Saturday, June 15, 2013

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

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Handgun drone unsuccessfully shoots mobile phone
Glenn Greenwald's keynote at Freedom to Connect 2013
Durian McFlurry at McDonald's Singapore
Watch 2013 Obama debate 2006 Biden on NSA surveillance
Bookstore porthole
"Guccifer" hacks email, Facebook accounts of Obama appointee who leads U.S. Nuclear Security Agency
"My Dad Was in a Band," blog archiving vintage bands and the Dads in them
Watch and listen live to your favorite bands playing Bonnaroo
A noteworthy Reddit AMA: "I am James Bamford, one of the journalists investigating the NSA"
The first things ever posted at famous websites
What we're reading—"Gather," a food-centric journal of culture
Tank Girl cosplay
Book-lined staircase
Watch the latest hand-picked videos in Boing Boing's video archives
Leaked memo details NSA talking points on Prism
If the NSA's Prism is no big deal, why was Yahoo in court fighting it?
Superformula against cancer: Superhero chemotherapy for child cancer patients in Brazil
Buzz Aldrin speaks out against Tang
Petitioning the state of Guatemala to ensure due process of law in Rios Montt genocide trial
Neil Young loves model trains
UK: Edward Snowden not welcome here

 

Handgun drone unsuccessfully shoots mobile phone

By Cory Doctorow on Jun 15, 2013 11:59 am

Spocko sez, "In this commercial for a cell phone screen protector product, a quadcopter flies up to some fruit, sodas and a cell phones and shoots them with a remote controlled handgun.
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Glenn Greenwald's keynote at Freedom to Connect 2013

By Cory Doctorow on Jun 14, 2013 11:23 pm

Joly sez, "On March 4-5 2013 the Internet Society's North America Bureau webcast the Freedom to Connect 2013 conference in Washington DC.
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Durian McFlurry at McDonald's Singapore

By Cory Doctorow on Jun 14, 2013 09:19 pm

McDonald's Singapore is selling a "Durian Crunch McFlurry" that combines soft-serve ice-cream with everyone's favorite stinkily delicious T-Rex-testicle-looking fruit. It sells for S$2.80 or about USD2.23.
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Watch 2013 Obama debate 2006 Biden on NSA surveillance

By Xeni Jardin on Jun 14, 2013 06:24 pm

Watch then-Senator Joe Biden from 2006 directly refute each point made by his now-boss, President Barack Obama, about the NSA surveillance program at a news conference last week.
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Bookstore porthole

By Cory Doctorow on Jun 14, 2013 06:15 pm

This wonderful porthole-made-of-books is part of the design for the John W. Doull Bookseller store in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and warrants a side-trip all on its own.
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"Guccifer" hacks email, Facebook accounts of Obama appointee who leads U.S. Nuclear Security Agency

By Xeni Jardin on Jun 14, 2013 06:07 pm

Neile Miller, the Obama administration official who heads the agency responsible for maintaining America's nuclear stockpile and for tracking down "loose nukes" worldwide is the latest victim of "Guccifer." Her Facebook account was recently breached by the hacker, who is also said to have illegally accessed one of Miller's personal e-mail accounts.
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"My Dad Was in a Band," blog archiving vintage bands and the Dads in them

By Xeni Jardin on Jun 14, 2013 05:46 pm

Just in time for Father's Day: mydadwasinaband.com. At Dangerous Minds, Richard Metzger explains the insane story that led to the blog's launch.
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Watch and listen live to your favorite bands playing Bonnaroo

By Xeni Jardin on Jun 14, 2013 05:06 pm

If you're too old, broke, tied to your job, or crowd-phobic to have made it to Bonnaroo in person but still want to hear all the bands, no sweat bro! Just tune in on Ustream.
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A noteworthy Reddit AMA: "I am James Bamford, one of the journalists investigating the NSA"

