How to: Demolish a truss bridge Disease superspreaders and the new coronavirus The sinking of the Veggietanic, and an Octopus Googly-Eye Banana Jimi Hendrix on a gayageum Veil of secrecy around Manning case makes a public trial "a state secret in plain sight" Around the World in 80 Cakes Generative music apps The case of the poison potato Hong Kong: court denies migrant domestic workers residency Uber unfairly skimming our tips, say some drivers NY Mag feature on epic NBC "Today" Lauer/Curry cold war is backstab-o-licious Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Katie Skelly, creator of Nurse Nurse comic book It's snowing in DC this morning. Independent midwives to march in London today to protest impending shutdown of indie midwifery Arijit "Poop Strong" Guha has died of colon cancer How to: Demolish a truss bridge
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 25, 2013 12:55 pm Like the people cheering at about :25 into this video, I'm a sucker for dramatic explosions. This one comes from Texas, where the transportation department blew up an old bridge in the city of Marble Falls on March 17th. Also, apparently, it's warm enough in Texas that multiple gentlemen could watch a bridge explode from ...
Read in browser Disease superspreaders and the new coronavirus
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 25, 2013 12:43 pm Coronavirus — characterized by the halo of protein spikes that surround each individual virus particle — is the family that gave birth to SARS. Today, there's a new coronavirus stalking humans, especially in the Middle East. Scientists have documented 16 infections, and 10 fatalities. The good news is that there are probably lots of non-serious ...
Read in browser The sinking of the Veggietanic, and an Octopus Googly-Eye Banana
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 25, 2013 12:10 pm "Veggietanic, a photo shared in the BB Flickr Pool by BB reader Domenic Bahmann (instagram, Twitter, Tumblr). Oh, hey, and he's selling an "Octopus Banana" print. Just look at it.
Read in browser Jimi Hendrix on a gayageum
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 25, 2013 12:09 pm Luna Lee performs Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile" on a gayageum.
Read in browser Veil of secrecy around Manning case makes a public trial "a state secret in plain sight"
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 25, 2013 11:52 am New York Times media columnist David Carr has a piece out today about how reporters covering the pretrial hearings for Pfc. Bradley Manning over the past year have encountered roadblocks in accessing even the most basic information. Even such routine items as "dockets of court activity and transcripts of the proceedings" have been withheld by ...
Read in browser Around the World in 80 Cakes
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 25, 2013 11:42 am Cakewrecks has a fun photo gallery of cakes inspired by Jules Verne's "Around the World in 80 Days."
Read in browser Generative music apps
By David Pescovitz on Mar 25, 2013 11:34 am At our sponsor Intel's LifeScoop site, I posted about "Music That Writes Itself": In ambient music pioneer Brian Eno's 1996 book A Year with Swollen Appendices, the composer wrote, "I really think it is possible that our grandchildren will look at us in wonder and say: 'you mean you used to listen to exactly the ...
Read in browser The case of the poison potato
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 25, 2013 11:15 am The Lenape potato, developed in the 1960s for the snack business, made a damn fine potato chip. Unfortunately, it was also kind of toxic.
Read in browser Hong Kong: court denies migrant domestic workers residency
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 25, 2013 10:33 am The top court in Hong Kong has ruled that domestic workers may not apply for permanent residency. The case has been fought for two years. The outcome affects some 300,000 domestic workers, mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia, who may spend decades of their lives working in the territory. [BBC News/Thanks Antinous]
Read in browser Uber unfairly skimming our tips, say some drivers
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 25, 2013 09:38 am Mother Jones has an item today on complaints by drivers for "hail a black car/taxi/SUV with your smartphone" company Uber: the company website claims your fare includes a 20% gratuity "for the driver," but one driver told MoJo's Josh Harkinson that "half of that gratuity actually goes to Uber." And if that's true, "the company ...
Read in browser NY Mag feature on epic NBC "Today" Lauer/Curry cold war is backstab-o-licious
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 25, 2013 09:28 am Joe Hagan's New York Magazine feature on the bitter internal conflict behind the smiles of NBC's long-running Today show is a wonderful read, whether or not you give a shit about Today, or network daytime television in general. I don't want to spoil it for you, but that 9th graf down from the top is ...
Read in browser Tell Me Something I Don't Know: Katie Skelly, creator of Nurse Nurse comic book
By Mark Frauenfelder on Mar 25, 2013 09:00 am Thanks to Soundcloud for hosting Boing Boing's podcasts! This is episode 4 of Boing Boing's newest podcast, Tell Me Something I Don't Know. It's an interview podcast featuring artists, writers, filmmakers, and other creative people discussing their work, ideas, and the reality/business side of how they do what they do. In this episode Jim, Jasen, ...
Read in browser It's snowing in DC this morning.
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 25, 2013 08:59 am A snowy morning snapshot.
Read in browser Independent midwives to march in London today to protest impending shutdown of indie midwifery
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 25, 2013 01:59 am There are apparently no insurers in the UK willing to extend cover to independent midwives, and so independent midwives and their clients operate in an insurance-free zone, which is risky, but it was apparently a risk everyone was willing to take. However, a new EU regulation mandates that midwives operate with insurance, and once that ...
Read in browser Arijit "Poop Strong" Guha has died of colon cancer
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 24, 2013 01:36 pm Arijit "Poop Strong" Guha (Twitter), a really sweet guy who took on a dirty rotten insurance company and stood up to TSA "Flying While Brown" bullying (while wearing a t-shirt designed by Boing Boing's own Cory Doctorow) has died. He was 31, and had metastatic colon cancer. I did not know Arijit in person, but ...
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