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Time to start coveting vintage Pyrex Dredging: how the hell does that work? The science of Aquaman Great Graphic Novels: Sazae-San, by Machiko Hasegawa How cartographers helped clean up after 9/11 For the last time, redheads are not going extinct Singularity Summit San Francisco, Oct 13/14 The grisly business of buffalo bones Astronaut Neil Armstrong remembered in nation's capitol today Breakdancing Freedom Tower construction worker in NYC (video) Snapshots from Benghazi Hip Deep Angola: 4-part radio series exploring music in southern Africa Supercomputer built from Raspberry Pis and Lego Sneak peek at graphic novel of Wrinkle in Time Toothbrush bodge used to fix ISS Ubiquitous surveillance rap Facebook to New Yorker: no nipples in your cartoons! Nottingham's wondrous caves Great Graphic Novels: It's A Good Life, If You Don't Weaken, by Seth Opus: a new, free, open audio codec that outperforms everything else Acme Dogma Disruptor tees Magic: The Gathering is Turing complete 100 critically-endangered species Hershey's Chocolate was once part of US Army soldiers' emergency rations Tim Minchin explains evolution and genomics in an animated video Explore Japanese Space Science with Google Maps The Rapping Weatherman's Puzzle Forecast (music video) Hodgman Box Set: it's official! Save on Apple at eBay Mars Curiosity update, now with animated GIFs from the red planet Time to start coveting vintage Pyrex
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Sep 13, 2012 12:50 pm Pyrex is supposed to be tough stuff, capable of withstanding extreme temperature changes, like a trip from the freezer to the oven. And that was true with old Pyrex, made from thermal-stress resistant borosilicate glass. But starting in 1994, Corning began licensing the name Pyrex to other manufacturers, which, today, make Pyrex brand cookware with ...
Read in browser Dredging: how the hell does that work?
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 13, 2012 12:40 pm Ben Mendelsohn sez, "Dredging - the mechanized transport of underwater sediments - is one of the most elemental of the infrastructural support systems that underlie modern societies. Through dredging, we act as geologic agents - moving earth in what amounts to a new geologic cycle. This video introduces dredging, its landscapes, and some of the ...
Read in browser The science of Aquaman
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Sep 13, 2012 12:36 pm When it comes to powers, he's no Superman. And he lacks Batman's popularity. But at the Southern Fried Science blog, perennial also-ran superhero Aquaman is at least able to inspire some fascinating discussion of science. Marine biologist Andrew Thaler is on his second post about the science of Aquaman. Besides being just fascination information about ...
Read in browser Great Graphic Novels: Sazae-San, by Machiko Hasegawa
By Lars Martinson on Sep 13, 2012 12:30 pm Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excellent titles. I hope you enjoy them! (Read all the Great Graphic Novel essays here.) -- Mark Sazae-San, by Machiko ...
Read in browser How cartographers helped clean up after 9/11
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Sep 13, 2012 12:17 pm This image, made using a laser mapping technology called LIDAR, was taken on September 17, 2001. It shows a 3-D model of the rubble left behind in lower Manhattan following the attacks on the World Trade Center. Minnesota Public Radio's Paul Tosto has a really interesting peek into the way mapping techniques like LIDAR were ...
Read in browser For the last time, redheads are not going extinct
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Sep 13, 2012 12:09 pm Pictured: Your great-grandchildren? As a redheaded science journalist, I hear this "fact" a lot. Reality is, though, we aren't going anywhere. Yes, as Cara Santa Maria points out at Huffington Post, redheads represent only about 1% of the world's population. And this hair color is related to a recessive gene. Both your parents have to ...
Read in browser Singularity Summit San Francisco, Oct 13/14
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 13, 2012 12:09 pm Eric sez, "The Singularity Summit 2012, exploring 'Minds and Machines' and 'Emerging Technologies and Science' will be taking place October 13 - 14 at the Nob Hill Masonic Center in San Francisco. The Singularity Summit is the premier event on cutting-edge technologies including robotics, regenerative medicine, artificial intelligence, brain-computer interfacing and more. Join some of ...
Read in browser The grisly business of buffalo bones
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Sep 13, 2012 11:38 am By this point in your lives, most of you are by no doubt aware of the massive slaughter of buffalo that happened in the United States in the late 19th century. Across the plains, thousands of buffalo were killed every week during a brief period where the hides of these animals could fetch upwards of ...
Read in browser Astronaut Neil Armstrong remembered in nation's capitol today
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 13, 2012 11:32 am America said goodbye today to Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on another world beyond Earth. "The powerful of Washington, the pioneers of space, and the everyday public crowded into the Washington National Cathedral for a public interfaith memorial for the very private astronaut," reports the AP. Armstrong died last month in Ohio ...
