Fake gold bars infiltrate precious metals market Parody iPad Mini promo video Google's Hurricane Sandy crisis map Minecraft creeper mug Ze Frank's guide to trading Halloween candy Joss Whedon bets on Romney -- to lead us into the zombie apocalypse Elfquest: The shapeshifter's farewell HowTo figure out Windows 8 The Candy Hierarchy (2012) Act now: your right to own property is being considered at the Supreme Court today Another rainy day fun project: Hurricane Hackers Rainy day fun project: Help scientists gather data on Hurricane Sandy Sped-up video makes real airplanes look like bad 1950s special effects Facebook claimant charged with fraud Epic hurricane is epic Pioneers at the ready, Leningrad Aralac: The "wool" made from milk Eastern US braces for "Frankenstorm" Sandy's strike Fake gold bars infiltrate precious metals market
By Mark Frauenfelder on Oct 29, 2012 12:50 pm Warning: some of your $18,000 10-ounce gold bars might actually be filled with tungsten. Gold goes for about $1800/ounce; tungsten is $1/ounce. Chemical engineer Ibrahim Fadl, who owns a business in Manhattan's Diamond District, strips away the outer layer of a 10-ounce bar of what he thought was pure gold, sold to him by a ...
Read in browser Parody iPad Mini promo video
By Mark Frauenfelder on Oct 29, 2012 12:40 pm This parody promo for the iPad Mini is funny because it's all true.
Read in browser Google's Hurricane Sandy crisis map
By Xeni Jardin on Oct 29, 2012 12:39 pm Here's an excellent resource to link and re-tweet: a crisis/storm-tracking map from Google, with shelter information, and updated data on Sandy's expected course. Eastern US braces for "Frankenstorm" Sandy's strike - Boing Boing Rainy day fun project: Help scientists gather data on Hurricane Sandy Another rainy day fun project: Hurricane Hackers - Boing Boing Epic ...
Read in browser Minecraft creeper mug
By Mark Frauenfelder on Oct 29, 2012 12:30 pm "It’s a magnificent piece of Minecraft merchandise." Pre-order now for $21. (Via WTC)
Read in browser Ze Frank's guide to trading Halloween candy
By Mark Frauenfelder on Oct 29, 2012 12:28 pm Everything you need to know to get ahead in candy trading. Everything.
Read in browser Joss Whedon bets on Romney -- to lead us into the zombie apocalypse
By Jamie Frevele on Oct 29, 2012 11:54 am Because Romney's policies are actually
perfect for setting the stage for a "nightmare zombie wasteland."
Read in browser Elfquest: The shapeshifter's farewell
By Wendy and Richard Pini on Oct 29, 2012 11:00 am Page 8 of The Final Quest: Prologue is published online-first for the first time here at Boing Boing. First time reader? You're a few issues behind.
Read in browser HowTo figure out Windows 8
By Rob Beschizza on Oct 29, 2012 10:24 am Windows 8's new UI is elegant, minimalist and, for those used to the older versions, utterly baffling. Sean Hollister's lengthy guide to the new OS will have you figuring it out in no time. tl;dr just hover the mouse in the corners.
Read in browser The Candy Hierarchy (2012)
By David Ng and Ben Cohen on Oct 29, 2012 10:00 am This year's Candy Hierarchy provides gentle but firm instruction for your confectionary purchases this Hallowe'en, and serves doubly as a means to evaluate the success of one's own haul of treats. Updated and newly annotated by the authors, this is
the indispensable guide to a successful All Hallow's Eve.
Read in browser Act now: your right to own property is being considered at the Supreme Court today
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 29, 2012 08:41 am On the EFF's Deep Links blog, Parker Higgins presents the stakes in today's Supreme Court hearing for Kirtsaeng v. Wiley, which concerns the right of a student, Supap Kirtsaeng, to import textbooks from overseas and sell them in the USA. Wiley, a textbook publisher, argues that even though the books Kirtsaeng is selling are his ...
Read in browser Another rainy day fun project: Hurricane Hackers
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Oct 29, 2012 08:19 am Hurricane Hackers is a hashtag on Twitter (i.e., #hurricanehackers) and a crowdsource hub to create tech and social projects related to Hurricane Sandy. Proposed projects include an ad-hoc food and water delivery system for after the storm and live maps that show which businesses in a given area are actually open. You can propose projects ...
Read in browser Rainy day fun project: Help scientists gather data on Hurricane Sandy
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Oct 29, 2012 07:55 am If you're staying home from work today because of Hurricane Sandy, you might be able to help out a team of scientists from the University of Utah and Purdue. They're studying isotopes of water — small differences at the subatomic level that can tell you a lot about where water originally came from and how ...
Read in browser Sped-up video makes real airplanes look like bad 1950s special effects
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Oct 29, 2012 07:22 am Real airplanes look like toys dangling from strings in this video from Heathrow.
Read in browser Facebook claimant charged with fraud
By Rob Beschizza on Oct 28, 2012 11:45 pm Paul Ceglia, the New York businessman who claimed to own half of Facebook, was charged with fraud Friday over evidence presented in the case. [BBC] Previously.
Read in browser Epic hurricane is epic
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Oct 28, 2012 08:59 pm Hurricane Sandy will likely cause 16-foot to 22-foot waves ... on Lake Michigan. (Via Jessica Morrison)
Read in browser Pioneers at the ready, Leningrad
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 28, 2012 03:51 pm On Retronaut, Viktor Bulla's "Pioneers defense drill, Leningrad." It dates from 1937, four years before the Siege of Leningrad, and that makes the weirdness vivid and poignant. So many of the children here would have died in the Siege, or lived through it in the civil defense force, eating wallpaper paste and digging trenches. How ...
Read in browser Aralac: The "wool" made from milk
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Oct 28, 2012 03:44 pm Yesterday, Cory posted a vintage ad for boys' hats and accessories, which included a small selection of ties made from something called "Aralac". I didn't think much of it, until I noticed J. Brad Hicks' comment pointing out that Aralac was a synthetic wool made from cheese. Which was not a joke. Seriously. It'll make ...
Read in browser Eastern US braces for "Frankenstorm" Sandy's strike
By Xeni Jardin on Oct 28, 2012 01:18 pm NOAA's GOES-13 satellite captured this image of Hurricane Sandy Oct. 28. The line of clouds from the Gulf of Mexico north are associated with the cold front with which Sandy is merging; the western cloud edge is already over the mid-Atlantic and northeastern US. Credit: NASA GOES Project. Our readers along the East Coast of ...
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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