Working with your microbiome to produce better-scented breath A beautiful bacterium Anti-war ads from the 1930s Bieber attacked at piano How to shut down a restaurant in Mexico The Princess Can Save Herself, Thank You Old School Dungeons & Dragons: Wizards of the Coast's Problem Child When hairdryers looked like mind-control devices Former Tory mayor admits to beating up woman who videod him parking illegally Ben Laurie on BitCoin Austin "You" Grossman and Robin "Mr Penumbra" Sloan reading, San Francisco, May 11 Working with your microbiome to produce better-scented breath
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on May 06, 2013 12:48 pm Our great, collective, ongoing realization that wiping out all the bacteria in our bodies may not actually be a great idea marches on. At Scientific American, Deborah Franklin writes about chronic halitosis — the sort of bad breath that doesn't go away with a simple brushing — and scientists' efforts to cure it by encouraging ...
Read in browser A beautiful bacterium
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on May 06, 2013 12:41 pm David Goodsell of the Scripps Research Institute made this lovely watercolor illustration of a cell of Mycoplasma mycoides. This bacterium is the cause of a deadly respiratory disease that affects cattle and other cud-chewing animals. If you've ever read much about zoonoses — diseases that pass from animals to humans — then you know that ...
Read in browser Anti-war ads from the 1930s
By Cory Doctorow on May 06, 2013 12:00 pm On the Vintage Ads LiveJournal, a fascinating set of anti-war ads from the 1930s protest group World Peaceways (see the full-sized version to read the text). They ran an anti-imperialist anti-war campaign that described soldiers as pawns in the corrupt games of the rich and powerful, and called on everyday people to refuse to involve ...
Read in browser Bieber attacked at piano
By Rob Beschizza on May 06, 2013 11:13 am Liberace never had to deal with this nonsense. [CBS]
Read in browser How to shut down a restaurant in Mexico
By Rob Beschizza on May 06, 2013 11:12 am Be the offpsring of someone powerful. The BBC's Will Grant: In walks Andrea Benitez, a wealthy 20-something, looking for a table. Told that the one she wanted wasn't available, she threw what can only be described as a tantrum and used the ace up her sleeve, her daddy. Andrea Benitez is the daughter of Humberto ...
Read in browser The Princess Can Save Herself, Thank You
By Glenn Fleishman on May 06, 2013 10:29 am The Princess Who Saved Herself [MP3] The "Code Monkey Saves World" project is about to stretch itself into the world of kickass princesses. Troubadour Jonathan Coulton and filmmaker and comics writer Greg Pak teamed up a few weeks ago to launch a crowdfunding effort to raise $39,000 to create a series of comic books based ...
Read in browser Old School Dungeons & Dragons: Wizards of the Coast's Problem Child
By Peter Bebergal on May 06, 2013 10:19 am As Dungeons and Dragons became more rulebound and combat-oriented, some players revived older, more expressive forms of the game. But is the Old School Renaissance itself just more nerd fundamentalism?
Read in browser When hairdryers looked like mind-control devices
By Cory Doctorow on May 06, 2013 09:23 am Every now and again, Dark Roasted Blend busts out a super-set of vintage photos of some gadget, technology, or system from yesteryear that is so surpassingly fantastic that it stops you cold. Today is a day where such a set has been posted. The photos of Vintage Salon Hair Dryers that Avi Abrams rounded up ...
Read in browser Former Tory mayor admits to beating up woman who videod him parking illegally
By Cory Doctorow on May 05, 2013 08:55 pm Brian Coleman, a former Conservative mayor and concillor has admitted to assaulting a constituent who was video-recording him while he parked illegally to use an ATM. Coleman had been unpopular for passing strict parking rules, and the woman whom he assaulted was a local parking campaigner. Coleman, of Essex Road in Finchley, was ordered to ...
Read in browser Ben Laurie on BitCoin
By Cory Doctorow on May 05, 2013 05:40 pm I wrote yesterday about Dan Kaminsky's excellent thoughts on BitCoin, and wished aloud for comparable work from Ben Laurie. It turns out such work exists: here's Ben's critique of BitCoin, and here's his proposal for an alternative. Both are short, clear, excellent reads.
Read in browser Austin "You" Grossman and Robin "Mr Penumbra" Sloan reading, San Francisco, May 11
By Cory Doctorow on May 05, 2013 03:20 pm The next SF-in-SF free science fiction event looks like a seriously fabulous evening: both Austin Grossman (author of YOU) and Robin Sloan (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore) will give a free reading and then take part in a discussion with host Terry Bisson. It's on Sat May 11, and free (though donations to Variety Children's Charity ...
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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