Algoraves: dancing to algorithms The silent soccer matches of North Korea How clay water filters for Ghana are made Cory's Berlin talk: "It's not a fax machine connect to a waffle iron" How Tabasco Sauce is made Bike lanes led to 49% increase in retail sales What makes a project remixable? Patrick "Electric Sheep" Farley returns with a new webcomic: Steve & Steve Gritty crayon colors Oral surgeon's quest to reimagine the garage-band guitar Rios Montt found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity Feather emerges from baby's neck Robert Crumb interviewed at Last Gasp Warehouse in San Francisco Warcraft numbers plummet; 14% drop in Q1/13 Cool Tools Show & Tell Video Podcast 003 What happens when a drug works — but only for one person? The waters of the Moon Forcing your employees to do dumb Scientology exercises creates a "hostile work environment" 400 ppm carbon dioxide? In my atmosphere? Essay on "how to survive a divorce" Guatemala: Waiting. Snapshots from Ríos Montt genocide trial courtroom, verdict imminent Sign Game: tricks of the trade from a professional sign painter Anatomy of a state-sponsored phishing attack: how the Syrian Electronic Army hacked The Onion Short documentary about the psychology of slot machines 9 Film Frames: screen grabs from cult movies Guatemala: 1982 MacNeil/Lehrer on reports Ríos Montt committed atrocities against Ixil Maya How to make a cake pan banjo ukulele American Girl dolls: from adventure heroes to helicopter-parented, sheltered junior spa-bunnies Get yourself 3D scanned and printed out as a Stormtrooper figurine or trapped in carbonite at Disney World Guatemala: 1983 "MacNeil/Lehrer Report" on debate over military aid to Ríos Montt's regime Algoraves: dancing to algorithms
By Cory Doctorow on May 11, 2013 12:00 pm Alex sez, "Algoraves are parties where people come together to dance to algorithms. It generally involves some live coding but any producers making music "wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive conditionals' are welcome. Generally some aspect of the algorithmic processes are visible, but the focus is actually on the ...
Read in browser The silent soccer matches of North Korea
By Rob Beschizza on May 11, 2013 10:23 am North Korea's coach, Kim Jong-Hun, received tactical advice during matches from Kim Jong-Il himself using mobile phones that are not visible to the naked eye. [Tim Hartley / BBC]
Read in browser How clay water filters for Ghana are made
By Cory Doctorow on May 11, 2013 09:00 am Gmoke sez, "Susan Murcott and her team's factory making clay filters for Pure Home Water in Ghana. Over 100,000 served, so far." They're shooting for 1,000,000. Pure Home Water, Ghana: AfriClay Filters
Read in browser Cory's Berlin talk: "It's not a fax machine connect to a waffle iron"
By Cory Doctorow on May 11, 2013 12:00 am Here's the video of "It's not a fax machine connect to a waffle iron," the talk I gave at the Re:publica conference in Berlin this week: "Lawmakers treat the Internet like it's Telephone 2.0, the Second Coming of Video on Demand, or the World's Number One Porn Distribution Service, but it's really the nervous system ...
Read in browser How Tabasco Sauce is made
By Cory Doctorow on May 10, 2013 10:47 pm I am a committed Tabasco Sauce fiend. It is neither too hot, nor too mild, nor too vinegary -- I put it on pretty much everything. I'd use it for contact lens solution if I could. My life was radically transformed by my discovery of tiny, individual Tabasco sachets that aviation security X-rays don't identify ...
Read in browser Bike lanes led to 49% increase in retail sales
By Cory Doctorow on May 10, 2013 10:00 pm Back in November 2012, the New York Department of Transportation released a report called Measuring the Street: New Metrics for the 21st Century, which had some compelling figures on the way that local business benefits from bike-lanes, for the fairly obvious reason that cyclists find it easy to stop and shop, as compared to drivers, ...
Read in browser What makes a project remixable?
By Cory Doctorow on May 10, 2013 09:00 pm In The remixing dilemma: The trade-off between generativity and originality [PDF], a paper just published in American Behavioral Scientist, Benjamin Mako Hill and Andrés Monroy-Hernández analyzed a data-set of projects from the Scratch website that had been made available for download and remixing. They were attempting to identify the formalattributes that made some projects more ...
Read in browser Patrick "Electric Sheep" Farley returns with a new webcomic: Steve & Steve
By Cory Doctorow on May 10, 2013 09:00 pm Stefan Jones sez, "Web comic master Patrick "Electric Sheep" Farley switches styles with frightening ease. The First Word, an enigmatic story about australopithecine, was done in lovely photorealistic CGI. His new work, Steve and Steve, is sharp line art with sepia-tones. It's about . . . Steve and Steve. Jobs and Wozniak, BSing about evolution, ...