Read in browser Breakdancing Freedom Tower construction worker in NYC (video)
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 13, 2012 11:26 am [Video Link] (Thanks, Joe Sabia)
Read in browser Snapshots from Benghazi
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 13, 2012 11:20 am Bassam Tariq of 30 Days Ramadan points us to a series of images making the rounds on Facebook, Twitter, and the like today. The snapshots are ostensibly reactions to the recent violence related to a weird, anti-Islam YouTube trailer for a film produced by a mysterious character with a shady past. The whole story behind ...
Read in browser Hip Deep Angola: 4-part radio series exploring music in southern Africa
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 13, 2012 11:14 am Ned Sublette shares word of a new Afropop Worldwide radio series premiering this month, and continuing in four episodes through November: HIP DEEP ANGOLA, "an unprecedented exploration of the history and contemporary reality of this southern African nation -- a story told in music." Angola is not an easy place to report from even now, ...
Read in browser Supercomputer built from Raspberry Pis and Lego
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 13, 2012 09:05 am A team of computer scientists at the University of Southampton in the UK created a supercomputer out of 64 Raspberry Pi matchbox Linux-on-a-chip computers and Lego. The team included six year old James Cox, the son of project lead Professor Simon Cox, "who provided specialist support on Lego and system testing." Here's a PDF with ...
Read in browser Sneak peek at graphic novel of Wrinkle in Time
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 13, 2012 12:00 am Tor.com has an excerpt from the upcoming graphic novel of A Wrinkle in Time, published for the Madeline L'Engle original's 50th anniversary. My review of the book is slated for next month when it hits stores, but suffice to say, this is a respectful, accomplished and brilliant adaptation.
Read in browser Toothbrush bodge used to fix ISS
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 12, 2012 10:53 pm Here's a picture of the now-famous improvised bolt cleaner that astronauts on the ISS created out of a toothbrush to use during a recent spacewalk. ABC's Gina Sunseri describes the hack: A $100 billion space station saved by a simple $3 toothbrush? It was the brainstorm of astronauts Sunita Williams and Akihido Hoshide and NASA ...
Read in browser Ubiquitous surveillance rap
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 12, 2012 10:00 pm The latest edition of Juice Rap News, "Big Brother is WWWatching You," is a catchy little rap ditty about how the Internet is being remade as a total information awareness panopticon: September 2012 rocks around with some crucial developments in the ongoing struggle over the future of the internet. Will it remain the one open ...
Read in browser Facebook to New Yorker: no nipples in your cartoons!
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 12, 2012 08:47 pm Facebook forced The New Yorker to remove a cartoon depicting Adam and Eve in the Garden because the cartoonist drew in two dots representing Eve's nipples, which is a Facebook no-no. Nipplegate (via JWZ)
Read in browser Nottingham's wondrous caves
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 12, 2012 08:09 pm Geoff from BLDGBLOG sez, I thought I'd send a link to a new and very long post I just put up, describing a visit last month to Nottingham, England, where we explored nearly a dozen artificial cave systems, carved directly from the sandstone, with archaeologist David Strange-Walker. Nottingham, as few people seem to know, is ...
Read in browser Great Graphic Novels: It's A Good Life, If You Don't Weaken, by Seth
By Amy Crehore on Sep 12, 2012 07:01 pm Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excellent titles. I hope you enjoy them! (Read all the Great Graphic Novel essays here.) -- Mark It’s A Good ...
Read in browser Opus: a new, free, open audio codec that outperforms everything else
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 12, 2012 07:00 pm The IETF has finished its standardization effort for Opus, a new free/open audio codec that reportedly outperforms all other codecs on all axes. The codec was jointly created by IETF, Mozilla, Microsoft (through Skype), Xiph.Org (maintainers of Ogg), Octasic, Broadcom, and Google and Mozilla promises that a comparable video codec will come next. One of ...
Read in browser Acme Dogma Disruptor tees
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 12, 2012 06:14 pm On sale and awesome from the good folks at Skepchick, and just in time for the school year: Atomic Dogma Disruptor tees, perfect for those PTA meetings over school prayer! New Skepchick T-shirt & SALE STUFF! religion,tees,happy mutants,fashion,t-shirts,gift guide
Read in browser Magic: The Gathering is Turing complete
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 12, 2012 05:27 pm Alex Churchill has posted a way to implement a Turing complete computer within a game of Magic: The Gathering ("Turing complete" is a way of classifying a calculating engine that is capable of general-purpose computation). The profound and interesting thing about the recurrence of Turing completeness in many unexpected places -- such as page-layout descriptive ...
