Epic online space battle sees redditors prevail—this time Lost pet tortoise found in family storeroom 30 years later Skylanders artist discusses mural with 6-year-old son Models falling over Colony: beautiful 3D prints, reminiscent of marine life-forms Hammermill Paper's jobs-of-1950 collage American insurers charge reckless rich drivers less than safe poor drivers Amoeba Records launches downloadable music store for digitized rarities Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Wild Style Part 1 Photorealistic full-screen sweatshirts Nasty Dead Island promo statue "belongs in museum" Just look at these tattooed bananas A fond look back at a book of interesting stories that turned out to be bullshit Understanding lenses: the book Pentagon adding 4,000 more people to cybersecurity ranks Apple releases iOS 6.1 update US gov displays growing appetite for Twitter users' personal data Talking to Reporters Is Not A Crime: new leak investigation threatens press freedom in US Minibeasts and Ourselves: covers of teacher's books from 1972-1973 Audeze, revisited Notes on making a stitched panorama with a 100,000' balloon-cam Awesome marine biology blogger says farewell to blogging Ambicon: an ambient music gathering Pranksters fill NYC subway car with absurdist panhandler party Jonathan Coulton responds to Fox/Glee's plagiarism of his song by "covering" it and making rival version available for sale Excerpt from The Tinkerers, by Alec Foege Inside the lucrative world of ecstasy smuggling Goatse.cx will soon reboot as a Goatse-branded email service Boy Scouts considering an end to discrimination Stylized cover of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours on a t-shirt Epic online space battle sees redditors prevail—this time
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 29, 2013 12:54 pm Nathan Grayson reports on an epic battle fought between factions inside Eve Online, in which thousands of players participated. See that pic up there? Would you just look at that mess? The battle, which saw a Something Awful-affiliated faction overwhelmed by Reddit-affiliated players and an impromptu group of allies, resulted in the destruction of ships ...
Read in browser Lost pet tortoise found in family storeroom 30 years later
By David Pescovitz on Jan 29, 2013 12:54 pm Leandro Almeida of Rio de Janeiro was cleaning out a storeroom at his family's home when a neighbor noticed a tortoise in a box meant for the trash. Turns out, the tortoise was Manuela, a family pet who they thought escaped back in 1982. From Edmonton Journal: The red-footed tortoise feeds in the wild on ...
Read in browser Skylanders artist discusses mural with 6-year-old son
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 29, 2013 12:44 pm Skylanders character artist discusses his mural with his young son.
Read in browser Models falling over
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 29, 2013 12:43 pm Here is a gallery of unfortunate models falling over, largely because of the stupid shoes they're being asked to wear.
Read in browser Colony: beautiful 3D prints, reminiscent of marine life-forms
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 29, 2013 12:39 pm Spotted today in the Boing Boing Flickr Pool: these dazzling 3D-printed forms, created and photographed by Boing Boing reader Jessica Rosenkrantz of Nervous System, "an experimental design studio that uses new technologies to reinterpret natural phenomena." These images show test prints for a new project Jessica is working on. "Each print is 4 to 6 ...
Read in browser Hammermill Paper's jobs-of-1950 collage
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 29, 2013 11:53 am I love everything about this old Hammermill Paper ad -- it's part Richard Scarry jobs-you-can-do collage, part propaganda for the wonder of paper, and all awesome. Hammermill Paper
Read in browser American insurers charge reckless rich drivers less than safe poor drivers
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 29, 2013 11:09 am The Consumer Federation of America did a mystery shopper review of several auto insurers and found that drivers with at-fault accidents paid lower premiums than drivers with spotless records -- provided that the careless driver was rich and well-educated and the careful driver was a single renter without an advanced degree. Using two hypothetical characters ...
Read in browser Amoeba Records launches downloadable music store for digitized rarities
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 29, 2013 09:50 am Amoeba Records -- the amazing California music superstore -- has relaunched Amoeba.com, with a huge selection of downloadable music rarities, digitized from old vinyl. In some cases, the store has tracked down rightsholders for these out-of-print rarities, and cleared the music for sale for the first time; in others, it's escrowing the sales funds for ...
