Why George Bush, Sr resigned his lifetime NRA membership YouTube confiscates 2 billion views from Universal and Sony Mayan Oxlajuj Baktun: "End of an Era, More of the Same," photo essay by James Rodriguez Mayan Priests denied access to Guatemala ceremonial sites Calvin and Hobbes guitar refurb Apocalypse weekend weather forecast eBook review: Cornbread Why George Bush, Sr resigned his lifetime NRA membership
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 23, 2012 01:00 pm Here's ex-president George HW Bush's public letter of resignation from the his lifetime membership to NRA, sent after Wayne "Armed guards in schools" LaPierre gave a speech blaming gun laws for the Oklahoma City bombing, implying that the victims were "jack-booted thugs" "wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms." Al Whicher, who served ...
Read in browser YouTube confiscates 2 billion views from Universal and Sony
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 23, 2012 11:12 am Universal and Sony Music have both had their YouTube view-counts and channels drastically cut by YouTube. A spokesman for YouTube was cryptic about the slashing, saying "This was not a bug or a security breach. This was an enforcement of our viewcount policy." The DailyDot repeats speculation from Black Hat World ("a forum where users ...
Read in browser Mayan Oxlajuj Baktun: "End of an Era, More of the Same," photo essay by James Rodriguez
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 23, 2012 10:42 am James Rodriguez, a brave and talented photojournalist in Guatemala, has a striking photo-essay up on his blog. On this occasion I share a photo essay documenting events in the Guatemalan northern city of Huehuetenango during the much-awaited end of the Mayan Oxlajuj Baktun. These provide a clear reflection of the divisions and challenges faced by ...
Read in browser Mayan Priests denied access to Guatemala ceremonial sites
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 23, 2012 10:37 am Photo: The Guatemalan gov't. Tourism board's "official" Oxlajuj Baktun celebration (modification mine—XJ). At Global Voices, Renata Avila writes about how indigenous practitioners of traditional Maya spiritual practices were once again marginalized on the day where it seemed everyone in the world was talking about "ancient Mayan beliefs." What a crock and an outrage. Guatemala, the ...
Read in browser Calvin and Hobbes guitar refurb
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 23, 2012 10:07 am Redditor Ellepea27 painted this great Calvin and Hobbes illustration on a guitar she's refurbishing with BigWiggly1. She painted it over the course of six hours in one sitting. The idea is to put a clear-coat over it and make it into a playable instrument. My girlfriend and I are refinishing my old guitar. She did ...
Read in browser Apocalypse weekend weather forecast
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 23, 2012 10:06 am Via @ned_vizzini+@HAPDADIII
Read in browser eBook review: Cornbread
By Jason Weisberger on Dec 22, 2012 04:00 pm Sean Hammer's Cornbread is a dark kindle single that made me laugh. With an empty life and nothing to look forward to ever, Jenny's sole pride is the cornbread she feeds her husband once-a-week. When Jenny messes up the recipe, everything changes. Well paced, Cornbread went by just a little too quickly. Cornbread by Sean ...
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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