I truly believe this week’s New Yorker cover should be passed into law. It’s a pedestrian-traffic solution I’ve often dreamed about (while power walking in the middle of the street, fuming and muttering obscenities), but couldn’t summon the inner Swift to bring to light. Thank you, Bruce McCall, for doing in paint what I could never do in…well…anything.
Posted in Unhappy Media
Tagged bruce mccall, jonathan swift, magazines, new yorker, time square, tourists
We’re used to typos. We’re also used to typos our phones make for us. But real life persists, and we mustn’t blithely assume that just because we don’t want to hear it means it’s not the truth.
Sometimes our brothers really are fucking dudes in the supply closet.
[Thanks, LAA]
Posted in Gadgeteering, Write and Wrong
Tagged auto correct, best intextions, iphone, typos
Scientists. Smart, but not always so savvy. I recently found myself somehow on the mailing list for the newsletter of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. If your organization goes by the acronym PNAS, ought you call your weekly dispatch the Tipsheet?
My introductory email explained that I may “show relevant parts of the PNAS tipsheet” to independent specialists to solicit informed comment. But each tipsheet is “NOT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE.”
I should hope not.
Posted in Information Stupor Highway, Lab Results, Write and Wrong
Tagged email, newsletter, pnas, tipsheet
A few months back I wrote a story for O, The Oprah Magazine about a designer in Long Beach, California with a bright idea to make a public sculpture that’s also a solar generator. His name is Darren Saravis and he calls his invention the SolarFlora.
I liked the idea enough to pitch it to O. O liked it enough to run the story. And someone liked the story enough to call Darren and invite him to give a TED talk at a local SoCal event. Well, the circle was completed when I got an email from Darren asking if I’d work with him to write his speech. He was having trouble putting his thoughts into words and hoped I could help. A big fan of both Darren and TED, I was more than happy to collaborate. We went back and forth for a few days and here’s what we came up with. Darren was nervous about the talk, but I think he pulled it off swimmingly.
Posted in Gadgeteering, Unhappy Media
Tagged art, darren saravis, solar power, solarflora, TED talks, ted.com, videos
It’s been a while and I been getting that existential itch. Here’s the answer to one of the fundamental queries above — can you guess which? It ranked highest among responses to a Yahoo! Answers post and provides vital clarity:
For amusement and fun!
In that sense, there isn’t really a ‘point’ to it..
It’s mainly for young adults (some elderly people) who want a bit of a laugh…
I guess the shine has been teken off it a little due to the fact that somebody died from doing it…
Posted in Google Game
Tagged existential crises, facebook, Google Game, meaning of life, planking
Yesterday I was ushered out of Columbus Circle by NYPD officers while the bomb squad investigated a suspicious package left under a bench near the central fountain. Then I came home and saw on TV a commercial for a new Amazing Race-ish game show Take the Money and Run.
Call me prude, but in this if-you-see-something-say-something age is it really appropriate to produce a show that encourages contestants to hide a locked steel suitcase from investigators? Here, citizen, take this unmarked package and bury it somewhere. Stash it out of sight. And show America the best way to elude authorities while you do it. Moreover: Parody criminality for profit.
There’s a lot of value in that case. But what happened to values?
Posted in Unhappy Media
Tagged abc, crime, game shows, take the money and run, terrorism, tv, videos
R&D Magazine (what do you mean you don’t have a subscription?!) just named the winners of its annual R&D 100 Awards for excellence in the field of R and the related field of D. Among them, Argonne National Laboratory’s work in renewable methane production. The Department of Energy lab announced the exciting news today:
The Enhanced Renewable Methane Production System is a low-cost process that accelerates biological methane production rates at least fivefold. …This system addresses one of the largest barriers to the expansion of renewable methane – the naturally slow rate of production. To overcome this hurdle, Argonne researchers examined the natural biology of methane production… to accelerate biological methane production while sequestering CO2.
Click through to learn how they did it. Continue reading
Thanks to the reader who found the site by searching
“jesus vs justin bieber.”
Posted in Information Stupor Highway
Tagged jesus, justin bieber, reader appreciation
If you Google “Sweet Home Alabama: A Performance to Aid Disaster Relief” you don’t get any automatic suggestions. But you do get a northern spin on a southern classic and an easy and duly rewarding way to contribute to the relief efforts in Alabama.
Listen if you want to, give if you can — and for goodness’ sake, pass it the heck on.
Arranged and performed by members of The Shake, Apollo Run and other yankee gonnabes. Directed and edited by our own Nick Schupak. Promise, you’ll never feel better (read: less regretful) about listening to Skynyrd.
Updated May 18: Go to help-alabama.org to care/give/help.
They’re making another “No Strings Attached.” Except they cleverly swapped out the leads (look close, it’s hard to tell: Justin Timberlake for Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis for Natalie Portman), and changed the name from one lame cliche to another. Miraculously, this one is even more explicit. “Friends with Benefits.” Behold and be sad:
I don’t know how many times I can endure this.
Posted in Unhappy Media
Tagged friends with benefits, justin timberlake, mila kunis, movie trailer, movies, videos
No Happy Medium 