Tim Berners-Lee: The Web needs to stay open, and Gopher's still not cool. Melting hosiery Teacup, spoon and saucer made from cicada body-parts Reuters: In China, public anger over gov't. secrecy on environment Investigating leaks, Harvard secretly searched deans' email accounts Amazing wireless whitespace technology bringing free WiFi to SXSW US lawmaker uses neat flip phone trick to avoid talking to "pesky reporters" Mormon gamer praises Fallout for getting his culture right Oracle CEO Ellison's luxury yacht docks near homeless camp in Hawaii Kickstarting an anthology of speculative fiction with marginalized people as heroes Print your own "Machine With Concrete" and produce a gear ratio of 244.14 quintillion to 1 Best iPad stylus: Pogo Connect New bill to protect your webmail and location privacy needs your support Tim Berners-Lee: The Web needs to stay open, and Gopher's still not cool.
By Rob Pegoraro on Mar 10, 2013 12:57 pm AUSTIN—The knight who invented the World Wide Web came to SXSW to point out a few ways in which we're still doing it wrong. Tim Berners-Lee's "Open Web Platform: Hopes & Fears" keynote hopscotched from the past of the Web to its present and future, with some of the same hectic confusion that his invention ...
Read in browser Melting hosiery
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 10, 2013 12:11 pm German fashion brand URB sells a series of "melting" hosiery -- tights and socks -- that appear to be running down your legs. URB — Home (via Kadrey)
Read in browser Teacup, spoon and saucer made from cicada body-parts
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 10, 2013 09:06 am Carrianne Bullard made this teaset out of the wings and legs of cicadas. It's got a lovely Silence-of-the-Lambs meets Tinkerbell vibe. Carrianne Bullard (Object Cicada wings, legs) (via Bruce Sterling's Tumblr)
Read in browser Reuters: In China, public anger over gov't. secrecy on environment
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 09, 2013 11:37 pm The environment ministry in China recently told attorney Dong Zhengwei he couldn't have access to two-year old data about soil pollution because it was a "state secret." The incident amplified already-growing public outrage over the nation's worsening pollution problems, and "the scarcity of information about the environment available to them." [Reuters]
Read in browser Investigating leaks, Harvard secretly searched deans' email accounts
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 09, 2013 11:31 pm The Boston Globe today broke the news that administrators at Harvard University secretly searched the e-mail accounts of 16 resident deans last fall, in an attempt to determine the source of "a leak to the media about the school's sprawling cheating case." [The Boston Globe]
Read in browser Amazing wireless whitespace technology bringing free WiFi to SXSW
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 09, 2013 11:16 pm Elliot Noss sez, I thought you'd be interested in something we are helping with at SXSW this weekend. a group of folks are taking advantage of unlicensed radio spectrum to provide high-speed backhaul to local WiFi access points all over SXSW. In Austin, there are 14 of these open channels using whitespace that are available. ...
Read in browser US lawmaker uses neat flip phone trick to avoid talking to "pesky reporters"
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 09, 2013 10:49 pm In an article that reads an awful lot like an Onion parody, Politico reports that Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "is well known for pulling a flip phone out of his pocket and pretending to hold a conversation." "I try to teach my colleagues this excellent technique," he said as he quickly tried to hop into ...
Read in browser Mormon gamer praises Fallout for getting his culture right
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 09, 2013 10:48 pm "I'm a 31-year-old, fifth-generation Mormon (member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) from Salt Lake City, Utah and I love video games." Skip Cameron, in a guest post at Kotaku. He says pop culture generally mocks Mormon faith and culture, but Fallout got it right.
Read in browser Oracle CEO Ellison's luxury yacht docks near homeless camp in Hawaii
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 09, 2013 10:37 pm Larry Ellison, billionaire and CEO of Oracle Corporation, bought 98% of the land on the Hawaiian island of Lānaʻi last year. In 2013, his 288-foot, four floor luxury superyacht "Musashi" and its attendant staff have spent most of their time at port in Honolulu (Oahu), because there are no suitable docks yet for the massive ...
Read in browser Kickstarting an anthology of speculative fiction with marginalized people as heroes
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 09, 2013 08:55 pm Rose Fox sez, Daniel José Older and I are thrilled to be co-editing LONG HIDDEN, an anthology of speculative fiction from the margins of history. It's a crowdfunded project; we've already made our initial goal, and now we'd love your help reaching our ambitious stretch goals. Each story will take place between 1400 and the ...
Read in browser Print your own "Machine With Concrete" and produce a gear ratio of 244.14 quintillion to 1
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 09, 2013 06:00 pm A fanciful post to Thingiverse from 3DTOPO allows you to print out your own version of Arthur Ganson sculpture Machine with Concrete , a system of wormgears that produces a gear-ratio of 244.14 quintillion to 1. This is a printable version of Machine with Concrete. The sculpture is a series of twelve 1:50 worm gears, ...
Read in browser Best iPad stylus: Pogo Connect
By Cool Tools on Mar 09, 2013 05:26 pm I’ve been using this stylus like crazy and I am in love! It’s a touch sensitive stylus for drawing and painting on the iPad which works incredibly well. Because of its touch-sensitive capabilities, this is the first stylus that allows me to think of the iPad as tool for serious illustration. I love my Wacom ...
Read in browser New bill to protect your webmail and location privacy needs your support
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 09, 2013 03:00 pm The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 is an ancient law that governs the privacy of the files you keep on servers, including your webmail and other private stuff. The 1986 law assumes that any file left on a server for more than six months is abandoned, and gives law enforcement the power to ...
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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