Read in browser Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Wild Style Part 1
By Ed Piskor on Jan 29, 2013 09:15 am Read the rest of the Hip Hop Family Tree comics!
Read in browser Photorealistic full-screen sweatshirts
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 29, 2013 09:02 am The Mr. Gugu & Miss Go "Photorealistic Sweaters" line is one of those so-bad-it's-good uses of technology: full-garment screens of kitschy, colorful subjects on sweaters. I can't tell if they're blank on the back. What I really want is for every inch of these things to be screened, inside and out, with eye-melting graphics. Mr. ...
Read in browser Nasty Dead Island promo statue "belongs in museum"
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 29, 2013 08:24 am The publishers of Dead Island: Riptide produced this remarkable promotional item, a mangled female torso, to maximize its appeal to gaming's all-important squirrel-skinning minsogynst demographic. John Teti hopes that it ends up in a museum, not the memory hole. The exhibit would start, of course, with the sculpture itself, because the longer you look at ...
Read in browser Just look at these tattooed bananas
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 28, 2013 08:35 pm Just look at them. Jun Gil Park (via Jim!)
Read in browser A fond look back at a book of interesting stories that turned out to be bullshit
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 28, 2013 07:52 pm When I was a kid, I got my hands on a copy of C.B. Colby's book of "hair raisers and incredible happenings," called Strangely Enough. I believed every story in it about "oddities in science and nature," "buried treasure on land and sea," and "high adventures and impossible escapes." The most memorable story was about ...
Read in browser Understanding lenses: the book
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 28, 2013 07:00 pm The wonderful photographer and writer NK Guy writes, As photographers and geeks we tend to obsess about the products we buy. Countless hours are spent poring over catalogues, reading reviews, arguing in forums. All to find the perfect camera. There's just one thing missing here: the /lens/ is also a key part in creating high-quality ...
Read in browser Pentagon adding 4,000 more people to cybersecurity ranks
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 28, 2013 06:43 pm Via Noah Shachtman at Wired's Danger Room blog, this NYT item about the Pentagon beefing up its cybersecurity staff, which currently number 900. As Noah puts it: "What do you do with a Cyber Command that's struggling to figure out its mission? Simple, give it 4000 more people!" Ah, gubmint.
Read in browser Apple releases iOS 6.1 update
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 28, 2013 06:37 pm Apple today released iOS 6.1. This latest update to its mobile operating system brings LTE compatibility to 36 new iPhone carriers and 23 new iPad carriers globally, and tweaks to two Apple services: iTunes Match and Siri. More at Macworld. One of the new features in iOS6 I find most interesting is the Advertising Identifier, ...
Read in browser US gov displays growing appetite for Twitter users' personal data
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 28, 2013 06:33 pm On the heels of reports that Google and Yahoo require probable-cause warrants to give authorities e-mail and cloud-stored content belonging to users, "despite federal law not always demanding that," Twitter said today that only 19 percent of federal and state government requests for user data were accompanied by probable-cause search warrants during the six months ...
Read in browser Talking to Reporters Is Not A Crime: new leak investigation threatens press freedom in US
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 28, 2013 06:27 pm At the The Freedom of the Press Foundation blog, Trevor Timm digs deeper into disturbing news (covered here in Saturday's Washington Post) of an FBI investigation of a large number of government officials suspected of leaking classified information to the press, which "engulfs an unknown group of reporters," along the way. Trevor writes, "The investigation ...
