Benedict Cumberbatch's role in Star Trek Into Darkness revealed! Or is it? Ball of Whacks magnetic creativity toy/tool Understanding the NDAA, a US law that makes it possible to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial France remains America's copyright crash-test dummy: about to ditch HADOPI, poised to adopt the dregs of SOPA instead Ian McKellen opens up about his years-long battle with prostate cancer The truth is stranger than data visualization The Meteorology of Little House on the Prairie On aliens, Russian premier says he "can't say how many of them are among us, because it may cause panic" Years of computer use visualized Play Minesweeper in Minecraft Miner Rescue, 10-minute browser platform game Cold Days, a novel of the Dresden files Famous wolf briefly strays from Yellowstone and is shot Simple kite aerial photography rig Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Genius Rap, and The Original Human Beatbox Terrible insurance ad would make brilliant T-shirt Giant squid finally caught on video Pet obituaries Pianocade, a synthesizer that looks like an arcade control panel Kids' apps get a failing report-card on privacy Adjustable wrench wedding-ring Pret a Manger unionization drive: dispute over dismissal claim Hit cancel to retry; hit retry to cancel Pig Will and Pig Won't - a terrific book by Richard Scarry that belongs back in print Musique de jeux vidéo or Game Music Augmented reality card routine How much does it cost to decorate your house with Christmas lights? Political taxonomy: Obama gets a lichen, a worm, and a carnivorous lizard Great moments in pedantry: How do you grow wine in a land without predictable seasons? Trailer for My Beastly ABCs app Benedict Cumberbatch's role in Star Trek Into Darkness revealed! Or is it?
By Jamie Frevele on Dec 11, 2012 12:59 pm Paramount just released the first official still from Star Trek Into Darkness with a caption that seems to identify Benedict Cumberbatch's mystery villain as John Harrison. But -- and it's a pretty big "but" -- the name "John Harrison" is actually part of Star Trek backstage lore, and not really the name of any Trek ...
Read in browser Ball of Whacks magnetic creativity toy/tool
By David Pescovitz on Dec 11, 2012 12:50 pm I gave "Ball of Whacks" to my 6-year-old son as a Hanukkah gift and I wish I'd have given it to myself. It reminds me a bit of Rubik's Snake but it's much more free-form and fun as the individual blocks aren't permanently connected but rather held together by 180 rare earth magnets. The blocks ...
Read in browser Understanding the NDAA, a US law that makes it possible to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 11, 2012 12:43 pm Omems sends us, "ProPublica's point-by-point discussion of why this year's NDAA might not allow for the indefinite detention of US citizens. As clear and concise a summary as I've seen, and provides a bit of hope that our rights aren't completely irrelevant to our representatives." I don't know that I'd got that far. ProPublica concludes ...
Read in browser France remains America's copyright crash-test dummy: about to ditch HADOPI, poised to adopt the dregs of SOPA instead
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 11, 2012 12:11 pm France is on the verge of killing its ill-starred HADOPI system, whereby people who are accused of multiple acts of copyright infringement are disconnected from the Internet, along with everyone in their homes. After two years, HADOPI has spent a fortune and has nothing to show for it. HADOPI was enacted thanks to enormous pressure ...
Read in browser Ian McKellen opens up about his years-long battle with prostate cancer
By Jamie Frevele on Dec 11, 2012 12:03 pm Ian McKellen in "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," 2002. Photo: New Line Cinema In an interview with The Mirror, Sir Ian McKellen revealed that he's been living with prostate cancer for several years. While it's upsetting news, he says that his form is "contained," and that he and his doctors are staying ...
Read in browser The truth is stranger than data visualization
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 11, 2012 11:59 am I'm honestly not sure which is weirder: That Clean Air Asia made an interactive map of air pollution that visualizes various cities' smog levels in terms of nose-hair length ... or the fact that thicker, more luxuriant nose hairs really do reduce your risk of asthma. The world is a strange place, people.
Read in browser The Meteorology of Little House on the Prairie
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 11, 2012 11:48 am If you read The Long Winter, Laura Ingalls Wilder's novel about narrowly avoiding starving to death during a ferocious winter on the South Dakota prairie, then you'll remember how the trains stopped running because of the snowfall. In fact, that's a big part of why Laura and her family were so hungry — their harvest ...
