Don't Save the Planet for the Planet. Do It for the Beer
What beer wants to know is, why do you hate America? How can you just sit in front of the game on Super Bowl Sunday, ice cold domestic lager close to hand, and not consider the future of that great institution? No, not the Super Bowl—the beer. Beer is America. Americans drank 2.9 billion cases…
When Your Phone Sucks You Into the Void, This App Notices
Every night, an hour before bed, I stash my phone inside a drawer in my living room. Most days I retrieve it the following morning, when I'm heading out the door. It's a simple habit, but one that has helped me reclaim some focus from my smartphone—my personal fix for a growing problem that user…
We Can Still Avoid a Repeat of Last Year's Deadly Flu Season
As flu season nears its annual peak, between 8 million and 9.5 million people in the US have already been sickened by various strains of the respiratory virus, according to new estimates released Friday by federal health officials. That report, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also estimates that approximately 100,000 people have…
Don’t Toss That Busted Toy Just Yet—Grab a Multimeter
The first time I used a multimeter was in my younger years. I was really into remote-controlled cars—but you couldn't just buy one and start driving. You had to buy a kit and a controller separately and put the whole thing together. My car was powered by a battery and an electric motor instead of…
What Does It Take to Put a Waterfall on a Skyscraper?
You don't see this very often—a 350-foot artificial waterfall pouring out of a skyscraper. It looks cool, but it also looks expensive. Gushing water isn't free: You not only have to get the H2O, but you need energy to bring it to the top of the building. This is why the building only runs this…
Neural Networks Need a Cookbook. Here Are the Ingredients
When we design a skyscraper we expect it will perform to specification: that the tower will support so much weight and be able to withstand an earthquake of a certain strength. But with one of the most important technologies of the modern world, we’re effectively building blind. We play with different designs, tinker with different…
This Robot Debates and Cracks Jokes, but It's Still a Toaster
The Monolithic black rectangle on stage with luminous, bouncing blue dots at eye level was not Project Debater, IBM’s argumentative artificial intelligence. It was just something for an audience to look at while a voice—is it redundant to call an AI’s synthesized voice “disembodied”?—projected over the sound system of the Yerba Buena Center for the…
How to Watch Friday’s Super-Long Lunar Eclipse
Click:Hair loss solution Click:R&M Vape On Friday, Earth will engulf the moon in its shadow and create the longest total lunar eclipse in this century: a full 103 minutes. The next one that comes close won’t happen until 2029. And this eclipse’s running time won’t be matched until 2123. In a nice little cosmic reminder…
How Hurricane Michael Got Super Big, Super Fast
Michael introduced itself to North America with 155-mile-per-hour gusts of wind and a barometric pressure of 919 millibars, the third-strongest hurricane to ever make continental US landfall. It was a monster, and it stayed a monster as it rolled through Georgia and then on toward the Carolinas. And monsters are made, not born. “The most…
How to Figure Out a Drone's Angular Field of View
You know what happens when I get a new toy? Physics happens. I can't stop myself, it's just the way I am. In this case, the toy is a DJI Spark drone (it was a birthday present). I've always wanted a drone that could do some cool stuff. The one I had before was basically…