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Composites of 1906 San Francisco earthquake photos and today Sulu talks Great Graphic Novels: West Coast Avengers, by Steve Englehart and Al Milgrom First-year criminal law course in webcomic form John Lennon interviewed by Jann Wenner, 1970 Caine's Arcade 2: The Global Cardboard Challenge & Imagination Foundation Librarians! Teachers! Sign up for free copies of Rapture of the Nerds! Sword of Fargoal 2: classic dungeon-crawler adventure on Kickstarter A machine for washing breasts Canadian mint claims copyright over pictures of pennies Peanuts/Cthulhu tee Librarian tattoos An accountable algorithm for running a secure random checkpoint France's Hadopi finally punishes someone for infringement -- a guy whom everyone agrees isn't an infringer Glenn Gould Variations: a two-day event in Toronto inspired by Gould's awesomeness If this law passes, cops may finally need a warrant to read your Gmail Actress Kathy Bates tweets news of her breast cancer diagnosis, treatment TSA screener in Florida charged with child porn possession Collective Soul cat (video) William Gibson explains why science fiction writers don't predict the future Report: Mysterious gentleman behind Anti-Muhammad movie an ex-meth cook Guatemala's Volcan de Fuego erupts James Cameron wants to help the Mythbusters prove that Jack and Rose could not have both occupied that door-raft Stunning cover from Daniel Clowes' Eightball no. 18 as a limited-edition print Win tickets to see David Byrne and Cory in Toronto, Sept 19 I am in favor of Kraken Jamming If NFL players were characters from Game of Thrones Fred Armisen hands over the presidential reins to Jay Pharoah on SNL New monkey isn't so much "new" as "newly documented in a scientific journal" Composites of 1906 San Francisco earthquake photos and today
By David Pescovitz on Sep 14, 2012 12:55 pm Photographer Shawn Clover makes composite photos of the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and the same locations in the present day. Clover created part 1 in 2010 and part 2 was just published. (via Colossal, thanks Koshi!) Ghosts of WWII: Sergey Larenkov's Photoshopped historic photos ...
Read in browser Sulu talks
By David Pescovitz on Sep 14, 2012 12:44 pm Over at Mother Jones, George Takei, who played Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek, shares some fascinating stories about Asian stereotypes in Hollywood, his childhood memories of a post-Pearl Harbor internment camp, and being "quietly out" in the late 1960s. From Mother Jones: MJ: Did the cast know you were gay? GT: Most of them ...
Read in browser Great Graphic Novels: West Coast Avengers, by Steve Englehart and Al Milgrom
By Andy Ihnatko on Sep 14, 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 West Coast Avengers, ...
Read in browser First-year criminal law course in webcomic form
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 14, 2012 12:14 pm Nathaniel Burney's Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law is a complete first-year Criminal Law course in comic form, in 17 parts on a Tumblr. It's clearly written, and the illustrations go a long way toward making complex ideas easier to grasp. Burney's comics have been collected between covers in a printed book, which would make a ...
Read in browser John Lennon interviewed by Jann Wenner, 1970
By David Pescovitz on Sep 14, 2012 12:10 pm In December 1970, John Lennon sat down with Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner. This interview took place in New York City Shortly after Lennon and Yoko Ono finished recording the monumental "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band." The conversation is not to be missed, and you can hear them on the Rolling Stone podcast. Lennon is at ...
Read in browser Caine's Arcade 2: The Global Cardboard Challenge & Imagination Foundation
By Mark Frauenfelder on Sep 14, 2012 12:09 pm [Video Link] Nirvan Mullick says: 5 months after Caine's Arcade, here is the followup film, inspired by the response of kids around the world. We're also kicking off a Global Cardboard Challenge, inviting kids young and old to build something awesome out of cardboard and imagination. The Cardboard Challenge will culminate in a Global Day ...
Read in browser Librarians! Teachers! Sign up for free copies of Rapture of the Nerds!
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 14, 2012 12:02 pm Charlie Stross and I have a new book out and I'm about to put up a website were readers can download free, CC-licensed copies of it in ebook form. As with other recent books, I'm going to collect and publish the names of librarians, teachers, and public institutions that would like to get free copies ...
