broadcast

46 posts

A Western Electric 500 from 1951, the standard American desk phone of Joe Engressia's childhood. Photo: Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

broadcast

Whistling to the Machine A blind kid whistled at the phone company and it answered. Also four very small horses, and a taxi that took an hour to go ten minutes.

"That's pretty much all there is to say." (YouTube / jawed, 2005)

broadcast

Me at the Zoo The first video on YouTube is 19 seconds of a guy noticing that elephants have long trunks. I have 141 hours of videos saved about how to make a video. One of these facts is embarrassing.

But Can It Run Doom?

broadcast

But Can It Run Doom? Someone built a working screen out of rubber and vacuum, and its brain is also air. A short tour of computers with no electronics in them, including one made of pink water that flooded the London School of Economics.

Outhorse Your Email

broadcast

Outhorse Your Email Iceland trained three horses to answer your email. Google, Superhuman and 147 startups have been doing the same job without the hay, and the research on how that lands with the person reading it is not flattering.

The One Star Is for the Auntie Anne's

broadcast

The One Star Is for the Auntie Anne's Three hikers who phoned the sheriff for directions, a tree, humans in the loop, and the worst airports in America.

Sixty Years on One Hand

broadcast

Sixty Years on One Hand A doctor cracked the knuckles of one hand for sixty years to test something his mother told him. Nobody else had bothered.

Elaborate Ways to Not Start

broadcast

Elaborate Ways to Not Start The green in every control room I have ever admired was a factory safety regulation, mandatory since 1948. I found that out while watching strangers give tours of their home offices, which is apparently how I do research now.

The biggest screen I could find

broadcast

The biggest screen I could find Twenty-five theaters in America can show The Odyssey the way it was made. None of them are in Massachusetts. I found that out after I bought the ticket.

Chains of Snowflakes

broadcast

Chains of Snowflakes I started a hundred-day making streak. Then I spent two days researching whether streaks actually work. This went about as well as you'd expect.

Oh, Look, There's Nana's Painting

broadcast

Oh, Look, There's Nana's Painting My niece just earned her degree in cybersecurity, so of course, I

Skating on a Little Lake of Ink

broadcast

Skating on a Little Lake of Ink I'm spending the week at FAB26, the Fab Lab network&

Every Fake You See Is for Real

broadcast

Every Fake You See Is for Real Tom Cruise promised you real jets, not CGI. You got both. "

Work Harder, Not Smarter

broadcast

Work Harder, Not Smarter I gave the assistant that runs my calendar the power to refuse me until I name a reason. Turns out the obstacle is the feature: learning science, behavioral economics, and HCI all drew the same line between friction that works for you and friction that works on you.

It's Not the Fake, It's the Lie

broadcast

It's Not the Fake, It's the Lie A band with no humans in it, an actress who doesn't exist, a five-star write-up sitting on a hundred food-poisoning complaints. The machine isn't the scandal. The unlabeled swap is.

The Log Is Fake

broadcast

The Log Is Fake I lost twenty minutes to a website that lets you chop firewood, and it handed me something my work keeps withholding: a finished pile.