Read in browser 100 critically-endangered species
By David Pescovitz on Sep 12, 2012 05:12 pm This is the Pygmy Three-toed Sloth that lives on a few islands off Panama. Only a few hundred of these beautiful beasties are alive today. Like the Sumatran rhinoceros, Tonkin Snub-nosed Monkey, and Attenborough's Pitcher Plant, the Pygmy Three-toed Sloth is one of the 100 most critically-endangered species, according to a new report from the ...
Read in browser Hershey's Chocolate was once part of US Army soldiers' emergency rations
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 12, 2012 03:54 pm From the Smithsonian, a photograph marking the Sept. 13, 1857, birthday of Milton S. Hershey, American confectioner, philanthropist and founder of the Hershey Chocolate Company. The company was founded by Hershey in 1894, and produced the first Hershey chocolate bar in 1900. The U.S. Army's requirements were quite specific. For troops engaged in a global ...
Read in browser Tim Minchin explains evolution and genomics in an animated video
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 12, 2012 03:44 pm Tracy King sends us an "animated history of genetics from Nature to celebrate the release of ENCODE. Narrated by Tim Minchin and animated by the team who made Storm. Written by Adam Rutherford (Nature), Andrew Ellard (Red Dwarf, IT Crowd) and Tracy King (TAM London). Ever since a monk called Mendel started breeding pea plants ...
Read in browser Explore Japanese Space Science with Google Maps
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 12, 2012 03:42 pm From the Google Maps blog: September 12th is 'Space Day' in Japan, and we are celebrating by releasing new, comprehensive Street View imagery for two of Japan's top scientific institutions: the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan). With panoramic imagery in and around these locations now ...
Read in browser The Rapping Weatherman's Puzzle Forecast (music video)
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 12, 2012 03:26 pm [Video Link, and his YouTube channel is here.]
Read in browser Hodgman Box Set: it's official!
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 12, 2012 03:19 pm Early in August, John Hodgman teased the release of a boxed set of his three books (The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, That Is All). Now the set is officially announced. Also on October 2, the paperback edition of THAT IS ALL shall also be made available as part of a ...
Read in browser Save on Apple at eBay
By Advertiser on Sep 12, 2012 03:15 pm ADVERTISEMENT This post is sponsored by eBay. From the new to the hard to find, when it's on your mind, it's on eBay. No, that isn't the brand new iPhone in the center there. It's the iPhone 4S. And while the new phone grabs the spotlight, the 4S is hardly obsolete. Just back to school ...
Read in browser Mars Curiosity update, now with animated GIFs from the red planet
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 12, 2012 02:09 pm I'm sitting in on a NASA Jet propulsion laboratory teleconference for science journalists, with an update for the world on the Mars Curiosity rover's mission. Curiosity completes her "checkout" phase today. Including an "intermission" of 13 sols, and one remaining sol to inspect the rover's robotic arm, 26 sols have been devoted to so-called checkout ...
Read in browser Meet SparkTruck, an “educational build-mobile” for the twenty-first century.
Dreamed up by a group of Stanford d.school students and funded through Kickstarter, SparkTruck is a mobile maker space currently traveling across the United States. At schools and summer camps and libraries around the country, the SparkTruck team offers workshops to help kids “find their inner maker” as they design and build projects like stamps, stop-motion animation clips, and “vibrobots.”
[video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmRKXqDwieY&feature=plcp]
This might seem all shiny and new. And it is—but only in part. What’s so striking (and exciting) about SparkTruck is the way it combines old and new. It does so in the tools it gets kids using, which range from pipe cleaners to laser cutters. It does so in its educational approach, which combines cutting-edge (get it?) STEM and design pedagogy with the fundamentals of an old-school shop class. And it does so in its method, which combines the iconic, century-old technology of the bookmobile with the hot new form of the maker space.
In doing so, SparkTruck joins a growing number of libraries which are combining time-tested principles (like equal access to information) with new technologies (like 3-D printers), putting in maker spaces and media production labs alongside bookshelves and meeting rooms. As I’ve argued over on bookmobility.org, these combinations make sense because reading and making actually have a lot in common. They’re both creative processes that take existing materials and combine them in new ways. Getting people engaged in those kinds of processes—through imaginative thinking, contemplation, hands-on problem-solving, and collaborative learning—is what both maker spaces and libraries are all about.
Taking that commitment on the road with scissors and hammers and 3-D printers and a great big bookmobile-like truck, SparkTruck serves as a laboratory for new approaches, as well as a reminder that trying new things doesn’t have to (and probably shouldn’t!) necessarily mean tossing old ones out.
After all, what would those vibrobots be without classically crafty pipe cleaners and tongue depressors? And what would a library be without the creative, participatory, straight-up awesome experience of reading?
SparkTruck schedule [sparktruck.org]
How to arrange a visit from SparkTruck [sparktruck.org]
SparkTruck YouTube channel [youtube.com]
Signature: --Derek Attig, bookmobility.org
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