I'm in Mission Lab at the Quest To Learn school, which is in its second year and serves 6th and 7th graders. I'm visiting with Jon Santiago who is organizing a Short Circuits afterschool program. The secret student attractor is the smell of microwave popcorn. Q2L was co-founded by the Institute of Play, an org started by Katie Salen of Parsons. The school has game-design and systems thinking at the core of its curriculum development. Leah Gilliam who is director of projects gave me a tour today.

Everybody gets an avatar at Q2L. Sent from my iPhone

From: Sara Winge <sara@oreilly.com>
Date: January 24, 2011 1:26:50 PM EST
To: Dale Dougherty <dale@oreilly.com>
Subject: open source and Henry Ford

just saw this in the wikipedia entry for open source--thought you might find it useful for make, and maker faire detroit in particular:

In the early years of automobile development, a group of capital monopolists owned the rights to a 2 cycle gasoline engine patent originally filed by George B. Selden.[4] By controlling this patent, they were able to monopolize the industry and force car manufacturers to adhere to their demands, or risk a lawsuit. In 1911, independent automaker Henry Ford won a challenge to the Selden patent. The result was that the Selden patent became virtually worthless and a new association (which would eventually become the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association) was formed.[4] The new association instituted a cross-licensing agreement among all US auto manufacturers: although each company would develop technology and file patents, these patents were shared openly and without the exchange of money between all the manufacturers.[4] Until the US entered World War 2, 92 Ford patents were being used freely by other manufacturers and were in turn making use of 515 patents from other companies, all without lawsuits or the exchange of money.[4]



--------------------------------------------
Sara Winge
VP, O'Reilly Radar, O'Reilly Media, Inc.
1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472
sara@oreilly.com, 707.827.7109,
http://www.oreilly.com, http://radar.oreilly.com, http://twitter.com/sarawinge

From: Jessie Duke <duke.jessie@gmail.com>
Date: January 21, 2011 2:48:18 PM PST
To: duke.jessie@gmail.com
Subject: RELEASE: PUBLISHER WILL EXCHANGE REAL BOOKS FOR UNWANTED KINDLES!

Microcosm Publishing Says, "Bring In Your Kindle, We'll Give You its Worth in Real Books!"
Only One Week Left!

For Immediate Release
Contact: Jessie Duke | jessie@microcosmpublishing.com | 812.391.4159

Do you love print? Do you still read books? Did you get a Kindle for Christmas? Do you want to trade in your soulless faux-literary technology for its worth in good old fashion books? Well, friends, Microcosm Publishing's got your back! Until the end of January you can bring in your Christmas Kindle to the Microcosm store in Portland (636 SE 11th) and trade it in for its worth in new or used books and zines! That's right! Why let fad technology kill print when you can take a stand and fill up your shelves in the process? (Don't worry, we won't tell your parents!) And make sure to bring a friend to help you carry all your loot! Most of Microcosm's books are priced in the $2-$6 range so a $139-$379 trade-in (note: going retail for the Kindle at Amazon's site, various models) you might be carrying your books out in a fleet of wheelbarrows!

On Amazon's Kindle page you'll be able to read glowing endorsements like the following, "My first impression of Kindle's screen was: 'That's a screen?! It doesn't look like a screen.'... It looks like a book page, only perfect. No grain or pulp. — Jeremy"

Well, you know what, Jeremy? We love the grain and pulp. Long live the grain and pulp! Long live the PAGE.

For interviews with Microcosm founder Joe Biel about the Great Christmas Kindle Trade In, please shoot us an email and we'll hook it up!

Thanks for helping to keep print alive!

HARD INFO
Microcosm Publishing book and zine store
636 SE 11th
Portland, Oregon
97214
11am-7pm
Seven days a week
503-232-3666
Kindle Trade lasts until the end of January
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Microcosm-hQ-Store/131220623559507
http://www.microcosmpublishing.com

ABOUT MICROCOSM PUBLISHING: As a not-for-profit, collectively-run publisher and distributor of zines and related work, Microcosm Publishing strives to add credibility to zine writers and their ethics, teach self empowerment, show hidden history, and nurture people's creative side! Now based in Bloomington, IN and Portland, OR, Joe Biel started the distro and then-record-label out of his bedroom in 1996. Since then we've grown to become one of the largest zine distributors in the world, reaching an international audience through our website and retail store.

