Precisely why the Daily Mail is irredeemable shit Safeway: "Stop photographing our horrible, copyrighted cakes" An interesting letter, which may or may not relate to Petraeus affair Petraeus outed by Gmail Lucasfilm confirms: Michael Arndt will write Star Wars: Episode VII Mail-Order Ninja's Kickstarter revival Navy SEALs in trouble for breaching secrets to Electronic Arts for "Medal of Honor Warfighter" game CIA chief Petraeus steps down, having failed to keep his drone in his pants Can Sandy victims sue power companies for extended outages? Cats led feds to suspect in Mitt Romney tax return hacking case Former Pixar CTO's talking teddy bear raises $16M Walking Dead "Green Army Men" zombies Ronda Rousey becomes the first woman in the UFC! New York considering taking cues from The Walking Dead, may open up prison to displaced Staten Islanders Fossil hunting on Rockaway Beach You, too, can be a guinea pig for pot Disney Nostalgia: old Disney Parks postcards Vote Darwin The world's most disgusting Russian nesting dolls How to: Tell the difference between real science and pseudoscience Rolling Jubilee: Occupy raising money to buy up, and wipe out, debts Different names for the same thing: Visualizing the 2012 election Audeze LCD-3, life changing sound Erik Davis reports on the latest in psychedelic research Why some people think vinyl sounds better than MP3 The iPod's 4,000-lb grandfather New Secret Headquarters sister store in LA Louis C.K. and Jerry Seinfeld to hold events benefiting Sandy victims Spirit Animal Collective: massive graphite rendering of a 1940s NZ primary school photo, with spirit animals Precisely why the Daily Mail is irredeemable shit
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 10, 2012 04:46 am When I first moved to the UK, I thought I understood why people hated the
Daily Mail: it's a shitty, sensationalist tabloid, right? What I failed to understand, in my naive, transatlantic way, was just
how shitty a tabloid the
Fail is.
Read in browser Safeway: "Stop photographing our horrible, copyrighted cakes"
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 10, 2012 04:40 am CakeWrecks reports that a local Safeway bakery has banned all photography in its bakery department, in a desperate, misguided bid to prevent its horrific creations from appearing on CakeWrecks. Safeway employees are to tell potential photogs that its cakes are copyrighted, and may not be photographed. Today's post requires a special intro, so here's Dara ...
Read in browser An interesting letter, which may or may not relate to Petraeus affair
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 09, 2012 11:45 pm A letter from an anonymous NYT reader to "Ethicist" writer Chuck Klosterman, titled "MY WIFE'S LOVER"— My wife is having an affair with a government executive. His role is to manage a project whose progress is seen worldwide as a demonstration of American leadership. (This might seem hyperbolic, but it is not an exaggeration.) I ...
Read in browser Petraeus outed by Gmail
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 09, 2012 11:38 pm As reported earlier today, CIA chief David Petraeus has resigned after an FBI probe into whether someone else was using his email led to the discovery he was having an extramarital affair. The Wall Street Journal reports that the investigation focused on his Gmail account, and that the traffic they observed "led agents to believe ...
Read in browser Lucasfilm confirms: Michael Arndt will write Star Wars: Episode VII
By Jamie Frevele on Nov 09, 2012 10:04 pm In an update to yesterday's post about Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3, Little Miss Sunshine) writing the next installment of the Star Wars saga, Lucasfilm confirmed on StarWars.com that it's official: Arndt is writing the screenplay for Star Wars: Episode VII, slated for release in 2015. No news yet on a title, but the Oscar-winner ...
Read in browser Mail-Order Ninja's Kickstarter revival
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 09, 2012 08:41 pm Josh from Reading With Pictures sez, "A Kickstarter campaign (now in its final days!) to revive the award-winning graphic novel series and nationally syndicated comic 'Mail Order Ninja!' Originally published by TOKYOPOP and distributed as a strip by Universal Press Syndicate, the series fell into publishing limbo when TOKYOPOP closed its doors. That is... until ...
