Locus Poll is open - tell them about your favorite sf/f of 2012 Indiegogo campaign for Latino superhero comic AFA concerned about what children view on the radio Photon 3D Scanner: fold-up easy 3D scanning on IndieGoGo Magma Stainless Steel Grill MONITOR: Los Angeles art punks, 1980 Slideshow of a visit to a dentist Ouya reviewed Behold the grim future of a 1980s boombox ad Deejays suspended for "dihydrogen monoxide" April Fools joke Pong on the side of a skyscraper Trial of the Clone: great choose-your-own-adventure from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal creator Vixen Motorhomes Rare footage of Walt Disney playing with backyard trains in 1948 What walled gardens do to the health of the Web, and what to do about it Attacks on punks and goths are now hate crimes in Manchester Pat Robertson: "simple, humble" foreigners get miracles because they aren't corrupted by education and science Cory's HOW I WORK interview Parents in danger of having six-year-old daughter taken away for letting her walk to their local post office on her own Homophobic, player-abusing coach sacked Stainless steel, refillable Sharpies Butterfly in a skull's eye-socket Ready Player One author Ernest Cline to host pilot of Geek Out TV show Locus Poll is open - tell them about your favorite sf/f of 2012
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 04, 2013 12:55 pm The 43d Locus Poll and Survey is open for your picks of the best science fiction and fantasy of the past year, as well as your survey answers (Locus has been collecting detailed statistical information about science fiction readers for, well, 43 years now). You needn't be a subscriber to fill in the survey, though ...
Read in browser Indiegogo campaign for Latino superhero comic
By David Pescovitz on Apr 04, 2013 12:34 pm Bruce Logan, a director/cinematographer who worked on Tron, Star Wars, Batman Forever, and many other projects, and Richard Soto, an actor/teacher/storyteller, developed a new comic book about a Latino comic book artist who draws to entertain the kids in the barrio. The star of the comic-within-the-comic is an Aztec superhero, El Lobo, who protects the ...
Read in browser AFA concerned about what children view on the radio
By Mark Frauenfelder on Apr 04, 2013 12:29 pm AFA media release: "American society is moving further and further away from the Biblical standards of morals and decency set by God, to the point that we have to worry about what our children view in the supermarket checkout, in their school textbooks, and now even in their own homes on television and radio," said ...
Read in browser Photon 3D Scanner: fold-up easy 3D scanning on IndieGoGo
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 04, 2013 12:07 pm Matterform's Photon 3D Scanner is a $350-$400 IndieGoGo-funded gadget from Canada.
Read in browser Magma Stainless Steel Grill
By Jason Weisberger on Apr 04, 2013 12:05 pm Once again the
Magma BBQ saved my camping trip.
Read in browser MONITOR: Los Angeles art punks, 1980
By David Pescovitz on Apr 04, 2013 11:53 am MONITOR was a short-lived Los Angeles art punk band that first performed on Halloween 1978.
Read in browser Slideshow of a visit to a dentist
By Mark Frauenfelder on Apr 04, 2013 11:43 am Jon Cotner makes commented slideshows of his daily doings. Here's one of his trip to a dentist in New York's Chinatown. Jon says, "Dr. Young is a meticulous dentist who charges just $50 for cleanings. I expect BB readers would be grateful to learn about him!"
Read in browser Ouya reviewed
By Rob Beschizza on Apr 04, 2013 11:36 am Joshua Topolsky at The Verge reviews Ouya, the $100 hackable games console. There's a huge problem with it: a feeble library, the death of many an otherwise great gaming machine. "Many of the 60,000 people who already bought an Ouya [will] just want to turn it on and play some games. Boy, will they be ...
Read in browser Behold the grim future of a 1980s boombox ad
By Rob Beschizza on Apr 04, 2013 10:37 am The city of the future is imprisoned by feathered mullets, dry ice, and the synthesized orchestral hits that result when anyone opens their eyes. [↚ @joeljohnson]
Read in browser Deejays suspended for "dihydrogen monoxide" April Fools joke
By Mark Frauenfelder on Apr 04, 2013 10:25 am Jim Leftwich says: "Two Deejays for "Gator Country 101.9" warned that 'dihydrogen monoxide' was coming out of peoples' water faucets. Georgians panicked. The DJs were 'suspended indefinitely.'" UPDATE: They're back on the air!
