Pesco's favorite men's style sites Puerto Rico sends United States a non-binding friend request TOM THE DANCING BUG: Hollingsworth Hound - Is There a Hurricane Problem? Canada gets a huge raft of user-rights in copyright Grime Writer: detergent-filled graffiti pen Medical marijuana in Israel Early financial markets reaction to Obama reelection: Sell. Trippy NYT election graphic on voting shifts Karl Rove vs. math Particle physicists not yet willing to call the election for Obama WA and CO legalize recreational weed, MA okays medicinal use, but "don't break out Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly" Most Gangsta Lunchables Commercial ever Minnesota defeats discriminatory marriage amendment Modern political ads are bo-RING Donald Trump calls for revolutionary overthrow of American government Bronies and ultra-cult fandom Solar chargers for Sandy aftermath -- donations and deep discounts Crypto 101: free Stanford course online In case you were looking for more proof that The Walking Dead's Danai Gurira was awesome, here you go Hurricane Sandy's Fibonacci golden spiral Duriavenator: Thunder lizard or cleaning appliance? Electoral College college Voting expert tells The Awl: There are reasons to be concerned about voting machines, but vast conspiracies aren't one of them Halo 4: custom LEGO minifig Max Landis lands his first directing gig with Me Him Her Manuscript auction to benefit Sandy victims After much waiting, the Elfquest feature may finally be on its way! David Tennant makes an adorable Star Wars droid Comics Rack: Boing Boing's comic books picks for November Steampunk clockmaker Roger Wood among his creations Pesco's favorite men's style sites
By David Pescovitz on Nov 07, 2012 12:36 pm Over at our sponsor Intel's My Life Scoop site, I wrote a short piece about my favorite men's style sites: Since I was 14, I've dressed like, well, I'm 14. My daily attire has always been t-shirt, hoodie, jeans, and sneakers or boots. That said, I feel good when I dress up. My wife is ...
Read in browser Puerto Rico sends United States a non-binding friend request
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 07, 2012 12:32 pm Amidst all the other election craziness last night, Puerto Ricans voted in favor of becoming the 51st U.S. state. Currently, Puerto Rico is a territory — they've got a non-voting rep in Congress, they don't pay taxes, and they get U.S. military protection and some social services. The results from last night don't actually change ...
Read in browser TOM THE DANCING BUG: Hollingsworth Hound - Is There a Hurricane Problem?
By Ruben Bolling on Nov 07, 2012 12:05 pm Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH Hollingsworth Hound weighs important scientific climate information -- the fate of the world in the balance!
Read in browser Canada gets a huge raft of user-rights in copyright
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 07, 2012 11:46 am Michael Geist sez, This morning, the majority of Bill C-11, the Canadian copyright reform bill, took effect, marking the most significant changes to Canadian copyright law in decades. While there are still some further changes to come (the Internet provider notice-and-notice rules await a consultation and their own regulations, various provisions related to the WIPO ...
Read in browser Grime Writer: detergent-filled graffiti pen
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 07, 2012 11:06 am Grime Writer is a detergent-filled graffiti marker that cleans away street-filth to leave your message behind. There's a good chance that the graffiti you create with these is no more legal than any other kind -- there've been successful prosecutions against companies in the UK that paid "street teams" to "reverse-graffiti" their messages by using ...
Read in browser Medical marijuana in Israel
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 07, 2012 10:30 am "I've been a Holocaust child all my life. I'm now 80 and I'm still a Holocaust child, but I'm finally able to better cope." A Buchenwald survivor who uses cannabis for PTSD in a nursing home in Israel, in USA Today.
Read in browser Early financial markets reaction to Obama reelection: Sell.
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 07, 2012 10:29 am Stocks fell sharply this morning in early Wall Street trading, indicating that investors are unhappy with Obama's reelection. "The Dow Jones industrial average fell 197 points, or 1.5%, to 13,048 shortly after the opening bell. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 21 points, or 1.5%, to 1,407. The Nasdaq was down 41 points, ...
Read in browser Trippy NYT election graphic on voting shifts
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 07, 2012 10:27 am The New York Times is killing it with election-related infographics, and they're not even Flash-based! This one sort of combines wind and voting. Readers in WA or CO may want to toke up before clicking. (HT: Lena Groeger)
Read in browser Karl Rove vs. math
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 07, 2012 10:22 am Fox News analyst and GOP rainmaker Karl Rove went to war on election night against his own network's arithmetic.
Read in browser Particle physicists not yet willing to call the election for Obama
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 07, 2012 10:15 am Sure, there's a 99.2% probability that he will win, but that is several standard deviations away from the 99.99995% confidence that the particle physicists would need to declare the election won. (This is satire, obviously.) Via Jennifer Ouellette.
Read in browser WA and CO legalize recreational weed, MA okays medicinal use, but "don't break out Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly"
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 07, 2012 09:53 am Voters in Washington and Colorado chose to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, in addition to medicinal use, making them the first U.S. states to decriminalize the practice. Massachussetts voters said yes to medicinal marijuana, making it the 18th state (together with Washington, D.C.) to legalize medical use of pot. What all of this means ...
Read in browser Most Gangsta Lunchables Commercial ever
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 07, 2012 09:45 am YouTuber Mike Dahlquist (@Mikediva) "discovered" this "banned" mid-90s video ad for Lunchables. (via Sean Bonner)
Read in browser Minnesota defeats discriminatory marriage amendment
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 07, 2012 09:10 am Celebrate marriage equality with the Swedish Chef.
Read in browser Modern political ads are bo-RING
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 07, 2012 09:01 am Election night's over, and in the Vintage Ads group, spuzzlightyear's closed it off with ten magnificent political ads from times gone by. Here are a couple of my favourites. various political ads....
