The evolution of Creationism Monopoly was stolen from socialist land-reformers and perverted Kim Dotcom will sue US gov't and Hollywood, use the money for free nationwide Internet in New Zealand What it's like to be a journalist in China This NASA simulation of a galaxy is begging for a snazzy soundtrack Elfquest: The palace disguised NOAA to American public: No, we are not going to just nuke the storms Horrorgami: papercraft horror film homes The other man behind the mouse: Floyd Gottfredson Surviving a plane crash is surprisingly common Help fund a legal officer for the Open Rights Group Amputee with nerve-controlled bionic leg makes historic climb in Chicago skyscraper Portraits of devastation in Rockaways after Hurricane Sandy: Charles le Brigand Pakistan: parents arrested for killing 15yo daughter in acid attack Apple: three million iPads sold since Friday's launch Romneymegaprayer.com Blood type determinism in Japan 2-year-old boy eaten by wild dogs at PA zoo Lies, damn lies, and the lying liars who tweet them Engineers warned of storm surge threat to NYC in 2009 In post-Sandy "dewatering" mission, Army engineers drain one Olympic-sized pool's worth of water per minute Obama granted fewer pardons than any other modern president Judge prods FBI over plans for Internet spying Davis Graveyard: totally kick-ass haunters Laser-cut bento box The evolution of Creationism
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 05, 2012 12:45 pm One of the great mythologies of any kind of religious fundamentalist movement is that the beliefs of that movement, and the way they choose to interpret their scripture, represent some kind of true reflection of history. This is how things always were. It's the people who believe differently who changed. But that's not necessarily true. ...
Read in browser Monopoly was stolen from socialist land-reformers and perverted
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 05, 2012 12:18 pm Christopher Ketcham's beautifully written Harper's feature on the history of Monopoly, "Monopoly Is Theft," traces the idealistic socialist land-reformers who created the game and modified it over decades, and the unscrupulous "inventor" who claimed to have created it and sold it to Parker Brothers. Monopoly's forerunner was "The Landlord's Game," created by Lizzie Magie, inspired ...
Read in browser Kim Dotcom will sue US gov't and Hollywood, use the money for free nationwide Internet in New Zealand
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 05, 2012 12:08 pm Kim Dotcom is going to sue the US entertainment industry and the US government over the illegal raid on him and Megaupload, and has promised to use his winnings to pay for free Internet access across New Zealand. The Guardian's Peter Walker reports: The latest salvo involves resurrecting a planned second fibre optic web cable ...
Read in browser What it's like to be a journalist in China
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 05, 2012 11:50 am In Foreign Policy magazine Eveline Chao writes a fascinating, insider account of working with Chinese censors and trying to do the job of a journalist in a place where your entire staff can be fired for the crime of accidentally having a Taiwanese flag in the background of a photograph. Every legally registered publication in ...
Read in browser This NASA simulation of a galaxy is begging for a snazzy soundtrack
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 05, 2012 11:04 am A cool opportunity to set science to sound.
Read in browser Elfquest: The palace disguised
By Wendy and Richard Pini on Nov 05, 2012 11:00 am Page 9 of The Final Quest: Prologue is published online-first for the first time here at Boing Boing. First time reader? You're a few issues behind.
Read in browser NOAA to American public: No, we are not going to just nuke the storms
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 05, 2012 10:20 am A Q&A piece on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration begins with this incredibly disconcerting sentence: "During each hurricane season, there always appear suggestions that one should simply use nuclear weapons to try and destroy the storms." Really? Seriously, America? Anyway, the entire piece ends up being pretty fascinating, as research meteorologist Chris Landsea explains ...
Read in browser Horrorgami: papercraft horror film homes
By David Pescovitz on Nov 05, 2012 10:02 am Marc Hagan-Guirey creates magnificent paper craft models of famed horror film houses.
Read in browser The other man behind the mouse: Floyd Gottfredson
By Mark Frauenfelder on Nov 05, 2012 10:00 am This post is sponsored by Disney's Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two the video game: People who know me know enough to run away when I start stalking about Carl Barks, the late great Disney comic book artist and writer. Barks is in my top-3 list of cartoonists (along with Jack Kirby and Robert ...
Read in browser Surviving a plane crash is surprisingly common
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 05, 2012 09:51 am Between 1983 and 2000, more than 95% of people involved in plane crashes survived.
Read in browser Help fund a legal officer for the Open Rights Group
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 05, 2012 09:48 am Ruth from the UK Open Rights Group sez, "Open Rights Group have launched a campaign to fund a legal officer position and intervene in the courts. The link is a page which gives more details about the kind of cases we want to take on and encourages supporters to join. We want in the first ...
