Kickstarting a spellbook for Pathfinder RPG Meet the NASA Astronaut Class of 2013 Dolphins on acid (and other bad ideas) Five great myths of cocktail chemistry Everything wrong about medical marijuana marketing in California, in a single snapshot The chemical composition of "old book smell" Some snapshots from the mass Brazilian protests (and an explanation) Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Chuck D and Spectrum City The 'Geisters: spooky, scary novel Safecast, crowdsourced radiation monitoring project, logs 10 million data points Bill Nye, "Firebrand for Science," profiled in NYT Trailer for Backyard Blockbusters: doc about fan-films Edwardians doing bike tricks Tales from the history of NSA spying Why delicate men die more frequently than robust ladies More on MERS Virtual dissection table is fascinating, useful, and just a little creepy Dragonflies outfitted with brain sensor backpacks FBI digging for Hoffa Why health insurance makes no sense Making sense of the confusing Supreme Court DNA patent ruling Watch the latest hand-picked videos in Boing Boing's video archives Monochrom: 20 years' worth of Viennese art-weirdness Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy Kickstarting a set of black-light Alice in Wonderland posters Onion Pi - Convert a Raspberry Pi into a Anonymizing Tor Proxy, for easy anonymous internet browsing Yoga art exhibit coming to Washington DC Paper anatomical model How Bugs Bunny saved Mel Blanc's life Man in jail for putting E.T. in freezer Kickstarting a spellbook for Pathfinder RPG
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 18, 2013 12:06 pm Wade sez, "Wolfgang Baur, roleplaying game designer and publisher of the late, lamented Kobold Quarterly magazine (successor to Dragon) has launched the Deep Magic Kickstarter bringing 300 new spells to Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.
Read in browser Meet the NASA Astronaut Class of 2013
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 18, 2013 11:51 am More than 6000 people applied, eight were chosen. And, for the first time, NASA has an astronaut class with gender parity — four men, and four women.
Read in browser Dolphins on acid (and other bad ideas)
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 18, 2013 11:36 am How dosing dolphins with LSD (and giving dolphins hand jobs) helped shape our modern pop culture beliefs about dolphins as sources of healing — beliefs that, according to neuroscientist Lori Marino, can endanger both dolphins and the humans who come to them for help.
Read in browser Five great myths of cocktail chemistry
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 18, 2013 11:14 am There is nothing wrong with adding ice to scotch, writes Kevin Liu at Serious Eats. In fact, a little water can change the flavor profile of the drink for the better.
Read in browser Everything wrong about medical marijuana marketing in California, in a single snapshot
By Xeni Jardin on Jun 18, 2013 11:00 am I snapped this photo of a popular medical marijuana dispensary storefront in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles last week. To me, it represents everything bone-headed about the way LA area pot shops (which operate in a legal gray zone in a conflicting patchwork of federal, state, and local laws) market themselves.
Read in browser The chemical composition of "old book smell"
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 18, 2013 10:59 am It starts with lignin — a compound that makes up the cell walls of plants. Turns out, it's also closely related (chemical-structure-wise) to vanillin, the stuff that makes vanilla smell so vanilla-y.
Read in browser Some snapshots from the mass Brazilian protests (and an explanation)
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 18, 2013 10:20 am (GENTE, olha esse reflexo na fachada de um prédio na manifestação do Rio, no centro da cidade! #ProtestoRJ/@brunoernica) Brazil is up in arms.
Read in browser Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Chuck D and Spectrum City
By Ed Piskor on Jun 18, 2013 09:56 am Read the rest of the Hip Hop Family Tree comics! Read in browser The 'Geisters: spooky, scary novel
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 18, 2013 08:42 am Horror writer David Nickle is a master of the creepy -- the reveal at the end of the horror story that lodges in your brain and revisits you in goosepimply moments of fear.
Read in browser Safecast, crowdsourced radiation monitoring project, logs 10 million data points
By Xeni Jardin on Jun 17, 2013 11:02 pm The crowdsourced radiation monitoring project Safecast, which was
launched in the weeks after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, has reached a big milestone:
they have collected and published over 10,000,000 individual data points.
Read in browser Bill Nye, "Firebrand for Science," profiled in NYT
By Xeni Jardin on Jun 17, 2013 11:01 pm John Schwartz has a colorful
profile of Bill Nye the Science Guy in the New York Times, exploring his evolution from science-lesson-explainer for kids, to a defender of fact-based reality against pundits on TV who say climate change, evolution, and, you know, evidence-based reasoning and science in general is a bunch of hooey.
Read in browser Trailer for Backyard Blockbusters: doc about fan-films
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 17, 2013 10:56 pm John sez, "Last fall, you guys ran
a story about 'Backyard Blockbusters,' my feature documentary on fan films (such as 'Troops', 'Hardware Wars', 'Star Trek: Phase II", or the 'Raiders of the Lost Ark" adaptation) and fan filmmakers.
