Spanish locksmiths won't help banks evict people from their homes Bizarre 70s-style "pants calendar" a 21st-century hit Mobile photo booth made out of old VW Bus Morning Glory Road renamed after beef raised Appropriate attire for a New Year's Day swim in Vancouver Viewfraud is the new clickfraud Elfquest: the Broken One Potatoman Seeks the Troof: fun side-scroller What we can learn from psychopaths Adorable vintage microcars Star Wars silhouettes cut from vinyl records Calliope, peering Hacker theatre troupe in Berlin to stage "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" Spanish locksmiths won't help banks evict people from their homes
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 07, 2013 12:45 pm As the subprime bubble continues to burst in Spain, locksmiths find themselves complicit in putting families out on the street. In Pamplona, the local locksmiths have banded together and will not accept work from the banks changing locks or opening doors, even though it's costing them business: Tired of accompanying court officials to evict unemployed ...
Read in browser Bizarre 70s-style "pants calendar" a 21st-century hit
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 07, 2013 12:45 pm A calendar of men posing with 1970s cars while wearing underpants is said to be a big hit in Germany. You may view this calendar in its entirety online. [h/t The Awl]
Read in browser Mobile photo booth made out of old VW Bus
By Jason Weisberger on Jan 07, 2013 12:40 pm PetaPixel has the story. "By combining his love of old, run-down VW buses and the tradition photo booth, he's created the Photo Bus, a rentable photo booth on wheels — available for whatever soiree you're planning to host next."
Read in browser Morning Glory Road renamed after beef raised
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 07, 2013 12:35 pm "The Lehi City Council has renamed Morning Glory Road after a technology company planning to relocate to the street raised concerns about the name's sexual connotation." [Daily Herald]
Read in browser Appropriate attire for a New Year's Day swim in Vancouver
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 07, 2013 12:10 pm REUTERS/Ben Nelms A man, wearing a "goat mask", runs into the English Bay during the annual New Year's Day Polar Bear Swim in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Read in browser Viewfraud is the new clickfraud
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 07, 2013 12:02 pm YouTube recently wiped billions of views from some record labels' videos. Here's how to follow in their footsteps and buy views, Facebook likes, and Twitter followers! [Dailydot via Waxy]
Read in browser Elfquest: the Broken One
By Wendy and Richard Pini on Jan 07, 2013 11:00 am Enjoy
the latest page of Elfquest. First time reader? Catch up at the comic's
official homepage.
Read in browser Potatoman Seeks the Troof: fun side-scroller
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 07, 2013 10:38 am The fun folks at Pixeljam have released a challenging new side-scroller called "Potatoman Seeks the Troof," in which you play a little spud in search of enlightenment, traversing a series of difficult terrains, trying to attain it.
Read in browser What we can learn from psychopaths
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 07, 2013 08:34 am Scientific American excerpts a chapter from Kevin Dutton's book The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success, describing a visit to a high-security ward at Broadmoor Hospital in England, seeking insight into the positive aspect of a psychopathic mindset: Leslie's pragmatic endorsement of the principles and practices of ...
Read in browser Adorable vintage microcars
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 06, 2013 06:19 pm I want to own all of the gemlike microcars of the mid-20th century seen here on Fine Car's flickrstream.
Read in browser Star Wars silhouettes cut from vinyl records
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 06, 2013 05:55 pm Tamás Kánya, who produced the beer-can X-wing fighters, has also done a great series of Star Wars silhouettes cut out of vinyl record albums. star wars silhouettes vinyl records art (Thanks, Tamás!)
Read in browser Calliope, peering
By Jason Weisberger on Jan 06, 2013 05:41 pm Callie looks into the wide, wide lens.
Read in browser Hacker theatre troupe in Berlin to stage "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth"
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 06, 2013 05:00 pm This is pretty cool: Berlin's C-base, home to the Chaos Communications Club, has spawned a theatre troupe called C-artre. They've produced a theatrical adaptation of my short story "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" (from my collection Overclocked) and they're staging it later this month at Berlin's Transmediale festival.
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