Bibliomat: a vending machine for random rare and antiquarian books (with satisfying clunk) Who is shooting and mutilating dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico, and why? World's fastest and most totally amazing piano juggler November Eclipse Cowardice: Gutless House Republicans retract copyright paper in less than 24 hours 5th Annual Machinima Expo ends tomorrow Junkbot clockwork spiders with lightbulbs Zombie documentary from "The People v George Lucas" crew needs your support What do we do about untrustworthy Certificate Authorities? Clarkesworld is an excellent science fiction pub, its publisher has hit hard times and needs your support Taliban uses CC instead of BCC, exposes identity of 400+ contacts House Republicans release watershed copyright reform paper Bibliomat: a vending machine for random rare and antiquarian books (with satisfying clunk)
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 18, 2012 12:45 pm The Biblio-Mat is a random book dispenser built by Craig Small for
The Monkey's Paw.
Read in browser Who is shooting and mutilating dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico, and why?
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 18, 2012 12:14 pm Photo: IMMS Someone is killing and mutilating dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico, and no one can figure out who is doing this, or why. This Friday, a team from the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies (IMMS) in Gulfport, Mississippi encountered a dolphin with its lower jaw cut off; last weekend, they found a dead ...
Read in browser World's fastest and most totally amazing piano juggler
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 18, 2012 11:49 am Meet Dan Menendez, a juggler who does amazing things with his piano.
Read in browser November Eclipse
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 18, 2012 11:43 am November Eclipse, a false color image of the moon shared in the Boing Boing Flickr Pool by BB reader Jason Brown in New Zealand.
Read in browser Cowardice: Gutless House Republicans retract copyright paper in less than 24 hours
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 18, 2012 02:58 am It took less than 24 hours for the entertainment industry's lobbyists to bully the House Republican Study Committee into retracting its eminently sensible copyright position paper. They did it with a mealy-mouthed apology, claiming the paper "was published without adequate review." Here's Mike Masnick on the subject: The idea that this was published "without adequate ...
Read in browser 5th Annual Machinima Expo ends tomorrow
By Ricky Grove on Nov 18, 2012 01:35 am The Machinima Expo is a 3-day, virtual film festival devoted to screening and celebrating machinima, a form of 3D animation that grew out of the video game and hacking community back in the late 1990's. This the 5th year of the Expo.
Read in browser Junkbot clockwork spiders with lightbulbs
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 17, 2012 10:57 pm JM Gershenson-Gates, a sculptor who makes watch-part jewelry, has produced a few watch-part/light-bulb spiders and other crawlies that are nothing short of amazing. He's sold out, but he says he's making more, which is good news for me. The spiders were a huge hit!
Read in browser Zombie documentary from "The People v George Lucas" crew needs your support
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 17, 2012 07:34 pm DOC OF THE DEAD will delve deep into the myriad crevasses of zombie culture to deliver the first-ever in-depth look at a contemporary social pandemic of global proportions.
Read in browser What do we do about untrustworthy Certificate Authorities?
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 17, 2012 06:40 pm OpenSSL maintainer and Google cryptographer Ben Laurie and I collaborated on an article for Nature magazine on technical systems for finding untrustworthy Certificate Authorities. We focused on Certificate Transparency, the solution that will shortly be integrated into Chrome, and also discuss Sovereign Keys, a related proposal from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Both make clever use ...
Read in browser Clarkesworld is an excellent science fiction pub, its publisher has hit hard times and needs your support
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 17, 2012 05:31 pm Martin sez, "Neil Clarke over at Clarkesworld SF blog/magazine is ill and just lost his job. John Scalzi has called for uniform support by subscribing to Clarkesworld magazine. It's a highly regarded mag for up and coming sf authors and might need some attention." I agree with John's assessment. Clarkesworld is a fabulous publication, a ...
Read in browser Taliban uses CC instead of BCC, exposes identity of 400+ contacts
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 17, 2012 03:23 pm A Taliban spokesperson sent out a press-release and used CC instead of BCC, exposing a long list of Taliban press-contacts, as well as several parties friendly to Taliban communiques. The list, made up of more than 400 recipients, consists mostly of journalists, but also includes an address appearing to belong to a provincial governor, an ...
Read in browser House Republicans release watershed copyright reform paper
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 17, 2012 01:16 pm Three Myths about Copyright Law and Where to Start to Fix it (PDF) is a position paper just released by House Republicans, advocating for a raft of eminently sensible reforms to copyright law, including expanding and clarifying fair use; reaffirming that copyright's purpose is to serve the public interest (not to enrich investors); to limit ...
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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