Game of Thrones S3E4: This is Madness Rothko toast Musical comment on TSA pornoscanners Fraudster sold fake bomb detectors to Iraq Man jailed for three months for "pixie porn" UK ISPs betray customers, collaborate on government surveillance Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Jonzun Crew and Beyond China Mieville's turn-it-to-11 high weirdness reboot of "Dial H" Nemo, Found. Petition to get a plaque commemorating Isaac Asimov in Philadelphia Early American tombstone euphemisms for death Modern Manhunt: FBI, Hive Mind, Boston Bombers Canadian police: "al-Qaeda-supported" plot to derail train thwarted Watch the latest video posts in the Boing Boing video archive Why was the suspected Boston Bomber charged with using a "weapon of mass destruction"? High density foam rollers for post workout massage Transcript of Boston Bombing suspect's bedside hearing (yes, he was Mirandized) Let's Bring Digital Liberties into the Big Conversation Gaiman on the future of publishing: be dandelions! Boston Marathon bombing: first-person stories, in audio Real Stuff - fantastic 90s comic book, serialized on Boing Boing Gweek 091: Dennis Eichhorn & Neat Stuff Hong Kong Disneyland's Mystic Manor - an RFID/WiFi/electroluminscent driven spook-house for the XXI C. Finnish websites go dark tomorrow to call for copyright reform World Book Night is tomorrow! FBI: we didn't track elder bombing suspect Lincoln Continental Buzzfeed fingers bombing suspect in triple homicide based on Internet comments Judge whose cellphone went off in court holds self in contempt Use Instagram to reverse engineer food Game of Thrones S3E4: This is Madness
By Leigh Alexander on Apr 23, 2013 12:20 pm A friend of mine has a very bleak assessment of Game of Thrones: If you love a character, they'll die unfulfilled. If you hate a character, you'll come to learn how they became so hateful and start to love them, and then they try to redeem themselves and die unfulfilled. It's not quite like that, ...
Read in browser Rothko toast
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 23, 2013 12:02 pm SFMOMA's cafe is now serving "Rothko Toast," spread in a manner reminiscent of Rothko's "No. 14, 1960." Behold: Rothko toast, the latest artsy menu item SFMOMA's café on Third Street. Like the work that inspired it ("No. 14, 1960") the toast features two tones of color (apricot butter and wild blueberry jam, in this case). ...
Read in browser Musical comment on TSA pornoscanners
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 23, 2013 11:03 am I saw
Cory's post about the TSA accepting comments on the full body scanners and decided I'd give them a piece of my mind - in song.
Read in browser Fraudster sold fake bomb detectors to Iraq
By Rob Beschizza on Apr 23, 2013 10:55 am The BBC: Millionaire businessman James McCormick, 56, has been convicted at the Old Bailey of three counts of fraud after selling fake bomb detectors.The Advanced Detection Equipment was based on a golf ball finder device and sold for up to $40,000 (£27,000) in Iraq, Georgia, Saudi Arabia and Niger. A particularly sociopathic scam, when you ...
Read in browser Man jailed for three months for "pixie porn"
By Rob Beschizza on Apr 23, 2013 10:29 am In New Zealand, "cartoon fantasy creatures" led to a conviction for possessing child porn. A man has been jailed for watching cartoon videos of fantasy creatures having sex. Ronald Clark downloaded the Japanese anime cartoons three years ago, setting in train events that would see him in court in Auckland and jailed for three months ...
Read in browser UK ISPs betray customers, collaborate on government surveillance
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 23, 2013 10:00 am Britain's Communications Data Bill -- AKA the Snooper's Charter -- would effectively eliminate private communications in the UK, giving government and the police the power to spy on virtually everything you do online (which is rapidly merging with everything you do, full stop). The major ISPs in the UK have apparently been turned to the ...
Read in browser Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Jonzun Crew and Beyond
By Ed Piskor on Apr 23, 2013 09:36 am Read the rest of the Hip Hop Family Tree comics!
