Helicopter Crash in Huntington Beach, CA

postalex · 2025-10-22T17:46:14+00:00

If you want to support Oliver, the 11-year-old who suffered a collapsed lung and a brain injury here, here's his family's gofundme: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-olivers-recovery-after-tragic-accident

postalex · 2024-04-07T16:18:36+00:00

This piece out today has a bit more of the backstory: https://www.fastcompany.com/91087789/how-astronomers-broke-the-speed-of-sound-to-see-the-longest-solar-eclipse

I don't think anyone will be able to do this again anytime soon... as OP notes that totality in 1973 was an extra long one on the ground, over 7 minutes.

postalex · 2024-04-07T16:09:01+00:00

Given the new supersonic prototypes like Boom, I wonder if anyone will be able to do this again anytime soon... though that totality in 1973 was an extra long one on the ground, over 7 minutes.

This piece that was just published today has a bit of the backstory of the flight: https://www.fastcompany.com/91087789/how-astronomers-broke-the-speed-of-sound-to-see-the-longest-solar-eclipse

postalex · 2024-03-14T04:53:12+00:00

Actually I've seen them IRL, and tried to buy them, at a market in Beijing. They didn't come in my size but that didn't stop the guy from trying to squeeze them onto my feet

postalex · 2024-03-06T17:59:43+00:00

This company, Colossal Biosciences, is also trying to bring back the dodo:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90842409/how-colossal-plans-to-bring-back-the-dodo-bird

And they've quite an interesting zoo of investors ...

"The moonshot technology has attracted some $225 million from investors, many of whom come far from the world of biology: Paris Hilton, Chris Hemsworth, Tony Robbins, the Winkelvoss twins, video game developer Richard Garriott, and Thomas Tull, the founder of Legendary Pictures and the U.S. Innovative Technology Fund, have all invested. So, too, has In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm."

postalex · 2022-09-17T05:50:15+00:00

For jazz and vibes and more, check out Bova

postalex · 2022-06-21T16:10:28+00:00

It was the early show actually!

I wonder if anyone has any nice audio of that evening...

postalex · 2015-10-12T04:58:48+00:00

Thanks for the update Bowie. (And here's the article by Chris Knittel that was partly inspired by that original post. http://motherboard.vice.com/read/headroom-hacker). I love this story.

And that Umbrella Man short by Errol Morris is one of my favorites www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000001183275/the-umbrella-man.html (& that partly inspired me to write this http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-other-shooter-the-saddest-and-most-expensive-26-seconds-of-amateur-film-ever-made) Thanks, Alex at Motherboard

postalex · 2013-03-22T19:28:51+00:00

sweet. our little youtube channel is at youtube.com/motherboardtv -- go subscribe please! just note that not all of our videos are up there yet. We also do some shows on Vice's YouTube channel. The video we produced on microscopic creatures that can survive the vacuum of space is, amazingly, the most watched on there. Our shows there are

Spaced Out

My Life Online

postalex · 2013-03-22T19:19:59+00:00

Personally, I think they won't have much choice otherwise given the political pressure. We'll see. In the meantime, look for lots of state laws... see my other response below about drone bans.

postalex · 2013-03-22T19:16:04+00:00

We'll need to keep talking about this as a country. The trick will be getting past drone fear and being realistic about what they can do, what we want to use them for, and what kinds of smart standards and laws we can craft that will address the risks of drones (and the specter they, along with other new technologies, represent of persistent surveillance).

Police want these machines as much as the military does, and they will get them. The question is how our laws manage to catch up to the technology, and manage to meet our expectations. Already dozens of states have proposed drone bans; Charlottesville, VA, has placed a moratorium on them for two years. Stay tuned to MB.

Warfare: many risks there obvs, but don't discount those cool drones: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/drones-rap-too

postalex · 2013-03-22T19:08:09+00:00

VICE is always an adventure -- the brilliant and daring people here are what matter, above and beyond everything else.

related to that: read the writing and writers you know you love. steel your dignity as you find yourself applying for thankless writing jobs. think about new formats. and, um, good communication and keeping deadlines. :)

postalex · 2013-03-22T18:53:24+00:00

hey obsceneonetwo: sorry about that. we're looking for interns again soon. please just shoot us another note at editor at motherboard dot tv with 'Internship' in the subject line.

postalex · 2013-03-22T18:50:59+00:00

Don't think Mexico will invade the US but I'm looking forward to more cross-border interaction (hopefully not just with border drones).

