NYC’s subway system is a blend of old and new design elements, and a century of history. Architect Michael Wyetzner explores the fascinating cues that exist in the world-renowned subway system. For a quick history lesson, check out Architectural Digest’s fun video.
Tag: culture
In an effort to ensure sustainability and reduce costs, invisible solar panels have been installed on ancient Roman ruins in Pompeii. Created by Dyaqua, the traditional PV tiles mimic materials like terracotta, stone, wood, concrete, and brick. This upgrade not only provides sustainable energy but also blends seamlessly into the historic site’s aesthetic, preserving its authenticity for millions of annual visitors.
A fun gem I found where musician Tony Ann has taken the iconic ringtone we all know from the iPhone and turned it into a complete song. It’s not the first time I’ve seen a massive amount of musical talent to write about, but this one is surely up there with the greats. The video is below and this is a direct link to view it as well.
Disney has learned the hard way that milking Star Wars for everything it is worth is not a good strategy. They’ve blamed the wrong people for movie failures and generally missed the mark with the launch of the Galactic Starcruiser. Natalie Sim at Theme Park Tourist now reveals that Disney is cutting back “sailings” for the Starcruiser. The first sign that the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser was in trouble was at the end of 2022 when the first discount was offered of 30% off original Points Chart values on select 2-night Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser adventures for Disney Vacation Club (DVC) members. In January, Disney…
Last week was an… interesting one in regard to TikTok. The massively-successful social network app with 50 million daily active users is in the sights of the US House of Representatives. They feel the app should be banned but that is a real slippery slope and one that could backfire drastically. Let’s rewind a bit to see how we got here. A Chinese company called ByteDance owns TikTok. For a while the app floundered as a network that never caught on in its original incarnation Music.ly. They rebranded into TikTok and shifted from a music lipsyncing app into the video-focused…
As a lover of all things sweet, I’ve always been intrigued by the Twinkie. Known for their yellow cake and creamy filling, Twinkies have been a go-to snack for generations. One rumor that has persisted since I was a kid is that Twinkies don’t expire. Is this really true? According to Shea Simmons over at Lifesavvy, the answer is sort of yes and no. In general, Twinkies are shelf-stable for up to 25 days. That’s markedly longer than many other snack cakes but way shorter than the infinite date cited by many. The thing that makes Twinkies last longer than others is…
The roots of rap and hip hop are intertwined with past music. From the earliest releases to the latest hits, so many songs use samples of prior music. Puff Daddy made mega-hits of songs in the 90s based off 80s samples. So have Dr. Dre, The Fugees, and Eminem. The list goes on and on. Now, with the release of De La Soul’s 3 Feet High And Rising on streaming, we learn more of what needs to be addressed: the legality of sampling. Dan Charnas at Slate discusses the struggle of the legendary hip-hop group to legally release their music…
Slowly but surely, electric vehicles (EVs) are breaking through into the mainstream. As much as I hate to give credit to Lord Manchild, his company has been a difference-maker in this area. Now we’re seeing the government get involved here in the US. The United States Postal Service (USPS) is making strides toward electrifying its fleet of delivery vehicles, and it’s turning to Oshkosh and Ford to help make it happen. It announced plans to purchase over 100,000 electric delivery vehicles over the next decade. Mitchell Clark at The Verge has more. In an announcement post on Tuesday, the agency said it…
When a pet runs away it can be a traumatic experience. A small neighborhood instantly transforms into a vast landscape of places they could go. Sometimes there are happy endings. For the Manuela family and their lost tortoise, theirs did too. However, it took 30 years. Stephen Messenger at The Dodo has more. Flash forward 30 years to 2013. Almeida’s grandfather had recently passed away, and her family gathered at her mom’s childhood home to sort through his possessions. Almeida’s grandfather had left behind a very cluttered attic, and as the the room was cleared and his things moved out…
In this ever-evolving world of AI drawing and chat and who knows what else, we find a new realm for computer-generated text-to-voice to apply its skills: audiobook narration. Leyland Cecco at The Guardian has more about how Apple is playing with fire in this experiment. The popularity of the audiobook market has exploded in recent years, with technology companies scrambling to gain a foothold. Sales last year jumped 25%, bringing in more than $1.5bn. Industry insiders believe the global market could be worth more than $35bn by 2030. Apple was due to launch the project in mid-November, but delayed it as layoffs…
YouTube has really taken over our world for entertainment in quick bites, personalities you get to know, and a wealth of knowledge on fixing and operating stuff. YouTube is everywhere and is an important archive of so much information. Now in a super interesting twist, YouTube has announced Study Hall, a collaboration with ASU to earn college credits. Sound crazy? Chase DiBenedetto at Mashable explains why it makes perfect sense. While all Study Hall videos are free to watch on YouTube, individuals can also enroll in associated courses created by Crash Course and Arizona State University educators to earn credits and build…
Forget about eSports and Pay-Per-View boxing. If you’re craving THE thrilling event of the 21st century, look no further than the Microsoft Excel World Championship. Yes, you read that right. Competitors from across the world compete against each other for who can be the winner in a knockout bracket challenge. Even crazier? It is televised on ESPN. Here’s more from Joel Khalili at TechRadar. Organized by the people behind the Financial Modeling World Cup, the Excel “All-Star Battle” took place back in May. It began with eight competitors, who went up against one another in a series of spreadsheet-based challenges…
Cute animals never cease to capture attention. And for good reason: they’re cute. With everyone having high-quality cameras in their pockets and the proliferation of cameras set up on people’s properties, there is never an end to seeing nature in action. Dr. Holley Muraco who studies animal behavior posted this gem from her backyard to YouTube. A pair of rescue beavers in a muddy pool of water decided to do their beaver thing and get some work done. It’s four minutes of good stuff.