Read in browser China Mieville's turn-it-to-11 high weirdness reboot of "Dial H"
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 23, 2013 09:20 am DC's "New 52" is a reboot of all its major superhero comics and several of its less-regarded ones. In the latter category is a silly Silver Age title called Dial H for Hero about a lad from Littleville, CO who can turn into a variety of randomly selected superheroes by dialling "H-E-R-O" on a weird ...
Read in browser Nemo, Found.
By Jason Weisberger on Apr 22, 2013 11:49 pm Welcome home, Nemo! Today the fine folks at Great Pyrenees Rescue of Northern California placed Nemo in my family. Happily filling the Calliope-sized hole in my heart with this very large, extremely joyful young guy. Sometime in early January an abandoned Great Pyr gave birth to a litter of seven. They were found a few ...
Read in browser Petition to get a plaque commemorating Isaac Asimov in Philadelphia
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 22, 2013 10:43 pm Science fiction author Michael Swanwick sez, "In my adopted hometown of Philadelphia there's a move afoot to put up a plaque where Isaac Asimov lived while he was working (and writing seminal Foundation and Robot stories) at the Naval Yard during WWII. Asimov hated Philadelphia while he lived here but came back for the conventions ...
Read in browser Early American tombstone euphemisms for death
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 22, 2013 09:38 pm In 2008, Caitlin GD Hopkins collected 101 euphemisms for "died" from early American epitaphs. The epitaphs came from tombstones pre-1825, to qualify, the euphemism had to appear in the main text of the tombstone ("Here lies Fred; born 1801, laid himself to rest 1824"), not in the verse below it ("He was a nice guy"). ...
Read in browser Modern Manhunt: FBI, Hive Mind, Boston Bombers
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 22, 2013 08:25 pm At Wired News' Danger Room, Spencer Ackerman's feature on the technology and crowdsourcing dynamics that allowed law enforcement to identify the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing so rapidly. "Hiding in plain sight was an ocean of data, from torrents of photography to cell-tower information to locals' memories, waiting to be exploited." [Wired.com]
Read in browser Canadian police: "al-Qaeda-supported" plot to derail train thwarted
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 22, 2013 08:06 pm Police in Canada have arrested two men they accuse of conspiring to commit an "al-Qaeda supported" attack that was to derail a passenger train in the Greater Toronto Area. The arrests are the result of cross-border investigation which also involved US law enforcement. Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, of Montreal, and Raed Jaser, 35, from Toronto, are ...
Read in browser Watch the latest video posts in the Boing Boing video archive
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 22, 2013 07:57 pm We've gathered fresh video for you to surf and enjoy on the Boing Boing video page. The latest finds for your viewing pleasure include: • Hong Kong Disneyland's Mystic Manor. • Filter can separate water from Coke. • Harrison Ford doesn't answer Star Wars questions on Kimmel. • Cop: "Phones can be converted to a ...
Read in browser Why was the suspected Boston Bomber charged with using a "weapon of mass destruction"?
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 22, 2013 07:55 pm Writes Spencer Ackerman at Wired's Danger Room: A "weapon of mass destruction" is "a very broad category under federal law. Grenades, mines, missiles and rockets all apply. So do homemade bombs of the sort Tsarnaev allegedly constructed."
Read in browser High density foam rollers for post workout massage
By Cool Tools on Apr 22, 2013 07:45 pm I didn’t know I had knots in my calves, but I did. I spend a lot of time at the computer, and I play some video games, which means that I tense my calves involuntarily and and they get knotted. When I started working out about a year ago, I hired a trainer. The end ...
Read in browser Transcript of Boston Bombing suspect's bedside hearing (yes, he was Mirandized)
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 22, 2013 06:30 pm Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, has been charged in a criminal complaint over the bombing of the Boston Marathon. He appeared before a federal magistrate who came to his bedside at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He nodded affirmatively in response to questions, but spoke only one word: "no," after the magistrate asked him if he could ...
Read in browser Let's Bring Digital Liberties into the Big Conversation
By Aengus Anderson on Apr 22, 2013 06:15 pm Photo: Shutterstock We've been CISPA'd again. For a second year the US House has passed the embarrassingly vague Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, a bill that could scatter your personal information like a tornado hitting a trailer park. Echoing last year, the Obama administration has threatened to veto CISPA if it fails to incorporate ...