Read in browser Donald Trump calls for revolutionary overthrow of American government
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 07, 2012 03:19 am He deleted it, but Wil Wheaton saved it for posterity.
Read in browser Bronies and ultra-cult fandom
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 06, 2012 10:48 pm It appears we are moving toward the ultra-cult era in which media consumers discover extremely unexpected and obscure media texts to cultivate uniqueness and distinctiveness for their mediated identities.
Read in browser Solar chargers for Sandy aftermath -- donations and deep discounts
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 06, 2012 08:41 pm Limor and Phil at Adafruit are still baling out their lower Manhattan factory and living space after Sandy, but they're also using the Adafruit site to pass on information about relief efforts to public-spirited makers. Here's one: Voltaic systems (makers of solar chargers) are offering deep discounts and donations to people who are struggling with ...
Read in browser Crypto 101: free Stanford course online
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 06, 2012 07:00 pm Stanford's Dan Boneh is offering a free Cryptography course through Coursera.
Read in browser In case you were looking for more proof that The Walking Dead's Danai Gurira was awesome, here you go
By Jamie Frevele on Nov 06, 2012 06:42 pm While she isn't the only cast member of The Walking Dead to have an artsy side job (Norman Reedus is a filmmaker when he's not killing zombies), Danai Gurira seems like one of those spectacularly well-rounded and adventurous people who wants to do a little bit of everything as long as she walks this planet. ...
Read in browser Hurricane Sandy's Fibonacci golden spiral
By Mark Frauenfelder on Nov 06, 2012 06:36 pm Jim Leftwich says: I'd seen one of these that had been done for Hurricane Irene going around, that a lot of people probably thought was Hurricane Sandy. I created this one from a NASA satellite image (distributed by NOAA) from Sunday, October 28, 2012 at 1745zulu (6:45pm EDST). I posted it to my Tumblr, and ...
Read in browser Duriavenator: Thunder lizard or cleaning appliance?
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 06, 2012 06:30 pm Duriavenator is a dinosaur — a kind of T.Rex-ish, pointy toothed dinosaur that lived in what is now England. But I think it sounds like the name of a 1950s vacuum cleaner company, don't you?
Read in browser Electoral College college
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 06, 2012 06:22 pm It's time for some American Democracy 101. Every election cycle, it frustrates me to no end that most news outlets spend an inordinate amount of time talking about the latest polls without explaining the significance those polls actually have on the outcome of a presidential election that isn't truly decided by the voters. My Halloween ...
Read in browser Voting expert tells The Awl: There are reasons to be concerned about voting machines, but vast conspiracies aren't one of them
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 06, 2012 06:07 pm Tagg Romney doesn't own Ohio's voting machines. And Joseph Lorenzo Hall, senior staff technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology in D.C., says that a lot of the fears the public has about electronic voting are equally unfounded. The biggest thing to worry about, he tells The Awl's Maria Bustillos, is that we're so ...
Read in browser Halo 4: custom LEGO minifig
By David Pescovitz on Nov 06, 2012 05:18 pm In celebration of the Halo 4 release today, my nephew Andy Pescovitz completed his Spartan Warrior-4 custom LEGO minifig. See more of Andy's insanely-intricate custom LEGO characters from Gears of War, Modern Warfare 2, Max Payne, and other videogames at his pescovam Flickr stream. Andy Pescovitz's custom videogame LEGO Minifigs - Boing Boing Gears of ...
Read in browser Max Landis lands his first directing gig with Me Him Her
By Jamie Frevele on Nov 06, 2012 04:46 pm Max Landis, who wrote the screenplay for Chronicle, will get his chance to direct with the quarter life-crisis comedy, Me Him Her. Landis, who is the son of director John Landis (Animal House, Blues Brothers) and is also a very fun person to follow on Twitter, describes the new movie as "totally insane" and that ...
Read in browser Manuscript auction to benefit Sandy victims
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 06, 2012 04:35 pm Mary Robinette Kowal sez, At the World Fantasy Convention in Toronto this weekend, as much as we were talking about fantasy, we were talking about our friends and colleagues who had been hit by the storm. Some of them had to evacuate and had no idea when they'd be able to go home. One editor ...
Read in browser After much waiting, the Elfquest feature may finally be on its way!
By Jamie Frevele on Nov 06, 2012 03:52 pm After it looked like all hopes for a feature based on Richard and Wendy Pini's beloved graphic novel series Elfquest were gone, news has broken that producers Stephanie Thorpe and Paula Rhodes have acquired the film rights and are moving forward with development. If those names sound familiar, it's because they are the pair behind ...
Read in browser David Tennant makes an adorable Star Wars droid
By Jamie Frevele on Nov 06, 2012 03:03 pm I know I just posted about Star Wars, but I really can't help myself after reading this story. Former Gallifreyan Doctor David Tennant lent his voice to a droid character named Huyang for Star Wars: The Clone Wars. His episode, "A Test of Strength," will air this Saturday, November 10 at 9:30 AM on Cartoon ...
Read in browser Comics Rack: Boing Boing's comic books picks for November
By Brian Heater on Nov 06, 2012 03:02 pm Stocking stuffers? We thought about it, but in spite of what laundromat radio stations might lead you to believe, it IS too early to start thinking about the holidays. And besides, Chris Ware, for one, has clearly gone out of way to only produce work that could never in a million years be stuffed into ...
Read in browser Steampunk clockmaker Roger Wood among his creations
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 06, 2012 03:00 pm Stephen sez, "Masterful gadget-maker Roger Wood poses alongside some of his whimsical clock creations at his Hamilton-based workshop and steampunk emporium, Klockwerks. When he came out in his goggles and steampunk kit, I told him, 'You look so much like an inventor.' He answered, 'I AM an inventor.'" Roger was my neighbour for a decade, ...
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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