Read in browser Pong on the side of a skyscraper
By Rob Beschizza on Apr 04, 2013 10:12 am Britt Faulstick reports on Drexel professor Frank Lee's 29-storey game of Pong: On April 19 and April 24 Philadelphians young and old will have the chance to grab the arcade-style joystick one more time and engage in that timeless quest to spin the bouncing ball past the opponent's paddle – writ large on the 401-foot ...
Read in browser Trial of the Clone: great choose-your-own-adventure from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal creator
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 04, 2013 09:02 am Last summer, Zach Weiner (creator the most excellent Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal webcomic) ran a monumentally successful Kickstarter for a CC-licensed Choose-Your-Own-Adventure title called Trial of the Clone: An Interactive Adventure!. I've finally gotten around to reading my copy and it's an absolute delight. Not only is it witty and often laugh-aloud funny -- it's ...
Read in browser Vixen Motorhomes
By Jason Weisberger on Apr 04, 2013 12:20 am The opening pitch of this video is over-the-top awesome! I can't see how we all didn't end up driving one.
Read in browser Rare footage of Walt Disney playing with backyard trains in 1948
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 03, 2013 10:59 pm Ward and Walt Disney visit the home of Dick Jackson, a wealthy businessman who operated a scale-railroad in the backyard of his Beverly Hills home.
Read in browser What walled gardens do to the health of the Web, and what to do about it
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 03, 2013 08:56 pm David Weinberger took great notes from what sounds like a barn-burner of a talk by Anil Dash at Harvard's Berkman Center on what has happened to the net, and where it's headed: "We have a lot of software that forbids journalism." He refers to the IoS [iphone operating system] Terms of Service for app developers ...
Read in browser Attacks on punks and goths are now hate crimes in Manchester
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 03, 2013 07:58 pm Manchester, England has expanded its hate-crime laws to include attacks on the basis of dress or an "alternative sub-culture identity." The expansion follows on the fatal 2007 attack on Sophie Lancaster, whose attackers chose her because of her goth identity. "People who wish to express their alternative sub-culture identity freely should not have to tolerate ...
Read in browser Pat Robertson: "simple, humble" foreigners get miracles because they aren't corrupted by education and science
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 03, 2013 06:51 pm Pat Robertson scores a "Christ, what an asshole" prize here.
Read in browser Cory's HOW I WORK interview
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 03, 2013 05:54 pm I did a How I Work interview for Lifehacker, where I talked about the tools I use, and how I use them: What apps/software/tools can't you live without? Ubuntu and the suite of GNU tools in any robust Unix system. A good text editor (currently Gedit)—I keep all of my working files at .txts. A ...
Read in browser Parents in danger of having six-year-old daughter taken away for letting her walk to their local post office on her own
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 03, 2013 05:43 pm A reader of Free Range Kids is in danger of having his six-year-old daughter taken into protective services custody because he let her walk a few blocks to the post office in their Ohio town. The kid, Emily, asked for a little independence, and was given permission to take some unsupervised, short walks. Neighbors and ...
Read in browser Homophobic, player-abusing coach sacked
By Rob Beschizza on Apr 03, 2013 02:54 pm Rutgers University somehow didn't get around to firing its abusive, homophobic, slur-spewing basketball coach until months after someone filmed him at it.
Read in browser Stainless steel, refillable Sharpies
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 03, 2013 02:38 pm If you love Sharpies (as I do), but actually manage to hold onto them until they run out, rather than losing them at the rate of several a week (as I do), then you might benefit from the refillable, stainless steel Sharpie ($5.78), which would spare you the sad sensation you get when you drop ...
Read in browser Butterfly in a skull's eye-socket
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 03, 2013 01:44 pm Marko Popadic's photo "Oko" captures a spooky, sweet moment in which a butterfly alights in the eye-socket of a skull. Oko (via Neatorama)
Read in browser Ready Player One author Ernest Cline to host pilot of Geek Out TV show
By Mark Frauenfelder on Apr 03, 2013 01:41 pm The premise for AMC's Geek Out (working title) sounds fun. The pilot will be hosted by Ernest Cline, author of Ready Player One, one of my favorite science fiction novels. Geek Out will feature Cline and his co-host as they pay it forward by traveling the country and surprising obsessed fans. Whether it be 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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