South Korea lives in the future (of brutal copyright enforcement) North Korean leader Kim Jong-Eun is a Mac Guy Caturday Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours," depicted in crayon UFO memo the FBI's most viewed Mr Unpronounceable Adventures, spectacularly weird graphic novel in a Lovecraftian/Burroughsian vein Fake penis fails drug test KISS/Hello Kitty TV show in development Maine Zumba instructor pleads guilty to prostitution charges Little Mermaid tights Group whose Wikipedia entry was deleted for non-notability threatens lawsuit against Wikipedian who participated in the discussion ATM skimming comes to non-ATM payment terminals in train stations, etc Toronto Mayor Rob Ford about to lose his job coaching high-school football? Interview with Wrong director Quentin Dupieux A baby can be a funeral for a friendship US Border Patrol uses horses to secure Mexican border Lessons learned from YouTube's $300M "Original Channel" fund Chocolate Bunny family (photo) Bollywood Easter: Images of Christ in '70s poster art from India IKEA-style vibrator It's tin foil hats, all the way down Why can't we prevent asteroid strikes? Read the previously unpublished letters of Charles Darwin Do GMOs yield more food? The answer is in the semantics Zealous preacher bingo card Minneapolis SkepTech conference, coming April 5/6 More evidence linking fracking wastewater disposal to earthquakes Gas masks for babies, 1940 Ouya, $100 Android game console, ships to early backers Apple's security problems South Korea lives in the future (of brutal copyright enforcement)
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 30, 2013 12:13 pm The US-Korean Free Trade Agreement came with a raft of draconian enforcement rules that Korea -- then known as a world leader in network use and literacy -- would have to adopt. Korea has since become a living lab of the impact of letting US entertainment giants design your Internet policy -- and the example ...
Read in browser North Korean leader Kim Jong-Eun is a Mac Guy
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 30, 2013 11:09 am As Anthony DeRosa of Reuters points out, Li'l Kim appears to be using Apple computer products in the most recent round of state propaganda photo campaign. Stop laughing, says The Atlantic.
Read in browser Caturday
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 30, 2013 10:55 am "That's the stuff: Ralph The Cat," a photo by Darren Sethe of Portland, Oregon, shared in the Boing Boing Flickr pool.
Read in browser Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours," depicted in crayon
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 30, 2013 10:50 am Boing Boing reader @ayleph tweeted at us: "Fleetwood Mac's Rumors album cover, depicted in crayon. Found at Sonic Boom in Ballard." [that's Seattle, WA]. Click pic to grande-fy.
Read in browser UFO memo the FBI's most viewed
By Rob Beschizza on Mar 30, 2013 09:03 am An unconfirmed report of a UFO over New Mexico is the most popular item in the FBI's online reading room, the agency reports. Russell Contreras with the AP: Vaguely written, the memo describes a story told by an unnamed third party who claims an Air Force investigator reported that three flying saucers were recovered in ...
Read in browser Mr Unpronounceable Adventures, spectacularly weird graphic novel in a Lovecraftian/Burroughsian vein
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 30, 2013 09:00 am Mr Unpronounceable Adventures is a book of comics by Australian surrealist artist Tim Molloy in a Lovecraftian vein. But that only scratches the surface here. Molloy is incredibly fucking weird, and not always in a funny-ha-ha way (though there's plenty of that). The story loops around and around, almost making sense, almost following a narrative, ...
Read in browser Fake penis fails drug test
By Rob Beschizza on Mar 30, 2013 08:56 am Police in St Louis charged 34-year-old Sydney Levin with using an artificial penis, the Whizzinator, to complete a urine test. The Whizzinator's been helping idiots get busted—including its creators—since 2005.
Read in browser KISS/Hello Kitty TV show in development
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2013 11:05 pm 2010's KISS x Hello Kitty clothing line has spawned a TV show about a Hello Kitty rock band that dresses in KISS makeup: Yes, I'm serious: Kiss Hello Kitty (working title) is now in development, and it's based on this line of Kiss x Hello Kitty products, which made its debut in 2010. The show ...