Read in browser On aliens, Russian premier says he "can't say how many of them are among us, because it may cause panic"
By Rob Beschizza on Dec 11, 2012 11:13 am Dmitri Medvedev added that more details could be found in Barry Sonnenfeld's "Men in Black" films. This is an example of what the AP describes as "a sense of humor slightly more subtle than [President Vladimir] Putin's.
Read in browser Years of computer use visualized
By Rob Beschizza on Dec 11, 2012 11:03 am Marcin Ignac (twitter) recorded everything he did on his computer for 2½ years, then created a series of beautiful visualizations based upon the data: "Each line represents one day and each colorful block is the most foreground app running at the given moment. Black areas are periods when my computer is not turned on. Seeping ...
Read in browser Play Minesweeper in Minecraft
By Rob Beschizza on Dec 11, 2012 10:58 am Recently-added bugfixes—and player ingenuity!—led to a selection of Minecraft minigames built by playing Minecraft. Here's Minesweeper, created by Seth Bling. [via Digital Tools]
Read in browser Miner Rescue, 10-minute browser platform game
By Rob Beschizza on Dec 11, 2012 10:37 am The gloomy-but-glowy medieval 8-bit look of M Lino's Miner Rescue, a simple but perfectly-formed platformer with pounding, melodic chipmusic, recalls classics like Antiriad and The Cauldron. Combat seems tough enough to make avoidance a better strategy; be sure to check the walls for hidden passages.
Read in browser Cold Days, a novel of the Dresden files
By Jason Weisberger on Dec 11, 2012 10:35 am I am addicted to Jim Butcher's tales of Harry Dresden, Chicago's wizard PI. With the film noir touches, the old VW bug and a Fu dog of his very own, how could I not love Harry Dresden? Cold Days is the latest installment in Butcher's series about the politics and antics of the magical realm ...
Read in browser Famous wolf briefly strays from Yellowstone and is shot
By Jason Weisberger on Dec 11, 2012 10:12 am Eight wolves collared for research have been shot this year outside of Yellowstone. Controversially reintroduced to the area this season, it appears wolf hunting will reduce the population of research animals as well as the number of attacks on livestock. One of the wolves, 832F, was the alpha of the parks Lamar Canyon pack, a ...
Read in browser Simple kite aerial photography rig
By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 11, 2012 10:00 am This post is brought to you by The New Santa Fe from Hyundai. When we had our epic fun day at the beach recently, I brought along a kite and a homemade kite aerial videography rig. I attached a tiny $10 "car key fob" video camera to a simple picavet rig. This is a nifty ...
Read in browser Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Genius Rap, and The Original Human Beatbox
By Ed Piskor on Dec 11, 2012 10:00 am Read the rest of the Hip Hop Family Tree comics!
Read in browser Terrible insurance ad would make brilliant T-shirt
By Rob Beschizza on Dec 11, 2012 09:58 am Paul Kafasis laments that this superb T-shirt does not in fact exist, even when you click on it: "I just get sent to some stupid car insurance website?!" Perhaps we should offer it in the Boing Boing Shop.
Read in browser Giant squid finally caught on video
By Jason Weisberger on Dec 11, 2012 09:58 am It was only a matter of time but it sure took a lot of it, Discovery Channel and NHK captured footage of a giant squid! "Mankind finally confronts the greatest mystery of the deep as the first-ever footage of a live giant squid in its natural habitat is revealed in Discovery Channel's Monster Squid: The ...
Read in browser Pet obituaries
By Rob Beschizza on Dec 11, 2012 09:53 am Reuters' Kevin Lim reports that Singapore's largest newspaper, The Straits Times, is accepting pet obituaries. The decision to market obituaries to pet owners in tiny Singapore, one of the world's richest countries in terms of per capita income, comes as wealthy Asians have fewer kids and shower more attention on pets. Though dogs and cats ...
Read in browser Pianocade, a synthesizer that looks like an arcade control panel
By Rob Beschizza on Dec 11, 2012 09:43 am The open-source Pianocade synthesizer uses classic game system hardware inside and out to create a programmable, hackable USB Midi controller. I must say, though, that the design conceit is so successful I want a two-player arcade stick that looks exactly like it. A pleasantly pointless and friend-irritating project would be to build one of these ...
