Archive (Page 19) • 5it • Buttondown

5 Intriguing Things

February 12, 2014

1. IS THIS RADIOHEAD APP THE FUTURE OF MUSIC? (Just kidding. But it is conceptually fascinating.) "PolyFauna is an experimental collaboration between us...

5 Intriguing Things

February 11, 2014

1. They should definitely put huge robots in it. "Google is taking over the lease at the airfield that houses Hangar One — the giant eight-acre aircraft...

5 Intriguing Things

February 10, 2014

1. Sad: we launched a spacecraft in 1978 that is now returning to Earth, but we've lost the technical ability to communicate with it. "Communication involves...

5 Intriguing Things

February 7, 2014

1. Stanford's president points out a failing of the term MOOC. "Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, may be higher education’s current fad but they fail on...

5 Intriguing Things

February 6, 2014

1. Air Sex. It's a thing. Apparently. "He did have kind words for the depictions of air sex, a sport whose best performances are not mere re-creations of...

5 Intriguing Things

February 5, 2014

1. Last April, some unknown force carried out a seemingly professional attack on a California power grid substation, knocking out 17 transformers with...

5 Intriguing Things With Guest MC Hilary Mason

February 4, 2014

Greetings from the capital of the United States, where I'll be for the rest of the week. Today's links are brought to you by data scientist and hacker Hilary...

5 Intriguing Things

February 3, 2014

1. The NSA was working the Copenhagen climate talks, says yet another Snowden document. "It remains unclear precisely when the NSA began to target the summit...

5 Intriguing Things

January 31, 2014

1. Five of Satya Nadella's 25 tweets. He's expected to be named Microsoft's new CEO any minute now. "HTML5 - what fun! Bing on Yahoo! Bing IT On! azuring...

5 Intriguing Things

January 30, 2014

1. Someone died in the sixth century. More than 1,400 years later, a scientist discovers the body and sequences the DNA of the organism that killed the...

5 Intriguing Things

January 29, 2014

1. If you, like me, have heard of "designer drugs" but don't really understand the details, read this. To understand exactly how access to designer drugs has...

5 Intriguing Things: Community Edition 1

January 28, 2014

Editor's Note: We've talked about how we're building an island community in the stream of the Internet, right? OK, well, we are. Welcome. Try the coconuts,...

5 Intriguing Things

January 27, 2014

1. Online reputation systems in the so-called sharing economy don't seem to be working very well. "Reputation systems are like the recommendation systems...

5 Intriguing Things

January 24, 2014

1. The people of Burlington, Vermont want to create a more 'local,' non-commercial Internet. "Local, though, can be a funny concept when it comes to the...

5 Intriguing Things

January 23, 2014

1. The world's largest windfarm, located where the Thames flows into the North Sea, imaged from a satellite. "The wind farm became fully operational on April...

5 Intriguing Things

January 22, 2014

1. The logistics of smuggling sperm out of a Gaza prison. "How could the semen be taken out of the prison, as Israel doesn't allow physical contact between...

5 Intriguing Things: Submergence Special Edition

January 21, 2014

Last week, I read a stunning novel called Submergence by J.M. Ledgard. It is so good that I'm devoting today's 5 Intriguing Things to links about the themes...

5 Intriguing Things

January 17, 2014

1. Drone strikes will stay within the CIA, says Congress. "An effort by President Obama to transfer America’s lethal, highly classified drone program from...

5 Intriguing Things

January 16, 2014

1. The company that hoovers up all the prescription-drug data, then sells it to pharma companies. "IMS Health Holdings Inc. says it pulled in nearly $2...

5 Intriguing Things

January 15, 2014

1. The Blackphone, a privacy-first device, was announced today by a team including Phil Zimmerman, creator of PGP. "It has the features necessary to do all...