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Demonic sigils in handy form Man who excels at carnival games donates more than a quarter million stuffed animals to kids Climate change allows 3 explorers to boldly sail where no man has sailed before The story behind that viral video of an autistic boy receiving electroshock "therapy" Time to freak out: An Evil Dead dress that gives you a chainsaw for a hand Strange superhero Flaming Carrot goes digital To do in NYC, Sep. 8, 2012: Celebrate John Cage's love of foraged wild mushrooms Darth Vader onesie Actor Michael Clarke Duncan dies at 54 Why oversimplified science news headlines may not be healthier for you Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Mr. Magic, The Juice Crew, and Spyder D Jobs reincarnated Better services, less piracy Legends of Zita the Space Girl: a worthy followup to the most excellent kids' science fiction graphic novel Cory and Charlie Stross coming to Lexington tomorrow; then Brooklyn, Brookline and Rochester Tuesday linkdump Demonic sigils in handy form
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 04, 2012 01:00 pm Here's all the demonic summoning symbols you're likely to use on a daily basis, in handy flashcard form. All you need to do is print it up and stick it over your monitor, so it's handy when you need it. A List of Several Demons and Their Sigils of Summoning
Read in browser Man who excels at carnival games donates more than a quarter million stuffed animals to kids
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 04, 2012 12:53 pm [Video Link] The story behind the video is here. The winning YouTube comment: when he opens the storage at 1:35 all I was thinking was: Skyler: there are more toys in here that we could play in 10 life times. how big this pile of toys has to be? please tell me how much toys ...
Read in browser Climate change allows 3 explorers to boldly sail where no man has sailed before
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 04, 2012 12:46 pm The three-man crew of the 31-foot Belzebub II, a fiberglass sailboat "with a living space the size of a bathroom," told the world today how they sailed through the M'Clure Strait in northern Canada, a "decreasingly ice-packed route through the famed Northwest Passage." Warming global temperatures and melting polar ice caps made it possible. The ...
Read in browser The story behind that viral video of an autistic boy receiving electroshock "therapy"
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 04, 2012 12:38 pm New York Magazine has a feature out about the Judge Rotenberg Center (formerly the Behavior Research Institute), a controversial institution targeted by Anonymous when a video showing an autistic child receiving electrical shocks went viral. Andre McCollins was the boy in that video, which was leaked to a local Fox News affiliate in Boston. You ...
Read in browser Time to freak out: An Evil Dead dress that gives you a chainsaw for a hand
By Jamie Frevele on Sep 04, 2012 12:13 pm Every once in a while, I come across an Etsy site that I feel should make a million dollars a day. (Like Pica Pica Press, the Etsy store that might have first existed in one of my own dreams, and then came to life.) Today, thanks to my old stomping grounds The Mary Sue, I ...
Read in browser Strange superhero Flaming Carrot goes digital
By Glenn Fleishman on Sep 04, 2012 12:08 pm The 1980s had many surreal and outré comic-book stars. I recall particularly following The Tick, Concrete, and Nexus. They were respectively a nigh-invulnerable, possibly mentally ill superhero with a chubby accountant sidekick in a moth-themed flying suit; a writer whose brain was transplanted by aliens (themselves possibly escaped slaves) into a nearly invulnerable rock-like body ...
Read in browser To do in NYC, Sep. 8, 2012: Celebrate John Cage's love of foraged wild mushrooms
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 04, 2012 11:30 am Photo: mushrooms, by Damon Lapas, shared in BB Flickr Pool Snip from the NYT: To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the New York Mycological Society and the 100th birthday of the composer John Cage, its founder, there will be an exhibition on mushrooms and Mr. Cage's passion for them on Sept. 7 and 8 at ...
Read in browser Darth Vader onesie
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 04, 2012 11:28 am There's tons of stuff in the Boing Boing Shop -- so much that I sometimes find links to stuff elsewhere that make me think, "Hey, I should blog that" just before I realize "Hey, that's from us!" Case in point, this Darth Vader Onesie, which is currently sold out. You can back-order it, though. Darth ...
Read in browser Actor Michael Clarke Duncan dies at 54
By Jamie Frevele on Sep 04, 2012 11:24 am This year has been filled with sad goodbyes, but this is a particularly sad one. Michael Clarke Duncan, the former bouncer who made good and became an Academy Award nominee for his work in Frank Darabont's The Green Mile, passed away yesterday after suffering complications from a July heart attack. His family says that he ...
Read in browser Why oversimplified science news headlines may not be healthier for you
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 04, 2012 11:18 am Here's why I wish SEO didn't factor into science news: the hunger for traffic encourages headline writers to tart up the findings of studies beyond recognition, and away from more boring truths. Case in point, this NPR item, forwarded to me by more than one friend: "Why Organic Food May Not Be Healthier For You." ...
Read in browser Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Mr. Magic, The Juice Crew, and Spyder D
By Ed Piskor on Sep 04, 2012 11:00 am Read the rest of the Hip Hop Family Tree comics!
Read in browser Jobs reincarnated
By Rob Beschizza on Sep 04, 2012 10:20 am The late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs has been reincarnated as a handsome warrior-philosopher in a mystical palace floating over Cupertino, a state of affairs that the Wall Street Journal reports is "impossible to corroborate".
Read in browser Better services, less piracy
By Rob Beschizza on Sep 04, 2012 10:06 am John Brownlee on why he stopped pirating music: It's clear to me, in retrospect, that my piracy was mostly mere collecting, and like the most fetishistic of collectors, it was conducted with mindless voracity. A good collection is supposed to be made up of relics, items that conjure up memories, feelings and ideas for the ...
Read in browser Legends of Zita the Space Girl: a worthy followup to the most excellent kids' science fiction graphic novel
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 04, 2012 09:14 am Back in June, I reviewed the delightful science fiction kids' comic Zita the Spacegirl and mentioned that the sequel would be out in September. That sequel, Legends of Zita the Spacegirl, comes out today, and is a most worthy follow-on to a most excellent kids' comic. The first volume of Zita introduced us to Zita, ...
Read in browser Cory and Charlie Stross coming to Lexington tomorrow; then Brooklyn, Brookline and Rochester
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 04, 2012 09:02 am Tomorrow morning, Charlie Stross and I kick off our tour for Rapture of the Nerds tour, with stops in Lexington, KY; Brooklyn, NY: Brookline, MA; and Rochester, NY. Be there or be left behind!
Read in browser Tuesday linkdump
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 04, 2012 08:58 am * The Haunted Clock: outstanding analysis of all the clever that went into the chiming-13 grandfather clock in Disney's Haunted Mansions. Bonus trivia: a Simpsons animator is a former HM butler, and sneaks Mansion trivia into many episodes. * Slowed down birdsong sounds like classical music. Seriously. It's like Animal Kingdom Inception. (via) * European ...
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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