The Namiki/Pilot Vanishing Point retractable fountain pen Saboteurs caught trying to sever major undersea Internet cable to Egypt LG Monitor Gives New Meaning to Color Precision Eyeballs found in trash Science at Fashion Week Basquiat ex-girlfriend's huge collection of his art/archives What makes monsters real Urinal video games The mathematics of tabloid news Raiders of the Lost Ark original brainstorming sessions The classy and fascinating back story behind pink champagne Internet apocalypse? In the next bag o' chips FOUR ASTOUNDING THINGS THAT BOING BOING READERS ARE DOING RIGHT NOW! Japanese teen trend: "Dragon Ball attack" selfies Researchers show method for de-anonymizing 95% of "anonymous" cellular location data Gentleman in Illinois accused of stealing 21 tons of Wisconsin Muenster cheese NYT op-ed: "On the Brink of Justice in Guatemala" Bro-on-Bro violence leads to tragedy, as penis drawn on roommate's face Super 8 music "video" for new Barn Owl song Opponents Wanted: forgotten gaming mags find new life on the net Sailing is hard work Cory's schedule for EasterCon in Bradford Short sf film about future augmented reality graffiti Why security awareness training is a waste of time Kalashnikov made of bones Band puts up Times Square billboard asking for views on piracy Dead words that want reviving Hyper-macho, super-busy old body-building ad Municipal codes of DC, free for all -- liberated without permission Dinner in the Haunted Mansion The Namiki/Pilot Vanishing Point retractable fountain pen
By Jason Weisberger on Mar 28, 2013 12:20 pm Several years ago, I found the
Pilot Vanishing Point fountain pen. It is a well-balanced and well-sealing writing instrument that has never let me down. A truly modern take on a the classic fountain design.
Read in browser Saboteurs caught trying to sever major undersea Internet cable to Egypt
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 28, 2013 11:53 am The Egyptian military claims it caught saboteurs in a small boat trying to sever one of the country's main undersea Internet cables. No word yet on who the guys were and what their motive might be: Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said in a statement on his official Facebook page that divers were arrested while "cutting ...
Read in browser LG Monitor Gives New Meaning to Color Precision
By Advertiser on Mar 28, 2013 11:52 am ADVERTISEMENT This post is sponsored by LG Electronics. Discover the LG IPS Color Prime Monitor. LG's ColorPrime IPS LED Monitor is a must-have for anyone who makes a living or has a passion for graphic design, photography video creation, or any other design-related projects. That's because the 27-inch monitor has 99 percent coverage of Adobe ...
Read in browser Eyeballs found in trash
By Rob Beschizza on Mar 28, 2013 11:52 am "Police say they are trying to determine how a medical box containing a pair of eyeballs ended up in a trash bin at a gas station in Kansas City," reports the Associated Press.
Read in browser Science at Fashion Week
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 28, 2013 11:52 am From bodices made of green beetle wings to a skirt studded with embroidered-on bits of meteorite, the clothing of designer Mathieu Mirano draws inspiration from the natural world and the obsessions of science. Popular Science's Susannah Locke went to the designer's show and has a gallery of photos that you should really check out.
Read in browser Basquiat ex-girlfriend's huge collection of his art/archives
By David Pescovitz on Mar 28, 2013 11:51 am In 1979, starving artist Jean-Michel Basquiat painted murals all over the walls of his biology student girlfriend Alexis Adler's apartment in New York City's East Village. The couple split up around 1980 but Adler held on to the apartment and eventually bought it. She had left Basquiat's wall art alone and also kept piles of ...
Read in browser What makes monsters real
By Rob Beschizza on Mar 28, 2013 11:46 am Peter Stanford reviews Matt Kaplan's new book, an investigation into what's so intriguing about spooky, scary beasties of the night: Medusa's Gaze and Vampire's Bite: the Science of Monsters. What he has grasped is that, however much the rational and sane majority airily dismiss tales of fire-breathing dragons, strange creatures from outer space or beasts ...
Read in browser Urinal video games
By Rob Beschizza on Mar 28, 2013 11:38 am Reuters' Joe McDonald informs us of a new hands-free gaming technology: "Play doesn't need to stop for sports fans taking a bathroom break at a Pennsylvania minor-league baseball stadium that has installed video games in men's room urinals." You can have a go yourself at Lehigh Valley IronPigs' Coca-Cola Park in Allentown. Photo: Reuters.
