Long Now building a new bar/coffee shop, raising money with long booze Award for radical kids' literature Cinema Pirata: Brazilian edition of Pirate Cinema Temper tantrums considered for addition to DSM Man arrested for repeatedly sneaking onto farm, covering himself in dung and masturbating Make it So: Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction - "Sex with Technology" Tenth Doctor costume tee Tiny slide-projector for your digital pics The Heat trailer: A new brand of buddy-cop movie has arrived Animal personhood Jackass rejected as candidate Italian Judge: outdoor sex illegal even when locals distracted by sports Do all roads lead to the Wasp in Iron Man 3 (and The Avengers 2)? Great comic on creative work in the Internet age Kevin Kelly on the end of anonymity Sponsor shout-out: ShanaLogic and cat meme coasters! Kick off your weekend with cinema's 100 most emotion-filled death scenes! Improvised footballs from Africa Long Now building a new bar/coffee shop, raising money with long booze
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 17, 2012 11:08 am Jeffrey 'Toast' McGrew sez, "The ever-amazing Long Now Foundation hired us to help them transform their somewhat-boring bookstore / gallery into an amazing library / event space / coffee & cocktails bar. But the really cool part is that they are selling bottles of fancy spirits to raise the money. Gin made from 5000 year ...
Read in browser Award for radical kids' literature
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 17, 2012 09:06 am Letterbox Library and the Alliance of Radical Booksellers announce the Little Rebels Children's Book Award, given for "children's fiction for readers aged 12 and under which promotes social justice." (Thanks, Paul!)
Read in browser Cinema Pirata: Brazilian edition of Pirate Cinema
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 17, 2012 06:54 am I've just wrapped up a couple of days at the Fliporto literary festival in Olinda, Brazil, and was delighted to get a copy of the newly published Cinema Pirata, the Brazilian edition of Pirate Cinema, published by the excellent Galera Record.
Read in browser Temper tantrums considered for addition to DSM
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 16, 2012 10:56 pm The American Psychiatric Association is set to add "disruptive mood dysregulation disorder" to the Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM), the bible of psychiatric disorders. A kid has "DMDD" if she or he has "severe recurrent temper outbursts that are grossly out of proportion in intensity or duration to the situation... at least three times a week." ...
Read in browser Man arrested for repeatedly sneaking onto farm, covering himself in dung and masturbating
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 16, 2012 08:51 pm A man has been arrested for repeatedly sneaking onto a farm in Cornwall, England, covering himself in cow-shit and masturbating. This is the third time he was caught at it. It sounds like he really made the farm-owners' lives miserable. From a This is the West Country article: "The family have to regularly check their ...
Read in browser Make it So: Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction - "Sex with Technology"
By Mark Frauenfelder on Nov 16, 2012 07:52 pm Here's an exclusive excerpt from Make it So: Interaction Design Lessons from Science Fiction, by Nathan Shedroff and Christopher Noessel. Many designers enjoy the interfaces seen in science fiction films and television shows. Freed from the rigorous constraints of designing for real users, sci-fi production designers develop blue-sky interfaces that are inspiring, humorous, and even ...
Read in browser Tenth Doctor costume tee
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 16, 2012 06:46 pm ThinkGeek's done a Tenth Doctor "costume tee" that's pretty great. I'm assuming that all that detail is silk-screened with fool-the-eye shadows, and not actual additional material sewn onto the shirt's front (though that would be megaboss and someone should totally make it). 10th Doctor Costume Tee (via OhGizmo)
Read in browser Tiny slide-projector for your digital pics
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 16, 2012 04:44 pm "Projecteo" is Benjamin Redford's fully funded Kickstarter project to produce simple, tiny, hackable slide projectors for your digital photos. You pay to have slide-wheels with your digital photos on them produced, then show them in darkened rooms using this tiny, LED-powered projector. The gadget is pretty adorable. You can get them for $25, including a ...
Read in browser The Heat trailer: A new brand of buddy-cop movie has arrived
By Jamie Frevele on Nov 16, 2012 04:14 pm Melissa McCarthy. Sandra Bullock. THEY'RE COPS.
Read in browser Animal personhood
By Rob Beschizza on Nov 16, 2012 04:02 pm When does an animal count as a person? At io9, George Dvorsky reviews recent moves to secure legal protections for "highly sapient" animals such as great apes, elephants and cetaceans.
Read in browser Jackass rejected as candidate
By Rob Beschizza on Nov 16, 2012 03:54 pm Officials in Guayaquil, Ecuador, have denied Mr. Burro, a donkey, the right to run for office. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
Read in browser Italian Judge: outdoor sex illegal even when locals distracted by sports
By Rob Beschizza on Nov 16, 2012 03:52 pm An Italian court determined Wednesday that it is not legal to have sex outdoors, even if everyone else is inside watching football. [Philip Pullella, Reuters]
Read in browser Do all roads lead to the Wasp in Iron Man 3 (and The Avengers 2)?
By Jamie Frevele on Nov 16, 2012 02:40 pm Normally, I would never post about a nebulous movie rumor, but the potential for discussion and mystery is so cool that I couldn't resist. It concerns the possible cinematic introduction of one of the actual, original founding members of the Avengers from the Marvel comics: Janet van Dyne, aka the Wasp. Rumors concerning the Wasp ...
Read in browser Great comic on creative work in the Internet age
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 16, 2012 02:39 pm The Oatmeal's "Some thoughts and musings about making things for the web" really captures a lot of the joys and sorrows of working in a creative field in the age of the Internet, especially the toxicity of spending too much time reading nasty comments, and the difficulty of maintaining self discipline. My one quibble -- ...
Read in browser Kevin Kelly on the end of anonymity
By Mark Frauenfelder on Nov 16, 2012 02:10 pm Over on his Google+ account, Kevin Kelly says: The major impact of the Petraeus affair has nothing to do with the military, sex, or celebrity -- it is that there is no such thing as anonymous, and that the US government is able to access internet and credit card records without warrants, just because they ...
Read in browser Sponsor shout-out: ShanaLogic and cat meme coasters!
By David Pescovitz on Nov 16, 2012 01:42 pm Thank you to our kind and creative sponsor ShanaLogic, sellers of handmade and independently-designed jewelry, apparel, gifts, and other curious creations. Need a geek gift idea? Try the Cat Meme Coaster Set, a metal tin featuring coasters emblazoned with Keyboard Cat, Chemistry Cat, Boss Cat, Hipster Cat, Spaghetti Cat and even Cheeseburger Cat. Shana says, ...
Read in browser Kick off your weekend with cinema's 100 most emotion-filled death scenes!
By Jamie Frevele on Nov 16, 2012 01:31 pm While the video is, sadly, unembeddable, it is worth the extra click if you are in serious need of depressing yourself into oblivion. The Movie Miscellany has compiled a tear-soaked supercut of 100 of cinema's most gut-wrenching death scenes -- the ones that have made you sad, the ones that made you curl up into ...
Read in browser Improvised footballs from Africa
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 16, 2012 01:30 pm Photographer Jessica Hilltout travelled Africa documenting homemade footballs/soccer balls improvised across the continent. Shown above, a ball from Mozambique, made by Domingo. Left, a Ghanian ball from the Anokye Stars. Balls (via Kottke)
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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