[Sponsor] Tendence watches now have fully mechanical automatic movements! Watchismo has the exclusive for the new Tendence Skeleton Watches, each with fully exposed 'skeletonized' mechanics seen both from the top of the dial and the see-through crystal of the caseback where the rotor can be seen revolving & generating power the old fashioned way -- with cogs, gears and hairsprings! A blend of form and function, the Tendence collection is a highly evolved concept, with extreme dimensions and three-dimensional numbers carved to stand high above the concave dial, itself cut from stainless steel, polycarbonate or titanium.s.
Ohio Supreme Court hears appeal from creationist teacher Gameplay video for upcoming edition of SimCity Tobacco enemas for everyone! Zee Avi, skewered on an angelic voice Aphex Twin: "I Care Because You Do" music review Sponsor Shout-Out: Watchimso Cory in Lansing, MI today Elfquest: a bit of life The music of the primes Survey: 60% want web tracking regulated Fake cop demands food Judge performs jury duty Supergod: Warren Ellis's horrific arms-race endtimes Guilded ilded Youth, a quick interactive fiction Orson Welles hates the advertising copy he's being asked to read Tool to calculate benefit of rooftop solar in Cambridge, Mass Microsoft claims ownership of the number 45, asks Google to censor the US government and Bing Fact-checking the RIAA's claim that the number of working musicians fell by 41% Sexy Ursula the Sea Witch costume: sexy fat characters have to be skinny Bacon ice cream sliders Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium: Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly's debate kicked ass Toothpaste for Dinner needs your business Don't throw your baby in a dumpster sticker Sociology Student Sheep have fun-ruining epiphanies Supreme Court case will decide whether you own your stuff Ohio Supreme Court hears appeal from creationist teacher
By Mark Frauenfelder on Oct 08, 2012 12:56 pm John Freshwater used to be a science teacher at an Ohio school. His science lessons included promoting creationism and a "Christian view against homosexuality." As a bonus, Mr. Freshwater reportedly burned holy crosses on students' arms using a highly scientific Tesla coil. Imagine his outrage when he was fired. Fortunately for Mr. Freshwater, the Ohio ...
Read in browser Gameplay video for upcoming edition of SimCity
By Mark Frauenfelder on Oct 08, 2012 12:45 pm The upcoming version of SimCity is beautiful. In this video, one of the producers builds a casino city, explaining why he makes certain choices in roads and other infrastructural elements. Every sim in the game has an agenda -- you can click on a character to find out what they are up to. SimCity | ...
Read in browser Tobacco enemas for everyone!
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 08, 2012 12:39 pm Out of the depths of historic woo rises the ancient and leathery tobacco enema kit. Gaze with horror. Gaze! Made by Evans & Co of London, this apparatus was used to revive people who were 'apparently dead', by making use of tobacco's stimulant qualities. The bellows were used to blow tobacco smoke up the rectum ...
Read in browser Zee Avi, skewered on an angelic voice
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 08, 2012 12:02 pm I'm not entirely certain where I first encountered
Zee Avi. All I know is that I've got a couple of Avi tracks in my "shuffle top-rated MP3s" playlist, and when they come on, they skewer me with her beautiful voice, like a young Peggy Lee by way of Bjork.
Read in browser Aphex Twin: "I Care Because You Do" music review
By Aquarius on Oct 08, 2012 11:12 am The mad-scientist of electronica - Richard D James aka Aphex Twin - originally released I Care Because You Do in 1995; and now in 2012, that classic electronica album gets a
2lp reissue by way of the 1972 label, who also recently reissued Aphex's Selected Ambient Works Vol. Two on triple lp.
Read in browser Sponsor Shout-Out: Watchimso
By Rob Beschizza on Oct 08, 2012 11:09 am Our thanks to Watchismo, sponsors of our daily email update. Watchismo's 3rd annual CLOCKTOBERFEST German Watch Sale is back! Save an additional 25% off already discounted watches, just apply the code GERMAN25 at checkout to redeem. It's like picking the best wursts from the grill—choose from a variety of meaty horological machines such as the ...
Read in browser Cory in Lansing, MI today
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 08, 2012 11:00 am Hey, Lansing, MI! I'm headed your way today for a signing at Schuler Books & Music at 6PM, as part of my Pirate Cinema tour, which then moves on to Chicagoland, NYC, Philadelphia, Bethesda, and many other cities in the USA and Canada. I can't wait to see you -- come on out and let ...
Read in browser Elfquest: a bit of life
By Wendy and Richard Pini on Oct 08, 2012 11:00 am Page 5 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 The music of the primes
By Rob Beschizza on Oct 08, 2012 10:20 am Little-scale offers music procedurally-generated from prime numbers. A "full version", available for download, is 26 hours long. [Little-Scale]
Read in browser Survey: 60% want web tracking regulated
By Rob Beschizza on Oct 08, 2012 09:35 am The New York Times offers a blunt reminder for tech companies which claim defaulting to "Do Not Track" deprives users of the right to make the "decision" for themselves: users do not want to be tracked. According to one new survey, a majority now wants it banned outright: "Sixty percent said they prefer regulation to ...
Read in browser Fake cop demands food
By Rob Beschizza on Oct 08, 2012 09:20 am Floridan Joseph Pineda, 33, wanted a burger but was unable to pay for his order. So he pretended to be an officer of the law, flashing a gun and badge in an attempt to get his meal free of charge. [FloriDUH]
Read in browser Judge performs jury duty
By Rob Beschizza on Oct 08, 2012 09:15 am Judge Linda Fleming happily reported for jury duty Thursday, but was soon struck off the panel by either the defense or prosecution: "I'm not supprised I didn't get selected." [The Tribune-Democrat]
Read in browser Supergod: Warren Ellis's horrific arms-race endtimes
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 08, 2012 09:12 am Warren Ellis and Garrie Gastonny's
Supergod is a magnificently grim and horrifying superhero comic, in which a British government scientist narrates the sequence of events that killed the planet Earth, in whose rubble he sits.
