Labradoodle confused for lion Amazing custom LEGO kit as client gift All national anthems played at once Jack Kirby drawn by Drew Friedman Short film adaptation of JG Ballard's "Crash" from 1971 The origin story of a fungal super hero CNET rescinds positive review because parent company is suing manufacturer Can you guess what this historic patent is for? Space shuttle left astronauts vulnerable to Reaver attacks Lionsgate commits copyfraud, has classic "Buffy vs Edward" video censored David Byrne and St Vincent concert video: Love This Giant The Icarus Deception, an inspiring book about making meaningful work, by Seth Godin No new public domain works for US until 2019 Interview with Suicide Girls about Homeland, the sequel to Little Brother Comics About Cartoonists: The World's Oddest Profession Cover for new edition of Orwell's 1984 is brilliant Women with 7-foot-long legs now have a place to shop online for pants! Short documentary about The Art of Creative Coding Bin Laden obtained classified cables leaked by Bradley Manning to Wikileaks, prosecutors claim Early Pirate Bay server now in a museum Tracking Oscar screener piracy, the 2013 edition Here's a photo of an adorable kitten playing with paper Saudi "December-January" marriage ends in divorce FDA wants Ambien doses cut for women because users are crashing cars the morning after Junior Seau had brain disease caused by "two decades of hits to the head" We (probably) found the Higgs Boson. Now what? New Hiroshima bombing photo shows split mushroom cloud Medical fundraiser for sf writer Jay Lake Sponsor shout-out: Gun Machine SimCity trailer (coming March 5, 2013) Labradoodle confused for lion
By David Pescovitz on Jan 11, 2013 12:49 pm This Labradoodle named Charles lives in Norfolk, Virginia where he's frequently mistaken for a lion on the loose. Apparently, 911 dispatchers received three separate 911 calls this week reporting the "lion." "I just saw an animal that looked like a small lion." It had "the mange and everything," a man said. He had seen it ...
Read in browser Amazing custom LEGO kit as client gift
By David Pescovitz on Jan 11, 2013 12:31 pm Graphic/package designers Ron & Ryan Clark of Invisible Creature created a marvelous holiday gift for their six best clients: a custom LEGO set. Sure beats a fruit basket! Edition of 6 sets. 444 pieces. 4 instruction booklets. 8 different mouth combinations – and a hinged top that allows the owner to store all kinds of ...
Read in browser All national anthems played at once
By David Pescovitz on Jan 11, 2013 12:23 pm This cacophony of musical cultures is "the national anthems of all 193 member states of the United Nations, plus Palestine and the Holy See/Vatican City (the two United Nations non-member observer states), and Taiwan (technically an applicant for UN membership)" heard all together. Play ball! "Every national anthem all at once"
Read in browser Jack Kirby drawn by Drew Friedman
By David Pescovitz on Jan 11, 2013 12:16 pm The world's finest portrait artist Drew Friedman's take on comics legend Jack Kirby.
Read in browser Short film adaptation of JG Ballard's "Crash" from 1971
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 11, 2013 11:57 am Fifteen years before David Cronenberg adapted J.G. Ballard's novel CRASH to the big screen -- and two years before the novel even came out -- Ballard himself starred in this short for BBC 4.
Read in browser The origin story of a fungal super hero
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 11, 2013 10:42 am In comic books, radiation exposure always leads to awesome superpowers. In reality, not so much. Except in the case of Cladosporium cladosporioides, a fungus exposed to high doses of radiation during the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown. Not only did C. cladosporioides survive it gained a superpower — the ability to "eat" radiation.
Read in browser CNET rescinds positive review because parent company is suing manufacturer
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 11, 2013 10:38 am Tech site CNET was about to give Dish Network's latest set-top box a best-of-show editorial award, but rescinded the plaudits because its parent company, CBS, is suing the manufacturer. Mathew Ingram points out how this compromises CNET's journalistic credibility, and Buzzfeed's John Hermann says it exposes a profound difference in product journalism and actual journalism ...
