Date Palms' "Yuba Reprise" Conversations with my 2 year old: a web video series Pee-Wee Herman nastygrams Pee-Wee fan-fest to death "Eat rainbows. Shit stars." Westeros (Game of Thrones) built in Minecraft Inflatable tanks tricked Hitler Immigration woes for Amy's Bakery co-owner "I will punch you right through that sign" Pope cool with atheists Kickstarter for Soylent "default meal" product wildly successful, despite inherent grossness New console specs compared Mad World rap Extreme Bloody Mary, Wisconsin style 3D printed shotgun slugs (suck) The Man Who Laughs: grotesque Victor Hugo potboiler was the basis for The Joker Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" music video Empathy explained by David Foster Wallace RIAA losing money, firing employees, giving execs raises Masturbation 'at the root of culture wars' Annoying lawsuit for Annoying Orange Anatomical pinball table Forging £1 coins is apparently profitable HOWTO move an immensely delicate 50'-wide circular electromagnet Promotional DVDs smell like pizza when played Three female artists who shaped the American Pin-Up Iain Banks doesn't write sf for the money Ice cream ad: "if you want nutrition, eat a carrot" Steve Silberman on how he became a "professional Deadhead" US admits killing 4 Americans in drone strikes Law enforcement guide to Satanic Cults, 1994: classic terror-TV clip Date Palms' "Yuba Reprise"
By David Pescovitz on May 23, 2013 12:40 pm A lovely video complement to the sun-bleached minimalist psychedelia of Date Palms' "Yuba Reprise," from their album "The Dusted Sessions" due out next month on Thrill Jockey. Gorgeous. I'll be grabbing the limited edition "dusted pink" vinyl seen at right.
Read in browser Conversations with my 2 year old: a web video series
By Xeni Jardin on May 23, 2013 12:01 pm "Actual conversations with my 2 year old daughter, as re-enacted by me and another full grown man." Episode 1 of what I hope will be a regular series by Warmland Films. (via Dangerous Minds)
Read in browser Pee-Wee Herman nastygrams Pee-Wee fan-fest to death
By Cory Doctorow on May 23, 2013 12:00 pm Pee-Wee Herman has nastygrammed the organizer of "Pee-Wee Over Louisville," a fan-festival organized by the guy who helped kick off the national Lewbowski Fests. The Pee-Wee festival is dead. I didn't give a damn about Pee-Wee getting caught beating off in a dirty movie theater, but this news makes me want to take away my ...
Read in browser "Eat rainbows. Shit stars."
By Xeni Jardin on May 23, 2013 11:51 am Click for full size. Text lifted from Fengi. It's shopped, you can tell by the pixels. No apologies whatsoever to the Holstee Manifesto.
Read in browser Westeros (Game of Thrones) built in Minecraft
By David Pescovitz on May 23, 2013 11:46 am Here's a Time video about Jacob Granberry's effort to build Westeros, from Game of Thrones, in Minecraft. More at WesterosCraft. (Thanks, Ben Cosgrove!)
Read in browser Inflatable tanks tricked Hitler
By Rob Beschizza on May 23, 2013 11:18 am Megan Garber on how the Allies "saved thousands of lives by embracing the artistry of war." [The Atlantic]
Read in browser Immigration woes for Amy's Bakery co-owner
By Cory Doctorow on May 23, 2013 11:16 am More on Amy's Bakery, the restauranteurs who staged a world-beating social-media meltdown: Sami "Mr Amy" Bouzaglo faces deportation -- tl;dr: he's an Israeli citizen who's been banned from Germany and France for drug offenses and faces an immigration hearing in the USA. (Thanks, Matthew!)
Read in browser "I will punch you right through that sign"
By Xeni Jardin on May 23, 2013 11:11 am You know those inspirational text-wall photos that friends of friends post to Pinterest and Facebook, full of blithe clichés and maudlin motivational monologues? Dude. Fengi, on livejournal, fixed them for you. [UPDATED: And here we go. Pinterest that, bitches.]