Read in browser Kids' apps get a failing report-card on privacy
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 11, 2012 09:39 am A Federal Trade Commission report on data-collection in kids' apps paints a dismal picture of compliance with privacy and data-collection regulations. The survey found that most apps aimed at small children failed to disclose their data-collection practices. The agency reviewed 400 of the most popular children's apps available on Google and Apple platforms, and reported ...
Read in browser Adjustable wrench wedding-ring
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 11, 2012 09:33 am Etsy seller BandScapes offers this lovely, makerish wedding-ring featuring a sterling silver adjustable wrench, clutching a sapphire: The jaws are pinching a .06ct medium-blue natural sapphire. Overall, the profile is low to be comfortable, not too wide and not heavy, but sturdy. A ring that can be worn continuously as any wedding band would be. ...
Read in browser Pret a Manger unionization drive: dispute over dismissal claim
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 11, 2012 01:24 am An update to last weekend's post about Pret a Manger firing a union organizer from its St Pancras store: Pret management alleges that Andrej Stopa was dismissed for making repeated homophobic slurs towards a co-worker. The union disputes this, saying that the manager who brought the complaint ("a malicious grievance") against Stopa had been at ...
Read in browser Hit cancel to retry; hit retry to cancel
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 10, 2012 10:59 pm Snapped this weekend at a movie theater in London: an automated ticket machine (confusingly abbreviated to "ATM" -- namespace collision ahoy!) with a sign on it explaining that if you don't want to cancel your transaction, you should press "cancel," while if you want to cancel your transaction, by all means, press "retry."
Read in browser Pig Will and Pig Won't - a terrific book by Richard Scarry that belongs back in print
By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 10, 2012 10:57 pm Jane and I love Richard Scarry's illustrated kids' books. He had a sly sense of humor and it appeals as much to adults as it does to kids. I saw Jane reading Pig Will and Pig Won't tonight and we thought it would be fun to talk about the book and share a small sample. ...
Read in browser Musique de jeux vidéo or Game Music
By Jason Weisberger on Dec 10, 2012 09:41 pm Angèle Dubeau gave NPR an interview about her new album, with string Quartet La Pieta, Game Music. It is her interesting take on some very familiar music. "On her latest album, Game Music — or, in her home of Quebec, Musique de jeux vidéo — Dubeau interprets a variety of video game themes with her ...
Read in browser Augmented reality card routine
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 10, 2012 09:16 pm 'Virtual Magician' Marco Tempest blows it out of the water with this augmented card routine recently posted at TED.
Read in browser How much does it cost to decorate your house with Christmas lights?
By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 10, 2012 08:03 pm Rob Cockerham went around his neighborhood and estimated how much his neighbors were paying in electricity charges for their Christmas lights. For the house above: 2,135 watts = 26¢ per hour.
Read in browser Political taxonomy: Obama gets a lichen, a worm, and a carnivorous lizard
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 10, 2012 07:59 pm There is already a lichen — Caloplaca obamae — and a worm — Paragordius obamai — named after Barack Obama. Now he also has Obamadon gracilis, an ancient, extinct, carnivorous lizard. You can read a full write-up on Obamadon at Carolyn Johnson's Science in Mind blog. It includes some behind-the-scenes detail on the amusing considerations ...
Read in browser Great moments in pedantry: How do you grow wine in a land without predictable seasons?
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 10, 2012 07:25 pm Winter is here. Which means it's time once again to start science-wanking the climate of George R.R. Martin's "Game of Thrones" series. Back in May, i09 had a great piece on possible astronomical explanations for Westeros' weird seasons, where Summer and Winter can each last a decade. The hard part (which prompted lots of great ...
Read in browser Trailer for My Beastly ABCs app
By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 10, 2012 07:19 pm This young kids' iPhone app, called My Beastly ABCs, has delightful art. Duncan Studio (which worked on the animated films Tarzan, Hercules, and SharkTale) created the app, which was narrated by Jim Dale (narrator of the Harry Potter audiobook series) My Beastly ABCs
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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