Super Mario belt depicting the final level of the game Wedding ring found: "Lisa, 5th June, 2010." Communist turtles got to moon first The long slow death of the landline Evolutionism explained You know how you find certain words seriously annoying? Like whatever. Ten entertainment things worth anticipating in 2013 Shopping mall shark-tank ruptures Infomercial exercise machines are shit Space: 1899, RIP Gerry Anderson When Gloria Steinem and Samuel Delany clashed over Wonder Woman Community Memory: a social media terminal from 1973 Facehugger flip-up tee Clouds over the Pacific How to: Instantly turn water into snow Super Mario belt depicting the final level of the game
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 28, 2012 12:40 pm This handmade custom Super Mario belt, depicting the final level, was apparently created by Etsy seller SalukiFeathers, though the belt is not actually available through that store. The corresponding Reddit thread is kind of a mess, with the poster claiming that the belt was made as a Christmas gift for himself and/or his brother, by ...
Read in browser Wedding ring found: "Lisa, 5th June, 2010."
By Rob Beschizza on Dec 28, 2012 12:02 pm A man, aided by a good samaritan, searched fruitlessly for his lost wedding ring on a snowy California highway. They gave up. The good samaritan returned later, however, and located it—only to realize he'd never got the owner's name or contact info. [AP]
Read in browser Communist turtles got to moon first
By Rob Beschizza on Dec 28, 2012 11:56 am Alexis Madrigal writes: "The Soviet Zond 5 sent the animals around the moon -- although not into lunar orbit -- during a mission in the middle of September, 1968. The unmanned craft then returned to Earth and splashed down in the Indian Ocean, after which the Russians recovered the craft." The turtles were fine.
Read in browser The long slow death of the landline
By Rob Beschizza on Dec 28, 2012 11:48 am The CDC reports that more than one third of American homes are now landline-free, with six in ten adults aged under 30 living in households with only wireless phones. In a study carried out as part of the National Health Interview Survey, 35.8 percent of all respondents reported having only cellular telephones. A further 15.9 ...
Read in browser Evolutionism explained
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 28, 2012 11:32 am From an unspecified creationist "science" textbook, a worksheet of dubious pedagogical value. I mean, not only is this bad science, but it's a bad way to teach bad science. What is the point of a "test" that tells you what to write in the blanks? This is beyond ridiculous (via Reddit)
Read in browser You know how you find certain words seriously annoying? Like whatever.
By Rob Beschizza on Dec 28, 2012 11:29 am Reuters is just saying. "Whatever" headed the list, cited by 32 percent of adults, and next came "like," which 21 percent didn't like. Runners-up included "Twitterverse" and "gotcha'." The results mirrored last year's survey when "whatever" topped the annoying words list for a third straight year. But "seriously," named by 7 percent last year, dropped ...
Read in browser Ten entertainment things worth anticipating in 2013
By Jamie Frevele on Dec 28, 2012 10:44 am Good news, Boing Boing readers: There is going to be a 2013! Not only that, but tons of cool stuff is coming in the way of entertainment. Here is my list of ten of the cooler things hitting screens both big and small, according to my own personal preferences (and perhaps yours)! The new season ...
Read in browser Shopping mall shark-tank ruptures
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 28, 2012 09:26 am Shanghai's Orient shopping centre experienced disaster on Dec 18 when a huge aquarium filled with lemon-sharks, turtles and fish ruptured, hurting 16 people and killing three sharks and "dozens of turtles and small fish." The tank's failure was blamed on a combination of cold temperatures and substandard materials. Aquarium bursts in shopping centre in Shanghai ...
Read in browser Infomercial exercise machines are shit
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 27, 2012 10:44 pm You know those infomercial exercise machines? All junk.
Read in browser Space: 1899, RIP Gerry Anderson
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 27, 2012 09:05 pm A fitting tribute to Gerry Anderson,
who died yesterday in his sleep at the age of 83.
Read in browser When Gloria Steinem and Samuel Delany clashed over Wonder Woman
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 27, 2012 06:00 pm Ann Matsuuchi's paper Wonder Woman Wears Pants: Wonder Woman, Feminism and the 1972 "Women's Lib" Issue [PDF], published in Monash University's journal Colloquy, looks at the weird history of the Wonder Woman arc that Samuel Delany wrote, which was meant to culminate with Wonder Woman confronting anti-abortion demonstrators, and which was killed by Gloria Steinem, ...
Read in browser Community Memory: a social media terminal from 1973
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 27, 2012 02:46 pm Wired's gallery of the paleolithic antecedents of today's social media technologies is a bit mismatched (some really interesting insights into today's media lineage, but mixed with some silliness), but the lead item, the Community Memory terminal from 1973, is pure gold. I wrote half an unsuccessful novel about this thing when I was about 25, ...
Read in browser Facehugger flip-up tee
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 27, 2012 02:41 pm The "Ask Me About My Facehugger" tee is a pretty good riff on the flip-up t-shirt design. Great choice for anyone who's virtuously spent the Xmas gorging season grinding away in the gym, honing their abs while the rest of us ate our way to plum-pudding/brandy sauce comas. Alien Ask Me about my Facehugger T ...
Read in browser Clouds over the Pacific
By Jason Weisberger on Dec 27, 2012 01:58 pm It was a beautiful day, once I got above it all.
Read in browser How to: Instantly turn water into snow
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 27, 2012 01:16 pm The physics behind a viral video
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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