Read in browser The mathematics of tabloid news
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 28, 2013 11:37 am Leila Schneps and Coralie Colmez have an interesting piece at The New York Times about DNA evidence in murder trials, the mathematics of probability, and the highly publicized case of Amanda Knox. What good is remembering the math you learned in junior high? If you're a judge, it could be the difference between a guilty ...
Read in browser Raiders of the Lost Ark original brainstorming sessions
By David Pescovitz on Mar 28, 2013 11:37 am In 1978, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Lawrence Kasdan had early brainstorming sessions around Lucas's outline for "Raiders of the Lost Ark." They recorded the conversations and had the tape transcribed. Here it is (PDF). Over at the New Yorker, Patrick Radden Keefe provides a summary and excerpts some choice bits. The hero, Lucas explains, ...
Read in browser The classy and fascinating back story behind pink champagne
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 28, 2013 11:29 am This article at Lapham's Quarterly by Peter Foges has me rethinking my biases against rose champagne — a drink I tend to associate with undergrads and poorly conceived 7-Up cocktails. Turns out, the history (and the chemistry) of rose are totally fascinating. Traditionally the quaff of queens (and really, really, really high-class hookers), real rose ...
Read in browser Internet apocalypse? In the next bag o' chips
By Rob Beschizza on Mar 28, 2013 11:16 am Sam Biddle writes that this week's epic, internet-shaking DDOS was a lie. Spamhaus was indeed under a record-size denial-of-service attack, but the protection company it hired, Cloudfront, turns out to be the only source of the bigger story that went with it: that the internet at large was significantly affected.
Read in browser FOUR ASTOUNDING THINGS THAT BOING BOING READERS ARE DOING RIGHT NOW!
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 28, 2013 11:04 am Last week, we put up a post asking BB readers to tell us (and each other) about their projects. You-all upvoted your favorites, and herewith presented is a list of some of the coolest things you're up to (there's plenty that didn't make the cut but still fascinate -- have a look). There's so much ...
Read in browser Japanese teen trend: "Dragon Ball attack" selfies
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 28, 2013 10:30 am "Numerous Japanese teens, it seems, are uploading photos of themselves doing the Kamehameha attack from popular manga and anime series Dragon Ball," writes Kotaku's Japan-based correspondent Brian Ashcraft. There's a photo gallery and it's awesome. Brian had an earlier post at Kotaku about the broader trend in Japan of young women staging photos with manga-style ...
Read in browser Researchers show method for de-anonymizing 95% of "anonymous" cellular location data
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 28, 2013 09:34 am Unique in the Crowd: The privacy bounds of human mobility, a Nature Scientific Reports paper by MIT researchers and colleagues at Belgium's Universite Catholique de Louvain, documents that 95% of "anonymous" location data from cellphone towers can be de-anonymized to the individual level. That is, given data from a region's cellular towers, the researchers can ...
Read in browser Gentleman in Illinois accused of stealing 21 tons of Wisconsin Muenster cheese
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 28, 2013 09:22 am Muenster cheese is not a crime. Image: Wikipedia Veniamin Balika, 34, of Plainfield, IL, was arrested in New Jersey after cops caught him driving a refrigerated truck carrying 42,000 pounds of stolen Muenster cheese. It was definitely nacho average crime. The cheesy hot goods were produced by K&K Cheese of Cashton, WI with milk from ...
Read in browser NYT op-ed: "On the Brink of Justice in Guatemala"
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 28, 2013 09:10 am Anita Isaacs, in a NYT op-ed: "I have spent the past 15 years researching and writing about postwar justice in Guatemala. I am encouraged that, a decade and a half after peace accords ended 36 years of civil war, Guatemala is being given a chance to show the world how much progress it has made ...
Read in browser Bro-on-Bro violence leads to tragedy, as penis drawn on roommate's face
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 28, 2013 09:06 am A Virginia man was beaten on Saturday, March 23, for drawing a dick on his roommate's face. Arlington County Police say 31-year-old James Watson passed out on his couch after a night of boozing. Around 5:30 AM he woke up to find, to his outrage, that a crude rendering of male genitalia had been scrawled ...
