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This Guy Has Had a Months-Long Facebook Conversation With an Applebee's
If this Applebee's could talk, it might say, "Hello, friend!" (Flickr/Joe Monin)Chip Zdarsky is a comic book artist and journalist. He is also a devoted pen pal ... of an Applebee's. For the past...
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Three Crashes: Aspen CO, Buckhannon WV, Melbourne FL
1) Colorado. This afternoon a private jet crashed, with at least one fatality, at the Aspen airport. Here is one of several online reports from people at the airport or in other planes: What is...
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Just the Right Amount of Cyber Fear
An analyst looks at code in the malware lab of a cyber security defense lab at the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls, Idaho September 29, 2011. (Reuters)If our leaders don’t even use email, can...
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5 Intriguing Things: Monday, 1/6
1. For the last century, the hue of movie posters has gotten more blue and less orange, according to this data analysis. "This does appears to be a steady trend since 1915. Could this be related to...
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How the NSA Threatens National Security
Powerful systems are too easily abused. A scene from the McCarthy hearings. (Wikimedia Commons)Secret NSA eavesdropping is still in the news. Details about once secret programs continue to leak. The...
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The Amazing Rise of Chutzpah, in 1 Chart (Actually, in 2)
United ArtistsCheck out the graph below. It comes, with complementary tongue and cheek, from University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner: And what a trend it shows! Fiddler on the Roof appears in...
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88, Or How Telegraphers Coded 'Love and Kisses'
An Australian telegraph station around 1912 (Flickr Commons)What humans will do to save themselves from typing a few characters: LOL. ROTFL. TTYL. <3. BRB. Universal sentiments and actions become...
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The Weird, Wondrous Gadgets Introduced at CESes Past
An FM headphone set similar to the one introduced at the 1969 CES (oahus_best, eBay)Say what you will about its ongoing relevance, but the Consumer Electronics Show has, in years past, offered just...
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The Evolution of The New York Times Homepage, in 1 GIF
This week, The New York Times will be launching a redesign of its website. The updated version of NYTimes.com, the paper promises in a promo, will be "sleeker," "faster," "more intuitive," and...
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What the World Looks Like (When You're a Crab Net)
This is how one marine explorer summed up the ecosystem that has established itself below the ocean's surface: "Darling, it's better down where it's wetter, take it from me." We have generally taken...
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The Easiest Possible Way to Increase Female Speakers at Conferences
Heisenberg Media/flickrThough they may lack the overt frattiness of certain tech gatherings, academic conferences in the sciences are often similarly prone to a quieter kind of sexism: the all-male...
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Silicon Valley's New Spy Satellites
The International Space Station releases three nanosatellites—similar to those deployed by Planet Labs—on November 19, 2013. (NASA)Imagine an energy company which manages a pipeline through Canada’s...
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5 Intriguing Things: Tuesday, 1/7
Sunset aboard a Greyhound (Reuters).1. What Greyhound, which is celebrating its centennial, meant to America. "It was during these decades—from the 1930s through the 1950s—when Greyhound was among a...
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'Ask Me Anything': How a Weird Internet Thing Became a New Form of Media
President Obama during his AMA (Reddit).Barack Obama, Jerry Seinfeld, a line cook at Applebee's, and a guy with two penises walk into a bar. Actually, no, they would never do that. No venue could...
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Thousands of the World's Internet-Connected Things in One Place
The Connected Devices Project"The pioneer species of the internet of things is the smartphone," my colleague Christopher Mims wrote in December. And its fellow travelers are not far behind. A new...
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A Longtime Pilot on the Aspen Crash
Aspen Airport, c/o Aspen airport authority. Planes usually land from right to left, in this view.J. Mac McClellan is known through the flying world as the long-time editor of Flying magazine. Now he...
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International Fugitive Is 'Everlastingly Grateful' the 'Worst Software on the...
McAfee, the man himself (Reuters)You might know of John McAfee, Anti-Virus Guru. In 1987, he fought viruses with software and distributed that software to personal computers. It was the first time...
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The Time I Got Stranded in Antarctica
Stranded (Douglas Fox)The flight should have been routine: a straight shot from Sjögren Glacier on the coast of Antarctica, over an ocean sound crusted with sea ice, back to the ship where we were...
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58% of Americans Still Have a VCR in Their Homes
Shutterstock/STILLFXLast month, partly in preparation for the Consumer Electronics Show taking place in Vegas this week, Gallup polled Americans about the technologies they use in their homes. It then...
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At the CES of 1970, Piracy Was a Selling Point
Vintage recordable audiocassettes (eBay/squarenuts711)In 1970, New York City played host to the fourth Consumer Electronics Show. The gathering featured some 200 manufacturers displaying an array of...
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