain made the rest.

The Muppets creator Jim Henson made a short film called Robot in 1963 for The Bell System. It was shown at an elite seminar on data communications organised for business owners. The short film was found in the AT&T Archives. It was verified by Henson Archives to be a Jim Henson production.

Thousands of internet users were asked to remake Star Wars: A New Hope into a fan film, 15 seconds at a time. Contributors were allowed to recreate scenes from Star Wars however they wanted. The crowd-sourced project then stitched all the scenes together into a full 2 hour long movie. Watch Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut now!

Dash is a simple two component system that is the convergence of the car stereo and your smartphone. Connect your iPhone to Dash and it becomes your car stereo. It also charges your iPhone and gives you access to all your phone's features. Dash has 4 x 50w to power your car speakers and 2 preamps running at 2V.

CNN on Sunday showed a graphic of the UK map with London at the wrong location. Ouch! Looks like someone from the CNN graphics department is going to get fired. The graphic shows viewers where the London phone hacking arrests had taken place. The map points to London but the correct location is here.

Thomas Gately loves Game of Thrones so much that he created these minimalist posters based on the HBO series. He writes: "I became slightly obsessed with each of the House's and their identity or sigil. Having found the houses and their representative sigils, I set about creating a vector for each one of them and creating a poster."

Marine Corps Captain Kyle Ugone has an astonishing 1,091 Lego sets making him the Guinness world record holder for the most completed Lego sets in a private collection. He got his first set as a gift when he was 5 years old and he went on collecting more and more sets as he grew older. High res pic of his collection here.

If you have US$75K to spare for your space museum, then you should bid for this Vehicle Power Interface Console (VPI) for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) on eBay. The VPI Console provided power to the HST and performed tests to its batteries and solar panels as it was undergoing final testing before it was launched in 1986.

Barry Shields works for AT&T but making things with wood is his passion. And I bet he is a Star Trek fan too. Check out his Star Trek Enterprise NCC 1701-C Coffee Table. He writes: "This Star Trek table is made from ash, poplar and cherry wood. It took me a month to build it. The base was designed to portray the ship in orbit over a planet."

Product Placement, Alex Gross' next solo exhibition will feature 19 new works on canvas, paper and panel, as well as over 20 mixed media pieces involving antique photographs that are transformed into modern superhero and supervillain portraits. You should check out his other paintings too here. They are really good!

The plight of charcoal scavengers in the Philippines is captured by award winning documentary photographer Lisa Wiltse for National Geographic. These poor people make a living by making charcoal from wood scavenged from nearby garbage dumps and construction sites.

Dude is trying to sell his one of a kind creation. He typed the entire Moby Dick on several rolls of toilet paper! He says, "There are four full rolls, one roll (epilogue) is about 1/5 of a roll and one half-roll. I've kept this mod oddity in a box in a cool, dry place for the last 10 years." I think this deserves to be kept in some museum.

Cam Crate is a water proof, mud proof, crush proof and drop proof carrying case for DSLR cameras. It even floats! The case fits a full body DSLR with a telephoto lens. Its outer shell is made out of a composite material that is hard to break making it a perfect case for your precious DSLR when you take it out to the most hardcore of places.

Travish English makes lovely minimalist movie posters. You can check out all his works on his Tumblr. The ones that I like the most are his posters of all the 6 Star Wars movies. Interesting choice of scenes. He also has a different set with only the prequel trilogy posters. He is selling all of them on Etsy.

This is the world's largest wall-mounted Scrabble game. 5 times the size of the original game, there are only 9 of these in existence. It is meticulously constructed from Russian birch plywood. Comes with tile racks and 100 tiles made from rare earth magnet sandwiched between two pieces of birch plywood.

It's not surprising that this crazy product comes from Japan. The Anti Ageing Mouthpiece was developed by an ordinary housewife who was concerned about her own age and wanted an easy way to keep looking young. She claims you can reduce all those ugly lines on your face by puffing out your cheeks or sucking them in while breathing through the mouthpiece.

Join the Justice League in raising awareness and funds for three nonprofit partners who are delivering aid to countries in the Horn of Africa that are facing the worst drought in 60 years. DC Entertainment will match donations 100% and 50% of the purchase price from We Can Be Heroes products will go to saving lives.

eye3 is a project started by a husband and wife team to create a professional quality yet affordable flying robotic camera platform for. The platform comes in a low cost kit that can be easily assembled. The eye3 team is raising money for the project on Kickstarter but unfortunately funding was cancelled. They will still complete their project on their own. Updates here.

Classic Wrecks is a collection of handmade wrecks in 1:24 scale. The talented guy behind them will even do custom orders upon request. Pictured here is two miniature SUVs: "Both have detailed engines and white letter tires. Both have body rot with lots of mud. These two have some parts strategically missing like lights, drive shafts, wheel covers etc."

Tomislav Zvonarić designs this conceptual Facebook Bed, a conceptual multipractical bed design that allows you to always be up to date and close to your online friends even when you sleep. I think this is perfect for all you Facebook addicts.

Now you can build and paint your own zombie invasion. The DIY Zombie Customizable Action Figure Kit comes with 3 zombie action figures with extra replacement body parts - all decayed of course. Put them together, mix and match their clothes and the included instructional DVD will even teach you how to paint the zombies.