Read in browser Super 8 music "video" for new Barn Owl song
By David Pescovitz on Mar 28, 2013 09:01 am Paul Clipson's Super 8 short film for San Francisco droneography duo Barn Owl's new track "Void Redux."
Read in browser Opponents Wanted: forgotten gaming mags find new life on the net
By Peter Bebergal on Mar 28, 2013 08:55 am Oh, those glorious gaming magazines! From
Ares, to
The General, to
The Dragon, the original thrill and excitement of pen 'n' paper gaming is there to be experienced at the Internet Archive and other online haunts.
Read in browser Sailing is hard work
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 28, 2013 08:50 am Rome Kirby is an extreme sailor. When they tried putting him on a heart-rate monitor, they found he was burning 9,000 calories a day. (via Super Punch)
Read in browser Cory's schedule for EasterCon in Bradford
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 28, 2013 05:40 am I'm heading to Bradford tomorrow for Eight Squared Con, the 2013 Eastercon. I'm appearing on several programme items: * Friday, 17h: Reading, Hawthorn Room * Saturday, 12h: "On Twitter, Everyone Can Hear You Scream," Boardroom (panel) * Saturday, 13h: Book launch for RAPTURE OF THE NERDS, Conservatory * Saturday, 19h: "Genre Get-Together: Science Fiction," Conservatory ...
Read in browser Short sf film about future augmented reality graffiti
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 28, 2013 12:46 am Tim Maughan and friends produced a short film based on his excellent story Paintwork, which is about graffiti and augmented reality.
Read in browser Why security awareness training is a waste of time
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 28, 2013 12:28 am Bruce Schneier presents a very cogent and convincing argument that "security awareness training" is a waste of money -- specifically, because the benefits of "security" are intangible, while the benefits of getting your work done are apparent. To those who think that training users in security is a good idea, I want to ask: "Have ...
Read in browser Kalashnikov made of bones
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 27, 2013 10:35 pm New Zealand artist Bruce Mahalski has put a new sculpture of an AK47 assembled from animal bones up for sale, with a starting bid of NZD3500. It's quite a beautiful piece of work. The latest bone gun by New Zealand bone artist – Mahalski – is a life-size AK47 machine gun(330mm x 940mm) featuring found ...
Read in browser Band puts up Times Square billboard asking for views on piracy
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 27, 2013 10:24 pm The band Ghost Beach won a promo deal with American Eagle, and spent the money on a prominent billboard in Times Square asking people to tweet their feelings about piracy. Piracy is winning: Piracy is progress, piracy is freedom, piracy is harmless, piracy is inevitable, piracy is robbery, piracy is evil, piracy is selfish, or ...
Read in browser Dead words that want reviving
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 27, 2013 08:41 pm Here's Death and Taxes's collection of 18 obsolete words that would be handy (or at least funny) to use today, compiled by Carmel Lobello from a book called The Word Museum and a blog called Obsolete Word of the Day. Some of my favorites: Snoutfair: A person with a handsome countenance — "The Word Museum: ...
Read in browser Hyper-macho, super-busy old body-building ad
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 27, 2013 07:27 pm This undated bodybuilding ad is a spectacular example of the form -- the busy, unbridled, exuberant machismo, the fonts, the repetition. I think the world would be a better place if all printed literature took this form. Come on, Buddy!
Read in browser Municipal codes of DC, free for all -- liberated without permission
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 27, 2013 06:12 pm Today, I was luck enough to get another one of rogue archivist Carl Malamud's boxes of awesome. It's a copy of the municipal codes of DC, which are laws that you're required to follow, but aren't allowed to see without paying. As with the last time I got one of these packages, it's because Carl ...
Read in browser Dinner in the Haunted Mansion
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 27, 2013 05:52 pm Holy. Blistering. Crap. There was a dinner inside the Disneyland Haunted Mansion. And I didn't get to go. I literally squealed with delight. It was the most amazing table setting I've ever seen. Fresh flowers, gorgeous vases, elegant table ware, goblets to drink from — it was very overwhelming. From what I could tell, the ...
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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