For as much flack as I give Amazon for their practices, I will hand one thing to them: they take a page from Google and try lots of things to see what sticks. Not as many as Google but Amazon has its fingers in a lot of areas. Surprisingly, their AWS hosting service is the most profitable part of the company. Now they’re fully expanding into an area they’d dabbled in for a little bit: prescription drugs. The new expansion to “The world’s biggest store” is a simple subscription that can make a big difference for people. Called RxPass, the…
Mourning the dead is a process that differs by culture, geographic location, customs, and a myriad of other factors. One interesting turn of how technology may augment this process is the work of StoryFile. This company whose purpose is to memorialize Holocaust survivors has been employed at times to let the deceased “attend” and “answer” questions posed to them at their own funerals. Victor Tangermann at Futurism has more. Marina Smith who passed away in June, was able to address the mourners at her own funeral. StoryFile used 20 cameras to film her answering around 250 questions prior to her…
We’ve seen a boom in the availability of tiny libraries across the world. These small structures can be found in parks, outside people’s homes and in other public spaces. Often they have clear doors on the front and are stuffed with books to take. The idea is great and it’s also a wonderful way to leave some books you wish to pass onto other readers. A new idea called BookCrossing aims to add to this by becoming a way to share and track your passed-on books. The idea was brought to my attention a while back on Twitter when I…
In the late 90s and early aughts, it was thought that print was dead and the Internet would replace everything physical. That hasn’t happened and one company has stuck around to this day: Barnes & Noble. The bookseller has outlasted Borders, Waldenbooks, and B. Dalton Booksellers to be the last chain store standing. In the past decade, B&N has felt like it’s teetering on the edge, but recently something amazing has happened: Not only is Barnes & Noble profitable again but they actually plan to open new stores. Sounds crazy, right? Ted Gioia writes about it at The Honest Broker.…
Let’s start with the end of this story first: John Deere sucks. That is the most important part to know because, like others, they have fought tooth and nail to stop people from repairing the stuff they buy from Deere. In a society that’s moving more toward renting everything, being locked out of fixing your farm equipment is nearly the definition of absurd. So what’s the deal? P.j. Huffstutter from Reuters has news about an agreement between these two groups. Equipment makers such as Deere have generally required customers to use their parts and service divisions for repairs and until…
With the incredible computing power we all possess these days, it is infinitely fascinating to see how people can remaster, edit, and recut classic cinema into something more interesting and enthralling. From Thundercats to Terminator 2, there have always been great fan edits put out there. Now comes this 6-minute video from Scene 38 that reimagines the iconic Obi-Wan Kenobi vs Darth Vader lightsaber fight in Star Wars – Episode IV – A New Hope. Here’s what they have to say about this incredible video: “Scene 38 ReImagined” is about the final confrontation between Ben Kenobi & Darth Vader in…
In yet more proof (like we needed any) that Facebook Meta is still falling quite short in making their virtual reality world Horizon Worlds a thing, Wired reporter Eric Ravenscraft tells his tale of trying to hold a holiday party inside that system. Spoilers: it was a big mess. For starters, organizing an event using Horizon Worlds is far from intuitive. I spent a couple of hours trying to figure out how to add people to a group—without having to add coworkers as friends on my personal Facebook account. I eventually found an obscure tool that lets you generate a…
Meetings suck. They’ve always sucked. Generally they go longer than they need, key people can’t attend, and they can easily become unproductive which is the exact opposite of a meeting’s purpose. If you’re an employee of Shopify, your calendar is about to get a lot more open. Because in 2023, Shopify is telling everyone to scrap nearly all their meetings. Matthew Boyle at Bloomberg has more. As employees return from holiday break, the Canadian e-commerce firm said it’s conducting a “calendar purge,” removing all recurring meetings with more than two people “in perpetuity,” while reupping a rule that no meetings at all…
Even though it’s 2023 and we think the world is extremely connected, there are still parts of the globe that are not only disconnected but visiting these locations could be deadly. YouTube channel RealLifeLore documents Sentinel Island, an isolated piece of land that is part of the Andaman Islands, and the local population is one that voluntarily isolates from the world. The Sentinelese protect their land from visitors by force and it’s even been recorded in the news how visitors will kill intruders. The fascinating part to me is how this (and other voluntarily isolated groups) on Earth are aware…