Read in browser Minibeasts and Ourselves: covers of teacher's books from 1972-1973
By David Pescovitz on Jan 28, 2013 05:42 pm Beautiful cover designs for "A Unit for Teachers" books published for the Schools Council by MacDonald Educational Ltd., London, 1972-1973. "Minibeasts and Colored Things" (via The Simonsound)
Read in browser Audeze, revisited
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 28, 2013 05:31 pm Richard Metgzer tries out a pair of Audeze for the first time. Photo: Xeni Jardin Our pal Richard Metzger of Dangerous Minds, one of the most serious music lovers and audiophiles I know, got his hands on a review unit of the Audeze LCD-3 planar magnetic headphones this weekend. I was there when he put ...
Read in browser Notes on making a stitched panorama with a 100,000' balloon-cam
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 28, 2013 05:27 pm Wherein I present the results of and detail the technical feats needed to stitch together imagery from six cameras into interactive fully spherical imagery and video taken from a balloon sent up to nearly 100,000 feet. (*phew*)
Read in browser Awesome marine biology blogger says farewell to blogging
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 28, 2013 04:37 pm Miriam Goldstein, marine biologist and blogger, is abandoning her fantastic blog to "spend a year at the center of United States environmental policy." She will serve as a policy fellow and work with the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources, Democratic staff, "particularly with the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans, and Insular Affairs." It's great ...
Read in browser Ambicon: an ambient music gathering
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 28, 2013 04:18 pm Our friends at Music from the Hearts of Space, the long-running radio and now internet program dedicated to ambient music, are organizing an ambient music conference in Marin County, CA. The Ambicon event takes place from May 3-5, 2013.
Read in browser Pranksters fill NYC subway car with absurdist panhandler party
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 28, 2013 03:28 pm A group of pranksters posed as panhandlers and filled a New York City subway car.
Read in browser Jonathan Coulton responds to Fox/Glee's plagiarism of his song by "covering" it and making rival version available for sale
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 28, 2013 03:22 pm You'll have heard that Jonathan Coulton's iconic cover of Baby's Got Back was plagiarised by the Fox TV show "Glee" (it's not the first time). Coulton's story has been widely reported, but Fox/Glee have remained shameless about this. Coulton's got a brilliant solution to this: he's released a "cover" of Glee's plagiarized version of his ...
Read in browser Excerpt from The Tinkerers, by Alec Foege
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 28, 2013 03:09 pm In The Tinkerers, Alec Foege presents a version of American history told through feats of engineering, large and small. He argues that reports of tinkering’s death have been greatly exaggerated; since World War II, it has been the guiding force behind projects from corporate-sponsored innovations (the personal computer, Ethernet) to smaller scale inventions with great ...
Read in browser Inside the lucrative world of ecstasy smuggling
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 28, 2013 02:23 pm Madeleine Scinto, a reporter for the New York Post, wrote a story about a 4-million-dollar ecstasy operation in the North East. She wore blue eyeshadow, an oversized sweatshirt and Birkenstocks, still looking like the smart undergrad who just two years earlier took a math degree at one of the best colleges in the country. MDMA, ...
Read in browser Goatse.cx will soon reboot as a Goatse-branded email service
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 28, 2013 02:06 pm "Goatse Mail will offer email addresses on the internets most awesome domain: Goatse.cx. Users will be able to have their very own @goatse.cx email address using their existing Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or Outlook.com account. They've exceeded their Indiegogo goal with 7 days still remaining. (thanks, Eliot!)
Read in browser Boy Scouts considering an end to discrimination
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 28, 2013 02:04 pm The Boy Scouts of America is telling several media outlets that they are seriously considering a new policy that would end discrimination based on sexual orientation — at least as a national organization policy. Individual troops would be able to set their own rules. This is incredibly good news and I am so proud of ...
Read in browser Stylized cover of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours on a t-shirt
By David Pescovitz on Jan 28, 2013 01:35 pm As regular BB readers know, I'm a huge fan of Fleetwood Mac's California cocaine trilogy of albums. No surprise then that I got a real kick out of this t-shirt emblazoned with a stylized illustration of the Rumours cover! Mr. Cloud's Fleetwood Mac t-shirt (Mr. Cloud) Also available on Etsy!
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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