Read in browser Navy SEALs in trouble for breaching secrets to Electronic Arts for "Medal of Honor Warfighter" game
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 09, 2012 07:44 pm Seven members of the US Navy's highly secretive SEAL Team 6, one of whom was part of the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, have been punished for disclosing classified information to game maker Electronic Arts. Four other SEALs are under investigation for similar alleged violations. They said to have given classified information to EA, ...
Read in browser CIA chief Petraeus steps down, having failed to keep his drone in his pants
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 09, 2012 06:25 pm David H. Petraeus, the head of America's Central Intelligence Agency, resigned just days after the election after issuing a statement saying he had engaged in an extramarital affair. "By acknowleding an extramarital affair, Mr. Petraeus, 60, was confronting a sensitive issue for a spy chief," reports the New York Times. "Intelligence agencies are often concerned ...
Read in browser Can Sandy victims sue power companies for extended outages?
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 09, 2012 06:18 pm Short version: yes, but it's not easy. "To win, New York ratepayers have to show that their power company was not just slow or inefficient. Instead, Kreppein said, under a 1985 New York Court of Appeals ruling called Strauss v. Belle Realty, electric company customers must establish that the utility was grossly negligent — that its ...
Read in browser Cats led feds to suspect in Mitt Romney tax return hacking case
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 09, 2012 06:04 pm Two grainy photos of cats led federal investigators to a Tennessee man suspected of stealing former presidential candidate Mitt Romney's tax returns to blackmail him for $1 million. "They said they're here to serve a search warrant for Romney's tax returns," Brown told WSMV-TV. "My first reaction was, 'You've got to be kidding me.'" What ...
Read in browser Former Pixar CTO's talking teddy bear raises $16M
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 09, 2012 05:55 pm Former Pixar CTO's "family entertainment" startup makes a "smart," internet-connected, artificially-intelligent teddy bear, raises $16M.
Read in browser Walking Dead "Green Army Men" zombies
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 09, 2012 05:37 pm Gentle Giant's accepting pre-orders for Walking Dead "Green Army Men," available in green or tan, in sets of 10 for $14. It's a trip down memory lane… but with zombies! No longer constrained to the traditional green vs. tan, now kids and kids-at-heart alike can have their armies take on The Walking Dead! Use your ...
Read in browser Ronda Rousey becomes the first woman in the UFC!
By Jamie Frevele on Nov 09, 2012 05:12 pm Well, this is exciting! The UFC, the owner of which said less than two years ago that it would never include women, now does! Ronda Rousey will be taking her vicious armbar to the UFC in 2013. But she won't be left without an opponent -- rival Meisha Tate has also signed on, and possibly ...
Read in browser New York considering taking cues from The Walking Dead, may open up prison to displaced Staten Islanders
By Jamie Frevele on Nov 09, 2012 04:45 pm As you can imagine, the situation here in New York is dire, what with the still-large amount of people who have yet to even get their power back. But Staten Island (and the Rockaways, and Long Beach, most of the south shore, not to mention Red Hook, parts of New Jersey... you get the idea) ...
Read in browser Fossil hunting on Rockaway Beach
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 09, 2012 04:37 pm Superstorm Sandy brought fossils up from the ocean depths.
Read in browser You, too, can be a guinea pig for pot
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 09, 2012 04:13 pm Sometimes, it's hard to find people interested in playing the role of guinea pig for the sake of science. And, sometimes, that job is not so hard. Like when what you want the guinea pigs to do is get real high. That's a good example. Pot-based research isn't all fun and games. Given the interest ...
Read in browser Disney Nostalgia: old Disney Parks postcards
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 09, 2012 04:05 pm Colin sez, I'm going to Disney next month and (as is my way) have become obsessed with diving back into Disney World nostalgia. My plan for this trip is to buy vintage postcards for attractions that no longer exist and send them to my friends and family either lauding how much I enjoyed them or ...
Read in browser Vote Darwin
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 09, 2012 04:00 pm The Georgia congressman who called evolution "lies straight from the pit of hell" won reelection Tuesday in an uncontested race. But 4000 of his constituents managed to find a write-in candidate they could believe in — the father of evolution, who has been dead for 130 years. (Via Jennifer Ouellette)
Read in browser The world's most disgusting Russian nesting dolls
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 09, 2012 03:54 pm Here's a headline for you — Worse than sex parasite: Sex parasite with virus. Yes, trichomonas (a sexually transmitted parasite that you've probably never been tested for), can actually harbor its own diseases. When infected with a virus — dubbed trichomonasvirus — trichomonas becomes even worse. Kill it, and it releases the virus, which causes ...
