George Takei: remember Japanese internment during WWII Edward Snowden talks to the South China Morning Post Hubsan X4 quadcopters: tiny cheap, powerful copter TOM THE DANCING BUG: Workin' in the Data Mine... Apps for Kids 38: Knights & Dragons Unicorn proceeds through customs Made By Dad: 67 Blueprints for Making Cool Stuff - excerpt Roundup of responses to the Snowden/NSA leaks Oldest man ever dies Albino lions found in raid Photos from #OccupyGezi Dinobird plumage revealed Photo shows mysterious insect near camera Monsters and Legends: kids' monster book now in the USA! Greek government shuts down state broadcaster, police force journalists out of the building New U.K. drink-driving PSA meets national brutality standards Kickstarting a Bluetooth-controlled cyborg cockroach HOWTO FOIA the NSA Google Glass teardown with Star Simpson Gaming urban legends How Snowden orchestrated a blockbuster story: NYT ticktock on NSA Prism leaks Ken Macleod on Iain Banks Game of Drones - video show about drone fighting Vintage plaster and chalk nude statuettes Mark's Bullseye picks: Good Dog and Super Durak It would be mostly awesome if the Sun went out right now* Short documentary about cartoonist Charles Addams Animation about cell phone data mining Superman, the 1966 Broadway musical! Hugh Howey on why he favors self-publishing George Takei: remember Japanese internment during WWII
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 12, 2013 12:58 pm The Star Trek actor George Takei, writes about being interned in California internment camps along with his Japanese-American family during WWII, a particularly important rememberance in the face of the out-of-control US spying revealed in the Edward Snowden leaks:
As I write this, once again the national dialogue turns to defining our enemies, the impulse to smear whole communities or people with the actions of others still too familiar and raw.
Read in browser Edward Snowden talks to the South China Morning Post
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 12, 2013 12:18 pm NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has given an interview to the South China Morning Post, which the paper is dribbling out in a series (
1,
2) of articles. Thus far, we know: * He intends to release more leaks * He will fight extradition to the USA * He affirms his belief in Hong Kong's commitment to free speech and the rule of law On this last point: keen observers of Hong Kong's political situation
disagree, among them Peter Bouckaert from Human Rights Watch, who says he believes that the HK authorities cooperate with the CIA on various programs.
Read in browser Hubsan X4 quadcopters: tiny cheap, powerful copter
By Ben Laurie on Jun 12, 2013 12:00 pm The Hubsan X4 quadcopter is a tiny, cheap copter with enough power to do flips, enough smarts to stay level and pointing right, and enough tough to drop from 50 foot onto grass without damage. It flies for ten minutes or so and recharges from USB.
Read in browser TOM THE DANCING BUG: Workin' in the Data Mine...
By Ruben Bolling on Jun 12, 2013 11:45 am Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH disaster hits the data mines, and the hard-workin' miners barely escape with their careers.
Read in browser Apps for Kids 38: Knights & Dragons
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jun 12, 2013 11:26 am Apps for Kids is Boing Boing's podcast about cool smartphone apps for kids and parents. My co-host is my 10-year-old daughter, Jane. In this episode of Apps for Kids, we talk about
Knights & Dragons, which is free in the iTunes store and on Google Play.
Read in browser Unicorn proceeds through customs
By Rob Beschizza on Jun 12, 2013 11:25 am Everyone's all worked up at the fact that Emily Harris, 9, was
able to proceed through through customs with a passport that identified her as a unicorn. What do these tabloids have against unicorns? [The Sun]
Read in browser Made By Dad: 67 Blueprints for Making Cool Stuff - excerpt
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jun 12, 2013 11:00 am Scott Bedford is creative director at an ad agency in London and for the past several years has been writing and illustrating a
how-to column of kid-friendly projects for MAKE. His sense of humor and artistic skill appeal to me, so I was excited to find out that he's got a new book out:
Made By Dad: 67 Blueprints for Making Cool Stuff. Read in browser Roundup of responses to the Snowden/NSA leaks
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 12, 2013 10:41 am In the Guardian, an excellent roundup of the US and EU responses to the revelations from Edward Snowden's leaks about the extent of NSA dragnet spying on the Internet and phone networks:
The congressional fury came at the end of a day of fast-moving developments.
