Slinky crossed with an extension cord Chuck Yeager interviewed Pret fires longstanding employee who attempted to unionise, asked for the London Living Wage for all employees Sony ceases production on cassette player/recorders Improve your soundstage, DVD convergence and car horsepower with Shakti stones Yann Frisch will boggle your mind D.A.R.E. drops marijuana from 5th and 6th grade program Michael Moorcock's new New Worlds is go! Sexist 13th birthday card for girls 'Indiana Jones' sued over missing crystal skull Science says, "It sucks to be Batman" GOP fires author of copyright reform paper Open science event in London this weekend Science needs your money (and your gut bacteria) Death Becomes Her being adapted for television What birds are doing with your cigarette butts Lord Buckley's "Christmas Carol" 40th anniversary of the Blue Marble photo Kevin Smith announces that his final directorial effort will be Clerks 3 Crypto and Bletchley Park podcast from BBC's Infinite Monkey Cage Learn how to make an entrance the Bill Murray way Canadian Conservative govt guts protections for 99+% of waterways, spare handful of lakes with high-cost cottages Solar system quilt from 1876 Gimmie a Ho! if you got your funky bus fare AOL history through the NYT Crossword Appreciating Rudy Rucker's Wetware on Creative Commons's 10th birthday Slinky crossed with an extension cord
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 08, 2012 11:43 am I'm pretty taken with the idea of the Flexy Cord, which crosses Slinky with an extension cord. Clever idea! Flexy Cord Heavy Duty Coiled Extension Cord Multi-pak (via Red Ferret)
Read in browser Chuck Yeager interviewed
By Jason Weisberger on Dec 08, 2012 11:18 am Chuck Yeager, one heck of a test pilot, talks about his life. "I'll be 90 in February, and while I'm not gonna run no marathon I still hunt and fish and fly," (via USA Today)
Read in browser Pret fires longstanding employee who attempted to unionise, asked for the London Living Wage for all employees
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 08, 2012 09:00 am UK chain Pret a Manger has a cuddly reputation for being more than a mere fast-food joint, despite the capital it took on from McDonald's. But when a longstanding Pret employee called Andrej tried to organise a union in his shop with the reasonable goal of having all Pret employees paid the London Living Wage ...
Read in browser Sony ceases production on cassette player/recorders
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 07, 2012 11:02 pm Sony will no longer make its cassette player/recorders. In other news, Sony was still making cassette player/recorders. Sony to discontinue the production early 2013 of Cassette Player/ Recorder
Read in browser Improve your soundstage, DVD convergence and car horsepower with Shakti stones
By Rob Beschizza on Dec 07, 2012 10:32 pm Shakti On-Lines are $100 "electromagnetic stabilizers" that you place upon cables in your audio setup. They join "THE STONE", a $229 item that the user "need only place in close proximity to his component's power supplies and other critical circuit locations to realize audible sonic benefits." But that's not all! They also have your DVD ...
Read in browser Yann Frisch will boggle your mind
By Jason Weisberger on Dec 07, 2012 10:16 pm Yann Frisch is an amazing, young French magician. He's been winning awards and entertaining folks the world over.
Read in browser D.A.R.E. drops marijuana from 5th and 6th grade program
By Jason Weisberger on Dec 07, 2012 09:56 pm Reason.com shares the details but D.A.R.E. has decided that 10 and 11 year olds will be better served with information about alcohol and tobacco abuse. "D.A.R.E. America has determined that anti-drug material is not age-appropriate"
Read in browser Michael Moorcock's new New Worlds is go!
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 07, 2012 08:48 pm Geoffrey sez, "In April of 2011, Boing Boing posted that Michael Moorcock's New Worlds was coming back to life. Well, Issue 1 went live this past October. The website is slick and the stories are great, there is only one problem: no one seems to know that New Worlds has returned. I know Boing Boing ...
Read in browser Sexist 13th birthday card for girls
By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 07, 2012 08:03 pm That's teaching 'em young, Arnold Barton! (Via Tom Coates Twitter)
Read in browser 'Indiana Jones' sued over missing crystal skull
By Jason Weisberger on Dec 07, 2012 06:16 pm Evidently the fourth Indiana Jones film used a little too much history in its mysterious alien crystal skull tale! As they told us, there are only four known crystal skulls in the world. One of them is getting Disney and Paramount sued! Dr. Jaime Awe, director of the Institute of Archaeology of Belize has brought ...
Read in browser Science says, "It sucks to be Batman"
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 07, 2012 05:42 pm This chart describes the key problem with being Batman — it doesn't take a serious injury to seriously disable you. Your body can rack up big damage over years of repeated small stresses and strains — jumping from roof to roof two or three times a week, for instance, or slamming your knuckles into a ...
