[Sponsor] The Alessi Grow Watch is a cool new timepiece designed by Andrea Morgante of Shiro Studio and now available at Watchismo! The watch concept is derived from the 'act of growing' which often results in forms and patterns which we can all instinctively relate to. The surface of the design features a rippled texture, much like the muscle fibers which lay below our skin. Perceived as a single entity rather than an assembly of multiple mechanical parts, 'grow' is an external manifestation of our bodies' qualities.
Great Graphic Novels: God's Man, by Lynd Ward Weird cyberpunk game has pounding electronic soundtrack Librarians, teachers: sign up to get free copies of my forthcoming YA novel Pirate Cinema Cyclists are safe and courteous, and your disdain for them is grounded in cognitive bias TOM THE DANCING BUG: A Totally Implausible Satire, featuring Lucky Ducky Felony charge over stick figure threat Finger found inside trout traced to owner 64,000 drug-bust samples in Mass. were processed by a dirty lab tech who tampered with them, altered weight, faked positive tests for illegal substances Movie poster for Jodorowsky's Dune 33 new biomes to explore in Minecraft The Shining as a Seinfeld-style sitcom EU working group produces the stupidest set of proposed Internet rules in the entire history of the human race David Byrne and St Vincent performing each others' songs together Interview with Ray Harryhausen Guy trying to cure friend's hiccups accidentally kills him Fruit salad trees with six different fruit-bearing branches grafted on them Google launches underwater Street View, a new virtual map of oceans Laptop rental companies reach cash-free, pointless settlement with toothless FTC for taking secret naked pictures of customers having sex, harvesting medical records and banking passwords and more Debunking the NYT feature on the wastefulness of data-centers Fantastically detailed miniature replica of Katz's deli Silcon Valley's high-tech bus commuter lines visualized Dolphin giving birth Six-eyed reveler wows Folsom Street Fair AMC casually confirms a fourth season of The Walking Dead Toyota's new robot Mitt Romney: "I don't know" why airplane windows don't open From opium antiques collector to addict New collection of interviews with JG Ballard And now, the ballad of the the NFL ref strike, as performed by the replacement refs at the Seahawks-Packers game The Jetsons: 50 years later Great Graphic Novels: God's Man, by Lynd Ward
By Douglas Rushkoff on Sep 26, 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 My first experience ...
Read in browser Weird cyberpunk game has pounding electronic soundtrack
By Rob Beschizza on Sep 26, 2012 12:09 pm Electronic musician Tettix's latest is Cool Pizza, the soundtrack to a bizarre and brutally difficult iOS game by the same name, which renders Space Harrier-style gameplay in pink spot color and halftone patterns. "This is different from most of my stuff," writes T. "It's fast and furious cyperpunk and all the titles are demonic pizza ...
Read in browser Librarians, teachers: sign up to get free copies of my forthcoming YA novel Pirate Cinema
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 26, 2012 11:55 am As many of you will know, I'm about to kick off the tour for a new YA science fiction novel, Pirate Cinema, which comes out next week. As with all my other novels, I'll be putting up Creative Commons-licensed editions of the book for your downloading pleasure. Now, whenever I do this, many readers write ...
Read in browser Cyclists are safe and courteous, and your disdain for them is grounded in cognitive bias
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 26, 2012 10:40 am Jim Saska is a jerky cyclist, something he cheerfully cops to (he also admits that he's a dick when he's driving a car or walking, and explains the overall pattern with a reference to his New Jersey provenance). But he's also in possession of some compelling statistics that suggest that cyclists are, on average, less ...
Read in browser TOM THE DANCING BUG: A Totally Implausible Satire, featuring Lucky Ducky
By Ruben Bolling on Sep 26, 2012 10:30 am Tom the Dancing Bug: Come on! Hollingsworth Hound giving a speech to Fat Cats, denouncing Lucky Ducky and his 47% buddies as entitled moochers? It's beyond satire!
Read in browser Felony charge over stick figure threat
By Rob Beschizza on Sep 26, 2012 09:28 am A woman scheduled to be released from prison will remain incarcerated, say authorities in Idaho, because she mailed a threatening stick figure drawing to a relative. [WaPo]
Read in browser Finger found inside trout traced to owner
By Rob Beschizza on Sep 26, 2012 09:24 am A human finger found in a trout was identified as one lost months ago in a wakeboarding accident: "Detectives were able to get a fingerprint off the severed digit. They matched it to a fingerprint card for Haans Galassi, 31, of Colbert, Wash., and called him Tuesday morning." [AP]
Read in browser 64,000 drug-bust samples in Mass. were processed by a dirty lab tech who tampered with them, altered weight, faked positive tests for illegal substances
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 26, 2012 09:23 am Michael F sez, "There's a Massachusetts state crime lab scandal that hasn't yet received too much national attention (outside of the state)--and I thought it was worth sharing. It's been alleged that a single chemist (with forged education credentials) may be responsible for tampering with drug evidence that could have affected the outcome of up ...
