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The Geography of Happiness According to 10 Million Tweets
The happiest city in America is Napa, California -- and the saddest all swear too much. Red states are relatively happier. Blue states are relatively less happy. Gray states are neutral. Sorry,...
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How Did the Moon Form? We May Need a New Theory
There may be much more water on the moon than we thought. And that could change everything. The Genesis Rock, a sample of the moon gathered by Apollo 15 astronauts James Irwin and David Scott in 1971,...
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The Definitive Story of Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Phone Phreaking
Every company has a creation myth, and Apple's centers on the two Steves, and their early, illicit foray into the nation's telephone system. Ed Piskor/Internet Archive Editor's note: The following...
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When Mannequins Move
A store lures customers with marionettes that mimic humans Marionettes have a long history. In ancient Greece, they are thought to have acted out epics like "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" for...
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Astronauts on the ISS Have Trouble With Work-Life Balance, Too
The good news: Even astronauts feel like they don't have enough time. The bad: Even astronauts feel like they don't have enough time. Literally clockwise from left: Ford, Hadfield, Marshburn (NASA)...
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Dystopia in One Drawing
It's better without context, but if you must know, here it is. @ibogost @alexismadrigal Interrupted only by hamburger ads.-- Andy Baio (@waxpancake) February 20, 2013 Via Ian Bogost.
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Whatever Happened to the Phone Phreaks?
Phone phreaks demonstrated that the mundane telephone could become a gateway to virtual adventures which spanned the globe, anticipating the culture of hacking today. Cartoon from Volume 1, Issue 1 of...
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How Augmented-Reality Content Might Actually Work
Caterina Fake describes how her startup, Findery, is helping the Internet get local. Augmented reality is very exciting. The promise of it is this: all the information on the Internet overlaid on the...
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1 Kitty, 2 Empires, 2,000 Years: World History Told Through a Brick
How did a Roman brick from the British Isles get to Washington state's Fort Vancouver?Fort Vancouver Historical National Historic Site At some moment a few years after Jesus Christ died but before the...
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A Mapped History of Taking a Train Across the United States
The first steam engine railway travel took place 209 years ago today. Here, the story of how the Civil War impeded, and then accelerated, the progress of America's trains. All maps credit Charles O....
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Reclining Airplane Passengers of the World, Unite!
Whiners be damned: A reclined seat is way more comfortable than an upright one, especially on a long flight. We are all better off when we choose to recline together. (Rebecca J. Rosen/Feliks...
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Google Tests the Joke That People Now Think Screens Are Broken If You Can't...
A look at Google's new laptop, the Chromebook Pixel, unveiled today at an event today in San Francisco It's a cliche at this point: give a kid a screen that's not touch sensitive and she'll think it's...
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NASA Releases Stunning Video of 'Fiery Looping Rain on the Sun'
"Simply amazing," says NASA. The bubbling tumult of the sun's surface regularly produces some pretty jaw-dropping sights, but it's rare that we get to see something like this -- and in motion to boot....
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How Big Data Can Catch Oxycontin Abusers and Bad Docs
A team of forensic experts are trying to stanch the flow of prescription drugs into the black market.Edited from flickr/grump puddinPrescription drug overdose deaths are up. "Diversion" of drugs for...
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The Awesome Irrelevance And Vast Amorality Of You
I've spent the past few days on the road talking (mostly) to young people. Many of these conversations have revolved around the difference between education and credentialism. Within that conversation...
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Mischievous Cats in World History, Part 3
If you've been following the blog this week, you've seen our posts on a cat that left its pawprints on a medieval scribe's work and another that left its mark on a brick made in England during Roman...
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PlayStation 4: A Videogame Console
Today, the most novel feature of new technology is ordinariness.Alexis MadrigalThe logo for the Dutch videogame studio Guerrilla Games is an object lesson in mixed metaphor: an orange "G" contorted...
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Facebook Workers Try to Spend Less Than 1 Second Determining Whether Content...
Emily Bazelon's deeply reported piece on bullying at Woodrow Wilson Middle School in Watertown, Connecticut is full of important information. But for me, the most telling moment occurred when she...
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You Can Now Take Classes From the Most Selective College in the Country on...
What can an elite music conservatory gain by offering access to its courses to the masses?Rebecca J. Rosen The most selective college in the country -- the hardest school to get into -- isn't in the...
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On Nuclear Weapons as Units of Measurement
What does it really mean when we say last week's meteor delivered a force 30 times the size of the Hiroshima bomb? Wikimedia Commons Perhaps you saw the reports last week, as the world tried to wrap...
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