PetaPixel interviews photographer Clark Little Heather Gold's "I Look like An Egg, but I Identify as a Cookie" interactive baking comedy comes to the East Bay (free tix!) Ice-cube-tray in a bottle Reprints of classic EC comic book stories by Jack Davis and Al Williamson Consensual kidnapping service, inspired by The Game How DC insiders launder insider market information for the rich How the global hyper-rich have turned central London into a lights-out ghost-town Black leopard compared to black house cat Bank pays for costumed flashmob to recreate Rembrandt's Nightwatch in a mall Batman/Bauhaus t-shirt Suburban Lawns: Long Beach post-punk FAQ: When will your book be made into a movie? Animal sculptures from thrift store plastic Hubble Space Telescope control console on eBay 4D printing and programmable matter PetaPixel interviews photographer Clark Little
By Jason Weisberger on Apr 06, 2013 12:57 pm PetaPixel has an incredible interview up with Clark Little and showcases many of his fabulous surf photos.
Read in browser Heather Gold's "I Look like An Egg, but I Identify as a Cookie" interactive baking comedy comes to the East Bay (free tix!)
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 06, 2013 12:47 pm Years and years ago, I saw Heather Gold's innovative, interactive baking comedy "I Look like An Egg, but I Identify As A Cookie" in San Francisco. It was fabulous. Now it's about to have its debut in the East Bay: While baking chocolate chip cookies with the audience and special guests (Bakesale Betty), Gold combines ...
Read in browser Ice-cube-tray in a bottle
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 06, 2013 11:58 am The "Polar Bear Ice Tray" is a sealed bottle that makes icecubes and then facilitates their easy removal. The sealed container keeps freezer flavors away, and once it's all frozen, you can dislodge the ice by giving the bottle a whack on a countertop and then pour it out of the mouth. Looks like a ...
Read in browser Reprints of classic EC comic book stories by Jack Davis and Al Williamson
By Mark Frauenfelder on Apr 06, 2013 10:52 am EC is best known as the publisher of MAD, but they also published a line of horror and science fiction comics that featured some of the best cartoonists and writers in the history of comics. Today, Fantagraphics released two beautiful hardbound books that collect the work of two of their superstars: Al Williamson and Jack ...
Read in browser Consensual kidnapping service, inspired by The Game
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 06, 2013 08:53 am Adam Thick, an ex-con who did time for counterfeiting, runs a company called Extreme Kidnapping, which stages consensual kidnappings for fees ranging from $500 to $1000 (he was inspired by the movie The Game). GQ magazine gave him $1500 to kidnap a writer called Drew Magary and hold him overnight, torturing and terrorizing him to ...
Read in browser How DC insiders launder insider market information for the rich
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 05, 2013 10:32 pm We already know that Congresscritters make huge bank through insider trading, exploiting a loophole that lets them place bets on the stock market based on rules they have yet to announce. But this game-rigging con isn't limited to elected officials: a whole class of unregulated beltway insiders make their living by wheedling "political intelligence" (that ...
Read in browser How the global hyper-rich have turned central London into a lights-out ghost-town
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 05, 2013 09:01 pm In an excellent NYT story, Sarah Lyall reports on "lights-out London" -- the phenomenon whereby ultra-wealthy foreigners (often from corrupt plutocracies like Kazakhstan and Russia) are buying up whole neighbourhoods in London, driving up house-prices beyond the reach of locals, and then treating their houses as holiday homes. They stay for a couple weeks once ...
Read in browser Black leopard compared to black house cat
By David Pescovitz on Apr 05, 2013 07:08 pm Black leopard compared to black house cat.
Read in browser Bank pays for costumed flashmob to recreate Rembrandt's Nightwatch in a mall
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 05, 2013 05:46 pm ING paid to have a group of actors play out a dramatic reenactment of the events depicted in Rembrandt's classic painting
The Night Watch.
Read in browser Batman/Bauhaus t-shirt
By David Pescovitz on Apr 05, 2013 05:36 pm Our friends at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles are now selling this excellent Batman/Bauhaus women's t-shirt by Junk Food Clothing. Meltdown tells me that a men's version is coming soon. These aren't on the Meltdown site so you'll have to contact them to grab one. (via @meltdowncomics on Instagram)
Read in browser Suburban Lawns: Long Beach post-punk
By David Pescovitz on Apr 05, 2013 02:53 pm In 1978, CalArts students Sue "Su Tissue" McLane and William "Vex Billingsgate" Ranson founded the post-punk band Suburban Lawns.
Read in browser FAQ: When will your book be made into a movie?
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 05, 2013 02:35 pm Warren Ellis answers one of the questions most frequently asked of authors: "When will your book/comic/whatever be turned into a TV show or movie?" FAQ: I don't get to decide what gets made into a tv series or film. I cannot, I'm afraid, cause people to give me money for things by magic or force ...
Read in browser Animal sculptures from thrift store plastic
By David Pescovitz on Apr 05, 2013 02:27 pm Sayaka Ganz creates marvelous animal sculptures from plastic crap she picks up at thrift stores. "Sayaka Ganz: Reclaimed Creations" (via Juxtapoz)
Read in browser Hubble Space Telescope control console on eBay
By David Pescovitz on Apr 05, 2013 01:36 pm Want to build a DIY version of the Hubble Space Telescope? I posted last year that the Vehicle Power Interface Console used at the Goddard Flight Center during pre-launch testing of the HST was for sale on eBay for $75,000. Well, now the seller has significantly sweetened the deal by throwing in this stately and ...
Read in browser 4D printing and programmable matter
By David Pescovitz on Apr 05, 2013 01:19 pm MIT professor and TED fellow
Skylar Tibbits is developing "4D printing, where the fourth dimension is time," meaning that the printed objects change shape over a certain period.
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