Read in browser Movie poster for Jodorowsky's Dune
By Rob Beschizza on Sep 26, 2012 09:16 am Kilian Eng created this poster for an upcoming documentary about Alejandro Jodorowsky's legendary project to film Dune, "possibly the greatest Sci-Fi film that never was." Poster for the upcoming documentary [via Super Punch]
Read in browser 33 new biomes to explore in Minecraft
By Rob Beschizza on Sep 26, 2012 09:00 am The Biomes O'Plenty Minecraft mod adds wild varieties of landscape to the blocky exploration and building game: wastelands, craggy outcroppings, hazy savannah, ominous woodlands, orchards, and much else besides. [via RPS]
Read in browser The Shining as a Seinfeld-style sitcom
By Rob Beschizza on Sep 26, 2012 08:24 am "I know I'm not the first person to put a laugh track on The Shining," writes youtoobmember, "but I couldn't resist doing my own version of it." The result is funny for a minute or so, then increasingly unsettling: it seems to remove the safe pop-culture patina that The Shining has picked up over the ...
Read in browser EU working group produces the stupidest set of proposed Internet rules in the entire history of the human race
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 26, 2012 01:59 am An EU working group that's been charged with coming up with recommendations for a terrorist-free European Internet has been brainstorming the stupidest goddamned ideas you've ever read, which are now widely visible, thanks to a leaked memo. The group, CleanIT, which is composed of cops, governments, and some NGOs from across Europe, has been given ...
Read in browser David Byrne and St Vincent performing each others' songs together
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 26, 2012 12:25 am Pitchfork's got a couple YouTube clips from the ongoing David Byrne/St Vincent tour, which is in support of their new album and Byrne's new book, both of which are amazing. I saw the tour stop in Toronto and actually wept at one point. I've been listening to the new album, Love This Giant nonstop since, ...
Read in browser Interview with Ray Harryhausen
By David Pescovitz on Sep 26, 2012 12:12 am Here's a 1974 interview with SFX pioneer and "Dynamation" inventor Ray Harryhausen, whose stop motion magic brought to life such classic films as The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Jason and the Argonauts (1963), and One Million Years BC (1967). (via Dangerous Minds) Ray Harryhausen tribute site with lots of good clips - Boing Boing ...
Read in browser Guy trying to cure friend's hiccups accidentally kills him
By David Pescovitz on Sep 25, 2012 11:53 pm On Sunday evening, US Army private first class Isaac Lawrence Young, 22, was drinking and watching football with his buddies when he got the hiccups. His pal Pfc. Patrick Edward Myers, 27, pulled out a gun to scare him and cure the hiccups, but he accidentally shot Young in the face and killed him. Myers ...
Read in browser Fruit salad trees with six different fruit-bearing branches grafted on them
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 25, 2012 11:03 pm The Fruit Salad Tree Company of Emmaville, NSW, Australia sells trees that have up to six different fruit-bearing branches grafted on them. * Stone fruits which grows peaches, plums, nectarines, apricots and peachcots * Citrus which grows a winter and summer orange, mandarins, lemons, limes, grapefruits, tangelos and pomelos * Multi-apples only * Multi-nashi fruit ...
Read in browser Google launches underwater Street View, a new virtual map of oceans
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 25, 2012 10:50 pm Today, Google Maps unveils a new Street View feature: underwater panoramic views of six special sea spots. The idea is to create a virtual map of the oceans, documenting the state of fragile ecosystems as they change over time, and sharing a vivid experience of part of our world that few humans get to see ...
Read in browser Laptop rental companies reach cash-free, pointless settlement with toothless FTC for taking secret naked pictures of customers having sex, harvesting medical records and banking passwords and more
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 25, 2012 10:10 pm The FTC has settled with seven rent-to-own companies and a software company called DesignerWare of North East Pennsylvania for their role in secretly installing spyware on rental laptops, which was used to take "pictures of children, individuals not fully clothed, and couples engaged in sexual activities." Under the terms of the settlement, the companies are ...
Read in browser Debunking the NYT feature on the wastefulness of data-centers
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 25, 2012 08:58 pm This weekend's NYT carried an alarming feature article on the gross wastefulness of the data-centers that host the world's racks of server hardware. James Glanz's feature, The Cloud Factory, painted a picture of grotesque waste and depraved indifference to the monetary and environmental costs of the "cloud," and suggested that the "dirty secret" was that ...
