Tavi "Style Rookie" Gevison on strong female characters and being a young feminist Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Cold Crush Bros. Weekend, McLaren's Buffalo Gals Just look at this human-sized banana. Resident Alien Volume 1: Welcome to Earth! Kim Newman's critically-acclaimed 1993 horror novel re-issued (excerpt) Minimalist Parenting: Getting Things Done meets childrearing Google Maps now allows you to explore Everest, Kilimanjaro and other great mountains Rube Goldberg machines in YouTube Space Tokyo CNN, Fox News, MSNBC air name of 16yo Steubenville rape victim Occupy SXSW 2013 More on the impact of UK press regulation on blogs, websites, tweeters, and social media Cory at Forbidden Planet London with Rapture of the Nerds this Saturday! Casino cheats used house CCTVs to score $32M Peter Murphy busted for DUI hit-and-run injury and meth possession Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom read-aloud part 01 Copyright shouldn't take away real property rights Machines that do nothing but switch themselves off Literature's business model explained, with special reference to the age of the Internet Instant gold Cancer as a contagious disease Space station cake from EVE Online Interview with Joel, Veronica, and Greg of Gizmodo's Gadget Testers Free downloadable magic/automata books from Robert Houdin's private club Just look at this banana sculpture. Growing up in the future Django Django video for "WOR" Yogurt for manly men The journal of horrifying science Electronic cotton and stretchable silicon The Exploratorium's Sound Uncovered: A science museum in your hand (for free) Tavi "Style Rookie" Gevison on strong female characters and being a young feminist
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 19, 2013 11:45 am Here's Tavi Gevison, creator of the amazing
Style Rookie site, the Rookie zine and the indispensable
Rookie: Year One collection, doing a must-see TedXTeens talk.
Read in browser Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Cold Crush Bros. Weekend, McLaren's Buffalo Gals
By Ed Piskor on Mar 19, 2013 11:42 am YouTube Read the rest of the Hip Hop Family Tree comics!
Read in browser Just look at this human-sized banana.
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 19, 2013 11:00 am Just look at it. Ella's Deli and Ice Cream Parlor (Thanks, Viktor!)
Read in browser Resident Alien Volume 1: Welcome to Earth!
By Mark Frauenfelder on Mar 19, 2013 10:30 am Michael Pusateri recommended the comic book Resident Alien on an episode of Gweek last year. A few days ago I received a review copy of the paperback anthology that collects the first four issues and loved it. Resident Alien Volume 1: Welcome to Earth! is about an alien who crash lands his spacecraft on Earth ...
Read in browser Kim Newman's critically-acclaimed 1993 horror novel re-issued (excerpt)
By Mark Frauenfelder on Mar 19, 2013 09:40 am Titan Books has released a brand-new edition of Kim Newsman's critically-acclaimed 1993 adult horror novel, Jago. Paul, a young academic composing a thesis about the end of the world, and his girlfriend Hazel, a potter, have come to the tiny English village of Alder for the summer. Their idea of a rural retreat gradually sours ...
Read in browser Minimalist Parenting: Getting Things Done meets childrearing
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 19, 2013 09:28 am Minimalist Parenting: Enjoy Modern Family Life More by Doing Less is a just-published book by Asha Dornfest (of Parenthacks) and Christine Koh. It's a simple, short, entirely sensible guide to escaping social expectations and personal childrearing anxiety. It's a book about figuring out the parenting choices that'll make you and your family the happiest, and ...
Read in browser Google Maps now allows you to explore Everest, Kilimanjaro and other great mountains
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 19, 2013 09:18 am Google this week unveiled the ability to virtually explore, via Google Maps, some of the most famous mountains on Earth, including Aconcagua (South America), Kilimanjaro (Africa), Mount Elbrus (Europe) and Everest Base Camp (Asia). These mountains belong to the group of peaks known as the Seven Summits—the highest mountain on each of the seven continents. ...