When science fiction becomes science fact, it can be awesome. Other times it can be really bad. In the case of “Asimov’s Laws of Robotics”, it has become reality to examine the first law “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” because, in a whirlwind of decisions, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors first approved the use of deadly force by police robots but then reversed that decision. Judy Serrano at Gizmodo has more. San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted 8-3 on a revised version of the policy, which now prohibits police from using…
One of the greatest achievements in the past decade has been the ability of local public libraries ability to shift to offering more and more digital items. In a world where many of our books, movies, music, and other things are digital they have kept up. Now in a very cool twist, some libraries have launched their own music streaming service for patrons. Claire Woodcock at Vice has more. Over a dozen public libraries in the U.S. and Canada have begun offering their own music streaming services to patrons, with the goal of boosting artists and local music scenes. The…
We all know dogs get excited when they see us, but is that because they miss us or know we’re going to feed them? It’s been speculated that dogs are pretty damn smart, but we need the science to back that up. So leave it to 60 Minutes’ 2014 story about Chaser: the smartest dog in the world. The part that surprised me the most is the lack of scientific research into the mental ability of dogs in general. To think that it’s only been a few decades since work has been done with dogs is incredible. If you want…
You know we’re firmly in December when you begin seeing the plethora of people sharing their year-end Spotify Wrapped. This compilation of listening stats has been awesome to see but has always made me, an Apple Music subscriber, a bit sad that I haven’t had anything similar. Apple has finally fixed this egregious error by completely revamping its year-end Replay feature. And it’s awesome. Hartley Charlton at MacRumors has more. The overhauled experience puts the new highlight reel feature at the forefront of the Replay webpage, which users are encouraged to interact with before delving into more detailed information and…
While weather and natural events can be unpredictable, modern meteorologists have done a good job of predicting storms and natural disasters. But the residents of Miramar Beach, Mexico don’t listen to the experts. Why should they? Natural disasters pass them by all the time. And for those who live there there’s a simple explanation: the aliens are protecting their base. Nathaniel Janowitz at Vice has more. Local legend has it that this area in Mexico has been protected from hurricanes and other dangerous storms for over 50 years by extraterrestrials who monitor Earth from an underwater base hidden a few…
Autographs and original works of art are always collectible. For fans of Bob Dylan, his new book The Philosophy of Modern Song had a special edition: For $600 you could buy an autographed copy complete with a certificate of authenticity from the publisher Simon & Schuster. So imagine people’s ire when they found the autographs were not signed by Dylan but by an Autopen machine. Yeah, I’d be pissed too. Daniel Kreps at Rolling Stone has more. After initially rejecting requests for a refund, earlier this week, publishers Simon & Schuster said in a statement that they learned “the limited edition…
In one of the most public about-faces in recent history, Disney is admitting they’ve screwed up. Late on Sunday night, they announced CEO Bob Chapek was out as head of the company to be replaced by Bob Iger. There wouldn’t even be a transition. Iger is back in control immediately. More from Mike Calia and Alex Sherman at CNBC. The dramatic upheaval comes 11 months after Iger left Disney, and days after Chapek said he planned to cut costs at the company, which had been burdened by swelling costs at its streaming service, Disney+. Earlier this month, the company’s earnings vastly underperformed…
Does anyone like Clippy? For anyone who’s initial response is “Who?” let’s rewind. Back in the mid 90’s, Microsoft introduced an assistant into Word named Clippy. It was an animated paperclip with eyes. It would monitor what you were doing and interrupt your work with suggestions. It was… annoying. Dipping into the nostalgia well, Microsoft is bringing Clippy to life in the most Everything-Old-Is-Cool-Again way: an ugly sweater. Tom Warren at The Verge has the story. This year, Microsoft has turned to Clippy, which is more Office-inspired than Windows itself. Born in Office 97, Clippy was resurrected in 2019 for Microsoft…