[Sponsor] Retrogadget watch pioneer Click Watches and Watchismo are proud to introduce the extremely limited edition Click Watches SAFE Watch collection, now in all stainless steel casing and leather straps. Each watch has the individual edition number engraved on the caseback, supply is VERY limited, don't miss out! Time is unlocked by pressing the zero to display a sequential flashing of led bulbs in corresponding keypad buttons. Time can be displayed in 12 hour or 24 hour function. A number pad set into an angular steel casing with no distinguishable display adds up to a cool new way to showcase the time. See the entire Click Watch collection at Watchismo.
Maria Del Camino, a mutant excavator mated to a 59 El Camino, with the face of Maria from Metropolis Talking Heads Live in Rome, 1980 Yahoo to give employees any smartphone they like Massachusetts medical marijuana opposition forgets to register domain Burning Man 2012 flyover Army "Civil Disturbances" training manual from 1975 Librarians to Hachette: Seriously? You want to triple the cost of ebooks? Step-by-step guide to frying the perfect egg Homophobic theory of dinosauric extinction HBR w/o DRM Maria Del Camino, a mutant excavator mated to a 59 El Camino, with the face of Maria from Metropolis
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 16, 2012 11:57 am Maria Del Camino is Bruce Tomb's magnificent mutant vehicle. It started out life as the body of a '59 El Camino, and was then riddled with thousands of hand-drilled holes, turning it into a meshwork. On the hood, the holes form a pointillist portrait of Maria from Fritz Lang's Metropolis. The whole thing was then ...
Read in browser Talking Heads Live in Rome, 1980
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 16, 2012 09:00 am A followup to this 2007 post about the handful of clips from Talking Heads' Live in Rome concert footage: the whole movie is now online in one big, 1:05 YouTube clip. The 1980 concert is a kind of precursor to the spectacular Stop Making Sense tour, and is a perfect delight for a Sunday morning. ...
Read in browser Yahoo to give employees any smartphone they like
By Rob Beschizza on Sep 16, 2012 01:17 am Marissa Mayer is giving everyone at Yahoo an iPhone 5, reports Nicholas Carlson: New Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer just sent an email to all of Yahoo's full time and part time employees in the US, promising them a new Apple, Samsung, Nokia, or HTC smartphone. "People are happy," says a source at the company. But ...
Read in browser Massachusetts medical marijuana opposition forgets to register domain
By Jason Weisberger on Sep 15, 2012 10:21 pm At election time in Massachusetts every voter gets a copy of the state produced 'Information Guide.' Inside this guide, with the usual pros and cons, are URLs for the folks leading the support or opposition. An interested voter clicked on the VoteNoOnQuestion3.org website, the listed opposition to a current medical marijuana initiative, only to discover ...
Read in browser Burning Man 2012 flyover
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 15, 2012 08:54 pm Here's a rather magnificent flyover of this year's Burning Man's Black Rock City. Look closely and you'll see our glorious Liminal Labs camp, just off 6 O'Clock and Rod's Road. BURNING MAN FPV - Black Rock City Aerial Tour 2012 (Thanks, Nicola!)
Read in browser Army "Civil Disturbances" training manual from 1975
By David Pescovitz on Sep 15, 2012 07:39 pm Mark Pilkington, who is documenting for Boing Boing his strange trip through the mythic landscape of the American Southwest, picked up this useful manual at an army surplus store in Albuquerque, New Mexico. You too can master the "butt stroke." See more pages over at Mark's blog: "Civil Disturbances (1975)"
Read in browser Librarians to Hachette: Seriously? You want to triple the cost of ebooks?
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 15, 2012 05:46 pm The American Library Association has decried Hachette's decision to increase the cost of library ebooks by 220 percent. Hachette is the same publisher that has demanded that authors it publishes lean on Tor books to reinstate DRM on their books. Way to handle the 21st century, folks. "After these tentative steps forward, we were stunned ...
Read in browser Step-by-step guide to frying the perfect egg
By Jason Weisberger on Sep 15, 2012 03:57 pm The New York Times and spanish chef José Andrés shared this pictorial guide to frying a perfect egg. "My whole life, I have been trying to cook an egg in the right way," said Andrés.
Read in browser Homophobic theory of dinosauric extinction
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 15, 2012 02:51 pm Origin unknown: a brochure attributing the extinction of dinosaurs to their rampant homosexuality. Quite possibly a parody. (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)
Read in browser HBR w/o DRM
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 15, 2012 01:18 pm Mary sez, "Following the lead of Baen, O'Reilly Media, and Tor, the Harvard Business Review has decided to go DRM free." They say, "We make our ebooks available to you DRM-free so you can read them on the device of your choice. We trust that our customers will abide by copyright law and refrain from ...
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
No comments:
Post a Comment