Read in browser Sword of Fargoal 2: classic dungeon-crawler adventure on Kickstarter
By Mark Frauenfelder on Sep 14, 2012 11:54 am The roguelike Sword of Fargoal is one of my favorite games for iPhone/iPad. Everything about it -- the gameplay, the music, the graphics -- kept me playing it way past my bedtime until I completed it (it took weeks and weeks). I'm excited that the Jeff McCord, who created the original Sword of Fargoal for ...
Read in browser A machine for washing breasts
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 14, 2012 10:05 am Circa 1930s. Origin unknown. Use unknown. Breast washer, c.1930s
Read in browser Canadian mint claims copyright over pictures of pennies
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 14, 2012 09:03 am The Canadian mint sent a legal threat to a folk-singer called Dave Gunning, objecting to his use of photos of pennies in the liner notes on his latest CD, No More Pennies, which eulogizes the Canadian one-cent piece, now discontinued. My friends in the commonwealth sometimes don't understand what the practical difference is between "Crown ...
Read in browser Peanuts/Cthulhu tee
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 14, 2012 01:41 am Today only on Tee Fury, Queenmob's "Call of Snoophulhu" $10 tee. Call of Snoophulhu (via Super Punch)
Read in browser Librarian tattoos
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 13, 2012 11:08 pm On Mental Floss, Jill Harness's collection of librarian tattoos. Above, Elizabeth Skene's card-catalog sleeve, by Frank William of the Chicago Tattoo Company. Right, Michelle's super-librarian tattoo, chosen to represent her career as a high-school librarian, based on Mary Marvel, and done by Chris Cockrill of Avalon II Tattoo. 11 Amazing Librarian Tattoos (via Making Light)
Read in browser An accountable algorithm for running a secure random checkpoint
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 13, 2012 09:25 pm Ed Felten presents and argues for the idea of "accountable algorithms" for use in public life -- that is, "output produced by a particular execution of the algorithm can be verified as correct after the fact by a skeptical member of the public." He gives a great example of how to run a securely random ...
Read in browser France's Hadopi finally punishes someone for infringement -- a guy whom everyone agrees isn't an infringer
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 13, 2012 07:15 pm The French Hadopi agency has prosecuted its first user under the country's insane anti-piracy laws, which provide for disconnection of whole families from the Internet if someone using their connection is accused of multiple acts of file-sharing. The first person to be convicted is a 40-year-old man whose ex-wife admitted to downloading some songs on ...
Read in browser Glenn Gould Variations: a two-day event in Toronto inspired by Gould's awesomeness
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 13, 2012 06:20 pm The Glenn Gould Variations is a new conference/event in Toronto mounted by the Glenn Gould Foundation, dedicated to the kind of odd, creative, quirky and thoughtful ideas that Gould was known for. The inaugural event, called "DREAMERS RENEGADES VISIONARIES," will be held in Toronto on Sept 22/23 at the University of Toronto's Convocation Hall. There ...
Read in browser If this law passes, cops may finally need a warrant to read your Gmail
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 13, 2012 06:12 pm Cyrus Farivar at Ars Technica: "Right now, if the cops want to read my e-mail, it's pretty trivial for them to do so. All they have to do is ask my online e-mail provider. But a new bill set to be introduced Thursday in the Senate Judiciary Committee by its chair, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), ...
Read in browser Actress Kathy Bates tweets news of her breast cancer diagnosis, treatment
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 13, 2012 06:05 pm After some four month of silence on Twitter, Kathy Bates returned to share news that she was diagnosed with breast cancer two months ago, and has undergone a double mastectomy. I felt an extra-strong twinge of sadness when I read Twitter replies from her fans wishing her a "speedy recovery." I get that line a ...
Read in browser TSA screener in Florida charged with child porn possession
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 13, 2012 06:00 pm A TSA screener who worked in Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood airport in Florida is in jail, "facing 25 counts of possessing child pornography showing young children engaged in sexual acts." He first admitted to investigators that he had downloaded the material and deleted it, but later said he "didn't know how the child pornography got on his ...
Read in browser Collective Soul cat (video)
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 13, 2012 05:42 pm [Video Link] (Thanks, Tara McGinley!)
