Sita Sings the Blues goes CC0 How to design a placebo-proof test for the efficacy of massage? Massage rabbits. Lance Armstrong Nike commercial, 2001 Cat on Saturday Sneezing powder considered harmful Caturday Lessig: "A Time For Silence," for Aaron Swartz Russia: Bolshoi Ballet director attacked with acid How the vile Daily Mail handles Creative Commons licenses Find the unfortunate typo in this Livestrong "nutrition" article HOWTO assemble the Powercube, hydraulic power source for the Global Village Construction set Survey for SOPA fighters Astronaut Chris Hadfield is photo-tweeting Earth, from space Great economics/storytelling podcast World SF Travel Fund fund-raiser Cancer quackery news: Stanislaw Burzynski threatens one of his own patients over website Whole Foods CEO worried about Obama fascism/socialism, not worried about climate change "Stuff You Should Know" podcast becomes new TV show debuting Sat. Jan. 19 on Science Channel TSA terminates its contract with Rapiscan, maker of pornoscanners HOWTO make your own automated compressed earth brick making machine Woman smothered boyfriend to death with "large breasts," say police A cat encounters snow for the first time Sita Sings the Blues goes CC0
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 19, 2013 12:28 pm Nina Paley has released her landmark animated feature Sita Sings the Blues under a CC0 license (as close to putting it in the public domain as you can get). She did it because of a "vow of nonviolence" and the inanity of copyright lawyers. I learned of Aaron's death on Sunday; on Monday, the National ...
Read in browser How to design a placebo-proof test for the efficacy of massage? Massage rabbits.
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 19, 2013 12:13 pm A group at Ohio State has been designing studies to measure the physiological response to massage, and they're trying to eliminate the placebo effect. So they're massaging rabbits. Alex Hutchinson at Runner's World says, "I wrote about the group's first study way back in 2008, which offered initial evidence that the rabbits did indeed recover ...
Read in browser Lance Armstrong Nike commercial, 2001
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 19, 2013 12:10 pm A classic Lance Armstrong Nike TV ad, back when he was facing early doping accusations in 2001.
Read in browser Cat on Saturday
By Jason Weisberger on Jan 19, 2013 11:31 am The bow tie really makes this work.
Read in browser Sneezing powder considered harmful
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 19, 2013 09:08 am The history of sneezing powder is unexpectedly fascinating, a tale of an obsessive prankster, whose burning passion to make people sneeze drove him to out-and-out chemical warfare: No one's entirely sure what Adams used to make Cachoo. It depends on what he had easy access to. He worked for a company that made coal tar ...
Read in browser Caturday
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 19, 2013 07:36 am "Segundo," a photograph shared in the Boing Boing Flickr Pool by Bill Benson.
Read in browser Lessig: "A Time For Silence," for Aaron Swartz
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 19, 2013 12:26 am Lawrence Lessig and Aaron Swartz (2002). Photo: Rich Gibson CC BY "My three year old, Tess, putting her arms around my neck, holding me as tight as she possibly could, promising me 'the doctors will put him back together, papa, they will." Lawrence Lessig writes exactly one week after the death of his friend and ...
Read in browser Russia: Bolshoi Ballet director attacked with acid
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 18, 2013 11:53 pm REN TVBolshoi Ballet chief Sergei Filin, 43, was about to arrive at his home around midnight Thursday when an unidentified attacker tossed acid in his face, causing severe burns to his eyes. State-run news agency RIA Novosti reports that he may lose his sight. He had been threatened repeatedly, prior to the attack. (Thanks, Aileen ...
Read in browser How the vile Daily Mail handles Creative Commons licenses
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 18, 2013 11:18 pm That's so messed up, it's not even wrong.
Read in browser Find the unfortunate typo in this Livestrong "nutrition" article
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 18, 2013 10:50 pm There are three things very wrong in this article at Livestrong.com, which my friend Meredith Yayanos pointed me to just now via Twitter. One, "nutrition" and "Velveeta" used in the same sentence at a website associated with cancer prevention and treatment. Two, the message in the yellow band—probably something they want to downplay right now, ...