Read in browser Maine Zumba instructor pleads guilty to prostitution charges
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 29, 2013 10:01 pm A Zumba aerobics dance instructor who ran a prostitution business on the side (while collecting welfare assistance) pleaded guilty in a Portland, ME court today. Alexis Wright's male business partner has been convicted of co-running the sex business with her. The plea deal means there will be no trial in which jurors would have had ...
Read in browser Little Mermaid tights
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2013 08:53 pm Hot Topic seems to have borrowed a trick from Australian pop-culture leggings favorite Black Milk with a line of Disney-licensed Little Mermaid full-print tights. Hot Topic's version costs about 75 percent less than the Black Milk stuff (and no shipping or duty for US buyers) -- though I have no idea whether they're comparable in ...
Read in browser Group whose Wikipedia entry was deleted for non-notability threatens lawsuit against Wikipedian who participated in the discussion
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2013 08:13 pm Benjamin Mako Hill writes, "Last year, I participated in a discussion on Wikipedia that led to the deletion of an article about the "Institute for Cultural Diplomacy." Because I edit Wikipedia using my real name, the ICD was able to track me down. Over the last month or so, they threated me with legal action ...
Read in browser ATM skimming comes to non-ATM payment terminals in train stations, etc
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2013 06:43 pm ATM skimming isn't limited to ATMs! There are lots of terminals that ask you to swipe your card and/or enter a PIN, and many of them are less well-armored and -policed than actual cashpoints. Skimmers have been found on train-ticket machines, parking meters and other payment terminals. Once a crook has got your card number ...
Read in browser Toronto Mayor Rob Ford about to lose his job coaching high-school football?
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2013 05:57 pm Critics of Rob Ford, Toronto's laughable bumblefuck of a mayor, will tell you that at least he's good at teaching high-school football (maybe the only thing he truly enjoys). So it's newsworthy that the schools for which he coaches are considering firing him, and he won't show up to meetings to discuss his misconduct. The ...
Read in browser Interview with Wrong director Quentin Dupieux
By Advertiser on Mar 29, 2013 04:38 pm ADVERTISEMENT The following is a sponsored post: There's nothing quite right about this hilariously delirious clip from Wrong, which hits theaters throughout the country this Friday and is already available on iTunes, featuring a suspicious gardner explaining the impossible overnight transformation of an everyday Californian palm tree to an evergreen. Its one of the many, ...
Read in browser A baby can be a funeral for a friendship
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 29, 2013 04:38 pm Photo: AlexSutula, Shutterstock Jeff Simmermon, who writes funny essays and does funny standup, has a great new piece up on his blog. Five of my friends have had babies in the last two weeks. The birth of a baby is supposed to be a happy thing, but it can also be a funeral for a ...
Read in browser US Border Patrol uses horses to secure Mexican border
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 29, 2013 04:37 pm Erin Siegal "Immigration enforcement and drug smuggling continue to be top priorities for the Department of Homeland Security, and the Border Patrol's budget has swelled accordingly, increasing from just $262,647 in 1990 to over $3.5 million dollars in the 2012 fiscal year," reports photojournalist Erin Siegal of ABC/Univision, in Mexico. "They've added more agents, more ...
Read in browser Lessons learned from YouTube's $300M "Original Channel" fund
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2013 04:36 pm Hank was one of the recipients of the YouTube $300M "Original Channel" fund, and recounts some of his lessons learned: * Spending more money to produce the same number of minutes of content does not increase viewership. Online video isn't about how good it looks, it's about how good it is. * People who make ...
Read in browser Chocolate Bunny family (photo)
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 29, 2013 04:17 pm "Lindt Bunny Family," a photo shared in the Boing Boing Flickr pool by Paul J. "Leave them alone, and they multiply."
