World Discovery Box: pre-stocked cabinet of curiosity for kids Memoir of the making of Willy Wonka by the actress who played Veruca Salt Two-headed Makerbot: the Replicator 2X Monopoly to lose one of its classic tokens TOM THE DANCING BUG: And a Platinum Coin Shall Save America! Irish town councillor tries to get state-owned piece of art removed from public gallery Rudy Rucker art show at Borderlands in San Francisco The Sound of Silence in the National Library How the Blues Brothers got made Cyberpunk, multi-booting briefcase Ouya Game Jam starts next week What the quadcopter was thinking when they used it to buzz a moose (a found fiction in a Boing Boing comment thread) Positive externalities thrive online Racing. Not posing. Fun magic trick book for kids: Spooky Magic How many social media gurus does it take to... Noble Nutlings: new game created by ex-Rovio/Angry Birds team Coastal landslide caught on film Karaoke singer gets dunked in a tank of snakes Phrases used by corporate fraudsters Gambling ships of Santa Monica Bay Miami Vice, short documentary about the TV series Bitter One Percenter stiffs waiter David Bowie's new song/video "Where Are We Now?" Darth Vader can't hear very well Ashton Kutcher Steve Jobs biopic to be released in April Fences as primitive phone networks Amanda Palmer on internet bullying Why does Facebook data "tend to condemn" in court? California medical pot dispensary operator gets 10 years in prison World Discovery Box: pre-stocked cabinet of curiosity for kids
By David Pescovitz on Jan 09, 2013 12:54 pm The Discovery Box looks to be a fantastic starter wunderkammer for kids (and adults)! The cabinet of curiosity is preloaded with rocks, fossils, shells, bugs in lucite, and other natural and scientific wonders, plus plenty of space to add your own oddities. It's available in three sizes, priced from $75 to $289. What a great ...
Read in browser Memoir of the making of Willy Wonka by the actress who played Veruca Salt
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 09, 2013 12:50 pm Here's a potentially interesting book that I found on Free Book Sifter, a website that lists all the free Kindle books available on Amazon. It's called I Want it Now! A Memoir of Life on the Set of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and was written by Julie Dawn Cole, the actress who played ...
Read in browser Two-headed Makerbot: the Replicator 2X
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 09, 2013 11:54 am MakerBot have announced an update to its Replicator 2 3D printer, this one an experimental model with two heads: Targeting a higher-end market, the 2X features dual heads for printing more-complex objects. "For the daredevils out there, the Doc Browns, the MacGyvers, the test pilots, we haven't forgotten about you," says Pettis in a YouTube ...
Read in browser Monopoly to lose one of its classic tokens
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 09, 2013 11:39 am Hasbro announced it is holding an election to oust one of Monopoly's existing game pieces and replacing it with a new one. The existing pieces are: race car, iron, Scottie dog, wheelbarrow, shoe, top hat, thimble, battleship. The new candidates are: cat, helicopter, diamond ring, guitar,robot. A limited-run "Golden Token" Monopoly ($17.99) arrives in Target ...
Read in browser TOM THE DANCING BUG: And a Platinum Coin Shall Save America!
By Ruben Bolling on Jan 09, 2013 11:10 am Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH the forging of platinum coin defeats a nefarious threat to deliberately cause grave harm to America.
Read in browser Irish town councillor tries to get state-owned piece of art removed from public gallery
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 09, 2013 10:52 am Niall de Buitlear sez, A member of Athlone Town Council is trying to have a state-owned piece of art removed from a public art gallery. The artwork by Shane Cullen features transcripts of messages smuggled in and out of the Long Kesh Prison by members of the IRA in the late 70s and early 80s. ...
Read in browser Rudy Rucker art show at Borderlands in San Francisco
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 09, 2013 09:49 am Happy mutant, cyberpunk, and painter Rudy Rucker is hanging a show of his art at Borderlands Cafe and Science Fiction Bookstore in San Francisco's Mission district. Another great reason to visit an amazing store -- he's kicking it off with a reading this Saturday, Jan 12: I'll be hanging a show of my paintings in ...
Read in browser The Sound of Silence in the National Library
By Glenn Fleishman on Jan 09, 2013 09:00 am The Library of Congress occupies three massive and ornate buildings in the center of Washington, D.C. But those edifices house just part of the collection, which spans hundreds of miles of shelves across many less-interesting buildings, and extends to media beyond books. To find the heart of the nation's audiovisual memory, I took a lovely ...
Read in browser How the Blues Brothers got made
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 09, 2013 08:46 am Vanity Fair's history of the making of The Blues Brothers is amazing, a story as madcap and improbable as the movie itself (though there's a lot more coke in the story of the movie). This is one of my favorite films of all time -- at one point I could quote the whole movie by ...
Read in browser Cyberpunk, multi-booting briefcase
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 09, 2013 07:16 am Eric sez, "Reddit has a thread posted in which the user yoshiwars shares photos of his briefcase, which has been packed with performance parts and multi-OS booting. An impressive hack!" r/Cyberpunk seems to like my briefcase, here are more pics. (imgur.com)
Read in browser Ouya Game Jam starts next week
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 08, 2013 11:25 pm Game magazine Kill Screen is running a 10-day online game jam for the forthcoming Ouya linux game console, beginning next week. Founder Jamin Warren says they've built a $45,000 prize pool and gathered judges such as Adam Saltsman, of Canabalt fame, The Guild's Felicia Day , and Phil Fish, creator of FEZ. Previously.