Read in browser Rube Goldberg machines in YouTube Space Tokyo
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 19, 2013 09:13 am Japan, India and Korea YouTube creators
build a huge Rube Goldberg machine in YouTube Space Tokyo.
Read in browser CNN, Fox News, MSNBC air name of 16yo Steubenville rape victim
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 19, 2013 09:05 am Three cable news networks, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, outed the underage victim in the Steubenville rape trial by name during reports about the case. The identification of the 16 year old rape victim occurred in the course of a clip in which one of the convicted rapists apologized to the victim and her family. ...
Read in browser Occupy SXSW 2013
By Jasmina Tesanovic on Mar 19, 2013 09:00 am Image: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic image from Tim Regan's photostream I must start with a tweet from my wise friend Xeni Jardin: "Some of you have asked why I'm not at SXSW: as a person with cancer, have I not suffered enough already?" Well, some of us still are there at South By South ...
Read in browser More on the impact of UK press regulation on blogs, websites, tweeters, and social media
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 19, 2013 07:48 am Further to yesterday's post about the way that the UK's new press regulation will affect bloggers, tweeters, tumblrers, facebookers, et al., Lisa O'Carroll at the Guardian points out that anyone who doesn't sign up for the "voluntary" system of press regulation will be liable to punitive "exemplary" damages for libel, as well as being on ...
Read in browser Cory at Forbidden Planet London with Rapture of the Nerds this Saturday!
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 19, 2013 06:31 am Hey, Londoners! A quick reminder that I'll be signing the new UK edition of Rapture of the Nerds this Saturday at Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Ave at 13h. Come on down and say hi!
Read in browser Casino cheats used house CCTVs to score $32M
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 18, 2013 11:12 pm A rich, high-stakes gambler was dragged out of his opulent comp suite at the Crown Towers casino in Melbourne, accused of participating in a $32M scam that made use of the casino's own CCTV cameras to cheat. The Herald Sun understands remote access to the venue's security system was given to an unauthorised person. Images ...
Read in browser Peter Murphy busted for DUI hit-and-run injury and meth possession
By David Pescovitz on Mar 18, 2013 10:25 pm Peter Murphy, singer for Bauhaus, was arrested this weekend in Los Angeles for an alleged DUI hit-and-run that reportedly injured the other driver. A witness followed Murphy and blocked him until cops arrived. According to police, Murphy appeared to be "very confused." From the Glendale News Press: Murphy denied drinking alcohol that day, adding that ...
Read in browser Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom read-aloud part 01
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 18, 2013 08:30 pm As I mentioned in my March Locus column, I'm celebrating the tenth anniversary of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by planning a prequel volume. As part of that planning, I'm going to read aloud the entire text of that first book into my podcast, making notes on the book as I go. Here's ...
Read in browser Copyright shouldn't take away real property rights
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 18, 2013 07:02 pm iFixit's Kyle Wiens has a must-read op-ed in Wired on the insane way that copyright is being used to take away your property rights in tools as diverse as tractors and cars and cellphones and phone switches. The manufacturers use a variety of copyright claims (especially anti-circumvention claims under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act/DMCA) ...
Read in browser Machines that do nothing but switch themselves off
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 18, 2013 06:41 pm Useless machines are home-built devices that turn themselves off as soon as you turn them on — and that's it. That's all the they do. The more elaborate and gimmicky the method by which they accomplish this job, the better. As a hobby, useless machines have been around since the 1950s, but Abigail Pesta of ...
Read in browser Literature's business model explained, with special reference to the age of the Internet
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 18, 2013 06:38 pm Richard Nash's essay "On the business of literature" is one of the best, most thought-provoking, most beautifully argued articles about the business of publishing through history and in the Internet age that I've ever read. It's one of those pieces from which it is nearly impossible to choose an illustrative quotation -- as I read, ...
Read in browser Instant gold
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 18, 2013 06:36 pm Under the right conditions, veins of gold can form in just a few tenths of a second, writes Richard Lovett at Nature News. The key is the massive changes in below-ground pressure that can accompany an earthquake. Under the right conditions, water vaporizes, leaving behind crystallized minerals.