Read in browser How to: Tell the difference between real science and pseudoscience
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 09, 2012 03:40 pm Some pseudoscience is pretty obvious. I think most of us are comfortable saying that the world will probably not end this December, in accordance with any ancient prophecy. But distinguishing fact from fiction isn't always simple. In fact, "fact from fiction" might be too simple a way to even frame the question. In reality, we're ...
Read in browser Rolling Jubilee: Occupy raising money to buy up, and wipe out, debts
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 09, 2012 03:33 pm David "How to Sharpen Pencils" Rees describes the Rolling Jubilee, a project from Occupy Wall Street to buy up, and zero out, other peoples' debts: Now OWS is launching the ROLLING JUBILEE, a program that has been in development for months. OWS is going to start buying distressed debt (medical bills, student loans, etc.) in ...
Read in browser Different names for the same thing: Visualizing the 2012 election
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 09, 2012 03:23 pm Did you know that there was a major American election on Tuesday? Great. Let us all never speak of it again. At least for the next 3.5 years. But before we send the parts of our brains that care about politics off to recuperate at a nice imaginary spa, take a quick look at a ...
Read in browser Audeze LCD-3, life changing sound
By Jason Weisberger on Nov 09, 2012 03:17 pm Every time I listen through the LCD-3, I hear new and interesting sounds hidden inside music, no matter how familiar.
Read in browser Erik Davis reports on the latest in psychedelic research
By Mark Frauenfelder on Nov 09, 2012 02:59 pm Erik Davis says: I recently published my first column for Aeon Magazine's online site, a "post-secular" take on the current wave of psychedelic research. Without plunging into woo, the article attempts to chart the liminal zones that lie beyond brain-based reductionism. It seemed a good piece for Aeon, a new British outfit that is charting ...
Read in browser Why some people think vinyl sounds better than MP3
By Mark Frauenfelder on Nov 09, 2012 02:55 pm Leo Kent says: "Humans Invent has done an in-depth feature on Vinyl, examining why it sounds so much better than CDs or MP3s." The integral difference between vinyl and CD or MP3 is that a vinyl record is an analogue recording -- that is, the physical recording is made to vary in correspondence to the ...
Read in browser The iPod's 4,000-lb grandfather
By Mark Frauenfelder on Nov 09, 2012 02:26 pm Ben Marks of Collector's Weekly says: We just published an article about orchestrions, which were like player pianos on steroids. Popular in the early 1900s, electric-powered orchestrions were built around a piano or pipe organ and incorporated at least three other instruments, including at least one drum. The big ones were 12 feet wide, 12 ...
Read in browser New Secret Headquarters sister store in LA
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 09, 2012 02:22 pm Secret Headquarters, my favorite comic store in LA (a very competitive field!), has opened a sister-store called Thank You Comics and Books, in Highland Park.. It's bound to be one of the great awesomesauce emporia on the west coast.
Read in browser Louis C.K. and Jerry Seinfeld to hold events benefiting Sandy victims
By Jamie Frevele on Nov 09, 2012 01:52 pm Everyone, just shut up and give them all your money: Louis C.K., who hosted Saturday Night Live in New York City in the midst of Sandy's chaos, and Long Island native Jerry Seinfeld are both planning separate comedy shows to benefit storm victims. Louis C.K.'s two shows will take place on Staten Island, one of ...
Read in browser Spirit Animal Collective: massive graphite rendering of a 1940s NZ primary school photo, with spirit animals
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 09, 2012 01:19 pm Souris sez ,"'Spirit Animal Collective' is now available at our shop. The print is based on Kozy's 2009 drawing 'Spirit Animal Collective'. The drawing was the culmination of Kozy's 4 year-long 'Unknown Portraits' project, which involved Kozy's nearly obsessive search through old photographs in junk shops from Australia to Spain to Northern England to San ...
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