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Tech NewsRIP Chris Burden: The Artist Who Made Public Art Truly Exciting
Even if you didn’t know Chris Burden’s name, you’ve likely seen photos of what has become his most famous work: 202 vintage streetlamps arranged with a military-like precision in front of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Like many of Burden’s pieces, Urban Light is infrastructurally inspired and technologically impressive. It has also managed … Continued
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Tech NewsHow to Organize the Best Bar Crawl
Summer is coming, which reminds me of my two favorite warm-weather activities: day drinking and drinking during the day. But climbing on the couch with a case of Miller High Life is no way to spend a sunny afternoon. Why not combine your urge to imbibe with the spirit of urban adventure? Here are my … Continued
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Tech News
NYC Produces Twice As Much Garbage As Any Other City On Earth
New York City is great at a lot of things. Walking! Skyscrapers! Pizza! And according to a new study on the world’s megacities, NYC can add one more thing to its list of things it excels at: Trash! Over at Motherboard, Brian Merchant has declared New York the world’s most wasteful city. This is based … Continued
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Tech News
These Infographics Use Objects on City Streets to Show Urban Statistics
There’s been no shortage of street art trying to make a point about the inequality of cities. But here’s a clever idea that not only illustrates some horrifying facts, it also gives some real-world context that’s impossible to ignore: These infographics have been wheatpasted onto actual urban infrastructure right out on the streets. Street Graphs … Continued
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Tech News
Let’s Find Out What Apple’s Doing With These Self-Driving Cars
This Dodge Caravan snapped in Orlando this morning certainly looks like one of Apple’s supposedly pre-autonomous minivansthat are currently swarming the country. Have you seen one of these things? Help us figure out what’s happening here. According to Gizmodo reader R. Holt, this van was parked in front of an East Orlando Publix grocery store … Continued
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Tech News
Starbucks No Longer Sucking California Dry To Make Its Bottled Water
It’s refreshing when justice is served. About as refreshing as the water that Starbucks will now have to source elsewhere to fill the plastic bottles of its “humanitarian” brand. Yesterday, they announced they will no longer bottle water from California’s cracked soil. After a blistering report by Mother Jones last week, Starbucks finally realized the … Continued
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Tech News
Tesla’s Gigafactory Isn’t Big Enough to Make Its Preordered Batteries
As Elon Musk revealed in an earnings call earlier this week, people preordered a shit-ton of Tesla’s new batteries: Over 50,000 Powerwall units were reserved. Now some interesting math, courtesy of Bloomberg: The five million square-foot Gigafactory planned outside of Reno probably isn’t big enough to make them all. Take a look at the numbers, … Continued
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Tech News
More Than 12 Million Trees Have Been Killed In California’s Drought
If you happen to be flying anywhere in the western third of the US this summer, you’ll see a lot of brown: Dark umber bare mountain peaks, dusty khaki dry river beds, golden beige straw-like grass. Add one more shade to the mix: The reddish specks of trees killed by four years of crippling drought. … Continued
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Tech NewsCommerce
Amazon Didn’t Really Eliminate Gender Taxonomy for Toys—Yet
A report that Amazon no longer sorts toys into “boy” and “girl” categories is currently sweeping the internet. It’s not exactly true, but it might be a sign that the change might be on the way. First, a breathless tweet earlier this week claimed Amazon no longer had separate sections for boys and girls toys: … Continued
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Tech News
Google’s Denied HQ Plans Tried to Cockblock LinkedIn From Expanding
Much of the news in the “space race” for Silicon Valley dominance has focused on the Big Three: Google, Apple, and Facebook have all been competing to build Imperial Star Destroyer-size new HQs. But now we learn that LinkedIn also has big plans to grow its campus. And a failed land-grab by Google almost stopped … Continued
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Tech News
Yet Another Dubious Argument For Not Building More Skyscrapers
The US is in the midst of a building boom that will dramatically change the skyline of most major American cities. Among the many concerns about sprinkling our cities with supertalls, there’s one issue that’s starting to crop up in legal battles: shadowy urban landscapes could stifle the potential for gathering solar energy. A great … Continued
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Tech NewsAllow These Tiny House Fanatics To Explain Why They Love Living Small
While the film Tiny was supposedly about tiny house living, it was mainly focused on a guy trying to get his tiny house built—we didn’t hear much about everyday tiny house life. A new documentary features tiny house people who have been at it for awhile—and we find out what happens when tiny house people … Continued
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Tech News
Welcome To BusinessTown, the Children’s Book Version of Silicon Valley
In your recent internet wanderings you might have spotted a few residents of BusinessTown, the industrious anthropomorphic animals who look strikingly similar to the ones from your favorite childhood picture book—except these creatures are digital strategy “intrapreneurs” who give TED Talks on how nanobots will end poverty. The characters are by illustrator Tony Ruth, who … Continued
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Tech NewsI Can’t Believe This Designer Can Draw All These Logos By Hand
Think you’ve got a good party trick? British designer Seb Lester can draw pixel-perfect logos with a few sweeps of his calligraphy pen. I watched in disbelief as he reproduced some fairly complex type using only his steady hand. We’ve posted a few of Lester’s pieces before but this new video is like his greatest … Continued
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Tech News
Has Instagram Ever Nudged You to Make a Major Life Change?
You may have heard that many New Yorkers—perhaps even people you personally know!—are moving to Los Angeles. But apparently they’re not moving because of the harsh winters or the high rents or the bad Mexican food. They’re moving because of Instagram. From last weekend’s New York Times: It started with Instagram. Or maybe it ended … Continued
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Tech News
Can Technology Help Us Raise Independent, Free-Range Kids?
One of my most vivid childhood memories is of a county park behind our house which was so vast to my eight-year-old mind that it might as well have been the Arctic tundra. We were constructing some kind of vine-swing over a creek, which I believe we planned to test on bikes. There were no … Continued
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Tech News
San Francisco’s Plan to Turn Stadium Parking Into Affordable Housing
The affordable housing crisis in San Francisco has reached a fever pitch, with even George Lucas helping out. Here’s another smart solution that chips away at the problem: Swapping a parking lot with a new neighborhood, courtesy of one of the city’s most influential landowners, the San Francisco Giants. Right now, the swath of bayfront … Continued
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Tech News
How Bird Poop Helps Populate a New Volcanic Island With Life
In 2013, a new island was born off the coast of Japan. While some of these islands formed by volcanic eruptions are only temporary, Nii-jima (“new neighbor” in Japanese) kept growing, eventually consuming the nearby island of Nishino-shima as well. Now the entire landmass is coated in fresh lava just waiting for new lifeforms to … Continued
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Tech News
A History of Graphic Design As Told By 18 Classic Posters
GIFs are funny but fleeting; websites might convey more information—but if you really want to make a point, you design a poster. A new exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt focuses on the cultural impact of this persuasive graphic design medium and the science behind what makes posters in particular pack their visual punch. 125 posters … Continued
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Tech News
Bad News: Here’s A Wildfire Prediction Map (There Is No Good News)
After a winter of record-low precipitation and record-high temperatures, I almost can’t bear to look at the wildfire forecast for summer. But here it is. And boy, is it ugly. It’s not much of a surprise, really, with “exceptional drought” conditions already blanketing most places in the West. But this is pretty darn awful. Released … Continued
Alissa Walker
Alissa Walker's posts