David Lidsky's Blog, page 3299
March 28, 2014
To Give Model S Owners "Peace Of Mind," Tesla Rolls Out New Fire Safety Shield
Fires are already extremely rare, says Elon Musk, but the shield will prevent underbody damage that could cause a blaze.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk wants to make it clear that the three Model S fires that happened last year were extremely rare instances--a blip compared with the 200,000 gasoline car fires in North America in 2013. Still, to ease consumers' concerns, he announced Friday that the company is installing a titanium underbody shield and aluminum deflector plates to new Model S electric cars. Furthermore, Musk said Tesla will retrofit the shield of existing cars upon request or as part of scheduled maintenance at no cost to owners.
Death To "Link Rot": Here's Where The Internet Goes To Live Forever
According to one recent study, half of the links in Supreme Court decisions either lead to pages with substantially altered content or no longer go anywhere, at all. Perma.cc, a startup based out of the Harvard Law Library, wants to see more work immortalized.
The phrase "link rot" probably summons many images for you--none of them good.
Track The Rise And Fall Of "God" In 295-Foot-Long Data Viz
A sky-high graphic tracks more than 400 terms in Google Ngram over the past two centuries.
At this year's CeBIT computer expo, one European design studio took the notion of Big Data very literally. Asked to create an exhibit for Code_n, a self-described "international initiative for digital pioneers, innovators, and groundbreaking startups," KRAM/WEISSHAAR installed a 32,000-square-foot, floor-to-ceiling series of graphics on hanging canvas using data sources like Google Ngram.
What Makes Egyptian Blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah So Dangerous?
In prison again for the fourth time since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, his reach is only growing.
Open-internet and political activist Alaa Abdel Fattah's appearance in court this past Sunday wasn't his first--Abdel Fattah is considered one of the Egyptian security state's main antagonists, and as such, he's become a familiar fixture. In fact, Abdel Fattah has the unlucky distinction of having been arrested under each of the four iterations of power in Egypt following the overthrow of autocratic president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, who have all seen him, with his energetic online following, as an instigator of social unrest.
Photographer Elevates Throwing Sand To Art
Claire Droppert's "Sand Creatures" captures shovelfuls of sand suspended in mid-air.
If you go to the beach with photographer Claire Droppert, you can expect to get a bit of sand in your eyes. In Droppert's latest project, "Gravity," she's explores moments of zero gravity--starting with flying sand.
The Top 5 Leadership Stories, March 24-28
Curious about the to-do lists of successful people, or about the wage gap where you live? The top stories this week focused on money, connections, and some refreshing advice.
From having deeper conversations to thinking differently about pay: Here are the stories you loved in Leadership, for the week of March 24.
The Fabulous Underground Voguers Of Baltimore and Paris
A photographer captures the subculture of vogue dancers in two disparate cities.
"Strike a pose," Madonna commands in her 1990 hit single, "Vogue." It was this David Fincher-directed video that brought voguing to the mainstream--but the dance had originated decades earlier, in the late 1960s, when the queer black and latino communities of Harlem's ballroom scene started imitating the dramatic poses of Vogue magazine models. And though it's been co-opted by many more pop stars since Madonna (Lady Gaga, Willow Smith), the voguing subculture today is alive and kicking.
A Futuristic Look At The Nation Of San Francisco
What would life be like in an experimental nation driven by technology, progress, and big capital?
"The best part is this, the people who think this is weird, the people who sneer at the frontier, who hate technology, won't follow you there... We need to run the experiment, to show what a society run by Silicon Valley looks like without affecting anyone who wants to live under the Paper Belt... We need to build opt-in society, outside the U.S., run by technology." Balaji Srinivasan, Stanford lecturer and cofounder of genetics startup Counsyl, in a talk at Y Combinator. [Source]
Apple's "Transparent Texting" Could Make Typing And Walking Safer
From Apple: one more reason to never look up from your phone again.
If you're walking, you really shouldn't be texting. While not as perilous as texting and driving, there's no surer way to annoy fellow pedestrians than by zigzagging across a sidewalk, eyes glued to your precious screen.
Design God Milton Glaser Drinks Beer, Complains About Their Labels
But can you really judge a beer by its bottle?
Famous designers don't booze like you or me. When Jony Ive and Marc Newson get together for a few pints, for example, Newson once told me that they spend most of their time measuring the circumference of the glass. And when Milton Glaser is invited by the New York Times Magazine to set up a lawn chair on its front porch and throw back a few frosty ones, the world famous-designer spends most of his time critiquing the labels on the bottles.
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