How to know when your epic storm weather news comes from nerds Skull watch, 1780 Panic in Detroit Fibonacci drawers in a cabinet Faulkner estate claims that quoting his novels in films is both a trademark and copyright infringement Commensense about ebooks 17 year old builds a tiny house on wheels Dinosaurs had cancer, too William Shatner schools a director Accessories for boys How to know when your epic storm weather news comes from nerds
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Oct 28, 2012 09:45 am NPR's Linda Holmes in an article about hurricane coverage written in August, 2011: It takes a while watching TWC before you realize that they are such weather nerds that they sometimes tend to see things from the storm's point of view. They talk about the shape of the storm as beautiful, or "great," or "improving," ...
Read in browser Skull watch, 1780
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 28, 2012 08:48 am Hayden sez, "A good one for Halloween - this skull-shaped memento mori clock is historically important and even a little spooky today. The Art of Mourning site is all about death and love in jewelry and art, so there are many examples of the symbols of death throughout history." Watches and clocks with the memento ...
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By Jason Weisberger on Oct 28, 2012 04:41 am I can only imagine
Read in browser Fibonacci drawers in a cabinet
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 28, 2012 12:44 am Guangzhou's Utopia Design created this Fibonacci Cabinet, whose drawers are scaled according to ratios from the Fibonacci sequence. Fibonacci Cabint - 乌托邦建筑设计 - UTOPIA ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN: (via Neatorama)
Read in browser Faulkner estate claims that quoting his novels in films is both a trademark and copyright infringement
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 27, 2012 11:28 pm A reader writes, "A character in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris quoted nine words from William Faulkner, with attribution. Faulkner Literary Rights LLC has responded a year later with a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement and attempts to deceive viewers into thinking Requiem for a Nun is a game for the PS3. Or something." The suit's ...
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By Cory Doctorow on Oct 27, 2012 09:41 pm Joanna Cabot's An Open Letter to E-Book Retailers: Let's have a return to common sense is just what you'd hope for from a post with a title like that: three commensensical points about ebooks, licensing and DRM that I generally agree with (though I quibble a little here and there). 1. If your button says ...
Read in browser 17 year old builds a tiny house on wheels
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 27, 2012 09:21 pm Austin Hay began to build himself a tiny house when he was 17 and planning to move out his parents' place.
Read in browser Dinosaurs had cancer, too
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Oct 27, 2012 06:04 pm I'm at the National Association of Science Writers conference this weekend and, in a panel on creating narrative in journalism, author George Johnson mentioned something absolutely fascinating. Johnson is currently writing a book about cancer and he told the audience a story about traveling out to see specimens that showed a metastasized cancer in the ...
Read in browser William Shatner schools a director
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 27, 2012 05:55 pm Here's a smashing recording of an commercial audio recording session with William Shatner. The director in the booth has lots of notes for Captain Kirk, and Kirk gives it to him, with astounding, passive-aggressive, brilliance. Click through to hear (warning: autoplaying audio) William Shatner Voice Session (Thanks, Mary!)
Read in browser Accessories for boys
By Cory Doctorow on Oct 27, 2012 03:15 pm Turning to page 326, we find a selection of sartorial wonderments for boys. The hats, the rayon ties, the better quality rayon ties, the Jr Commander and Jr Tech lids... It's a lad's paradise! Boys' Accessories
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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