Periodic table as 3D paper sculpture The radioactive wake of your Smartphone Black Friday, Texas style: Mall shopper who pulled gun on line-cutter "within rights," say cops What Disneyland's "awkward transitions" teach us about signaling changes with physical cues Steampunk's Guide to Sex Competition to design a hydrophilic, self-filling water-bottle Shark socks that appear to be devouring your legs Hacker's ad for a Yahoo email-stealing exploit, up for sale at $700 Kickstarter to buy a digital projector for the oldest cinema in Washington State Teen YouTube sensations Lexy & Stephany Designing a cardboard chair Great gear for your favorite photog Saudi Arabian women tracked at the border with system that SMSes their husbands when they leave the country How Walmart uses medicaid and foodstamps to avoid paying its workers a living wage The Last Policeman: $2.99 Kindle version Encyclopedia of Electronic Components - a terrific reference for beginners and experienced hobbyists and circuit designers Breaking a 18th C cipher reveals hidden history of Freemasonry and freethought Periodic table as 3D paper sculpture
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 24, 2012 12:28 pm Theodore Gray sends news of this beautiful three-dimensional papercraft Periodic Table of Elements. The Alexander Arrangement is a three-dimensional paper sculpture of the periodic table designed by Roy Alexander, with whom I collaborated on this version. For the first time this clever form of the table has been combined with my photographs of real element ...
Read in browser The radioactive wake of your Smartphone
By Jason Weisberger on Nov 24, 2012 12:23 pm Kiera Butler at Mother Jones wrote a fantastic piece on the radioactive components of your phone and what it took to source them. You may not be surprised by what she uncovers but you certainly will not be happy with what you learn! "My phone's shady past, it turned out, began long before it was ...
Read in browser Black Friday, Texas style: Mall shopper who pulled gun on line-cutter "within rights," say cops
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 24, 2012 11:25 am The San Antonio Express-News reports that a mall shopper who brandished a handgun on a dude trying to cut in line was within his rights, according to police, because he had a permit for the weapon and was using it in self-defense. San Antonio police officers were called to the Sears location around 9pm on ...
Read in browser What Disneyland's "awkward transitions" teach us about signaling changes with physical cues
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 24, 2012 09:15 am On Passport to Dreams Old and New, FoxxFur continues her unbroken record for highlighting insightful, deep design truths by examining the minutae of the design and evolution of the Disney theme parks. In the current post, "The Awkward Transitions of Disneyland!", she looks at the way that the designers of Disneyland managed their space-constraints when ...
Read in browser Steampunk's Guide to Sex
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 23, 2012 11:00 pm Margaret Killjoy sez, "We just got A Steampunk's Guide to Sex back from the printer! With contributions by Alan Moore, Molly Crabapple, and Professor Calamity, the book covers all kinds of crazy Victorian sexuality as well as ideas about steampunk and geek sexuality in the 21st century. It comes complete with sketchy DIY how-tos and ...
Read in browser Competition to design a hydrophilic, self-filling water-bottle
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 23, 2012 09:00 pm A Slashdot post from Samzenpus rounds up links to a series of projects to make self-filling water-bottles inspired by the hydrophilic nodules on the Namib Desert Beetle. After a successful prototype, MIT has launched a competition to improve on the design. Water Bottle Fills Itself From the Air
Read in browser Shark socks that appear to be devouring your legs
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 23, 2012 07:00 pm Tsarina's tshark shocks resemble sharks that are gnawing off the wearer's feet. They come with knit, velcro-attachable remoras! The comments are full of people begging to buy a pair of these, but there's no indication at this point that they are for sale, either as patterns or finished articles. The shark theme has been done, ...
Read in browser Hacker's ad for a Yahoo email-stealing exploit, up for sale at $700
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 23, 2012 05:17 pm Brian Krebs has located and published a sales pitch from a hacker who has found a zero-day exploit allowing him to steal cookies from Yahoo webmail users, granting access to their accounts. "I'm selling Yahoo stored xss that steal Yahoo emails cookies and works on ALL browsers," wrote the vendor of this exploit, using the ...
Read in browser Kickstarter to buy a digital projector for the oldest cinema in Washington State
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 23, 2012 04:28 pm Jack sez, "The Blue Mouse Theatre in Tacoma has been operating since 1923. Unfortunately, in order to continue operating they need to buy a digital projector. They've started a Kickstarter campaign in hopes of preserving this landmark theater." Tacoma Neighborhoods Together has partnered with us to Help preserve this historic Icon of the Proctor District ...
Read in browser Teen YouTube sensations Lexy & Stephany
By David Pescovitz on Nov 23, 2012 04:26 pm YouTube teen singing sensations Lexy & Stephany's uplifting videos "This feels like love" and "Come Sail Away."
Read in browser Designing a cardboard chair
By Mark Frauenfelder on Nov 23, 2012 03:51 pm Dan Goldstein has been working on a cardboard chair prototype for six years, and he has come up with something he liked enough to launch a (successful) Kickstarter campaign to put it into production. Goldstein has been building prototypes of this chair for over six years now and they have survived constant use in his ...
Read in browser Great gear for your favorite photog
By Advertiser on Nov 23, 2012 03:50 pm ADVERTISEMENT This post is sponsored by Best Buy. What will your gift do? You don't take a photograph, you make it. - Ansel Adams With that in mind, here is a fine collection of tools to make beautiful photographs. The rest is in the eye of the beholder. * Nikon D3100 14.2-Megapixel DSLR Camera with ...
Read in browser Saudi Arabian women tracked at the border with system that SMSes their husbands when they leave the country
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 23, 2012 03:16 pm Saudi authorities have rolled out an electronic surveillance system for women, which tracks their movements and alerts their husbands by SMS when they attempt to leave the country. The husband, who was travelling with his wife, received a text message from the immigration authorities informing him that his wife had left the international airport in ...
Read in browser How Walmart uses medicaid and foodstamps to avoid paying its workers a living wage
By Mark Frauenfelder on Nov 23, 2012 03:10 pm The combined worth of the 6 Walmart heirs and heiresses is greater than that of the bottom 41% of American families (48.8 million households). How do the grinning kids of Sam Walton stay so rich? By paying their employees slave wages and not providing benefits, forcing them to use food stamps and medicaid. Above, a ...
Read in browser The Last Policeman: $2.99 Kindle version
By Mark Frauenfelder on Nov 23, 2012 01:40 pm I reviewed The Last Policeman a few weeks ago. I just found out that it's on sale in the Kindle store for $2.99. It's a terrific novel so this is a bargain.
Read in browser Encyclopedia of Electronic Components - a terrific reference for beginners and experienced hobbyists and circuit designers
By Mark Frauenfelder on Nov 23, 2012 01:18 pm Three years ago, MAKE published Charles Platt's book Make: Electronics, which I consider the best book on learning electronics I've ever come across. As Gareth Branwyn, the editor of the book said, "we decided to make it our mission to create a book that would patiently guide readers into the world of electronics in a ...
Read in browser Breaking a 18th C cipher reveals hidden history of Freemasonry and freethought
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 23, 2012 01:11 pm Noah Shachtman's long Wired feature "They Cracked This 250-Year-Old Code, and Found a Secret Society Inside," tells the intriguing story of the cracking of the "Copiale" cipher, a strange text left behind by a mid-18th-century secret society called the Oculists. The Oculists had formerly been remembered as being concerned with performing and perfecting eye surgeries, ...
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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