Read in browser Gaiman on the future of publishing: be dandelions!
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 22, 2013 06:00 pm Neil Gaiman's talk on the future of publishing at the London Book Fair? The Twitters liked it, and I like it too.
Read in browser Boston Marathon bombing: first-person stories, in audio
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 22, 2013 05:56 pm The New York Times has a beautiful interactive feature with audio narratives from "some of the people seen near the finish line." What is most striking about the interactive design: as you scroll down the page to listen to each story, you see where each person was in the still image from NBC's broadcast of ...
Read in browser Real Stuff - fantastic 90s comic book, serialized on Boing Boing
By Mark Frauenfelder on Apr 22, 2013 05:52 pm "The amount of violence and fighting Eichhorn has been involved in is, in itself, astonishing to one such as me. But he is also gifted with a good sense of humor, irony and self criticism, so that he has been able to turn his life experiences into good stories." – Robert Crumb Read in browser Gweek 091: Dennis Eichhorn & Neat Stuff
By Mark Frauenfelder on Apr 22, 2013 05:46 pm Dennis Eichhorn launched the autobiographical comic book, Real Stuff, in 1990. Dennis has had some of the strangest life experiences you can imagine, and he comes across as a person who is adventurous, compassionate, curious, and enjoys laughing at himself. Best of all, he is a terrific storyteller. Real Stuff is one of my favorite ...
Read in browser Hong Kong Disneyland's Mystic Manor - an RFID/WiFi/electroluminscent driven spook-house for the XXI C.
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 22, 2013 04:56 pm Hong Kong Disneyland is finally going to get its own Haunted Mansion.
Read in browser Finnish websites go dark tomorrow to call for copyright reform
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 22, 2013 04:25 pm As I've written before, Finland has an amazing grassroots legislation system that allows citizens to put any proposal with more than 50,000 popular endorsements to a Parliamentary vote, and the test-case for it is an eminently sensible copyright reform proposal that has been wildly successful. Tomorrow, Finnish websites will go dark and invite their readers ...
Read in browser World Book Night is tomorrow!
By Amy Seidenwurm on Apr 22, 2013 03:54 pm Library Lab posted about World Book Night applications a couple of months ago and it's coming up tomorrow. According their website, "World Book Night is an annual celebration dedicated to spreading the love of reading, person to person. Each year on April 23, tens of thousands of people go out into their communities and ...
Read in browser FBI: we didn't track elder bombing suspect
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 22, 2013 03:50 pm Responding to claims from the mother of the two Boston bombing suspects, the FBI said today it had not been tracking her oldest son, nor had the bureau spoken with him last week after the deadly marathon bombing. The only communication the FBI claims to have ever had with Tamerlan Tsarnaev "was an interview agents ...
Read in browser Lincoln Continental
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 22, 2013 03:26 pm Three ads for tailfinned Lincoln Continentals are a reminder that one of the best ways to make something amazingly beautiful is to make a million mediocre and terrible things and wait half a century (or more) until the good ones have risen to the top. The suicide door was incredibly dumb, but it sure looked ...
Read in browser Buzzfeed fingers bombing suspect in triple homicide based on Internet comments
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 22, 2013 03:06 pm Over at Buzzfeed, Rosie Gray seems pretty sure deceased bombing suspect Tamarlan Tsarnaev may well be responsible for a triple homicide. Based on Instagram comments and tweets. Seems legit.
Read in browser Judge whose cellphone went off in court holds self in contempt
By Rob Beschizza on Apr 22, 2013 02:26 pm Judge Raymond Voet, presiding in Ionia County 64A District Court in Michigan, has a policy stating that any gadget that goes off during proceedings will earn the owner a contempt citation. When his own cellphone went off, he fined himself $25. "Judges are humans," Voet said. "They're not above the rules. I broke the rule ...
Read in browser Use Instagram to reverse engineer food
By Mark Frauenfelder on Apr 22, 2013 02:21 pm Leo Kent of Humans Invent writes about a new free service in Sweden that uses Instagram to find out how to make Asian food. Ask CT Food is a new service people can use through Instagram to find out the ingredients and methods of cooking Asian food. If you’re at a restaurant and want to ...
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