Radio Shack computer catalog from 1983 Sir Patrick Moore, 1923-2012 Catfish beaches itself to gobble up pigeons Flying malware: the Virus Copter Teddy bears with terrifying human teeth Schooling a reader who doesn't like female, middle-aged, black pirate captains Hour-by-hour look at hyper-disciplinarian charter school where kids maintain near-total silence for seven years Chanukkah in Santa Monica Facehugger airlines Stench of rotting whale emanates from near Barbra Streisand's home. Just another day in Malibu. Mayan Apocalypse hysteria so widespread, NASA publishes a debunker Caturday: dig this 2013 Japanese cat meme calendar Medical Marijuana comes to New Jersey Then 'Lady Life Guards' of 1940s Brooklyn Environmental psychology: Can stores trick us into buying more crap with scents like cookie, orange? As states legalize pot, will Obama continue the federal War on Weed? NYT: In Manning case, "Jailers Become the Accused" Clockwork Orange babies "Understand Music," an experimental explainer animation It's a Bad Brains Christmas, Charlie Brown Radio Shack computer catalog from 1983
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 09, 2012 11:18 am On the Internet Archive, a hi-rez scan of the 1983 Radio Shack computer catalog, which is a wonderland of jaw-dropping prices for prosumer equipment from my boyhood that doesn't even qualify as a toddler's toy today. I will always retain a fondness for acoustic couplers, though, as they were the way I first connected to ...
Read in browser Sir Patrick Moore, 1923-2012
By Rob Beschizza on Dec 09, 2012 10:54 am Astronomer Patrick Moore, who presented the BBC's The Sky At Night for more than 50 years, died Sunday at his home in England. Moore turned me on to stargazing as a youngster, and he was the eccentric and enthusiastic embodiment of science for my generation--and for so many other generations that I was sure he'd ...
Read in browser Catfish beaches itself to gobble up pigeons
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 09, 2012 09:51 am The above video showing a freshwater catfish stalking pigeons and beaching itself in order to gobble them up accompanies "'Freshwater Killer Whales': Beaching Behavior of an Alien Fish to Hunt Land Birds," a paper in PLOSOne.
Read in browser Flying malware: the Virus Copter
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 09, 2012 09:11 am At the latest San Francisco Drone Olympics (now called DroneGames, thanks, no doubt, to awful bullying from the organized crime syndicate known as the International Olympic Committee), there were many fascinating entries, but the champion was James "substack" Halliday's Virus-Copter (github), which made wireless contact with its competitors, infected them with viruses that put them ...
Read in browser Teddy bears with terrifying human teeth
By Dean Putney on Dec 09, 2012 08:00 am Mrs. McGettrick's Fuggler Emporium on Etsy specializes in adorable teddy bears... with creepy artificial human teeth. Some of them have little plastic weapons, but all of them share a disturbing "I have seen the void" gaze. The products' descriptions are great as well: It's been said that I need a hobby. Here it is. The ...
Read in browser Schooling a reader who doesn't like female, middle-aged, black pirate captains
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 08, 2012 09:03 pm A reader of Scott Lynch's fantasy novels upbraided him for daring to have a black, middle-aged woman running a pirate crew, calling it a "politically correct cliche" and went on to say "Real sea pirates could not be controlled by women, they were vicous rapits and murderers and I am sorry to say it was ...
Read in browser Hour-by-hour look at hyper-disciplinarian charter school where kids maintain near-total silence for seven years
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 08, 2012 09:00 pm The Argosy Charter School in Fall River, Mass, described its hour-by-hour curriculum to the state Board of Ed. It's an horrific look at a hyper-disciplinarian "educational" environment in which students are expected to maintain near-total silence for seven years, apart from chanting cultish slogans in unison. Apparently, the plan is for America to attain competitiveness ...
Read in browser Chanukkah in Santa Monica
By Jason Weisberger on Dec 08, 2012 08:19 pm The Gay Men's Chorus of Santa Monica covers Tom Lehrer's classic. Happy first night of Chanukkah!
