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Inspired in part by Adam Magyar’s slow motion videos of people on subway platforms, I tried pointing my iPhone 5s slow motion camera at passing trains while waiting for transfers on the DC Metro. Mobile slow motion is nowhere near the quality of Magyar’s hardware, so there’s blurring as the train gains speed, but the […]
“Don’t Look Down On Me” is Jonathan Novick’s documentary about the social travails of living with achondroplasia, or dwarfism. Passersby call out disparaging names, random strangers strike up conversations to bring up predictable stereotypes, and of course the “m-word” is addressed. 10 hours of walking in NYC as a woman, a viral video for Hollaback, documents […]
The return trip was much less grueling than the flight over: no overnight airport transfers in Japan this time around — though Chicago O’Hare was a pain to transit through, what with the standard bag re-check and a broken airport tram that forced us into a taxi for a terminal transfer.
Exploration Flight Test 1 was the first test launch for Orion*, NASA’s next deep space exploration capsule. After a day of delays from exclusion zone boat incursions and stiff fuel valves, the mission launched on December 5th aboard a ULA Delta IV Heavy rocket.
Sometimes I like to open up Google News and do a phrase search for Confessions of, which can turn up some interesting reading. Sometimes. Confessions of a Google Glass Explorer. I was told that I was one of the first few hundred Explorers in the city, which made me feel like some third-rate Shackleton embarked […]
Here’s a video of active volcano Tavurvur erupting in Papua New Guinea in August, recorded by an Australian taxi driver named Phil McNamara. It’s an impressive explosion, with a visible condensation shock and a loud, delayed sonic boom. Tavurvur has killed people before, but current conditions during this eruption have spared surrounding populations from ash […]
Google Glass is large, conspicuous, and expensive. It’s a bulky two-piece computer prominently clinging to the side of your face on a frame that is unfoldable and unpocketable. Unless you have a bag* with you, Glass pretty much forces you to wear it on your face — and this might be by design. It’s possible […]
I was in Orlando to meet up with my parents before a convention, but I had a day to myself before they arrived. The first thing I noticed after checking in to an old, threadbare room at the Best Western was that the tap water smelled funny, like sulfurous mud, and I thought as I […]
Our theme today is Dubious Medicine. The Vitamin Myth: Why We Think We Need Vitamins. I grew up in a rather Vitamin C-affirmative household, and it’s only just recently that I learned how much if it was from the influence of Linus Pauling and his strong — if unscientific — advocacy for Vitamin C megadosing. […]
@PicPedant Exposed DC Interview Slate story on viral pic accounts mentions PicPedant on page 2 Buzzfeed: 14 Incredible But Fake Viral Images – And The Twitter Account Debunking The Picspammers (by Tom Phillips) There’s a certain class of Twitter users who post nothing but pictures, calling themselves names like “HistoryPics”, “EarthPix”, “SpacePorn”, and such. They’ve […]