Read in browser Oldest man ever dies
By Rob Beschizza on Jun 12, 2013 10:33 am On May 27, Jiroemon Kimura became the last living man to have been
born in the 19th century. On Wednesday,
he died at 116, the
oldest man who ever lived.
Read in browser Albino lions found in raid
By Rob Beschizza on Jun 12, 2013 10:03 am A
raid on a pet shop owner's house near Bangkok turned up 14 albino lions and other rarities, landing the owner in jail on charges of illegally possessing wildlife. "We received a complaint about the smell from the neighbours," said local police colonel Ek Ekasart.
Read in browser Photos from #OccupyGezi
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 12, 2013 09:38 am In case you've forgotten it amidst the Prism and Greek broadcaster shut-down stories, here's a reminder that the police are still engaged in a brutal crackdown on protesters across Turkey, courtesy of the
Occupy Gezi Pics Tumblr:
"Taksim rainbow, Tuesday evening." Police spray water canon directly on a protester in a wheelchair this evening in Taksim (Tuesday, June 11) Police intervention at the Gazi highway march. Read in browser Dinobird plumage revealed
By Rob Beschizza on Jun 12, 2013 09:35 am Chemical analysis of Archaeopteryx remains show that the creature was patterned "
light in colour, with a dark edge and tip to the feather", say researchers from the University of Manchester.
Read in browser Photo shows mysterious insect near camera
By Rob Beschizza on Jun 12, 2013 09:33 am "What started out as a casual sightseeing trip to a historic castle in the Netherlands took a bizarre turn for one Dutch woman, who claims
she may have spotted some kind of UFO." [Fox]
Read in browser Monsters and Legends: kids' monster book now in the USA!
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 12, 2013 09:08 am Back in April, I
reviewed Monsters and Legends, a wonderful illustrated kids' reference book from London's Flying Eye Books. At the time, it was only available in the UK, but now Americans can get it too! Here's my original review:
Monsters and Legends is part of the fabulous debut lineup of titles from Flying Eye, a kids' imprint spun out of London's NoBrow (they're the publishers of recently reviewed books like Welcome to Your Awesome Robot and Akissi).
Read in browser Greek government shuts down state broadcaster, police force journalists out of the building
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 12, 2013 01:31 am Michael sez, "The Greek government
forcibly shut down transmissions of all TV and radio stations operated by the state-owned broadcaster ERT, with police ejecting journalists and other employees who were occupying the buildings."
A few hours ago, the Greek government announced that state television and radio channels would be silenced at midnight.
Read in browser New U.K. drink-driving PSA meets national brutality standards
By Rob Beschizza on Jun 12, 2013 12:01 am Video Link #publooshocker indeed!
Previously.
Read in browser Kickstarting a Bluetooth-controlled cyborg cockroach
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 11, 2013 11:07 pm Alan sez, "Who wouldn't want their very own cyborg roach? And who wouldn't want to be able to control that cyborg from their mobile? Fund this Kickstarter and maybe you can. The robo-roach - manufactured in a hackerspace, like you do - is intended to serve as a high school science experiment.
Read in browser HOWTO FOIA the NSA
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 11, 2013 09:03 pm Michael from MuckRock sez,
It's difficult, but not impossible, to get info the old fashioned way from the NSA, using the Freedom of Information Act. Here's MuckRock's guide to getting as much as you can with as little hassle as possible, and a few requests to follow and play along with at home: * Files on Edward Snowden * Documents on the NSA's public ribbon cutting ceremony for its Utah Data Center * A request for the book Special Series Crisis Collection Volume 2 The good news?
Read in browser Google Glass teardown with Star Simpson
By Xeni Jardin on Jun 11, 2013 08:52 pm "We destroyed Glass entirely, for you," says
Star Simpson. Check out her
Google Glass Teardown with Scott Torborg.
