Suburban Express bus-line sends bullying, cowardly legal threat to Reddit, discovers Streisand Effect Japanese Star Wars poster dresses Bath salts in Britain Automated constrained poetry, made from Markov Chains and Project Gutenberg Congress fixes "sequester" air traffic control disaster just in time for their own flights home Chiller "Pucs" for your whiskey, etc on Kickstarter Boston troopers recount aerial spotting of bombing suspect in boat List of British words not widely used in the United States An app with which to track gunfire from your smartphone Student wrongly linked to Boston bombings (by Reddit users) found dead In Japan, a new hairdo idea: "Ripe Tomato" Tracking the hunger strike in Guantánamo: infographic In defense of Reddit (with regard to the Boston bombing, and crowdsourced sleuthing) US budget sequester means thousands of chemotherapy patients on Medicare turned away Wikileaks wins in Iceland's Supreme Court court over credit card payment blockade NZ Press Council finds against statement saying "Homeopathic remedies have failed every randomised, evidence-based scientific study seeking to verify their claims of healing powers" Documentary about the craft and philosophy of wooden boat carpentry Gweek 092: Cartoonist Lucy Knisley US government sends itself a takedown notice over JFK documentary: you decide what to do! Guatemala: March for assassinated priest, and justice, as genocide trial remains in limbo Guatemala: "A Trial of Two Languages," video update from the Rios Montt genocide tribunal Not your great-great-grandfather's consumption Download a dinosaur (or 17) How animals pass disease to humans Why the most horrible apple in the world is also the most grown Where does "new car smell" come from? HOWTO die at Burning Man Which is more painful? Childbirth vs. Getting kicked in the nuts Oh, the perils of being a reporter on the marijuana beat, which include getting very high A profile of the person behind the Boston Police Twitter account Suburban Express bus-line sends bullying, cowardly legal threat to Reddit, discovers Streisand Effect
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 27, 2013 12:47 pm A convicted cybersquatter named Dennis Toeppen now runs the Suburban Express bus service that is used to take students home from university in Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa to Chicago. Suburban Express attracts many online complaints from riders who object to the company's policy of fining riders $100 (charged automatically to their ticket-purchase credit-card) if they ...
Read in browser Japanese Star Wars poster dresses
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 27, 2013 11:55 am These Star Wars dresses are apparently coming to Hot Topic at some unspecified time in the future. Her Universe Teases Star Wars Dresses, Makes Us Drool
Read in browser Bath salts in Britain
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 27, 2013 11:00 am The Guardian's Mike Power investigated the "legal highs" industry and found a pretty disturbing world where you can get kilos of LSD, cannabis and MDMA replacement couriered to you for a pittance. But unlike the drugs they replace, these ones are potentially lethal, and sold interchangeably to unsuspecting neuronauts and punters.
Read in browser Automated constrained poetry, made from Markov Chains and Project Gutenberg
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 27, 2013 09:51 am A "Snowball" is a poem "in which each line is a single word, and each successive word is one letter longer." Nossidge built an automated Snowball generator that uses Markov Chains, pulling text from Project Gutenberg. It's written in C++, with code on GitHub. The results are rather beautiful poems (these ones are "mostly Dickens"): ...
Read in browser Congress fixes "sequester" air traffic control disaster just in time for their own flights home
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 27, 2013 09:00 am The Congressional deadlock known as the sequester has been tough on America, especially on travellers, as air traffic controllers found themselves with mandatory 10% paycuts (attained through one-day-in-ten furloughs) and the delays on good-weather days at major airports like JFK shot up to snowpocalypse-like 2-3 hour slogs. But don't worry, Congress is on it! They've ...
Read in browser Chiller "Pucs" for your whiskey, etc on Kickstarter
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 26, 2013 11:23 pm An extremely successful Kickstarter project ($41K raised on a $2500 goal, with 36 days left) promises stainless steel chiller pucks to go in your drinks. They're rather nice to look at, and promise not to impart any flavors, nor water down your bevvy. These are rather similar to the (controversial) Coffee Joulies from 2011, and ...