By Xeni Jardin on Jun 14, 2013 04:58 pm

Keith Alexander, head of the National Security Administration. Illustration for WIRED by Mark Weaver Journalist James Bamford did a Reddit AMA today.
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The first things ever posted at famous websites

By Rob Beschizza on Jun 14, 2013 04:28 pm

Thiswasafirst collects the first postings ever published at some of the web's most well-known sites. Behold Jack Dorsey's first tweet, Yakov Lapitsky's first YouTube upload, and Brad Fitzpatrick's first Livejournal entry.
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What we're reading—"Gather," a food-centric journal of culture

By Xeni Jardin on Jun 14, 2013 04:28 pm

Gather Journal, Spring/Summer 2013 issue. About their wonderful publication launched just about a year ago, Michele Outland and Fiorella Valdesolo say: "We started Gather because of a shared love of food and cooking, and a desire to create a magazine with staying power on your bookshelf; one that you could return to again and again for inspiration.
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Tank Girl cosplay

By Cory Doctorow on Jun 14, 2013 04:00 pm

KayLynn-Syrin's Tank Girl cosplay is just about the greatest bringing-to-life of one of my fave comic characters I've ever seen. Tank Girl!
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Book-lined staircase

By Cory Doctorow on Jun 14, 2013 03:12 pm

A mysterious and magnificent book-lined staircase, provenance unknown. Do you know where this is? Update: Thanks to sleuthy commenters, who suggest that the photo depicts this staircase, at Australia's Deakin University Library, possibly taken by RuthC and for sale here.
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Watch the latest hand-picked videos in Boing Boing's video archives

By Xeni Jardin on Jun 14, 2013 02:12 pm

Among the most recent video posts you will find on our video archive page: • Superheroes help kids fight cancer • Neil Young loves model trains • Art of Punk videos • Faces deformed by rubber bands • Long-lost Nazi diary from Hitler confidant found • Beautiful video of a supercell thunderstorm • How do Russians pee in space?
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Leaked memo details NSA talking points on Prism

By Cory Doctorow on Jun 14, 2013 02:00 pm

A leaked memo apparently sets out the NSA's "talking points" to its defenders in government who are discussing the situation with the press and critics.
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If the NSA's Prism is no big deal, why was Yahoo in court fighting it?

By Xeni Jardin on Jun 14, 2013 01:55 pm

Top lawyers for Yahoo argued in a secret court in Washington that the company should not be forced to assist the government in spying on "certain foreign users, without a warrant," which Yahoo had refused on the grounds that such broad requests were unconstitutional."The judges disagreed.
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Superformula against cancer: Superhero chemotherapy for child cancer patients in Brazil

By Xeni Jardin on Jun 14, 2013 01:35 pm

Ad agency JWT Brazil created a "Superformula" to fight cancer. Here's a video explaining the project. They worked with the A.C.
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Buzz Aldrin speaks out against Tang

By David Pescovitz on Jun 14, 2013 01:16 pm

According to Buzz Aldrin though, "Tang sucks." (NBC News)
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Petitioning the state of Guatemala to ensure due process of law in Rios Montt genocide trial

By Xeni Jardin on Jun 14, 2013 01:16 pm

Benjamin Manuel Geronimo, massacre survivor, and representative of Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR), speaking in the genocide trial in Guatemala City on May 9, 2010.
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Neil Young loves model trains

By David Pescovitz on Jun 14, 2013 01:05 pm

Neil Young talks model trains with David Letterman. Young isn't just a model train enthusiast, he's also an inventor. From Dangerous Minds:
Young first created a research and development company, Liontech, to help the storied Lionel, LLC train manufacturing company, founded in 1900, create model trains with sound systems and control units.

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UK: Edward Snowden not welcome here

By Cory Doctorow on Jun 14, 2013 01:03 pm

The UK Home Office has sent letters to the world's airlines, warning them not to let NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden board a plane for the UK, because "the individual is highly likely to be refused entry to the UK.
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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

Sent by 2013 Boing Boing, CC.
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