We eagerly brought Glass back to the lab to begin the dissection. Speculation reigned: what if the entire body of Glass is potted with epoxy requiring strong solvents to access?
Read in browser Gaming urban legends
By Rob Beschizza on Jun 11, 2013 08:43 pm Jonathan Kaulay collects
ten of the best. [via
Alan White]
In 2005, an unopened copy of the self-deleting game surfaced on Ebay where it was promptly bought for $733,000 by a man from Japan named Yamamoto Ryuichi. Ryichi had planned to document his play through of the game on YouTube.
Read in browser How Snowden orchestrated a blockbuster story: NYT ticktock on NSA Prism leaks
By Xeni Jardin on Jun 11, 2013 08:38 pm In the
New York Times, Charlie Savage and Mark Mazzetti explain how Edward J. Snowden instructed three journalists, Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill of the Guardian and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, to fly to Hong Kong about 12 days ago to "visit a particular out-of-the-way corner of a certain hotel, and ask — loudly — for directions to another part of the hotel.
Read in browser Ken Macleod on Iain Banks
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 11, 2013 07:14 pm CBC radio's excellent magazine show As It Happens conducted
a short, lovely interview with Scottish sf writer
Ken Macleod about Iain Banks, who had been his friend since high school. It's a beautiful piece of audio, and a heartfelt one. My condolences, Ken.
Read in browser Game of Drones - video show about drone fighting
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jun 11, 2013 06:38 pm "Hi, and welcome to
Game of Drones, the new show where we design, build, and fight unmanned aerial vehicles." A fun show with a lot of good info for budding drone enthusiasts.
Read in browser Vintage plaster and chalk nude statuettes
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jun 11, 2013 06:23 pm Deanna of Kitsch-Slapped takes us on a
tour of vintage plaster and chalk nude statuettes.
[Some] vintage plaster or chalkware figurines have little fabric skirts or loincloths, which may come on as modest cover-up... Surprise, these vintage pieces show the genitalia!
Read in browser Mark's Bullseye picks: Good Dog and Super Durak
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jun 11, 2013 05:55 pm In the latest episode of
Bullseye with Jesse Thorn I talked about the graphic novel
Good Dog and the iPhone version of the Russian card game Durak, called
Super Durak. (Durak means idiot in Russian. There's no winner in the card game, just a loser - the durak.)
Read in browser It would be mostly awesome if the Sun went out right now*
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 11, 2013 05:51 pm Today's XKCD What If? explores many of the benefits that would accrue to the human race if the Sun were suddenly extinguished.
Reduced risk of solar flares: In 1859, a massive solar flare and geomagnetic storm hit the Earth.[1] Magnetic storms induce electric currents in wires.
Read in browser Short documentary about cartoonist Charles Addams
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jun 11, 2013 05:42 pm This
12-minute documentary about Charles Addams reveals that he had a lifelong fascination with decrepit mansions and cemeteries. Who knew!
(Via Jim Gurney) Read in browser Animation about cell phone data mining
By David Pescovitz on Jun 11, 2013 05:05 pm Michael Rigley created this beautiful animation, titled "
Network," for his BFA design thesis project at the California College of Art. It's about personal data captured by cell phone providers and is quite relevant this week.
Read in browser Superman, the 1966 Broadway musical!
By David Pescovitz on Jun 11, 2013 04:50 pm Who needs Man of Steel when you can wax nostalgic for "It's A Bird, It's a Plane, It's SUPERMAN," the 1966 Broadway musical! Drew Friedman:
The TV series starring George Reeves had been off the air for almost a decade and the Superman movies were still another decade away.
Read in browser Hugh Howey on why he favors self-publishing
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 11, 2013 04:42 pm Hugh Howey, author of the runaway self-published best-seller
Wool, has a very well-argued, thoughtful, and fascinating look at the relative merits of self-publishing for a median kind of writer, who is not a bestseller and only looks for a supplement to a regular income:
There are two possibilities.
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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