Crashing on a major Wired deadline today. In my absence, please enjoy the North Korean propaganda video above, featuring the least enthusiastic narrator in the history of film. Back tomorrow with something truly splendid from the history of swindling.
Tags:North Korea·satellites
Somewhat lighter-than-usual posting these next three days, as I hack through yet another killer Wired deadline—the last major work task of an exhausting 2010. I was tempted to just toss up a few YouTubes between now and Thursday morning, but that wouldn’t be very sporting. So I will instead offer some quick hits about topics […]
Tags:China·religion·satellites·space·Tonga
We generally suspect that few fake kidnappings go off without a hitch. And that’s especially true when the perpetrators of the crime don’t understand the basics of cell-phone technology: At about 6am Friday morning Bangor Police received information that Mr. Daniel Chute was being held captive in an automobile in the Bangor Mall Cinema’s parking […]
As we spend today celebrating the 30th anniversary of mankind’s first visit to the Moon, it’s worth noting that America’s space-race triumph was far from pre-ordained. In fact, the smart money circa 1963 would have been on the Soviets reaching the goal first, due to the seldom recognized genius of Sergei Korolev. The man responsible […]
Tags:1960s·Laika·Moon·NASA·Russia·satellites·Sergei Korolev·Soviet Union·Venus
Given that the Iran hostage crisis is one of our formative memories, we’ve taken a keen interest in the recent tumult on the streets of Tehran. Of particular note has been the regime’s effective use of technology to foil grassroots communications. First the mullahs shut off text messaging and The Tubes, then they actually managed […]
Tags:Iran·satellites·technology
The Bouvet Rames Guyane is arguably the most grueling race on the planet. Solo contestants must literally row across the Atlantic Ocean, from Senegal to French Guiana. Yet even the strongest seafaring Frenchman is no match for Mother Nature, as Remy Alnet discovered about 400 miles from the finish line: I was inside the cockpit […]
Tags:Atlantic Ocean·Bouvet Rames Guyane·Kannad·maritime·Remy Alnet·rescues·SARSAT·satellites·sports
On April 16, the European Space Agency will launch the most powerful infrared telescope ever cobbled together by mankind: Herschel. (Yeah, I’m kinda underwhelmed by the name, too.) Taking off from the ESA’s spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana, Herschel will scan the cosmos in search of water, on the assumption that H20=potential planets inhabited by […]
Tags:satellites·space
Violent yuckiness in the skies above Siberia. This sort of collision will become slightly more common as older satellites go “rogue” due to neglect. You can bet that companies such as Sirius and EchoStar are double-checking their disaster plans tonight. This may be history’s only satellite-on-satellite mashup, but there have been other accidents in orbit. […]
Tags:satellites·space
