How safe is safe? Coin purse looks like a grenade A toast to physics USDA internal discussions of Pink Slime revealed: "We are taking a beating from the media" Ancient Chinese art used a toxic lacquer made from a relative of poison ivy Smart mice doing tricks Awesomely weird tales of sex-ghosts 1000-year-old modded skulls discovered in Mexico Why the stuff you don't see at the museum matters Forced internment of British civilians during World War II The Godfather of chicken rings For Anonymous: an ode to the Delhi rape victim, by Nilanjana Roy Gangnam Canadian First Nations Style Nobel scientist Rita Levi-Montalcini, 103, dies in Rome On cancer and the holidays: "You look great" Elfquest: Abandon all the old ways Brian Wood's The Couriers: The Complete Series Raw Turkey Christmas cake MonkeyBrains seeks $350,000,000 for its own satellite Thanks for subscribing to Boing Boing, Stefan! Public Resource liberates global building codes, include the Eurocode -- free the law! You're only as old as your hair Wally Wood's incredible "Fully Computerized" illustration Ability to sit and rise from the floor is closely correlated with all-cause mortality risk How safe is safe?
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 31, 2012 12:51 pm The precautionary principle comes up a lot when you're talking about the side effects of technology in the real world. When you don't have evidence that something is dangerous — but you suspect it might be — you could cite the precautionary principle as a reason to ban or limit the use of that thing. ...
Read in browser Coin purse looks like a grenade
By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 31, 2012 12:46 pm Is this grenade-shaped coin purse cartoonish enough to avoid the attention of TSA officers? Grenade-shaped key and coin case
Read in browser A toast to physics
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 31, 2012 12:31 pm You will be pleased to note that multiple physicists are at work on the problem of why a piece of falling toast tends to land with the butter side down.
Read in browser USDA internal discussions of Pink Slime revealed: "We are taking a beating from the media"
By Rob Beschizza on Dec 31, 2012 12:30 pm The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released a set of internal discussions about "pink slime", shedding light on early efforts to respond to public outcry over its presence in processed food. It is its first response to a FOIA request, filed by Government Attic, requesting copies of its deliberations. Though the USDA invoked expemptions to ...
Read in browser Ancient Chinese art used a toxic lacquer made from a relative of poison ivy
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 31, 2012 12:24 pm On Christmas Day, I watched a documentary about the terra cotta warriors — thousands of clay soldiers built as funerary objects for the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor. One crazy fact I learned: Unlike the type of lacquer we call shellac today (which comes from crushed beetles), ancient Chinese artists used a ...
Read in browser Smart mice doing tricks
By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 31, 2012 12:22 pm This guy trains his pet mice to collect coins, fetch a tossed bead, play basketball, ride a tiny skateboard, and more. (Via Doobybrain)
Read in browser Awesomely weird tales of sex-ghosts
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 31, 2012 12:20 pm This interview with "author, photographer, and ossuary expert" Paul Koudounaris is a trove of weird stories about the things people get up to with their local mummies, haunted skulls, and other "miracle-performing" remains: They're not all like that. One of the more outlandish stories is about a guy who got to be called "pene grande," ...
Read in browser 1000-year-old modded skulls discovered in Mexico
By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 31, 2012 12:09 pm 13 unusually-shaped skulls were recently unearthed in Mexico when workers were digging an irrigation system. They are about 1,000 years old. Time reported that researcher Cristina Garcia Moreno of Arizona State University said, “We don’t know why this population specifically deformed their heads.” Tai-wiki-widbee said: "There's more information at the Artificial Cranial Deformation page at ...
Read in browser Why the stuff you don't see at the museum matters
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 31, 2012 12:03 pm Chicago's Field Museum isn't just a science museum. It's also a research center, especially for archaeologists and anthropologists who come to the museum to make use of its extensive collections of artifacts — only a tiny fraction of which is on public display at any given time. Unfortunately, the museum is currently up to its ...
Read in browser Forced internment of British civilians during World War II
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 31, 2012 11:52 am Something I didn't know about world history: During World War II, the British government rounded up thousands of its own citizens — people of German, Austrian, or Italian ancestry. Some were put into camps, others deported to Canada and Australia. Others were simply labeled as potential enemies and spied upon. The really crazy part: Many ...
Read in browser The Godfather of chicken rings
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 31, 2012 11:47 am Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Silly question. But if you're talking about chicken as we know it today — barbecued, boneless and skinless, served as sausages, bologna, nuggets, and burgers — the answer is actually "neither". What came first was Robert C. Baker, a Cornell University food scientist who is credited with ...