Read in browser Gritty crayon colors
By Cory Doctorow on May 10, 2013 08:00 pm Rawr & Stuff's alternate crayon colors are pretty much shovel-ready -- you could clean up by selling these on Etsy. I'm very fond of "Moral Ambiguity Gray," myself. Crayons (via Kadrey)
Read in browser Oral surgeon's quest to reimagine the garage-band guitar
By Mark Frauenfelder on May 10, 2013 07:47 pm Ben Marks, our pal at Collector's Weekly, says, "I just wrote a piece about Matt Eichen, the yarmulke-wearing, oral-surgeon founder and designer of Musicvox, whose Spaceranger guitars were used in the last Austin Powers movie. After taking an almost decade-long hiatus due to his daughter's bout with cancer (she's fine now), he's back at it, ...
Read in browser Rios Montt found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity
By Xeni Jardin on May 10, 2013 06:49 pm Brigadier General José Efraín Rios Montt (center, in headphones) awaits the verdict of his trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. Photo: mimundo.org Former Guatemalan dictator José Efraín Rios Montt was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity today at his trial in Guatemala City. He was immediately sentenced to 50 years ...
Read in browser Feather emerges from baby's neck
By Rob Beschizza on May 10, 2013 06:30 pm "No one knew what was bothering 7-month-old Mya Whittington. Her discomfort stumped her parents and doctors. She was finally hospitalized - and a 2-inch feather eventually poked its way out of her neck, shocking everyone." [ABC]
Read in browser Robert Crumb interviewed at Last Gasp Warehouse in San Francisco
By Mark Frauenfelder on May 10, 2013 06:12 pm John Longhi interviewed Robert Crumb at the Last Gasp warehouse in San Francisco. He talks about the time he took a dose of bad LSD that negatively affected his brain for months (maybe for life, he thinks). Even though it was a bad experience, his creativity went into overdrive. Crumb also recommends the book, The ...
Read in browser Warcraft numbers plummet; 14% drop in Q1/13
By Cory Doctorow on May 10, 2013 06:00 pm In a recent earnings call press release [PDF], Activision Blizzard revealed that it has lost 1.3 million subscribers to its flagship game World of Warcraft in the first quarter of 2013, a 14% drop. Received games-business wisdom holds that only one "triple-A" game can thrive at a time, and WoW has been on top for ...
Read in browser Cool Tools Show & Tell Video Podcast 003
By Mark Frauenfelder on May 10, 2013 05:51 pm Welcome to episode 3 of Cool Tools' Show and Tell podcast! This time, I had a video hangout with: Brian Heater, the Director of Media and Senior editor for Engadget, where he writes features, covers news and hosts the show and podcast. He’s written for Spin, Wired.com, The Onion, The New York Press, The Daily ...
Read in browser What happens when a drug works — but only for one person?
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on May 10, 2013 05:14 pm Really, really intriguing piece at Nature News by Heidi Ledford. It's all about a class of patients called "exceptional responders" — aka, the people who got a benefit (sometimes a big one) from a medication or treatment that otherwise failed the clinical trial process. When we do clinical trials, we're looking at group averages. We ...
Read in browser The waters of the Moon
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on May 10, 2013 05:04 pm There is water on the Moon. We've known that since 2009 and we keep finding evidence of more of the stuff. That's not the really fascinating part about this article by Joseph Stromberg. Instead, there two really cool things that you should learn: 1) The water on the Moon probably came from Earth and 2) ...
Read in browser Forcing your employees to do dumb Scientology exercises creates a "hostile work environment"
By Cory Doctorow on May 10, 2013 05:00 pm The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a lawsuit against Dr. Dennis Nobbe's Dynamic Medical Services, Inc, where employees were made to engage in bizarre Scientology rituals as a condition of employment. The EEOC says that this violated employees' freedom of religion, and they're suing Dr Nobbe to prove it. This is the downside ...
Read in browser 400 ppm carbon dioxide? In my atmosphere?
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on May 10, 2013 04:36 pm It's true, at least for today. Although the real concern in climate science is average concentrations of carbon dioxide over much longer periods of time, surpassing the 400 ppm mark, even for a day, is a historic milestone. 400 ppm was once a level we talked about avoiding altogether through mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions. ...