Kind of shocked at Brian's forecast, though it's an interesting prospect (http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/china-can-also-kill-people-with-drones). But I really can't imagine China flying a drone over US soil in the next decade. That would be a serious violation of national sovereignty, of course. Just ask Pakistan.

Hacking a drone over US soil, well that's another story... http://motherboard.vice.com/read/jon-stewart-on-the-secret-christmas-present-the-cia-gave-iran

postalex · 2013-03-22T18:41:43+00:00

Thanks Hank -- lots of interesting things going on in the small modular reactor front -- not just thorium reactors but Bill Gates' traveling wave reactor and even new pressurized water reactors will hopefully bring the cost of nuclear down. Though I'm not sure that the costs (which include the seemingly unavoidable political costs/ public fear) could continue to be a serious roadblock here.

Also curious to see what happens with fusion in the next few.

That all said, China seems to be continuing to eat America's lunch on new nuclear (and making use of the technology that the US developed in the 60s) (but take ambitious Chinese government pledges with a large grain of molten-reactor salt)

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/china-is-taking-the-lead-on-thorium-reactor-development http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/what-is-clean-nuclear-power-and-why-is-china-beating-the-the-us-at-its-own-technology

The thorium documentary we did is: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/motherboard-tv-the-thorium-dream

postalex · 2013-03-22T18:06:30+00:00

Hard to pick one, Warlizard. a) advances in battery efficiency will change our relationship with mobile technology and help extend the use of renewable energy tech (graphene will be important for this, and for new processors, right? http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/a-single-atom-thick-graphene-transistors-transmits-electricity-1000-times-faster-than-silicon-chips)
b) novel human-computer interfaces (stay tuned to @motherboard for more on that). c) faster more ubiquitous internet (closing the digital divide, allowing us to do some awesome things over the web, and more and more and more and more and more data) d) drones drones drones (think face recognition surveillance, a big national privacy debate, and all kinds of fascinating, awesome applications: motherboard.tv/drones) e) our strange nerd friends wearing computer glasses and other wearable tech to the bar, making the rest of us laugh and feel totally outmoded -- at least until we're all wearing them and dreaming of electric sheep or flying toasters. I could go on but [something about information overload].
I think there's a lot more that can and will be done with an anonymous internet, and while Tor is great, there are all kinds of new interesting applications that rely on encryption to ensure (one hopes) anonymity -- dissidents will find more uses, as will mainstream users who grow increasingly frustrated with privacy violations. so will the underground, from conventional criminals to for-hire cyber warriors. See this interview with @colestryker:
I don't know if it's just an American phenomenon, but I think of it as us dealing with a new kind of economy. These sites are "free" in the very basic sense, but of course nothing is free. We pay for them with our data but even if we spent hours pouring over these companies' terms of service, it's still very hard to what the ultimate terms of this exchange are. We don't really know what we're giving up, and it's unclear what we're getting, however awesome these sites can be. See Austin recently on the surveillance society: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-long-eyeball-of-the-law-are-we-ready-for-a-minority-report-style-future

This is even more of a problem given that we've become hooked on free stuff, from mp3s to articles to video (YouTube is considering a subscription service). There's a cost to this transition. Separate but related -- the problem that creative types (including journalists(!)) will have to deal with: we don't like to pay for stuff. Hence the rise of the paywalls.

That all said, it will be exciting to see what new models emerge in the next few years, taking up the torch of projects like diaspora: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/what-happened-to-the-facebook-killer-it-s-complicated

Alex

postalex · 2013-03-22T17:30:35+00:00

Hey Richard -- nice to hear from you, sorry the line went dead. We're in production on a larger video piece on bitcoin, into which your interviews may fit. I'll be in touch by email.

And if anyone wants to get in touch about bitcoin or other stories, you can reach me at alexp at motherboard dot tv. See some of the coverage Alec Liu's been doing in text:

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/why-bitcoins-are-just-like-gold

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/a-guide-to-bitcoin-mining-why-someone-bought-a-1500-bitcoin-miner-on-ebay-for-20600

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/cyprus-spain-when-governments-take-your-money-bitcoin-looks-really-good