Photos of strangers who look like each other Pop-up bike trailer Gary Taxali's New Year illustration Mugshot sites sued Folkstreams free archive of folk/roots culture documentaries Oompa Loompas wanted for assault Eye of the furnace: Hubble captures close-up of spiral galaxy NGC 1097 Avis bought Zipcar YouTube unbanned in Pakistan for 3 minutes Beautifully strange slit-scan video made with IOS app Furry Chewbacca hoodie Samuel Delany reads from Through The Valley of the Nest of Spiders Newspapers demand to be paid if you link to them Cory interviewed in Prism Magazine NASA's Quadrantid meteor shower viewing tips Airplane collides with car Poisoners are dumb Apollo Robbins: profile of a pickpocket XKCD on New Year's resolutions Kick-ass shark-socks: patterns available for hurricane Sandy relief Works that would be in the public domain today -- if America hadn't extended copyright terms in 1976 Report: FOIA'd FBI documents point to secret, nationwide Occupy surveillance Photos of strangers who look like each other
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 02, 2013 12:42 pm Photographer François Brunelle found pairs people from around the world who resemble one another and took their picture. He calls the series, "I’m Not a Look-Alike!"
Read in browser Pop-up bike trailer
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 02, 2013 12:38 pm Jeremy sends us the Pop Up DIY Workshop Bicycle Trailer.
Read in browser Gary Taxali's New Year illustration
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 02, 2013 12:32 pm "2013 is the first year since 1987 where all four digits are different from one another." - TIH
Read in browser Mugshot sites sued
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 02, 2013 12:30 pm David Kravets, at Wired: "An Ohio man who found his police booking photo on several privately run mugshot websites is suing those sites under a novel legal theory: that the mugshot publishing industry is violating his right of publicity". Here's more at NPR. [Thanks, Jemma Hostetler] Lately: "Potential Prostitutes" site lets users label women as ...
Read in browser Folkstreams free archive of folk/roots culture documentaries
By David Pescovitz on Jan 02, 2013 12:15 pm Folkstreams is an incredible online archive of documentary films about American folk and roots music and culture including "Born From Hard Luck," excerpted above.
Read in browser Oompa Loompas wanted for assault
By David Pescovitz on Jan 02, 2013 11:59 am Police in Norwich, England are seeking two Oompa Loompas who reportedly attacked a man as he was leaving a kebab house last week. The Oompa Loompas were reportedly accompanied by another man and woman. (BBC News)
Read in browser Eye of the furnace: Hubble captures close-up of spiral galaxy NGC 1097
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 02, 2013 11:54 am From NASA's Image of the Day blog: "This face-on galaxy, lying 45 million light-years away from Earth in the southern constellation of Fornax (The Furnace), is particularly attractive for astronomers. NGC 1097 is a Seyfert galaxy. Lurking at the very center of the galaxy, a supermassive black hole 100 million times the mass of our ...
Read in browser Avis bought Zipcar
By David Pescovitz on Jan 02, 2013 11:50 am Avis bought Zipcar for $500 million. Hertz, don't it? (Washington Post)
Read in browser YouTube unbanned in Pakistan for 3 minutes
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 02, 2013 11:48 am Salman Masood: "A ban on YouTube, which Pakistan imposed after an anti-Islam video caused riots in much of the Muslim world, was lifted Saturday, only to be reinstated — after three minutes — when it was discovered that blasphemous material was still available on the site."
Read in browser Beautifully strange slit-scan video made with IOS app
By David Pescovitz on Jan 02, 2013 11:41 am Trevor Alyn demonstrates the surreality of slit-scan video as created with his
Slit-Scan Movie Maker app.
Read in browser Furry Chewbacca hoodie
By David Pescovitz on Jan 02, 2013 11:37 am Remember the Chewbacca Messenger Bag that Jason posted about a few weeks ago? Check out the Marc Ecko Star Wars reversible furry Chewie hoodie!
Read in browser Samuel Delany reads from Through The Valley of the Nest of Spiders
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 02, 2013 11:30 am Here's a video of Samuel Delany reading from his latest, 2012's
Through The Valley of the Nest of Spiders.
Read in browser Newspapers demand to be paid if you link to them
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 02, 2013 11:09 am McGarr Solicitors of Dublin reports on local newspapers' bizarre demand to be paid if you direct people to read their websites. To be completely clear about it, is isn't about fair use, fair dealing, excerpts, headlines or any of that. It's about links. "This is not a joke. ... This year the Irish newspaper industry ...
Read in browser Cory interviewed in Prism Magazine
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 02, 2013 09:27 am Geoffrey Cole of Prism Magazine has posted the first part of a three-part interview we conducted in Vancouver, back when I was touring with Pirate Cinema. In this part, we talk about many subjects, notably Rapture of the Nerds: The "Rapture" in Rapture of the Nerds has many meanings. Foremost, it is the ascension of ...
Read in browser NASA's Quadrantid meteor shower viewing tips
By Jason Weisberger on Jan 02, 2013 12:32 am NASA offers these fine tips for viewing the first meteor shower of the year, January 3rd.
Read in browser Airplane collides with car
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 01, 2013 11:09 pm 2012 was a terrifying year for Russian dashcam videos, but the badness reaches its peak on Dec 29, with this footage of a plane disintegrating crosswise to busy highway traffic.
Read in browser Poisoners are dumb
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 01, 2013 09:05 pm Science writer and poisons specialist Deborah Blum rounds up the year's news stories regarding malicious poisoners and expresses her disappointment that poisoners are often incredibly stupid about how they go about their trade (though, of course, it's possible that we only hear about the dumb ones because the smart ones get away clean). But poisoners ...
Read in browser Apollo Robbins: profile of a pickpocket
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 01, 2013 06:49 pm obbins is a self-trained virtuoso pickpocket who once managed to lift a pen out of Penn Jillette's pocket, steal the ink cartridge, and return the pen, all while he was demurely insisting to Jillette that he wasn't really comfortable performing in front of magicians.
Read in browser XKCD on New Year's resolutions
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 01, 2013 04:36 pm Today's XKCD is holds wise advice for those of us contemplating New Year's resolutions. Be sure to click through for the tool-tip bonus punchline. Resolution
Read in browser Kick-ass shark-socks: patterns available for hurricane Sandy relief
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 01, 2013 02:33 pm Back in November, I blogged the Tsarina of Tsock's wonderful shark socks, noting that they were not yet articles of commerce and hoping that they would become such soon. Now, Tsarina writes and says, You asked me to let you know when my Shark Week sock was released to the general public, so I thought ...
Read in browser Works that would be in the public domain today -- if America hadn't extended copyright terms in 1976
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 01, 2013 01:26 pm In 1976, the US Congress decided to extend the copyright on works that had been created with the understanding that they would enter the public domain after about 56 years (depending on whether the copyright was renewed after 26 years). This decision set the stage for a series of subsequent copyright extensions, each one coinciding, ...
Read in browser Report: FOIA'd FBI documents point to secret, nationwide Occupy surveillance
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 01, 2013 01:08 pm Update: I missed this NYT front-section story on the PCJF's document trove, published on Christmas Eve. The tl;dr: The FBI used counterterrorism agents to investigate Occupy Wall Street, "including its communications and planning," according to newly disclosed (and highly redacted) agency records. It's the best analysis I've seen, and mea culpa for having not seen ...
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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