Read in browser Essay on "how to survive a divorce"
By David Pescovitz on May 10, 2013 04:20 pm Over at the Bold Italic, my friend Debbie Hampton wrote a heartfelt, no-nonsense, funny, and informative essay titled "How To Survive A Divorce": ...California is a no-fault state, meaning the dissolution of our marriage didn't require a showing of wrongdoing by either person. Thank. God. Because I did some serious wrongdoing. There were addiction issues ...
Read in browser Guatemala: Waiting. Snapshots from Ríos Montt genocide trial courtroom, verdict imminent
By Xeni Jardin on May 10, 2013 04:15 pm Photo: Xeni Jardin [Guatemala City] -- Above: Elena Caba Ijom of Nebaj, El Quiché, Guatemala, reads news about the trial as all of us in the courtroom here await a verdict in the genocide trial of Rios Montt and Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez. The judges are expected to announce their decision at 4pm local time, despite ...
Read in browser Sign Game: tricks of the trade from a professional sign painter
By Cool Tools on May 10, 2013 04:08 pm It’s always fun to cruise through Fantagraphics’s store in the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle. You never know what you might stumble across amid the new comics releases, independent zines and assorted odd runs and old stock there. I happened upon a copy of Justin Green’s Sign Game (ST Publications and Last Gasp Of San Francisco). ...
Read in browser Anatomy of a state-sponsored phishing attack: how the Syrian Electronic Army hacked The Onion
By Cory Doctorow on May 10, 2013 04:06 pm As I blogged earlier this week, the Syrian Electronic Army hacked The Onion's Twitter account and used it to post a bunch of dumb messages attacking Israel, the US, and the UN. Now, the Onion's IT administrators have posted a detailed account of how Syrian hackers used a series of staged and careful phishing attacks ...
Read in browser Short documentary about the psychology of slot machines
By Mark Frauenfelder on May 10, 2013 03:53 pm Cool Hunting: "During a visit to Las Vegas we had the opportunity to dig a little deeper with Bally Technologies' Director of Game Development, Brett Jackson. He offered some insight into the surprisingly complex innovation, psychology and design behind the slot machines that illuminate so many casino floors."
Read in browser 9 Film Frames: screen grabs from cult movies
By Mark Frauenfelder on May 10, 2013 03:51 pm 9filmframes is a Tumblr with still frames from movies, assembled 9-per-image. Nice! (Via this isn't happiness)
Read in browser Guatemala: 1982 MacNeil/Lehrer on reports Ríos Montt committed atrocities against Ixil Maya
By Xeni Jardin on May 10, 2013 03:25 pm [Guatemala City] -- In this 1982 episode of MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour (now PBS NewsHour), Jim Lehrer and Charlene Hunter Gault report on violence and instability across Guatemala and the actions of Efrain Rios Montt, the man at the center of a genocide trial due to reach a verdict today. This archival episode includes rare footage from ...
Read in browser How to make a cake pan banjo ukulele
By Mark Frauenfelder on May 10, 2013 03:10 pm One of my favorite recent projects in MAKE is Chester Winowiecki's complete instructions for making an inexpensive "panjolele." It's a cake pan banjo ukulele and it sounds great. I just wish I could play and sing as well as Chester. Below: everything you need to make a panjolele.
Read in browser American Girl dolls: from adventure heroes to helicopter-parented, sheltered junior spa-bunnies
By Cory Doctorow on May 10, 2013 02:58 pm Writing in The Atlantic, Amy Schiller documents how Mattel has spent the past 15 years transforming the expensive, highly detailed American Girl dolls from a source of radical inspiration that signposted moments in the history of the struggles for justice and equality in the US, into posh upper-middle-class girls who raise money for bake sales. ...
Read in browser Get yourself 3D scanned and printed out as a Stormtrooper figurine or trapped in carbonite at Disney World
By Cory Doctorow on May 10, 2013 02:00 pm Starting May 17, Disney World is running a "D-Tech" event at Disney Hollywood Studios wherein you can get your head scanned and 3D printed on a Stormtrooper figurine, or trapped in carbonite: The 10-minute experience uses the world's highest-resolution, single-shot 3D face scanner created by our Imagineering scientists with Disney Research labs. That captured image ...
Read in browser Guatemala: 1983 "MacNeil/Lehrer Report" on debate over military aid to Ríos Montt's regime
By Xeni Jardin on May 10, 2013 01:46 pm From the archives of the program that became PBS NewsHour, an archival episode from 1982 during the military dictatorship of José Efraín Ríos Montt. In this episode, Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer report on political battles in Washington over the Reagan administration's funding and military aid to Guatemala, as violence and instability there continued and ...
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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