More plagiarism from Glee Kegs and cans have an advantage over glass Jacquard looms: Videos demonstrating early computer programs The phone booth as "last vestige of privacy" REM's "Losing My Religion" shifted into a major scale Blue Monday is bullshit CAN WE GET A MUTANT-TOV? IT'S OUR BOING-MITZVAH! Elfquest: Water birth Hundreds is a stylish iOS puzzler Guided by Voices - "She Lives in an Airport " (free MP3) Montreal comp sci student reports massive bug, is expelled and threatened with arrest for checking to see if it had been fixed Guy re-creates a VIA Rail car, in his basement, down to the most minute detail Charles Ponstingl: amazing wood-carver who recreated the comics Guerrilla indie feature film shot at Walt Disney World More plagiarism from Glee
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 21, 2013 01:00 pm @afrobluedc sang MY mashup on NBC last Nov. youtube.com/watch?v=yaX4xG… Now I find out @gleeonfox aired/sells SAME combo?! youtube.com/watch?v=urTFed…— DJ Earworm (@djearworm) February 22, 2012 Last weekend, I blogged about Jonathan Coulton's discovery that the TV show Glee had plagiarized his arrangement for "Baby's Got Back." Now, the magnificent DJ Earworm writes, "This is my call-out ...
Read in browser Kegs and cans have an advantage over glass
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 21, 2013 12:52 pm The science of skunked beer — or why clear glass bottles are the bane of brew.
Read in browser Jacquard looms: Videos demonstrating early computer programs
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 21, 2013 12:48 pm Invented in 1801, Jacquard looms are really an add-on to already existent mechanical loom systems, which allowed those looms to create patterns more complex and intricate than anything that had been done before. The difference: Punch cards. When you weave, the pattern comes from changes in thread position — which threads were exposed on the ...
Read in browser The phone booth as "last vestige of privacy"
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 21, 2013 12:43 pm Ariana Kelly: "Between 1997 and 2000, when Pacific Bell retired the number at the request of the Mojave Forest Service, the phone received thousands of calls, dozens each day. When asked why they called, most of the callers' answers could be distilled to this: Because there was a chance someone would pick up." [LA Review ...
Read in browser REM's "Losing My Religion" shifted into a major scale
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 21, 2013 11:30 am Someone has gone to the trouble (I don't know how but would suspect using Melodyne DNA or somesuch) of processing REM's minor-scale downer hit 'Losing My Religion' so that all the minor notes are now major.
Read in browser Blue Monday is bullshit
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 21, 2013 10:05 am You'll see it everywhere today, in stories seeded by tourism companies and charities: it is "Blue Monday", the most depressed day of the year. It's bullshit, Ben Goldacre reminds us, originally devised by Sky Travel with the help of Dr. Cliff Arnall, then of Cardiff University. Arnall is the sort of academic who cracks jokes ...
Read in browser CAN WE GET A MUTANT-TOV? IT'S OUR BOING-MITZVAH!
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 21, 2013 10:00 am Now we are 13.
Read in browser Elfquest: Water birth
By Wendy and Richard Pini on Jan 21, 2013 10:00 am The latest page of The Final Quest: Prologue is published online first for the first time here at Boing Boing. First time reader? You're a few issues behind.
Read in browser Hundreds is a stylish iOS puzzler
By Josh Centers on Jan 21, 2013 09:31 am Hundreds is a minimalist puzzle game from Semi Secret Software, the makers of Canabalt. Each of its 100 levels is filled with one or more floating circles. When you press down on a circle, its numerical value and size increases. Your goal is to enlarge the circles until their combined values add up to 100. ...
Read in browser Guided by Voices - "She Lives in an Airport " (free MP3)
By Amy Seidenwurm on Jan 21, 2013 09:20 am Sound it Out # 39: Guided by Voices - "She Lives in an Airport "(MP3) Dayton, Ohio's legendary Guided by Voices broke up in 2004. Over the course of a 21-year run they'd gone through numerous personnel changes, with singer and main songwriter Robert Pollard as the only consistent player throughout. Pollard reunited the band's ...
Read in browser Montreal comp sci student reports massive bug, is expelled and threatened with arrest for checking to see if it had been fixed
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 21, 2013 09:00 am Ahmed Al-Khabaz was a 20-year-old computer science student at Dawson College in Montreal, until he discovered a big, glaring bug in Omnivox, software widely used by Quebec's junior college system. The bug exposed the personal information (social insurance number, home address, class schedule) of its users. When Al-Khabaz reported the bug to François Paradis, his ...
Read in browser Guy re-creates a VIA Rail car, in his basement, down to the most minute detail
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 20, 2013 09:27 pm Jason Shron is nuts for VIA Rail trains, so he re-created a car in his basement, down to the minutest detail (he bought a to-be-scrapped VIA car and harvested its fittings).
Read in browser Charles Ponstingl: amazing wood-carver who recreated the comics
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 20, 2013 06:22 pm Zack sez, "Mel Birnkant, creator of the Outer Space Men and major Disney collector, has a section on his website paying tribute to his friend Charles Ponstingl, who did amazing, elaborate wood carvings based on classic comic strips. Check out these dioramas based on Winsor McCay's "Little Sammy Sneeze" and Little Nemo or these elaborate ...
Read in browser Guerrilla indie feature film shot at Walt Disney World
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 20, 2013 03:16 pm "Escape From Tomorrow" is an indie movie screening at Sundance that was shot, seemingly without permission, at Walt Disney World. The film sounds pretty good, though the reviewer who saw it thinks it'll never get wide release, due to the risk-aversion of distributors and exhibitors: See, the entire film is set inside the property at ...
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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