Read in browser Pope cool with atheists
By Rob Beschizza on May 23, 2013 11:08 am Steve Anderson at The Independent: Pope Francis has said that atheists should be seen as good people as long as they do good, in a move to urge people of all religions - or no religion at all - to get along.
Read in browser Kickstarter for Soylent "default meal" product wildly successful, despite inherent grossness
By Xeni Jardin on May 23, 2013 11:08 am Why, yes, a project called Soylent Corporation, promising a "default meal product" called Soylent, did just raise a quarter million bucks on Kickstarter. And Kickstarter is also made of people.
Read in browser New console specs compared
By Rob Beschizza on May 23, 2013 11:06 am Mashable compares the specs of this year's new game consoles, Microsoft's XBox One (Already affectionately nicknamed the XBone due to its awful branding), Sony's Playstation 4, and the already-out Wii U. The PS4 comes out ahead, but the XBone is architecturally very similar.
Read in browser Mad World rap
By Rob Beschizza on May 23, 2013 10:42 am Musician Daniel Acalá sampled my chiptune cover of Mad World for the intro track to his new album; quite an honor! You can pay-what-you-like for it at Bandcamp! I have no idea what the lyrics mean! (Thanks everyone for sending it in!)
Read in browser Extreme Bloody Mary, Wisconsin style
By Cory Doctorow on May 23, 2013 09:56 am Take a look at this impressive, heavily loaded Bloody Mary, served at O'Davey's Irish Pub & Restaurant in Fond du Lac. (Also known as Davey's.) This ultimate hangover cure is topped with an extensive beer chaser consisting of pop corn, bacon, peanuts, beans, sausage, pretzel, sliders, a pickle and (this is Wisconsin after all) a ...
Read in browser 3D printed shotgun slugs (suck)
By Cory Doctorow on May 23, 2013 09:00 am As the 3D printed gun story unfolds, many (including me) have noted that you can't print ammo. However, you can print shotgun slugs on a 3D printer, but they suck: Heeszel was surprised at the first two. "I didn't think it would go through the first piece of wood at all, much less hit anything," ...
Read in browser The Man Who Laughs: grotesque Victor Hugo potboiler was the basis for The Joker
By Cory Doctorow on May 23, 2013 05:54 am The Man Who Laughs is a graphic novel adaptation of a 1869 Victor Hugo novel that is chiefly remembered for inspiring a 1928 film whose poster-art, in turn, inspired the character of the Joker. As legions of disappointed Batman fans have discovered, the Victor Hugo novel is just not very good. It's one of Hugo's ...
Read in browser Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" music video
By David Pescovitz on May 23, 2013 12:15 am Somebody leaked the video for Daft Punk's "Get Lucky!" (Thanks, Gabe Adiv!)
Read in browser Empathy explained by David Foster Wallace
By Cory Doctorow on May 22, 2013 11:38 pm UPDATE: "Vimeo has removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by The David Foster Wallace Literary Trust claiming that this material is infringing: THIS IS WATER - By David Foster Wallace." Here's a beautifully made video accompaniment to "This is Water," an excerpt from a David Foster ...
Read in browser RIAA losing money, firing employees, giving execs raises
By Cory Doctorow on May 22, 2013 11:00 pm The RIAA has submitted its latest Form 990 tax filing to the IRS, which details the organization's precipitous shelving off in budget and employees (though the execs gave themselves fat raises): The drop in income can be solely attributed to lower membership dues from the major music labels. Over the past two years label contributions ...
Read in browser Masturbation 'at the root of culture wars'
By Rob Beschizza on May 22, 2013 10:42 pm The Atlantic's Hugo Schwyzer has a theory: that masturbation, as the most common sex act, is the heart of modernity's war between Christianity and secularism. Many progressives were bewildered by Antonin Scalia's blistering 2003 dissent in Lawrence v Texas, in which he warned that state laws against evils such as "adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, ...