Read in browser William Gibson explains why science fiction writers don't predict the future
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 13, 2012 05:03 pm William Gibson speaks with Wired's Geeta Dayal about his new book Distrust That Particular Flavor (my review), and particularly the idea that science fiction sucks at predicting stuff. Science fiction writers aren't fortune tellers. Fortune tellers are fakes. Fortune tellers are either deluded or charlatans. You can find science fiction writers who are deluded or ...
Read in browser Report: Mysterious gentleman behind Anti-Muhammad movie an ex-meth cook
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 13, 2012 04:33 pm "Innocence of Muslims," the spectacularly crappy anti-Muslim movie trailer linked to recent violence in Libya, and the death of a US ambassador and others? The guy credited as its filmmaker, "Sam Bacile," has been outed as one Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. Noah Shachtman at Wired News reports that "Bacile" was one of many pseudonyms used by ...
Read in browser Guatemala's Volcan de Fuego erupts
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 13, 2012 04:13 pm There are two major active volcanoes in the Sacatepéquez department of Guatemala, and one of them is very active today: Volcán de Fuego, or "the fire volcano" (as contrasted with its adjacent twin, Volcán de Agua, or "the water volcano"). The last time this volcano erupted was in 2011. Mashable gathered some "citizen"-published photos and ...
Read in browser James Cameron wants to help the Mythbusters prove that Jack and Rose could not have both occupied that door-raft
By Jamie Frevele on Sep 13, 2012 03:58 pm Apologies for another Titanic-related post this week, but this one has Mythbusters in it. James Cameron did an interview with IGN in which he talked about the conversion to 3D, yada yada yada... And then a minute before the end of the video, the interviewer asks Cameron if he's aware of the Reddit thread trying ...
Read in browser Stunning cover from Daniel Clowes' Eightball no. 18 as a limited-edition print
By Mark Frauenfelder on Sep 13, 2012 03:23 pm I loved the cover painting for Daniel Clowes' Eightball no. 18, and now it's available as a limited-edition print. This is a limited edition, archival, facsimile print of the cover painting used for issue no.18 of the comic Eightball by Daniel Clowes. It has been reproduced at a 1:1 scale to match the size of ...
Read in browser Win tickets to see David Byrne and Cory in Toronto, Sept 19
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 13, 2012 03:14 pm Yesterday, I reviewed the new David Byrne book, How Music Works and mentioned that I'd be interviewing Byrne about it live on stage in Toronto on Sept 19, as part of the Harbourfront International Festival of Authors. The IFA folks have made a pair of tickets for the event available to Boing Boing readers. To ...
Read in browser I am in favor of Kraken Jamming
By Mark Frauenfelder on Sep 13, 2012 03:00 pm Want an awesome painting like this? It's a two step process: Step 1: Find generic '80s oil painting at thrift store Step 2: Paint a badass Kraken in it Dana's Painting and Portraits (Thanks, Gromitorium!)
Read in browser If NFL players were characters from Game of Thrones
By Jamie Frevele on Sep 13, 2012 02:16 pm Rob Bricken of Topless Robot has compiled a list for Maxim Magazine, a magazine that generally has nothing for me to look at. However, this list is a list of NFL players if they were characters from HBO's Game of Thrones. And it's slightly biased towards the NY Giants, so, therefore, I am biased towards ...
Read in browser Fred Armisen hands over the presidential reins to Jay Pharoah on SNL
By Jamie Frevele on Sep 13, 2012 02:10 pm Lorne Michaels broke the news yesterday that when the new season of Saturday Night Live starts this weekend, it will be Jay Pharoah playing President Obama rather than Fred Armisen, who has played POTUS since 2008. Pharoah, currently a featured player (though that may change), has been honing his Obama impression for a while now, ...
Read in browser New monkey isn't so much "new" as "newly documented in a scientific journal"
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Sep 13, 2012 01:04 pm When somebody says that a new species has been discovered, it's easy to get the impression that this is an animal nobody has ever seen before. But that's usually not exactly what scientists mean. Take the lesula (or Cercopithecus lomamiensis), an African monkey whose "discovery" is making headlines this week. While it does seem to ...
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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