Read in browser Can you guess what this historic patent is for?
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 11, 2013 10:34 am Here's an image from a patent filing made in 1931. Now, what do you think it is? I'll give you a hint: It's a medical device. Find the answer at Ptak Science Books
Read in browser Space shuttle left astronauts vulnerable to Reaver attacks
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 11, 2013 10:23 am It's been a good week for pedantry. In a guest blog post at Scientific American, Kyle Hill discusses the durability of spaceship windows — both in the real world, and in Joss Whedon's movie Serenity. Spaceship windows have to be incredibly tough, because even tiny chips of paint become dangerous projectiles in space. But how ...
Read in browser Lionsgate commits copyfraud, has classic "Buffy vs Edward" video censored
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 11, 2013 06:53 am Jonathan McIntosh's "Buffy vs Edward" video is a classic: a mashup that's been viewed millions of times on YouTube, discussed in the halls of the US Copyright Office, and cited in a Library of Congress/Copyright Office report as an example of legal, fair use mashup.
Read in browser David Byrne and St Vincent concert video: Love This Giant
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 10, 2013 08:59 pm NPR have finally posted the full concert footage from David Byrne and St Vincent's
Love This Giant concert tour, which went around last fall. It was one of the most amazing shows I've ever seen.
Read in browser The Icarus Deception, an inspiring book about making meaningful work, by Seth Godin
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 10, 2013 08:31 pm A couple of nights ago I was listening to Jesse Thorn's Bullseye radio show and podcast. It was a terrific episode. His guests were singer-songwriter Aimee Mann, and one-man idea factory Seth Godin. Both of the interviews were fascinating, and were both related, in a way, because they were about creating art for a living. ...
Read in browser No new public domain works for US until 2019
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 10, 2013 07:28 pm At The Economist, Glenn Fleishman laments the freezing of the public domain in America under relentless entertainment-industry lobbying, even as Europeans enjoy an annual movement of cultural history to it: "While much of the rest of the world may take cheer from mass migration of material to the public domain each year, America has not ...
Read in browser Interview with Suicide Girls about Homeland, the sequel to Little Brother
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 10, 2013 05:53 pm My next novel, Homeland (the sequel to Little Brother) is out in a few weeks, and I recently sat down with Nicole Powers from Suicide Girls for an interview about the book and the issues it raises, especially the student-debt bubble: When it was just rich people going, it wasn't about just getting a better ...
Read in browser Comics About Cartoonists: The World's Oddest Profession
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 10, 2013 05:37 pm My friend Craig Yoe has put together a new book with a bunch of vintage comic book stories about comic book artists! What's cooler than comics about cartoonist? NOTHING! This is mind-blowing, full-color hardback book collects rare comics about real and fictional cartoonists - created by the greatest cartoonists in the world! Read comics about ...
Read in browser Cover for new edition of Orwell's 1984 is brilliant
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 10, 2013 05:10 pm Love this cover art for the new Penguin edition of 1984. [Designer David] Pearson says that the design went through numerous iterations "to establish just the right amount of print obliteration. Eventually we settled on printing and debossing, as per the Great Ideas series [Why I Write shown, above], with the difference being that the ...
Read in browser Women with 7-foot-long legs now have a place to shop online for pants!
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 10, 2013 04:39 pm Thanks for being awesome, Romwe (Via PS Disasters)
Read in browser Short documentary about The Art of Creative Coding
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 10, 2013 04:11 pm Programming plays a huge role in our world, and though its uses are often functional, a growing community of artists use code as their medium.
Read in browser Bin Laden obtained classified cables leaked by Bradley Manning to Wikileaks, prosecutors claim
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 10, 2013 03:13 pm A bizarre charge in an already bizarre trial: prosecutors in the US-v-Manning case say Osama bin Laden got classified cables Bradley Manning passed to Wikileaks. The NYT reports that "Military prosecutors preparing to try Pfc. Bradley Manning said on Wednesday that they would introduce evidence that Osama bin Laden requested and received from a Qaeda ...