ABOUT THE MICROCOSM PUBLISHING ZINE STORE Since opening doors in August 2008, the Microcosm zine and book store has moved twice to larger locations. In an age when out-of-touch doomsayers are hoping to drive the final nail in the print media coffin, Microcosm continues to prove that people still buy books and zines and that running a DIY bookstore (and publishing books) in this day and age isn't a damned proposition. The new store location is in the massive 636 SE 11th building shared with likeminded folks Eberhardt Press and Printed Matter (and a skateramp). The store is open seven days a week and features a full scale reading area and coffee counter. Check with http://www.micrcosmpublishing.com for regular author signings, readings, and potlucks!

Jessie Duke
Microcosm Publishing
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Press Department
http://microcosmpublishing.com/press/
609 Rock Creek Dr.
Lansing, KS 66043
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Check out our new releases! http://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/our_published_titles
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Facebook :: facebook.com/microcosmpublishing
Twitter :: twitter.com/microcosmmm
Myspace :: myspace.com/microcosmpublishing

Sent from my iPhone

Shawn is showing hid work, including Halo soldier outfits. Part of Open Make.

Sent from my iPhone

At the Exploratorium as a featured maker today, Virginia Fleck is an Austin-based artist who makes inflatables from recycled plastic. She worked with kids to decorate it. Now they want to jump on it but it's not meant to support their weight.

Sent from my iPhone

The Layar Browser -  "A beautiful, fun augmented reality app that shows you things you can't see."

I just got turned on the Layar browser, which is a plaform for augmented reality apps.  Layar has been out for a while but these apps are relatively new.  I downloaded a Satellite Tracker app that allows you to identify satellites in orbit.Another one gives you the ID and location of the cell tower you are connected to on your phone.   There are tools for creating apps.   

Pretty cool.  

 

Doug Stowe, author of this issue's DIY Wood Spoon article was quoted
in this nice little article in the Boston Globe about wood shop
teachers:

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/family/articles/2011/01/04/why_some_educators...

via Sam Murphy

Jessica Care Moore, a performance poet and artist from Detroit, was part of the TED@MotorCity program featured at the Music Box Center at the Max Fisher Auditorium in downtown Detroit last night. I took the picture of Jessica in her beautiful red "gown" and I managed to include a profile of author John Gallagher.)  Craig Newmark was also featured on the program in conversation with Gary Bolles who curated the program for TED. It was a terrific evening. It was especially good to see so many Detroit makers in the audience. (Lish, Nick, Jeff, Dale, Bob, Andrew, Bilal, Roger, Ross, Eli and more.) 

My talk opened with: "All of us are makers. I believe that. All of us are makers. We are born makers. Our brain is wired for making. It’s what we do. We are all makers and there are all kinds of makers."

Thomas Goetz of Wired Magazine spoke about how getting better information (more immediate, more personal) will give us more control over our own health. He mentioned the Withings Wifi scale that seems like a must-have. It builds a chart on the Internet of your own weight gain/loss. He also mentioned the growing popularity of the Lose-It app for the iPhone.

Lisa Gansky spoke about Mesh, the subject of her book, looking at the intersection of physical, mobile and social. "Better Things, Easily Shared" was my takeaway from her talk.

John Gallagher of the Detroit Free Press talked about his book, "Re-imagining Detroit". The challenges that Detroit faces can be an opportunity to re-think and re-build the city on a new model. He talked about how we can use the city to "Live, Work and Play."

Two personal highlights for me:

A young girl came up and introduced herself -- a student at East Detroit high school. She said how much she loved Make Magazine. She went to Maker Faire Detroit last year and she said that "she wished she could live at Maker Faire." Wonderful. I encouraged her to participate as a maker this year with some of her classmates and she said they were already working on it.

I also met a woman who had been a teacher in Detroit for 35 years before retiring recently. She was very excited by my talk and wanted to introduce me to others who were working on "educational liberation."

The joy of speaking at events such as TED@MotorCity is the unexpected connections you make and might not have made otherwise.

Here's a link to photos from events taken by Benjamin Slayter.