Supergod is the story of a secret arms-race, in which the major powers of the world all conspired to produce superhuman, godlike beings who were meant to act as their national saviors. Instead, each of these gods becomes a force of ineffable and unstoppable terror, killing and laying waste in unfathomable acts of horrific violence.
Read in browser Guilded ilded Youth, a quick interactive fiction
By Rob Beschizza on Oct 08, 2012 09:10 am Guilded Youth is a green-on-black text adventure from Jim Munroe and Matt Hamill. Writes Brandon Boyer: "one of the most evocative portrayals of our collective disaffected BBS-enhanced adolescence I've experienced in a game, effortlessly giving surprisingly rounded life to characters you only know briefly."
Read in browser Orson Welles hates the advertising copy he's being asked to read
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 07, 2012 10:47 pm Here's a YouTube clip of Orson Welles' infamous frozen/canned food advertisement voice-over recording sessions in which he berates the engineer for the inanity of the material he's being asked to read. It's a rare chance to hear a serious tantrum executed with stentorian emphasis. There's a brilliant homage to this in a Pinky and the ...
Read in browser Tool to calculate benefit of rooftop solar in Cambridge, Mass
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 07, 2012 09:44 pm Gmoke sez, "The city of Cambridge, Mass has teamed up with MIT to produce a Solar Tool that allows people to type an address into a website and get a detailed account of that roof's solar electric potential. This is probably the most detailed service now existing and every building in Cambridge is covered. You ...
Read in browser Microsoft claims ownership of the number 45, asks Google to censor the US government and Bing
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 07, 2012 09:16 pm A series of monumentally sloppy, automatically generated takedown notices sent by Microsoft to Google accused the US federal government, Wikipedia, the BBC, HuffPo, TechCrunch, and even Microsoft Bing of infringing on Microsoft's copyrights. Microsoft also accused Spotify (a music streaming site) of hosting material that infringed its copyrights. The takedown was aimed at early Windows ...
Read in browser Fact-checking the RIAA's claim that the number of working musicians fell by 41%
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 07, 2012 08:03 pm Matthew Lasar's long Ars Technica feature, "Have we lost 41 percent of our musicians? Depends on how you (the RIAA) count" does an excellent job of digging into RIAA CEO Cary Sherman's claim that the number of working musicians in the USA has declined by 41 percent. After checking the RIAA's math, Lasar finds a ...
Read in browser Sexy Ursula the Sea Witch costume: sexy fat characters have to be skinny
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 07, 2012 06:37 pm Tavie sez, Heads up - if you're a fat woman who wants to dress up as a popular fat character for Halloween, good luck trying to find a plus-size Ursula (from "The Little Mermaid") costume. Disney DOES partner with a company called Disguise Costumes to offer those ubiquitous, often inappropriate "sexy" versions of characters, and ...
Read in browser Bacon ice cream sliders
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 07, 2012 06:02 pm Further nutritional oddments from a touring author (see yesterday's installment). I stopped into the most excellent indie bookstore Diesel at the Brentwood Country Mart in LA for my Pirate Cinema book tour, and noticed that the ice-cream parlour next door was advertising bacon-spiked ice-cream sliders, as well as a corn and spicy cheese crisp ice-cream ...
Read in browser Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium: Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly's debate kicked ass
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 07, 2012 04:37 pm Last night's Bill O'Reilly/Jon Stewart debate, the "Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium," just crushed it. This is the best 90 minutes of video you're gonna see this month, and is unquestionably the best presidential debate of the season. Update: In the comments, Patrick McGorrill adds, "Also available from www.therumble2012.com where they're using the Louis CK ...
Read in browser Toothpaste for Dinner needs your business
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 07, 2012 03:35 pm Complexin writes, "Drew, of daily webcomic 'Toothpaste for Dinner' and 'Married to the Sea,' among other sites, seems in danger of going offline. He's offering special discounts on t-shirts, a book, and original music in hopes of generating enough revenue to keep it going. According to his Twitter stream he's not interested in donations... but ...
Read in browser Don't throw your baby in a dumpster sticker
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 07, 2012 03:00 pm There's not much context for this image uploaded to Imgur by sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net, which uses pictograms to encourage people to take unwanted babies to hospitals rather than putting them into dumpsters. The image title implies that this one is on a hospital door, though other reports suggest that similar stickers are to be found on actual ...
Read in browser Sociology Student Sheep have fun-ruining epiphanies
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 07, 2012 01:51 pm Holly curates a Tumblr called FUCK YEAH SOCIOLOGY STUDENT SHEEP, featuring a wide variety of symbolic Soc students having ironic epiphanies, and whose motto is "Time for some motherfucking Sociology." I love having my fun ruined! FUCK YEAH SOCIOLOGY STUDENT SHEEP (via Sociological Images)
Read in browser Supreme Court case will decide whether you own your stuff
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 07, 2012 01:10 pm Writing in MarketWatch, Jennifer Waters explains the implications of a Supreme Court case, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, which turns on the question of whether you have the right to re-sell things you buy out of the country, or whether the copyrights embodied by your phones, clothes, gadgets, books, music, DVDs, and other possessions ...
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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