Read in browser Fantastically detailed miniature replica of Katz's deli
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 25, 2012 08:25 pm Miniatures sculptor Alan Wolfson was commissioned to make a teeny weeny, fiendishly detailed diorama of the legendary Katz's Deli. Wolfson doesn't do miniature people, so he needed a plausible reason to make an empty Katz's (it's normally mobbed). He opted for a "closing time" Katz's, complete with tiny dirty dishes. There's tiny neon outside, too! ...
Read in browser Silcon Valley's high-tech bus commuter lines visualized
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 25, 2012 06:38 pm Stamen, a design firm in San Francisco, was commissioned to study the private transport networks that run from San Francisco down to Silicon Valley. The traditional commuter dynamic for cities is suburbanites coming into the city to work, but in San Francisco it runs both ways, as city-dwelling tech workers catch a variety of semi-luxurious, ...
Read in browser Dolphin giving birth
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 25, 2012 06:34 pm Here's a rare look at dolphin birth, from Dolphin Quest Hawaii at the Hilton Waikoloa Village. Jump to 17s for the main event. Video Link [The Telegraph (h/t CSM)]
Read in browser Six-eyed reveler wows Folsom Street Fair
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 25, 2012 05:28 pm From Carolyne Zinko's SF Gate story and slideshow from San Francisco's Folsom Street Fair (a kink/fetish event), this fantastic mask on an unidentified "reveler." I want to wear something like this on an everyday basis. 50 shades of fetish at Folsom St. Fair (Thanks, Fipi Lele!) (Image: downsized, cropped thumbnail from a larger photo by ...
Read in browser AMC casually confirms a fourth season of The Walking Dead
By Jamie Frevele on Sep 25, 2012 04:59 pm Good news! AMC has all but confirmed a fourth season of The Walking Dead -- by nonchalantly mentioning it while talking about something else entirely! In an announcement for not the show, but a blood drive for the American Red Cross, a prize entailing a trip to the set during the show's fourth season was ...
Read in browser Toyota's new robot
By David Pescovitz on Sep 25, 2012 03:17 pm This is Toyota's new arm-wresting robot. Apparently, its other application is for "human support" such as assisting disabled people and caring for the elderly in their homes. The robot's body can raise up and down and its tablet head is well-suited for telepresence. Toyota's Human Support Robot (via IEEE Spectrum)
Read in browser Mitt Romney: "I don't know" why airplane windows don't open
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 25, 2012 03:00 pm Update: Apparently, Mitt was joking At a $50,000/ticket fundraiser at the Beverly Hills Hilton (home to one of the great Trader Vic's of America, I might add), Mitt Romney expressed his controversial views on aerospace engineering, as recounted by the LA Times's Seema Mehta: Romney's wife, Ann, was in attendance, and the candidate spoke of ...
Read in browser From opium antiques collector to addict
By David Pescovitz on Sep 25, 2012 02:23 pm Steven Martin (not the comedian) is the author of Opium Fiend: A 21st Century Slave to a 19th Century Addiction. Interestingly, Martin started as a collector of antique opium accoutrements. Then he really immersed himself in his hobby and ended up an addict, refilling his pipe thirty times a day. Above is his smoking gear, ...
Read in browser New collection of interviews with JG Ballard
By David Pescovitz on Sep 25, 2012 02:10 pm Extreme Metaphors is a brand new anthology of interviews with one of my all-time favorite writers, JG Ballard, master of surrealist science fiction, dystopian visionary, and brilliant cultural critic. Co-edited by Simon Sellars of the Ballardian blog and Dan O'Hara, the book collects 44 interviews with Ballard by a fantastic array of contributors including BB ...
Read in browser And now, the ballad of the the NFL ref strike, as performed by the replacement refs at the Seahawks-Packers game
By Jamie Frevele on Sep 25, 2012 01:44 pm Storytime: Last night, during Monday Night Football's presentation of the Seattle Seahawks versus the Green Bay Packers, an insane thing happened that illustrated exactly why the NFL's referee strike is a very bad thing for the game (as great as it is for ratings). In the last seconds of the game, Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson ...
Read in browser The Jetsons: 50 years later
By David Pescovitz on Sep 25, 2012 01:39 pm Fifty years ago this week, The Jetsons premiered. It only lasted 24 episodes (not including the mid-1980s "revival"), but it truly embodied the tech optimism of the time. In the world of professional futurism, The Jetsons (like a lot of science fiction) can be a great provocation for discussion. For example, every episode is filled ...
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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