Read in browser For Anonymous: an ode to the Delhi rape victim, by Nilanjana Roy
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 31, 2012 11:41 am "Let there be an end to this epidemic of violence, this culture where if we can't kill off our girls before they are born, we ensure that they live these lives of constant fear. Like many women in India, I rely on a layer of privilege, a network of friends, paranoid security measures and a ...
Read in browser Gangnam Canadian First Nations Style
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 31, 2012 11:36 am A
Gangnam Style video from the students of
Nunavut Sivuniksavut, a college for Inuit youth.
Read in browser Nobel scientist Rita Levi-Montalcini, 103, dies in Rome
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 31, 2012 11:29 am The Italian neurologist and "senator for life" Rita Levi Montalcini, who won the Nobel Prize winner for Medicine in 1986, died in Rome. She was 103. Rome's mayor says the biologist, who conducted underground research in defiance of Fascist persecution, and went on to win a Nobel Prize for helping unlock the mysteries of the ...
Read in browser On cancer and the holidays: "You look great"
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 31, 2012 11:25 am "'You look good,' they say. This a compliment. Sometimes they say, "You don't look sick at all. You'd never know.' That is shorthand for, 'You don't look like you're dying but we know you are.'" Lisa Bonchek Adams, who has metastatic breast cancer, writes about what it's like to have cancer and deal with relatives ...
Read in browser Elfquest: Abandon all the old ways
By Wendy and Richard Pini on Dec 31, 2012 10:45 am Enjoy
the latest page of Elfquest. First time reader? Catch up at the comic's
official homepage.
Read in browser Brian Wood's The Couriers: The Complete Series
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 31, 2012 08:39 am The Couriers: The Complete Series collects four short stories from early in Brian "DMZ" Wood's career, involving a pair of courier/ninjas who run parcels for crime syndicates, shady characters, and other nonstandard enterprises. They're armed to the teeth, hyper-violent, skillful, wisecracking, and remorseless. Think of Kick-Ass crossed with Run, Lola, Run. It's lovely stuff, and ...
Read in browser Raw Turkey Christmas cake
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 30, 2012 10:46 pm This magnificent raw turkey cake (orange and rum spice cake) was created by London's Sarah Hardy. Yum! Raw Turkey Christmas Cake
Read in browser MonkeyBrains seeks $350,000,000 for its own satellite
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 30, 2012 08:41 pm The happy mutants at MonkeyBrains, the San Francisco hacker-friendly ISP, have launched a $350,000,000 IndieGoGo campaign to buy their own satellite ("North Korea just launched a satellite; we want to as well").
Read in browser Thanks for subscribing to Boing Boing, Stefan!
By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 30, 2012 03:44 pm Stefan says: I found this while tidying up a filing cabinet yesterday. Wow. I feel old. I think my subscription started with issue #9. This account is long closed and the address 15 years out of date, so I don't mind posting it. Boing Boing started out as a print zine in 1988. Here is ...
Read in browser Public Resource liberates global building codes, include the Eurocode -- free the law!
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 30, 2012 03:32 pm Rogue archivist Carl Malamud sez, Public.Resource.Org today released 10,062 public safety documents covering 24 countries and 6 regions, including the European Union. The release is documented in a README file and accompanied by 12 tables of supporting documentation. Some of these standards were obtained directly from the web sites of national standards bodies, such as ...
Read in browser You're only as old as your hair
By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 30, 2012 02:48 pm Life, 1971 Vol. 71, No. 24. I Love Old Magazines (Via Mostly Forbidden Zone)
Read in browser Wally Wood's incredible "Fully Computerized" illustration
By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 30, 2012 02:33 pm Thom Buchanan of The Pictorial Arts says of this mind-boggling Wally Wood illustration: This piece by Wally Wood, which I don't think was for EC [the comic book company that published MAD, Weird Science, and Tales from the Crypt], is genius for its organized complexity—seemingly effortless in its execution. Zoom in on the figures and ...
Read in browser Ability to sit and rise from the floor is closely correlated with all-cause mortality risk
By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 30, 2012 02:27 pm In 2002, over 2000 people between the ages of 51 and 80 were asked to sit on the floor using as little hand- or knee-support as possible. They were then asked to stand up without resorting to using their hands or knees if they were able. The results were recorded. By the end of October ...
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