Read in browser GOP fires author of copyright reform paper
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 07, 2012 05:39 pm Derek Khanna, the Republican House staffer who wrote an eminently sensible paper on copyright reform that was retracted less than a day later has been fired. So much for the GOP's drive to attract savvy, net-centric young voters. After all, this is the party that put SOPA's daddy in charge of the House Tech and ...
Read in browser Open science event in London this weekend
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 07, 2012 05:13 pm If you're in London this weekend, you should know that the Wellcome Trust is sponsoring a two-day bioscience hackathon with prizes awarded for the best ideas in four categories: Open Me — collecting data on yourself and making it useful to yourself; Open Research — making biomedical data produced by professional scientists more accessible and ...
Read in browser Science needs your money (and your gut bacteria)
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 07, 2012 05:06 pm Here's an interesting project that combines participatory citizen science with crowdsource funding models. American Gut is a project to catalog, analyze, and compare microbiomes of a diverse swath of Americans. Microbiomes are the bacteria that live in you (and on you). They're both separate from your body and a part of it. Scientists want to ...
Read in browser Death Becomes Her being adapted for television
By Jamie Frevele on Dec 07, 2012 05:05 pm Death Becomes Her, the 1992 movie about two narcissistic, jealous, middle-aged women who attempt (supernaturally) to remain young-looking forever, is being remade into a TV series for Bravo, the channel that brought you The Real Housewives, and the most self-aware network on television! (via Vulture)
Read in browser What birds are doing with your cigarette butts
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 07, 2012 04:44 pm Nicotine is one of nature's bug zappers. Seriously. Lots of plants have evolved to produce bug-repelling chemicals as part of their defense mechanisms and tobacco happens to be one of those plants. So when city-dwelling birds use the fluffy, nicotine-soaked material from discarded cigarette butts to build their nests it might not be the unmitigated ...
Read in browser Lord Buckley's "Christmas Carol"
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 07, 2012 04:23 pm Lord Buckley was a comedian/storyteller who performed in the '50s. His version of
A Christmas Carol is an utter delight.
Read in browser 40th anniversary of the Blue Marble photo
By David Pescovitz on Dec 07, 2012 04:16 pm Today is the 40th anniversary of the "Blue Marble," the iconic photo taken by the crew of the Apollo 17. More on the photo and its impact at LIFE.com and Wikipedia. Here's NASA's original caption: View of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon. This translunar coast photograph extends ...
Read in browser Kevin Smith announces that his final directorial effort will be Clerks 3
By Jamie Frevele on Dec 07, 2012 04:15 pm We knew this was coming, but I didn't think it would make me this sad. Kevin Smith, who has been talking about his retirement for a while now, has announced that his final film will be a second sequel to his first film, 1994's Clerks. The news comes after his intended swan song, the two-part ...
Read in browser Crypto and Bletchley Park podcast from BBC's Infinite Monkey Cage
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 07, 2012 03:01 pm BBC Radio 4's great math and science show "The Infinite Monkey Cage" did a great (and very funny) episode on crypto and Bletchley Park, with Robin Ince, Brian Cox, Dave Gorman, Simon Singh and Dr Sue Black. Secret Science MP3 (via Schneier)
Read in browser Learn how to make an entrance the Bill Murray way
By Jamie Frevele on Dec 07, 2012 02:04 pm Watch one of the most exciting late-night talk show entrances in television history (I'm guessing)!
Read in browser Canadian Conservative govt guts protections for 99+% of waterways, spare handful of lakes with high-cost cottages
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 07, 2012 01:44 pm David says, "Canada used to have 2.5 million protected lakes and other bodies of water. After recent Conservative Omnibus bills, we're down to 97. 87 of which are located in Conservative ridings (rich cottage country). More info."
Read in browser Solar system quilt from 1876
By David Pescovitz on Dec 07, 2012 01:43 pm Amateur astronomer Ellen Harding Baker of Cedar County, Iowa made this stunning solar system quilt in 1876. The quilt is now in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution. From the Smithsoian's History Explorer: Ellen used the quilt as a visual aid for lectures she gave on astronomy in the towns of West Branch, Moscow, and ...
Read in browser Gimmie a Ho! if you got your funky bus fare
By Jason Weisberger on Dec 07, 2012 01:37 pm Truly a great video.
Read in browser AOL history through the NYT Crossword
By David Pescovitz on Dec 07, 2012 01:19 pm Quartz tells the history of AOL, 1997-2011, through clues and answers in the New York Times Crossword Puzzle. They did it using their simple app for searching NYT Crossword clues. Above, "105-Across: Co. that owns Moviefone"
Read in browser Appreciating Rudy Rucker's Wetware on Creative Commons's 10th birthday
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 07, 2012 01:03 pm It's Creative Commons's 10th birthday, and they've asked people to write short essays on their favorite pieces of CC-licensed media. I chose Rudy Rucker's extraordinary Wetware books: Rudy Rucker is one of the modern heroes of science fiction, one of the original cyberpunks. The early cyberpunks only had a few writers who could be meaningfully ...
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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