Read in browser Facehugger airlines
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 08, 2012 05:52 pm This lovely piece is illustrator Dennis Larkins's "New Normal," apparently available as a signed, numbered print (though as of this writing, his website's not working). Welcome to the Fine Arts & Prints Section! (via Wil Wheaton)
Read in browser Stench of rotting whale emanates from near Barbra Streisand's home. Just another day in Malibu.
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 08, 2012 03:30 pm "Dead Malibu whale decomposing near stars' homes." The Los Angeles Times wins the week with the headline for an article about a 40-foot, 40,000-pound fin whale that washed up at Little Dume, a small beach between Paradise Cove and Point Dume State Beach in Malibu. It smells like Whale Death, and the rich and famous ...
Read in browser Mayan Apocalypse hysteria so widespread, NASA publishes a debunker
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 08, 2012 03:26 pm Your tax dollars, well spent (and I say that with no sarcasm whatsoever): NASA's "Why the World Won't End" web page, debunking crazy white people's 2012 Mayan Armageddon hallucinations.
Read in browser Caturday: dig this 2013 Japanese cat meme calendar
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 08, 2012 03:20 pm I enjoy following Sakurako Shimizu, or "sakuracos," on instagram for daily cute-cat-photos from Japan. I was delighted to see that she has produced this attractively-designed "cat meme calendar," available on Etsy for $15.50 USD, with adorbzable photos of Fuku, Goma, and their furry friends.
Read in browser Medical Marijuana comes to New Jersey
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 08, 2012 03:10 pm "They skulked in and out like criminals, shoulders hunched, heads down, declining to comment." —a NYT profile on the Garden State's first pot dispensary. Hey, in the patrons' defense, it may be because they spooted Snookie or The Situation inside or something.
Read in browser Then 'Lady Life Guards' of 1940s Brooklyn
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 08, 2012 03:04 pm The
New York Times explores
"Lady Life Guards," an "oddly racy newsreel" made around 1940 about female lifeguards on a beach in Brooklyn.
Read in browser Environmental psychology: Can stores trick us into buying more crap with scents like cookie, orange?
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 08, 2012 03:00 pm At Salon, Joel Smith writes about studies in which researchers set up camp at retail stores to see which scents had what kinds of subliminal behavioral effects on the buying habits of shoppers. "One was a simple orange scent; the other was a more complex blend of orange, basil and green tea," Smith writes. "In ...
Read in browser As states legalize pot, will Obama continue the federal War on Weed?
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 08, 2012 02:55 pm Tom Dickinson in Rolling Stone about the growing conflict between what voters in more and more states want (legalizing pot) and what the federal government wants (shutting down dispensaries with guns and SWAT teams of DEA agents). "While the administration has yet to issue a definitive response to the two new laws, the Justice Department ...
Read in browser NYT: In Manning case, "Jailers Become the Accused"
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 08, 2012 02:52 pm The New York Times finally gets around to covering the Bradley Manning hearings at Fort Meade, MD. The accused private faces a life sentence if convicted on charges he supplied WikiLeaks with hundreds of thousands of confidential military and diplomatic documents. But for now, his attorney "has grilled one Quantico official after another, demanding to ...
Read in browser Clockwork Orange babies
By Cory Doctorow on Dec 08, 2012 02:46 pm Butcher Billy of Curitiba, Brazil posted these "Clockwork Orange Babies" concept illustrations to Behance. It's wildly implausible that such a thing would ever exist, but I'd like to vacation in the parallel universe where they do. A Clockwork Orange Babies Design Concept (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)
Read in browser "Understand Music," an experimental explainer animation
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 08, 2012 02:13 pm "Music is a pretty damn complex thing. This experimental animation is about the attempt to understand all the parts and bits of it."
Read in browser It's a Bad Brains Christmas, Charlie Brown
By Xeni Jardin on Dec 08, 2012 02:09 pm DC Hardcore gods Bad Brains meet Charlie Brown and friends for a heartwarming holiday classic.
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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