Best Petraeus conspiracy theory summary ever, from a BB commenter Legal drugs, deadly outcomes: LA Times investigation on prescription drug deaths How I Was Drawn Into the Cult of David Petraeus Intel to Boy Scouts: no more donations if you don't drop anti-gay policy Leadership tips from Paula Broadwell Artisanal DIY Sriracha: HOWTO homebrew "rooster sauce," without the chemical preservatives On Stanislaw Burzynski, "antineoplastons," and cancer cure scams TSA inspectors get a larger annual clothing allowance than Marine lieutenants get through their whole careers Portraits of LA voters The Last Policeman: solving a murder before an asteroid wipes out life on Earth BBC director general George Entwistle resigns in wake of misreported pedo story Occupy Sandy live-streaming post-storm cleanup efforts Report: FBI investigation into CIA chief's email "started with two women," not Petraeus (updated) Occupy Deluxe Tentacles at Louis Vuitton Best Petraeus conspiracy theory summary ever, from a BB commenter
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 11, 2012 12:56 pm "Now the Global Left/Soros/Cloward-Piven/Eric Holder/Mau Mau endgame approaches. Get ready for CIA Director Dennis Kucinich." From BB commenter SedanChair comes this gem of analytical bravado, a summary of farthest-of-far right-wing conspiracy theories on Petraeusgate.
Read in browser Legal drugs, deadly outcomes: LA Times investigation on prescription drug deaths
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 11, 2012 12:06 pm An excellent long read on the growing phenomenon of prescription drug overdoses in Southern California, which a Los Angeles Times investigative team reports "now claim more lives than heroin and cocaine combined, fueling a doubling of drug-related deaths in the United States over the last decade." Health and law enforcement officials seeking to curb the ...
Read in browser How I Was Drawn Into the Cult of David Petraeus
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 11, 2012 11:47 am At the Wired News defense blog Danger Room, a mea culpa of sorts by Spencer Ackerman, who realizes in hindsight that he helped perpetuate a myth of sorts about the recently-disgraced retired general and outgoing CIA chief. Like many in the press, nearly every national politician, and lots of members of Petraeus' brain trust over ...
Read in browser Intel to Boy Scouts: no more donations if you don't drop anti-gay policy
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 11, 2012 11:43 am Intel has informed the Boy Scouts of America that they will no longer be eligible for donations through Intel's charitable donation matching program, unless the BSA abandons its policy of discrimination against gay people. The BSA is the recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars in Intel donations: $180,000 in 2010 alone. Here's Mike Rogoway ...
Read in browser Leadership tips from Paula Broadwell
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 11, 2012 11:30 am "Be positive. Everyone likes to be around people who exude energy. Find a way to give energy and encouragement. It is amazing how the right attitude and the ability to make others feel good about themselves can be a magnet for new friends and colleagues! A book that captures this phenomenon is Celestine Prophesy."—Petraeus biographer ...
Read in browser Artisanal DIY Sriracha: HOWTO homebrew "rooster sauce," without the chemical preservatives
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 11, 2012 11:19 am How to brew your own Sriracha, the spicy red nectar of the gods that makes everything taste better.
Read in browser On Stanislaw Burzynski, "antineoplastons," and cancer cure scams
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 11, 2012 10:35 am At Disinfo.com, guest contributor and cancer-scam-debunker Bob Blaskiewicz has written a piece about Houston-based Stanislaw Burzynski (photo at left). Burzynski's advocates would like you to believe is a persecuted savior of cancer patients who holds the key to a cure that Big Pharma and the FDA want to suppress. "An important sign of quackery is ...
Read in browser TSA inspectors get a larger annual clothing allowance than Marine lieutenants get through their whole careers
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 11, 2012 05:25 am TSA "officers" have a new deal: awesome new clothes to wear while they touch your genitals. Under their new collective bargaining agreement, Transportation Security Administration officers get to spend more taxpayer money on their uniforms every year than a United States Marine Corps lieutenant can spend in a lifetime. "TSA employees will see their uniform ...
Read in browser Portraits of LA voters
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 11, 2012 05:19 am Dan sez, "Two LA-based photographers shot photos of voters 'to document and celebrate the diversity of the Los Angeles electorate. All photographs were taken outside of polling locations across the city on Election Day, November 6th, 2012.' I especially like this one.
Read in browser The Last Policeman: solving a murder before an asteroid wipes out life on Earth
By Mark Frauenfelder on Nov 10, 2012 07:28 pm Last year I read Bedbugs, Ben Winters' psychological thriller/horror novel about a woman who was certain that her apartment was filled with bedbugs, while her husband was telling her that she was imagining them. It reminded me of Rosemary's Baby, one of my favorite movies. The Last Policeman is Ben Winters' third novel (he also ...
Read in browser BBC director general George Entwistle resigns in wake of misreported pedo story
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 10, 2012 04:30 pm George Entwistle, BBC director general, has resigned after a Newsnight report wrongly implicated a former lawmaker in a child sexual abuse case. From the Telegraph's coverage: Mr Entwistle said quitting was the "honourable" thing to do as he had to take responsibility as editor in chief of the BBC for what Lord Patten, chairman of ...
Read in browser Occupy Sandy live-streaming post-storm cleanup efforts
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 10, 2012 03:22 pm This webcast is an incredible thing to witness. @OccupySandy teaming up with a biker club to clean up homes in New York's Staten Island ravaged by the hurricane. Doing what FEMA can't/won't. The Occupy Sandy movement is an amazing thing. Just when the media declared OWS "dead" and "without purpose," this leaderless volunteer movement showed ...
Read in browser Report: FBI investigation into CIA chief's email "started with two women," not Petraeus (updated)
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 10, 2012 02:51 pm The Washington Post reports that the investigation into CIA chief David Petraeus began "when a woman whom he was having an affair with sent threatening e-mails to another woman close to him," citing "three senior law enforcement officials with knowledge of the episode" as sources. The Wall Street Journal reports the probe said the FBI ...
Read in browser Occupy Deluxe Tentacles at Louis Vuitton
By Rob Beschizza on Nov 10, 2012 01:37 pm Louis Vuitton currently has an awesomely weird Yayoi Kusama "Tentacles and Tongues" display its stores, so Heather and I made an "Occupy Deluxe Tentacles" mask, then set off on a cheeky jape. The folks at the mall were good sports and didn't get in the way of the silliness. I'm quite satisfied with how it ...
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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