For psychiatry "bible," Asperger's is out, binge eating is in Anti-drone NYC street artist arrested John McAfee, the New York Times catch-up edition Diesel Sweeties "Fucking Coffee" mug Demonstrations in Ljubljana: Carnations, Neo-Nazis and a Water Cannon Don't Squish the Sasquatch! Flintlock/knife Boom Tee: monstrous science fiction tee from Singularity & Co Santastic 7: more mashups for the holiday season For psychiatry "bible," Asperger's is out, binge eating is in
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 02, 2012 12:38 pm The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5, will no longer classify Asperger's as an official mental disorder, but binge eating and hoarding are now in. The board of the American Psychiatric Association voted these and other changes in to the trade "bible" on Saturday. Asperger's is now relegated to a subset of ...
Read in browser Anti-drone NYC street artist arrested
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 02, 2012 12:10 pm Essam Attia is NYC street artist who posted fake NYPD posters "reassuring" people about the ubiquitous surveillance of the department, especially via drones. The NYPD surveilled him, tracked him down and arrested him. Heck of a way to prove a point. The NYDN reports that he's charged with "56 counts of criminal possession of a ...
Read in browser John McAfee, the New York Times catch-up edition
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 02, 2012 11:31 am After Gizmodo, after Wired, there is now a New York Times profile of John McAfee's descent into the heart of darkness, this one notable for its use of the underappreciated adjective "priapic." Well played, thesaurus-using Times scribe, well played. I kid, but it's actually a great piece, and this is one of those gift-that-keeps-on-giving stories ...
Read in browser Diesel Sweeties "Fucking Coffee" mug
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 02, 2012 11:06 am R. Stevens of Diesel Sweeties sent me one of these coffee mugs. When I finally stopped laughing, like 6 hours later, I poured some coffee into it and it was officially christened as my favorite coffee mug ever of my entire life. Tons more wonderful stuff, perfect for holiday gift giving, in the Diesel Sweeties ...
Read in browser Demonstrations in Ljubljana: Carnations, Neo-Nazis and a Water Cannon
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 02, 2012 10:59 am Bob at Piran Café blog in Slovenia shares this photograph in the Boing Boing Flickr Pool. On his blog, he explains: This [photograph of a policeman behind a riot shield] was taken at about 6 pm last night, shortly after protesters were giving carnations to police officers stationed in front of Parliament. About four hours ...
Read in browser Don't Squish the Sasquatch!
By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 02, 2012 10:00 am I've been a fan of Bob Staake's illustration ever since David and I stumbled across his ABC and 123 books at SF Moma in 1998. Bob's art is appealing in its simplicity, but it's also sophisticated and wry. No surprise that he has illustrated quite a few New Yorker covers. Bob's latest book is called ...
Read in browser Flintlock/knife
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 02, 2012 09:06 am The good news is, this world has in it a thing that looks like an elaborate butter-knife, but is really a flintlock pistol. The bad news is, you missed your choice to buy it -- it sold in Sept 2011 for $3750. This unusual knife/pistol combination has a flintlock pistol as the handle for the ...
Read in browser Boom Tee: monstrous science fiction tee from Singularity & Co
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 01, 2012 06:12 pm The fabulous Singularity & Co bookstore (where they find out-of-print sf classics, clear the rights to them, and bring them back as CC-licensed books) is finally selling its beautiful "Boom Tee" online, designed by Wesley Allsbrook. I saw this at NY Comic Con and wanted desperately to blog it then -- glad to see it ...
Read in browser Santastic 7: more mashups for the holiday season
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 01, 2012 03:02 pm djBC and friends have put out their seventh Santastic collection of holiday mashups, "It's a Wonderful Mash." Wonderful it is, too. I recommend starting with track 14, I Wanna Be Dentated - Blitzen's Bop (The Ramones vs The Three Stooges vs The Ray Conniff Singers) or track 6, Riders On The Sugar Plum (Sugar Plum ...
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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