Read in browser Early Pirate Bay server now in a museum
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 10, 2013 03:05 pm The Computer Museum in Linköping, Sweden has a "50 Years of File-Sharing" exhibition on that includes a machine characterized as the first Pirate Bay server, though there's some nuance to that description: A Pirate Bay insider informed TorrentFreak that the contents of the computer case in question were initially hosted in the blue box pictured ...
Read in browser Tracking Oscar screener piracy, the 2013 edition
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 10, 2013 03:01 pm Since 2003, Waxy.org's Andy Baio has been documenting evidence of pirated/leaked Oscars screeners— in other words, copies of nominated films sent to Academy Awards voters which then make their way on to filesharing networks. The 2013 edition of his spreadsheet is out. He'll post analysis tomorrow. "Most shocking find so far," he tweets, "The Les ...
Read in browser Here's a photo of an adorable kitten playing with paper
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 10, 2013 02:54 pm A photo of a kitten named Wheatley captured and shared by Boing Boing reader Beckitten in the Boing Boing Flickr Pool.
Read in browser Saudi "December-January" marriage ends in divorce
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 10, 2013 02:49 pm Remember the story making the internet rounds about a 70-year-old Saudi man who bought a teen bride for $20,000? They are reported to have divorced. Turns out he was more like 85, too, and it was less of a marriage than the sale of a young woman as property, by her parents.
Read in browser FDA wants Ambien doses cut for women because users are crashing cars the morning after
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 10, 2013 02:46 pm The Food and Drug Administration today announced it will require the makers of popular sleeping pills like Ambien and Zolpimist to reduce the recommended dosage in half for women, "after laboratory studies showed that the medicines can leave patients drowsy in the morning and at risk for car accidents." Women eliminate the drugs from their ...
Read in browser Junior Seau had brain disease caused by "two decades of hits to the head"
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 10, 2013 02:43 pm ABC News reports that a team of scientists who analyzed the brain tissue of the late NFL star Junior Seau after his 2012 suicide "have concluded the football player suffered a debilitating brain disease likely caused by two decades worth of hits to the head."
Read in browser We (probably) found the Higgs Boson. Now what?
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 10, 2013 02:39 pm I got to join in on a great conversation this morning on Minnesota Public Radio's "The Daily Circuit", all about the Higgs Boson and what it means for the future of physics. This is a fascinating issue. Finding the Higgs Boson (if that is, indeed, what scientists have done) means that all the particles predicted ...
Read in browser New Hiroshima bombing photo shows split mushroom cloud
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 10, 2013 02:21 pm A photograph that shows the Hiroshima atomic bomb cloud split into two sections, one over the other, has been released by the curator of
a peace museum in Japan. It was discovered among archival items related to the bombing, articles now in the possession of Honkawa Elementary School in Hiroshima city.
Read in browser Medical fundraiser for sf writer Jay Lake
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 10, 2013 02:21 pm Mary Robinette Kowal sez, "Jay Lake is an award-winning American author of ten science fiction novels and over 300 short stories. He is also one of more than a million Americans who have colon cancer. Diagnosed in April, 2008, Jay's cancer has progressed from a single tumor to metastatic disease affecting the lung and liver, ...
Read in browser Sponsor shout-out: Gun Machine
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 10, 2013 02:09 pm Thanks to our sponsor, Mulholland Books, publisher of Warren Ellis' "brutal, hard-boiled cop novel" Gun Machine. From Cory's review of Gun Machine: Gun Machine is a novel that never stops to draw breath. It's a monster of a book, bowel-looseningly scary in places, darkly uproarious in others, and remorseless as the killer who hunts in ...
Read in browser SimCity trailer (coming March 5, 2013)
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 10, 2013 01:32 pm Yes, I know it is going to require an Internet connection to play, but look at how pretty it is!
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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