Read in browser What the quadcopter was thinking when they used it to buzz a moose (a found fiction in a Boing Boing comment thread)
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 08, 2013 09:38 pm From the remarkable keyboard of allium, in the comment thread for this post: "Rocky...is that you? My God, what did those Pottsylvanian bastards do to you?" It was my own government that did this, I think in jagged letters ten feet tall. Of course after the cyborging I can only talk in Bluetooth, 802.11, and ...
Read in browser Positive externalities thrive online
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 08, 2013 09:05 pm My latest Guardian column is about positive externalities, the value that bystanders get from the stuff you're already doing: That's the crux of this irrational fear of positive externalities: "If something I do has value, I deserve a cut." It's one thing to say that someone who hires you to do a job, or purchases ...
Read in browser Racing. Not posing.
By Jason Weisberger on Jan 08, 2013 06:04 pm In a conversation about the iconic look, feel and nature of the Porsche 911, I was reminded of this. My favorite commercial of all time.
Read in browser Fun magic trick book for kids: Spooky Magic
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 08, 2013 05:23 pm The Invisible Flea. The Spirit Hand. The Spirit in the Bottle. The Floating Body. I couldn't resist ordering Spooky Magic when I was about eight years old and saw it in the Scholastic Book newsletter. When the book arrived I wasn't disappointed. A couple of my friends and I prepared a magic show for our ...
Read in browser How many social media gurus does it take to...
By Jason Weisberger on Jan 08, 2013 05:23 pm Seems there are 181,000 social media gurus on twitter. Here began the zombie apocalypse. (via NextDraft)
Read in browser Noble Nutlings: new game created by ex-Rovio/Angry Birds team
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 08, 2013 04:02 pm Here's a sneak preview of Noble Nutlings, which will be released tomorrow in the iTunes store in the US (it's currently available in Canada, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates, and Finland). The game was created by three of the core members of Rovio, makers of Angry Birds. It looks like it's going to be fun.
Read in browser Coastal landslide caught on film
By Jason Weisberger on Jan 08, 2013 03:56 pm When a large crack rang through the air, followed by a rumble, Robert and Chris Wills knew to grab their cameras and start shooting. Chris, a geologist, and his son Robert knew they were in for the show of a life time. As we were admiring the waves, a crack and the ensuing sound of ...
Read in browser Karaoke singer gets dunked in a tank of snakes
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 08, 2013 03:24 pm It's nice to see that reality TV has gotten classy. (Via Laughing Squid)
Read in browser Phrases used by corporate fraudsters
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 08, 2013 03:00 pm The FBI and Ernst and Young have released a list of top-ten phrases that indicate corporate fraud, based on data-mining evidence from real corporate fraud investigations. In total more than 3,000 terms are logged by the technology, which monitors for conversations within the "fraud triangle", where pressure, rationalisation, and opportunity meet, said the FBI and ...
Read in browser Gambling ships of Santa Monica Bay
By Jason Weisberger on Jan 08, 2013 02:53 pm Growing up in Santa Monica I was fascinated with stories of the once bustling beach and sea front. Stories of floating Casinos and gambling ships were favorite tales. Santa Monica College shares this short video on their history. Only tangentially related, the story of the Valiant, lost off Avalon on Catalina Isl. is one of ...
Read in browser Miami Vice, short documentary about the TV series
By David Pescovitz on Jan 08, 2013 02:35 pm Miami Vice: a short documentary about the thought that went into every shot, and every unconstructed sportcoat.
Read in browser Bitter One Percenter stiffs waiter
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 08, 2013 02:26 pm Joey deVilla (AKA the Accordion Guy) says: "An online acquaintance of mine stumbled across this gem left for waitstaff by a patron." Some suggested interpretations of this message include: “You may have already suspected that I was an asshole, but I have left you some documentation just in case.” “I’m incredibly angry and not entirely ...
Read in browser David Bowie's new song/video "Where Are We Now?"
By David Pescovitz on Jan 08, 2013 02:11 pm Today is David Bowie's 66th birthday and in celebration, he has released "Where Are We Now?," a song off his new studio album coming in March.
Read in browser Darth Vader can't hear very well
By David Pescovitz on Jan 08, 2013 02:05 pm What?!
Read in browser Ashton Kutcher Steve Jobs biopic to be released in April
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 08, 2013 01:44 pm "jOBS," a biographical film on the life of Steve Jobs, will be out in April according to its makers. Ashton Kutcher plays the late Apple co-founder.
Read in browser Fences as primitive phone networks
By David Pescovitz on Jan 08, 2013 01:42 pm Somewhere between two-cans-and-a-string and Ma Bell lies the barbed wire fence telephone networks used by ranchers in the early 20th century. From CF Eckhardt's short history of these "rural telephone systems" at TexasHillCountry.com : Across much of the west, to the west of old US 81 (present I-35) in Texas--and not a small part of ...
Read in browser Amanda Palmer on internet bullying
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 08, 2013 01:24 pm A blog post by Amanda Palmer "on internet hatred" has gone viral, attracting a large number of personal stories of bullying and online abuse, and wisdom on how to cope.
Read in browser Why does Facebook data "tend to condemn" in court?
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 08, 2013 01:19 pm Wired News' Ryan Tate writes about why social media activity "is more readily used to convict you in a court of law than to defend you." The short version: "getting private information out of Facebook and other social networks" is typically easier for prosecutors than defense attorneys, as an ongoing Portland murder case shows.
Read in browser California medical pot dispensary operator gets 10 years in prison
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 08, 2013 01:17 pm Aaron Sandusky, who operates three medical marijuana dispensaries in California, has been sentenced to 10 years behind bars for selling medical marijuana through his dispensaries. Selling pot through dispensaries for medicinal purposes is legal under California law, but federal authorities do not recognize any medical use for the drug. Federal authorities busted Sandusky "for distributing ...
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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