Read in browser HOWTO assemble the Powercube, hydraulic power source for the Global Village Construction set
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 18, 2013 09:08 pm This comprehensive, user friendly video shows you how to assemble the Powercube; Open Source Ecology's modular power unit.
Read in browser Survey for SOPA fighters
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 18, 2013 07:57 pm Dierdre from the I-School at Berkeley sez, "Did you take part in history? Want to contribute your story? We want to know it. Contribute to a knowledge base designed to shed light on the public's role in the debates. Many folks have written the people out of the narrative. We know you were there, we ...
Read in browser Astronaut Chris Hadfield is photo-tweeting Earth, from space
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 18, 2013 07:17 pm Huge swirls in the sea off of Mumbai, India. Photo: Chris Hadfield/NASA Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield, who is currently living in space aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as Flight Engineer on Expedition 34 (and soon to be Commander of Expedition 35 in March 2013), has been tweeting some gorgeous snapshots of earth as seen ...
Read in browser Great economics/storytelling podcast
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 18, 2013 06:40 pm Tim Harford (Undercover Economist, guest blogger, statistical superhero) has a new show on BBC Radio 4, called Pop Up Economics: well-told tales about the dismal science. The inaugural episode (MP3) is a beautiful parable about innovation and invention.
Read in browser World SF Travel Fund fund-raiser
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 18, 2013 06:20 pm Lavie Tidhar writes, "We are now running the second World SF Travel Fund fund-raiser. The Fund was established in 2011 to help bring one or two international persons involved in science fiction, fantasy or horror to travel to a major genre event. The first recipient was Charles Tan from the Philippines, who travelled to the ...
Read in browser Cancer quackery news: Stanislaw Burzynski threatens one of his own patients over website
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 18, 2013 05:10 pm Anti-cancer-quackery blogger Robert Blaskiewicz has a blog post up that details how Houston-based "alternative cancer treatment" practitioner Stanislaw Burzynski (photo at left) whom many reasoned minds in the oncology field would describe as a quack, has crossed a new line in his ongoing awfulness. The latest: Burzynski's rep threatened one of his own patients, Wayne ...
Read in browser Whole Foods CEO worried about Obama fascism/socialism, not worried about climate change
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 18, 2013 04:56 pm In an interview with Mother Jones, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey shares his view that "climate change is perfectly natural and not necessarily bad," and his belief that "free-enterprise capitalism works much, much better than either socialism or some type of fascism where government controls and directs business—which is where I believe we are headed ...
Read in browser "Stuff You Should Know" podcast becomes new TV show debuting Sat. Jan. 19 on Science Channel
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 18, 2013 04:45 pm A fun new Science Channel show starring popular podcasters
Josh and Chuck of the
Discovery-owned website
howstuffworks.com.
Read in browser TSA terminates its contract with Rapiscan, maker of pornoscanners
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 18, 2013 03:38 pm The TSA has given the boot to Rapiscan, maker of about half of the pornoscanners in use in America's airports: TSA gave Rapiscan until June 2013 to come up with a software upgrade to prevent the scanner from projecting the naked image. TSA officials said Rapiscan won't be able to meet that deadline. "TSA has ...
Read in browser HOWTO make your own automated compressed earth brick making machine
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 18, 2013 03:02 pm This comprehensive, user friendly video shows you how to assembly the Liberator CEB Press; the worlds first open source, automated compressed earth brick making machine.
Read in browser Woman smothered boyfriend to death with "large breasts," say police
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 18, 2013 02:48 pm This news item is a few days old, but I'm just learning of it. A 50-year-old woman in Washington state is charged with manslaughter, for having reportedly smothered her boyfriend to death by lying on his face. In other words, she cut off his air supply with her breasts, which were said to be rather ...
Read in browser A cat encounters snow for the first time
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 18, 2013 01:51 pm A kitty cat experiences snow, and finds it delightful.
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
No comments:
Post a Comment