Forever Alone statue now available Reading from Homeland Thanks, Obama! animated gifs Prohibited license plates How To: Make a cloud chamber A fantastic story of a love affair with physics Some context, in case you spent the better part of last night googling eclampsia Fables: Cubs in Toyland Elfquest: Welcoming the newborn How Newegg handed a patent troll its own ass on a plate The Kraken Awakes: What Architeuthis is Trying to Tell Us Teachers, librarians, etc: sign up for free copies of Homeland, the sequel to Little Brother Fox's talking heads bear uncanny resemblance to Kids in the Hall Ode to Joy performed on broken crockery Travel guide to Detroit written by seventh-gen locals: "Belle Isle to 8 Mile" Tempspence: an Internet improv, on Twitter, with a reality TV star's account Casino panopticon: a look at the CCTV room in the Vegas Aria (Why you shouldn't) run your company like an airport Forever Alone statue now available
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 28, 2013 12:38 pm The Forever Alone statue, originally featured on BB as a limited edition, is now in full production at Think Geek—and just $40 a pop.
Read in browser Reading from Homeland
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 28, 2013 12:30 pm This week on my podcast, I've posted a reading (MP3) from Homeland, the sequel to Little Brother, which will be published on February 5 -- that's one week from tomorrow!
Read in browser Thanks, Obama! animated gifs
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 28, 2013 12:18 pm It's all his fault. (Thanks, Matt!, via G+)
Read in browser Prohibited license plates
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 28, 2013 12:13 pm Government Attic queried various states for their lists of forbidden license plates, and has begun posting the results. The most striking quality of the lists are their sheer size: states ban words with wild abandon, from misspelled swear words (COKK, banned in Ark.) to French drinks (COGNAC, unacceptable in Az.) and network engineer humor (FTPLOL, ...
Read in browser How To: Make a cloud chamber
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 28, 2013 11:15 am David Ng has a great guide to building your very own sub-atomic-particle-spotting device.
Read in browser A fantastic story of a love affair with physics
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 28, 2013 10:49 am "At its most base level, everything is nuts. So f#*$ it." In which a bartender from Queens becomes obsessed with theoretical physics.
Read in browser Some context, in case you spent the better part of last night googling eclampsia
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 28, 2013 10:29 am For no particular reason, here is a graph of maternal mortality rates in England and Wales between 1850 and 1970. The Daily Beast also has an informative article on eclampsia, specifically, though you should be aware that it contains many television spoilers. Particularly interesting to me: We still don't actually know what causes eclampsia — ...
Read in browser Fables: Cubs in Toyland
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 28, 2013 09:38 am Bill Willingham's amazing graphic novel series Fables is one of those unbelievably, game-changingly epic series, one where I'm just as excited to get a peek at the edges of the world and the backstory of the characters as I am to see how the grand sweep of the plot turns out. The last one of ...
Read in browser Elfquest: Welcoming the newborn
By Wendy and Richard Pini on Jan 28, 2013 09:11 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 How Newegg handed a patent troll its own ass on a plate
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 28, 2013 09:06 am Ars Technica's got an amazing piece on the Newegg fight against a patent troll called Soverain Software, who had been extorting a 1% royalty on all transactions from ecommerce companies with a bogus shopping cart patent. Newegg refuses to settle in cases like this, even when it would be cheaper to settle than to fight. ...
Read in browser The Kraken Awakes: What Architeuthis is Trying to Tell Us
By M. Dery on Jan 28, 2013 08:55 am Captured live on video in its deep-sea element, for the first time, the Kraken of tall tales and sea shanties—Architeuthis, the giant squid—is coming into sharp focus, a flesh-and-blood reality. But why now?
Read in browser Teachers, librarians, etc: sign up for free copies of Homeland, the sequel to Little Brother
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 28, 2013 08:49 am Homeland, the sequel to Little Brother, comes out on Feb 5, and as with my previous books, I'm going to be making it available as a free CC-licensed download. Whenever that happens, lots of people write to me to tell me how much they enjoyed it, and ask if they can just send me some ...
Read in browser Fox's talking heads bear uncanny resemblance to Kids in the Hall
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 27, 2013 10:41 pm From Backdrops R Us, a grid of Fox News talking heads alongside classic shots of scenes from Canadian comedy show Kids in the Hall (particularly members of the troupe in drag). The resemblances are uncanny. FOX News Figures Strangely Resemble Kids In The Hall Characters (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)
Read in browser Ode to Joy performed on broken crockery
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 27, 2013 09:00 pm Mennyi made a video in which he performs "Ode to Joy" by kicking broken plates around.
Read in browser Travel guide to Detroit written by seventh-gen locals: "Belle Isle to 8 Mile"
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 27, 2013 05:46 pm Rick Prelinger sez, "I'm not a Detroiter, but I've been visiting from time to time since the 1980s, and I hope you will too. It's really unfortunate that most of what we see and hear about it amounts to repetition of the same old cliches -- deindustrialization, poverty, ruins, hipsters, cheap houses. But Detroit's much ...
Read in browser Tempspence: an Internet improv, on Twitter, with a reality TV star's account
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 27, 2013 03:41 pm Mark Marino and Rob Wittig say, For the first 3 weeks of January, the verified Twitter account of reality TV star Spencer Pratt (of MTV's The Hills) became the site for a literary performance art project. The framing story held that Spencer had lost his phone while in England before a stint on Celebrity Big ...
Read in browser Casino panopticon: a look at the CCTV room in the Vegas Aria
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 27, 2013 02:39 pm A fascinating article in The Verge looks at the history of casino cheating and talks to Ted Whiting, director of surveillance at the Aria casino in Vegas, who specced out a huge, showy CCTV room with feeds from more than 1,100 cameras. They use a lot of machine intelligence to raise potential cheating to the ...
Read in browser (Why you shouldn't) run your company like an airport
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 27, 2013 01:51 pm I liked Seth Godin's "Eleven things organizations can learn from airports," wherein he notes, "[Of course, this post isn't actually about airports]." 2. Problems persist because organizations defend their turf instead of embrace the problem. The TSA blames the facilities people, who blame someone else, and around and around. Only when the user's problem 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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