Read in browser Boston troopers recount aerial spotting of bombing suspect in boat
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 26, 2013 09:45 pm "We were there like that. We do this day in, day out. This is what we do. We went over and when I put that [infrared camera] on the boat, I was actually shocked that not only did I see there was a heat source, but I got a perfect human silhouette. That doesn't happen ...
Read in browser List of British words not widely used in the United States
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 26, 2013 09:42 pm Here's a nifty Wikipedia entry: List of British words not widely used in the United States. One must be very careful not to confuse one's "bell-ends" with one's "fag ends." (HT: @FlaixEnglish)
Read in browser An app with which to track gunfire from your smartphone
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 26, 2013 09:36 pm "A team of computer engineers from Vanderbilt University's Institute of Software Integrated Systems has made such a scenario possible by developing an inexpensive hardware module and related software that can transform an Android smartphone into a simple shooter location system." [phys.org]
Read in browser Student wrongly linked to Boston bombings (by Reddit users) found dead
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 26, 2013 09:35 pm The body of 22-year-old Sunil Tripathi was "pulled from the water off India Point Park in Rhode Island," reports USA Today. Sunil was the student mistakenly linked to the Boston bombings by users on Reddit. "It was not immediately clear when Tripathi, who was last seen March 15, died," nor has a cause of death ...
Read in browser In Japan, a new hairdo idea: "Ripe Tomato"
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 26, 2013 09:25 pm Brian Ashcraft at Kotaku blogs about a neat idea for a hair style from a stylist in Japan. It's called "Ripe Tomato" ("kanjuku tomato" or 完熟トマト), and was created by "Hiro" at a salon in Osaka called "Trick Store", in the trendy Amemura district. Read: You'll Never Forget Japan's Tomato Hairdo.
Read in browser Tracking the hunger strike in Guantánamo: infographic
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 26, 2013 09:22 pm A notable multimedia reporting project: "The U.S. military tally of hunger strikers at Guantánamo since the prison camp acknowledged the protest was under way in March." [MiamiHerald.com]
Read in browser In defense of Reddit (with regard to the Boston bombing, and crowdsourced sleuthing)
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 26, 2013 09:16 pm "Law enforcement agencies regularly turn to sites like Websleuths.com to help crack cold cases. Maybe there's hope for Reddit," writes Tim Murphy in a piece at Mother Jones. Redditors have, for years, worked to use the resources of crowds as a force for good. There's an entire subreddit dedicated to Redditors ordering pizzas for families ...
Read in browser US budget sequester means thousands of chemotherapy patients on Medicare turned away
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 26, 2013 09:08 pm Once again, America's government screws over cancer patients: "Most of Medicare was shielded from the sequester, but because chemotherapy is funded by part of the program that was not, clinics are starting to turn away thousands of patients because they say they can't afford to provide treatments at the reduced rate." [NPR, thanks Amy]
Read in browser Wikileaks wins in Iceland's Supreme Court court over credit card payment blockade
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 26, 2013 09:06 pm In Iceland, Wikileaks has won a victory against a financial blockade on donations. "The court upheld a district court's ruling that MasterCard's local partner, Valitor, illegally ended its contract with Wikileaks," reports BBC News.
Read in browser NZ Press Council finds against statement saying "Homeopathic remedies have failed every randomised, evidence-based scientific study seeking to verify their claims of healing powers"
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 26, 2013 09:04 pm Juha sez, "Amazingly enough, New Zealand's North and South magazine has lost in the NZ Press Council, after a homeopath filed a complaint against an article that stated: 'Homeopathic remedies have failed every randomised, evidence-based scientific study seeking to verify their claims of healing powers.'" "Mr Stuart [a homeopath] supplied the Press Council with a ...
Read in browser Documentary about the craft and philosophy of wooden boat carpentry
By Mark Frauenfelder on Apr 26, 2013 08:19 pm Kat Gardiner directed this lovely short documentary about the craft and philosophy of wooden boat carpentry called "Shaped on all Six Sides."