Read in browser Amputee with nerve-controlled bionic leg makes historic climb in Chicago skyscraper
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 05, 2012 09:28 am 31-year-old amputee Zac Vawter made medical history Sunday, climbing 103 stories of the Willis Tower with a state-of-the-art bionic leg controlled by electrical impulses from the muscles in his upper leg, including a rewired hamstring. He finished the climb in 45 minutes. More at the Chicago Trib, and CNN.
Read in browser Portraits of devastation in Rockaways after Hurricane Sandy: Charles le Brigand
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 05, 2012 09:12 am Stéphane Missier, aka Charles le Brigand, has been photographing people and scenes in and around New York City in the week following Hurricane Sandy.
Read in browser Pakistan: parents arrested for killing 15yo daughter in acid attack
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 05, 2012 09:11 am Two parents from a rural village in the Pakistani-controlled region of Kashmir have been arrested for killing their daughter by beating her, then dousing her with acid. Her crime: looking at a boy who drove by their house on a motorcycle. "She said 'I didn't do it on purpose. I won't look again,'" said the ...
Read in browser Apple: three million iPads sold since Friday's launch
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 05, 2012 09:10 am Three million iPads have been sold in the the three days since Apple launched a new iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad.
Read in browser Romneymegaprayer.com
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 05, 2012 09:04 am "If group prayer can heal people, it can change an election," reads this website urging you to join a mass prayer that will elect Mitt Romney to office. Oh, fine; it's a parody site. (via @joeljohnson)
Read in browser Blood type determinism in Japan
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 05, 2012 09:01 am On the BBC, Ruth Evans describes a widespread Japanese superstition about the relationship between blood-types and personality. Apparently, the modern junk-science belief originates with a crank called Masahiko Nomi who published a "a book in the 1970s" about it, and his son Toshitaka has continued the family tradition with more woo books and an "Institute ...
Read in browser 2-year-old boy eaten by wild dogs at PA zoo
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 05, 2012 08:58 am A two-year-old child died after falling into a pit of wild African dogs sunday at the Pittsburgh zoo.
Read in browser Lies, damn lies, and the lying liars who tweet them
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 05, 2012 08:57 am So, people like @comfortablysmug lie on Twitter, even about important things during a public emergency like Hurricane Sandy. Is this a cause for worry, asks Nick Bilton? "I don't think so. Twitter, in its own way, has a self-correcting mechanism."
Read in browser Engineers warned of storm surge threat to NYC in 2009
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 05, 2012 08:50 am "Scientists and engineers were saying years before Katrina happened, 'Hey, it's going to happen, folks. Stop putting your head in the sand." —Malcolm Bowman, professor of oceanography at the State University at Stony Brook. In 2009, he and other experts convened at a meeting in NYC of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and issued ...
Read in browser In post-Sandy "dewatering" mission, Army engineers drain one Olympic-sized pool's worth of water per minute
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 05, 2012 08:07 am In an Army Corps of Engineers press release, details on the astounding rate at which workers are draining water from New York's subway and transit tunnels: "To date, the USACE has used about 50 pumps of various sizes to remove 64 million gallons of water from the New York City mass transit system. Operations are ...
Read in browser Obama granted fewer pardons than any other modern president
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 05, 2012 07:37 am "A former brothel manager who helped the FBI bust a national prostitution ring. A retired sheriff who inadvertently helped a money launderer buy land. A young woman who mailed ecstasy tablets for a drug-dealing boyfriend, then worked with investigators to bring him down." All denied clemency by President Obama, along with hundreds more. A ProPublica ...
Read in browser Judge prods FBI over plans for Internet spying
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 05, 2012 07:26 am At CNET, Declan McCullagh reports on a federal judge's rejection of the FBI's attempts to withhold information about its efforts to make backdoors for government surveillance mandatory for internet firms. CNET has learned that U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg ruled on Tuesday that the government did not adequately respond to a Freedom of Information Act ...
Read in browser Davis Graveyard: totally kick-ass haunters
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 04, 2012 09:34 pm Dan from the Journal of Ride Theory sez, "I hope someday your travels bring you to the Pacific Northwest around Halloween time, because you will absolutely LOVE the Davis Graveyard. It's an amateur yard display of near theme-park quality. And as a bonus for you and me, they have LOTS of Haunted Mansion references -- ...
Read in browser Laser-cut bento box
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 04, 2012 03:25 pm Matthew sez, "I just finished making this bento box featuring laser cut nori and thought you might care for it. The bento box features a scene from Princess Jellyfish (Kuragehime) as well as some good old fashioned tempura shrimp, shu mai, grilled octopus, and tamagoyaki." Princess Jellyfish Laser Bento, Kuragehime Laser Bento (Thanks, Matthew!)
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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