Read in browser Cancer as a contagious disease
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 18, 2013 06:27 pm In 2011, Hugo Chavez alleged that he was the victim of an assassination plot ... that unnamed US agents had infected him with a transmissible cancer. Scientifically speaking, that's highly unlikely. But what's interesting is that the idea of contagious cancer isn't totally outside the realm of reality. Transmissible cancers do exist, just not in ...
Read in browser Space station cake from EVE Online
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 18, 2013 05:40 pm This amazing EVE Online Gallente Space Station cake was created by Duff Goldma of Charm City Cakes in Baltimore, MD. It's unquestionably the greatest MMORPG space-station cake I've ever seen. Dock Your Fork in This Gallente Space Station Cake
Read in browser Interview with Joel, Veronica, and Greg of Gizmodo's Gadget Testers
By Mark Frauenfelder on Mar 18, 2013 05:19 pm Earlier today Rob mentioned Gizmodo: The Gadget Testers, a TV pilot that airs tonight at 10:20/9:20c on BBC America. It stars our pals Joel Johnson and Veronica Belmont. I interviewed Veronica, Joel, and co-host Greg Foot today about some of their funny experiences making the pilot.
Read in browser Free downloadable magic/automata books from Robert Houdin's private club
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 18, 2013 05:17 pm Dug North sez, "The book titled 'Two Odd Volumes on Magic & Automata; has been available in a printed version for a while, but is now available as a PDF. The book is offered for free from LEAFpdx, but I am sure donations would be welcome." The Sette of Odd Volumes published two fantastic books ...
Read in browser Just look at this banana sculpture.
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 18, 2013 04:26 pm Just look at it. fruit - Matt James Stone (Thanks, Marie!)
Read in browser Growing up in the future
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 18, 2013 04:18 pm When Veronique Greenwood went to college in 2004, she took a laptop with her ... and a videophone. In an engaging essay at Aeon Magazine, Greenwood writes about what it was like to grow up with a Futurist for a mom, particularly a futurist who, in retrospect, seemed to be more interested in premature technologies ...
Read in browser Django Django video for "WOR"
By Amy Seidenwurm on Mar 18, 2013 03:15 pm "WOR" is Django Django's 7th video from their self-titled debut, and is a mesmerizing peek into the lives of daredevils drivers at a fair in Allahabad.
Read in browser Yogurt for manly men
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 18, 2013 02:36 pm A company called "Powerful Yogurt" has shipped a line of "brogurt" -- single-serving bacteria cultures that are meant to appeal to manly men who are put off by the femininity of traditional yogurt packaging. Comedian Jessi Klein said of the product on an episode of NPR's Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me, "If male yogurt marketing ...
Read in browser The journal of horrifying science
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 18, 2013 02:28 pm Science Horrors is a tumblr blog that compiles stories about the discomfiting, disturbing, and just plain terrifying parts of science. From 13th-century bioterrorism to the killer carbon dioxide gas bubbles of central Africa, there's plenty here to amaze you and freak you the frack out.
Read in browser Electronic cotton and stretchable silicon
By David Pescovitz on Mar 18, 2013 02:18 pm Over at our sponsor Intel's My Life Scoop site, I wrote about the future of wearable computing: Electronic Cotton Several university laboratories are developing transistors — the building blocks of all computers — that are literally woven from cotton fibers. In a recent project led by Cornell University's Textiles Nanotechnology Laboratory, engineers coated cotton with ...
Read in browser The Exploratorium's Sound Uncovered: A science museum in your hand (for free)
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 18, 2013 02:15 pm This review also appears on Download the Universe, a group blog reviewing the best (and worst, and just "meh") in science-related ebooks and apps. When I go to science museums, I like to press the buttons. I'm convinced this is a special joy that you just do not grow out of. Hit the button. See ...
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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