Read in browser Edwardians doing bike tricks
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 17, 2013 09:00 pm The Guardian commemorates the
reissue of Isabel Marks's 1901 classic "Fancy Cycling" by publishing a sweet gallery of Edwardian ladies and gents doing bike tricks: "Marvel as these tailored tricksters demonstrate how to pick up a handkerchief without dismounting, ride backwards while seated on the handlebar, and 'tilting at the ring'"
(Thanks, Jonathan!
Read in browser Tales from the history of NSA spying
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 17, 2013 06:00 pm The NSA's first large-scale domestic surveillance project began in 1945 —
when the organization began reading American's telegrams. Read in browser Why delicate men die more frequently than robust ladies
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 17, 2013 05:40 pm In general, women outlive men. This is not a new idea. But what you might not know is that the effect can't be explained by some simple hand-waving about risk-taking men, or war, or the allure of the Marlboro Man.
Read in browser More on MERS
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 17, 2013 05:33 pm MERS is the SARS-related virus that's killing people in the Middle East — and
the government of Saudi Arabia, where most of the outbreak is happening, has been reticent about releasing information on infections and deaths.
Read in browser Virtual dissection table is fascinating, useful, and just a little creepy
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 17, 2013 05:25 pm Everything a dissection table should be, I suppose. I'm absolutely mesmerized by the utility of this tool, developed by Anatomage and Stanford University's Division of Clinical Anatomy.
Read in browser Dragonflies outfitted with brain sensor backpacks
By David Pescovitz on Jun 17, 2013 05:10 pm Neuroscientist have attached an electronic "backpack" to dragonflies that jack into the insect's brain and wirelessly transmit the data back to a base station.
Read in browser FBI digging for Hoffa
By David Pescovitz on Jun 17, 2013 04:53 pm It's time again to play Digging for Hoffa! Today, the FBI will dig in a field north of Detroit based on a tip from alleged mobster Tony Zerilli.
Read in browser Why health insurance makes no sense
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 17, 2013 04:47 pm Two doctors have written a really fascinating analysis of the history and economics of health insurance that
will make our current U.S. Read in browser Making sense of the confusing Supreme Court DNA patent ruling
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 17, 2013 04:32 pm Nine people who have not recently made any sweeping judgements about biotechnology. Last week, I told you about the
US Supreme Court ruling that made it illegal to patent naturally occurring DNA.
Read in browser Watch the latest hand-picked videos in Boing Boing's video archives
By Xeni Jardin on Jun 17, 2013 03:58 pm Among the most recent video posts you will find on
our video archive page: • Miss Utah? Barely coherent • Watch 2013 Obama debate 2006 Biden on NSA surveillance • Watch and listen live to your favorite bands playing Bonnaroo • Superhero chemo • Neil Young loves model trains • Art of Punk videos • How do Russians pee in space?
Read in browser Monochrom: 20 years' worth of Viennese art-weirdness
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 17, 2013 03:23 pm Johannes from the Austrian art weirdos Monochrom sez, "As we are currently celebrating 20 years of monochrom, we were confronted with the problem of how to (re)present our history.
Read in browser Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy
By Jasmina Tesanovic on Jun 17, 2013 03:01 pm Writers Jasmina Tesanovic and Bruce Sterling visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope, a large, fully steerable radio telescope currently which was recently completed near San Basilio, in province of Cagliari in Sardinia, Italy.
Read in browser Kickstarting a set of black-light Alice in Wonderland posters
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 17, 2013 03:00 pm Noah sez, "What goes together better than Alice in Wonderland and black-light posters?! I'm excited to be a part of this cool project that just launched on Kickstarter.
Read in browser Onion Pi - Convert a Raspberry Pi into a Anonymizing Tor Proxy, for easy anonymous internet browsing
By Xeni Jardin on Jun 17, 2013 02:54 pm About this nifty
"Onion Pi" HOWTO just published at Adafruit, Phil Torrone says, "Limor and I cooked up this project for folks.
Read in browser Yoga art exhibit coming to Washington DC
By David Pescovitz on Jun 17, 2013 02:12 pm The Smithsonian's Museums of Asian Art in Washington, DC is preparing the first large exhibition of yoga-related art. Titled "Yoga: The Art of Transformation," the show is really a look at the history of the practice that dates back as far as 500 BCE.
Read in browser Paper anatomical model
By David Pescovitz on Jun 17, 2013 01:50 pm Papercraft artist Horst Kiechle created an incredible anatomical model, complete with removable organs, and posted all the templates and instructions online for free.
Read in browser How Bugs Bunny saved Mel Blanc's life
By David Pescovitz on Jun 17, 2013 01:34 pm In 1961, Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Barney Rubble, and literally a thousand other cartoon characters
(see vide above), was in a terrible car crash that put him in a coma.
Read in browser Man in jail for putting E.T. in freezer
By David Pescovitz on Jun 17, 2013 01:24 pm A farmer in eastern China killed an extraterrestrial and put it on ice. After he posted photos online, police reportedly showed up and determined that the ET is fake.
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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