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Modest Mouse’s 2004 album, Good News for People Who Love Bad News turns 10 years-old this month. It’s okay to feel old. It’s okay to feel a bit nostalgic. A decade ago, you loaded it on your iPod. You were 16 or 26 or 36 and you related to the manifestation of frontman Isaac Brock’s…
A beautiful look at the U.S.-Mexico border, how American cities are turning into “play deserts,” and where you’ll find the real roots of the tech industry. Plus a pizza-funded religious community in Florida, a farm on Staten Island, and where rich dogs poop, all in this week’s Urban Reads. NPR walked and drove all 2,428…
Enjoy peace and quiet? Like it when you get to unwind? Maybe you look forward to a weekend filled with nothingness. If you have kids, all that alone time gets replaced with blaring pop music wondering what certain animals sound like and dolls getting smashed on your shoulder. Every damn day. What a wonderful trade…
When you find that perfect fitting pair of jeans, you don’t want to do anything to jeopardize their size and shape. And if you’re among a growing demographic who refuses to wash their jeans as a result, you might want to consider Naked & Famous’ Scratch-N-Sniff jeans that actually release a fresh minty smell when…
Hollywood, 1965: the futuristic Cinerama Dome has just touched down on Sunset Boulevard. This spaceship of a movie theater—built in 1963 to showcase the three-projector Cinerama process—seems to bob amid a sea of surface parking. On the left, a new 22-story office tower rises from a concrete plaza at the corner of Sunset and Vine.…
Parking lots are already one of the worst things ever invented by humans—acres of buckling, blighted fields of concrete that often sit completely empty. But now a new study shows that parking is not only ugly, it’s actually making cities lose revenue. Conventional wisdom—or at least the argument from business owners whenever a city tries…
I always wanted to live in Sweden. Göteborg is my favorite city—full of beloved friends and really amazing people—but Stockholm is really amazing too. So beautiful and fun. It’s also the best city in the world. Watch this video and learn why. SPLOID is a new blog about awesome stuff. Join us on Facebook
Drones were quite primitive during World War II, compared with the unmanned aerial vehicles we know today. They were most commonly used as target practice for the Navy and rarely had offensive capabilities. But a few of these experimental planes were outfitted with some incredibly futuristic tech that would help pave the way for modern…
The title says it all: the Los Angeles Philharmonic was in the middle of a piece during an earthquake. The crowd murmurs and reacts, but the philharmonic just kept on playing. Nicely done, musicians! Read here for more on the seismology of earthquakes in the LA basin.
Edward Hopper, foremost chronicler of lonely American souls, would have found pathos in our modern world of FOMO. This clever series from Ukrainian artist Nastya Ptichek updates Hopper’s work for a social media era, and the overlay of electronic icons makes his paintings even more depressing. If social media lets us express the things we’re…
I love Andy Ellison’s Inside Insides blog, a world of wonder where he posts the guts of food as taken by an fMRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner. This display of reverse fireworks—or a nuclear chain reaction—is broccoli. Some of them look like alien guts, like this kiwano. Kiwano Banana flower Passion fruit Durian fruit Strawberries…
The lights strapped to your bike only keep you safe at night as long as they’re visible. When they die, you’re just another shadow that drivers barely notice. So not only does the rechargeable Eagle 600 boast a whopping 600 lumens of light, it’s also got a built-in OLED display letting you know exactly how…
Starting tomorrow, Uber is adding a new option to its car services—UberRUSH. It’s a local New York City courier service (and experiment) that will deliver your items, either by cyclist or by foot to a specified location of your choosing, all from an app. Uber teased the new service from its Twitter account today: TechCrunch…
When Brooklyn’s rustiest building, the Barclays Center, hosted a Swedish House Mafia concert last year, the noise incurred the wrath of neighbors and a hefty $3,200 fine. Now, Barclays is installing a grassy roof on its “bald spot” in an attempt to dampen bass that regularly seeps into the neighborhood—though, like the sheepish owner of…
My, my, my how the tables have turned. The past few years have seen countless human jobs filled with our less-whiny robot counterparts. But it turns out that, at least for Toyota, the pros of total automation haven’t outweighed the cons. Meaning human factory workers are back in business. It’s certainly an unconventional move—intentionally taking…
For the first Astronomy Tea after Spring Break at the University of California at Berkeley, astronomers went full Star Wars with a Jabba-the-Hutt bread sculpture, a honeydew melon Death Star, a plate of Han Solos frozen in chocolate, Yoda-cookies, and assorted scones. Jabboule the Hutt and the Honey Death Star. Photography credit: Richard Ellis, California…
The noises made by the gargantuan boats that move our stuff from one continent to another are ruining marine life. So, this week, new regulations have been issued by the International Maritime Organization, the sea-faring agency of the United Nations, asking shipping companies to turn down the volume. The sound that ships make creates an…
In just a few short hours, Microsoft will be halting any and all support for its fervently-clung-to Windows XP operating system. Which—as far as we can tell—is going to leave quite a few people vulnerable to the internet’s many ills. And that’s not for a lack of trying on Microsoft’s part! They really, really want…
When the Commonwealth Games come to Glasgow this July, the city wants to put its best foot forward. The city thus has plans to blow up the Red Road flats, an infamous and now largely abandoned housing project, as part of its opening ceremony. A growing backlash, however, asks whether dynamiting the Red Road flats…
Pixar is the undisputed king of movie animation, and there are many reasons for that designation. A good part of it has to do with how well they craft stories and characters audiences love, but another part has to do with how skilled their animation team is. They create some of the most detailed worlds…