Read in browser Gweek 092: Cartoonist Lucy Knisley
By Mark Frauenfelder on Apr 26, 2013 07:46 pm Dean Putney and I interviewed Lucy Knisley, one of my favorite cartoonists. From her website: Lucy is an illustrator, comic artist and author. Occasionally she is a puppeteer, ukulele player and food/travel writer. She likes books, sewing, bicycles, food you can eat with a spoon, ornery cats, art you can climb on, manatees, nice pens, ...
Read in browser US government sends itself a takedown notice over JFK documentary: you decide what to do!
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 26, 2013 06:58 pm One agency of the federal government has issued a takedown notice to another agency of the federal government, which in turn demanded that we remove a film from the Internet.
Read in browser Guatemala: March for assassinated priest, and justice, as genocide trial remains in limbo
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 26, 2013 06:04 pm In Guatemala City today, a demonstration to honor Monsignor Juan José Gerardi Conedera, and to call for the genocide trial of Rios Montt to continue. Image: NISGUA. Today here in Guatemala, demonstrators marched through the streets of the capital to honor the life of Bishop Juan Gerardi, a Catholic priest and human rights champion. He ...
Read in browser Guatemala: "A Trial of Two Languages," video update from the Rios Montt genocide tribunal
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 26, 2013 05:50 pm This video "captures that extraordinary moment when Judge Barrios ruled to continue the trial."
Read in browser Not your great-great-grandfather's consumption
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Apr 26, 2013 05:40 pm Tuberculosis — aka, the reason everybody in 19th century literature is always coughing up blood, escaping to the countryside for "better air", or dying tragically young — is back. And this time, it's evolved a resistance to antibiotics. In fact, in a handful of cases, tuberculosis has been resistant to every single antibiotic available to ...
Read in browser Download a dinosaur (or 17)
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Apr 26, 2013 05:34 pm Now you can download 17 digital versions of dinosaur bodies created by scientists at the UK's The Royal Veterinary College, Hatfield, and other institutions. The bodies were made for a study of the biomechanics of dinosaurs — essentially, an attempt to reverse engineer some knowledge of how dinosaurs moved and how body shape and movement ...
Read in browser How animals pass disease to humans
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Apr 26, 2013 05:23 pm Given the ongoing outbreak of H7N9 flu in China (and, now, also Taiwan), this is a good time to listen to a fascinating podcast discussion with David Quammen. Quammen recently published a FANTASTIC book, Spillover, about zoonoses — the diseases that humans contract from animals. This includes bird flus like H7N9. It also includes AIDS ...
Read in browser Why the most horrible apple in the world is also the most grown
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Apr 26, 2013 05:10 pm Despite almost universal agreement that basically defines "so boring as to become disgusting", the Red Delicious apple continues to be the most-grown variety in the US. More than 50,000 bushels of the vile things are turned out every year. This story by Rowan Jacobsen in Mother Jones explains the Red Delicious' undeserved success and follows ...
Read in browser Where does "new car smell" come from?
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Apr 26, 2013 04:59 pm The answer lies in another question. How can PVC — polyvinyl chloride, a commonly used type of plastic — be the stuff that makes tough, rigid sewer pipes and, simultaneously, be the stuff that makes floppy vinyl signs and cheap Goth pants? "PVC is hard stuff. But if you put in a lot of plasticizer, ...
Read in browser HOWTO die at Burning Man
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 26, 2013 04:55 pm M Otis Beard sez, "You don't often hear about the deaths that happen at Burning Man. Here is an overview that just might save your life." Be that as it may, Black Rock City has extraordinarily low mortality compared to comparably populated/sized areas in the USA.
Read in browser Which is more painful? Childbirth vs. Getting kicked in the nuts
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Apr 26, 2013 04:35 pm One thing we can agree on: They both hurt an awful lot.
Read in browser Oh, the perils of being a reporter on the marijuana beat, which include getting very high
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 26, 2013 04:26 pm An important lesson about unique occupational hazards
Read in browser A profile of the person behind the Boston Police Twitter account
By Xeni Jardin on Apr 26, 2013 04:17 pm HuffPo profiles Cheryl Fiandaca, the bureau chief of public information for the Boston police department, a former attorney and television journalist. The @Boston_Police's "CAPTURED!" tweet was retweeted about 143,000 times.
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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