Read in browser Annoying lawsuit for Annoying Orange
By Rob Beschizza on May 22, 2013 10:23 pm An advertising agency is suing the creators of Cartoon Network's The Annoying Orange, accusing them of ripping off a character, The Talking Orange, that they created for a 2005 public information ad. [Mercury News]
Read in browser Anatomical pinball table
By Cory Doctorow on May 22, 2013 09:44 pm Canadian artist Howie Tsui redesigned a pinball machine to turn it into a crude simulation of a musket-ball rattling around a soldier's guts for a War of 1812-themed exhibition currently running at the Agnes Etherington Arts Centre at Queens University in Kingston. It's meant to demonstrate the way that repetition and concentration can inure you ...
Read in browser Forging £1 coins is apparently profitable
By Cory Doctorow on May 22, 2013 08:36 pm Three men have been convicted of forging £1 coins. The London Police Detective Inspector even got all quippy about the sentencing ("These three men are organised criminals who were intent on undermining the UK monetary system. There is nothing fake about the reality they must now face of life behind bars." -- yes, yes, very ...
Read in browser HOWTO move an immensely delicate 50'-wide circular electromagnet
By Cory Doctorow on May 22, 2013 08:24 pm Fermilab just got a new Awesome Magnet, a 50'-wide jobbie that can't be tilted by more than a few degrees without suffering irreparable harm. It's in New York, though, and Fermilab is outside of Chicago, and this presents a logistical problem with a complicated solution: The Muon g-2 ring, an electromagnet made of steel and ...
Read in browser Promotional DVDs smell like pizza when played
By Cory Doctorow on May 22, 2013 07:08 pm A Brazilian ad agency has built a campaign for Domino's "Pizza" that uses a heat-sensitive coating on rented DVDs; when the disc is played, the heat from the player heats up the coating and causes it to emit a pizza-like odor; the coating also changes appearance and becomes a picture of a pizza with an ...
Read in browser Three female artists who shaped the American Pin-Up
By Mark Frauenfelder on May 22, 2013 06:05 pm Ben Marks, our pal at Collectors Weekly, says, "We just published an article on Zoe Mozert, Pearl Frush, and Joyce Ballantyne, who created some of the most memorable pin-up art in the 1940 and '50s. While most people today associate pin-up art with male artists like Alberto Vargas, George Petty, and Gil Elvgren, the contributions ...
Read in browser Iain Banks doesn't write sf for the money
By Cory Doctorow on May 22, 2013 06:04 pm SF/thriller writer Iain Banks has weighed in to quash a rumor that he only wrote his amazing SF novels to pay the bills because the (also amazing) high-brow literary thrillers didn't bring in enough: I wish I did have the time to reply to everybody individually but I don't. I think I'll only comment on ...
Read in browser Ice cream ad: "if you want nutrition, eat a carrot"
By Cory Doctorow on May 22, 2013 04:58 pm Wisconsin's Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream has some refreshingly honest ad-copy on the side of its vans. The photo was snapped by a Consumerist reader named David, and shows a van whose advert disclaims any nutritional merit, proudly proclaiming "gobs of rich Wisconsin cream" as well as lots of "real ingredients" (whatever those are). My own ...
Read in browser Steve Silberman on how he became a "professional Deadhead"
By Xeni Jardin on May 22, 2013 04:43 pm "I was 14 years old, all on my own because my friend bailed on me at the last minute, and relatively clueless," says science writer Steve Silberman in the story of how he became a Grateful Dead devotée. "Then the Dead came out... I knew I had never heard music as beautiful, adventurous, and alive ...
Read in browser US admits killing 4 Americans in drone strikes
By Xeni Jardin on May 22, 2013 04:38 pm Charlie Savage at the New York Times: "One day before President Obama is due to deliver a major speech on national security, his administration on Wednesday formally acknowledged that the United States had killed four American citizens in drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan." But don't worry, guys, it's fine: they were all brown bad ...
Read in browser Law enforcement guide to Satanic Cults, 1994: classic terror-TV clip
By Xeni Jardin on May 22, 2013 04:33 pm Via Dangerous Minds, a rare clip from a 1994 television program warning of the dangers that lurk within local neighborhood parks throughout America: namely, homosexuals and Satanists. More background on the series here. One word, people: mullet.
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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