Read in browser Bollywood Easter: Images of Christ in '70s poster art from India
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 29, 2013 04:05 pm My brother Carl Hamm (Twitter), who is a club and radio DJ and a collector of obscure but excellent global stuff, shares the images in this post and says: There's a long tradition of Indian poster art which was probably at its height in the 1970s but goes back many many years before then. Youve ...
Read in browser IKEA-style vibrator
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2013 03:53 pm LELO, a Swedish sex-toy company, has produced an IKEA-style, assemble-it-yourself vibrator called GӒSM (what else?) that comes with its own Allen key.
Read in browser It's tin foil hats, all the way down
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 29, 2013 03:50 pm In 2010, scientists published a paper on conspiracist ideation as it applied to both climate change and the moon landing. This year, the published a second paper — about the conspiracy theories that sprung up in response to their previous research.
Read in browser Why can't we prevent asteroid strikes?
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 29, 2013 03:38 pm Asteroids: Yet more evidence that (as a society) we aren't very good at prioritizing preventative measures against long-term risks.
Read in browser Read the previously unpublished letters of Charles Darwin
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 29, 2013 03:30 pm More than 1000 letters written between Charles Darwin and botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker, including 300 never before published, are now available free online for your reading and research pleasure.
Read in browser Do GMOs yield more food? The answer is in the semantics
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 29, 2013 03:21 pm Today, on Twitter, I learned something new and interesting from environmental reporter Paul Voosen. Over the years, I've run into reports (like this one from the Union of Concerned Scientists) showing that genetically modified crops — i.e. Roundup Ready corn and soybeans, which is really the stuff we're talking about most of the time in ...
Read in browser Zealous preacher bingo card
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2013 03:10 pm The Fuck Yeah Atheism blog responded to a campus fire-and-brimstone preacher by creating a Zealous Preacher Bingo card, turning Preacher Tom into fun for the whole school: "I created Zealous Preacher Bingo cards, with a few friends' suggestions for spaces. We gave out candy to anyone who won." Zealous Preacher Bingo (via Wil Wheaton)
Read in browser Minneapolis SkepTech conference, coming April 5/6
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 29, 2013 03:09 pm Next week, I'll be speaking at the SkepTech Conference, a new gathering put together by University of Minnesota students. The lineup features some great folks from the science and skeptic communities, including bloggers PZ Myers and Hemant Mehta, and Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal cartoonist Zach Weinersmith. Registration is free. Come check it out!
Read in browser More evidence linking fracking wastewater disposal to earthquakes
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 29, 2013 03:03 pm Here at BoingBoing, we've talked before about the fact that earthquakes can be triggered by things humans do — everything from building particularly large reservoir to, most likely, injecting wastewater from fracking operations into underground wells. After a 5.7 earthquake hit Oklahoma in 2011, researchers there began gathering evidence that is making the link between ...
Read in browser Gas masks for babies, 1940
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2013 02:03 pm From the Imperial War Museum in London, a couple of incredible photos of nurses testing out infant gas-masks: "Three nurses carry babies cocooned in baby gas respirators down the corridor of a London hospital during a gas drill. Note the carrying handle on the respirator used to carry the baby by the nurse in the ...
Read in browser Ouya, $100 Android game console, ships to early backers
By Rob Beschizza on Mar 29, 2013 01:10 pm Ouya, the $100 game console, is already shipping to Kickstarter backers who helped the Android-based project get going last year. For the rest of us, there's an official retail release date: June 4. Bloomberg: About 55 games will be available with today's release, according to [Ouya founder Julie] Uhrman. The cube-shaped player uses a version ...
Read in browser Apple's security problems
By Rob Beschizza on Mar 29, 2013 01:02 pm At The Verge, Tim Carmody reports on Apple's seeming inability to get to grips with account security. "The conventional wisdom is that this was a run-of-the-mill software security issue. ... No. It isn't. It's a troubling symptom that suggests Apple's self-admittedly bumpy transition from a maker of beautiful devices to a fully-fledged cloud services provider ...
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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