I got totally derailed after I went to SXSW Interactive this year. Here’s a clip from one of my favorite speakers, Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, Tesla and Paypal - on thinking big and dedicating his life’s work for the greater good of humanity, whether it be through space, electric vehicles or the Internet. Yes, he’s worried about whether or not we are going to move a colony to Mars in his lifetime, and he’s going to beat NASA too it by building his own private rocketships, because the sun is going to explode soon!
My other big takeaways from SXSW this year:
- Rise of the Physical/Digital to Analog/Makers of Hardware - Brooklyn’s Makerbot leading the charge towards self-replication
- Big Data, Big Problems - Nate Silver on data + insights, and the rise of privacy/intimacy in the face of too much data (like Path)
- The Message, Not the Messenger - It’s not about the next Myspace, it’s about the utility of social media and how it actually improves your life
- The Science of Virality - loved Jonah Berger’s talk on his new book “Contagious”
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
The NoMad Hotel, NYC
My new personal project is the 21st century library. Stay tuned.
(Source: jy1310)
This made me smile all day long.
Anderson meets Meow, the 37-lb cat (the equivalent of a 600-lb person), today on “Anderson.”
The cherry blossoms really smelled like cherries.
Obit of the Day (Historical): RMS Titanic (1912)
At 11:40 p.m. (ship’s time) on April 14, 1912 the Titanic scraped its hull against an iceberg. By 2:20 a.m. on April 15, the stern disappeared from view. When it was all said and done 1,513 passengers and crew lost their lives. (There were 2,224 aboard the ship, which means a survival rate of less than 32%.)
Obit of the Day will not go into the details regarding the tragic events of April 14-15, 1912 but I do recommend the following stories about the most famous ship disaster in history:
Why Women and Children Were Saved on the Titanic, but Not on the Lusitania (Daily Mail)
Experts Split on Possibility of Remains at Titanic Site (NY Times)
Titanic’s Sinking: Was It More Than Human Folly? (Huffington Post)
Remembering the Titanic’s Intrepid Bandleader (NPR)
History Lost and Found: A Letter From Titanic (NPR)
Arrival of Titanic Survivors in NYC Sets Off Free-For-All (WNYC)
The images above are various front pages from newspapers in the United States, and one from the United Kingdom, announcing the sinking of the Titanic and its tremendous loss of life. All images copyright of the paper listed, unless noted.
Top Left: New York Times, April 16, 1912; courtesy of KTAR.com
Top Right: The Daily Oklahoman, April 16, 1912; courtesy of newsok.com
Center Left: Owensboro (KY) Daily Messenger (now the Messenger-Inquirer), April 17, 1912; courtesy of commercialappeal.com
Center: Franklin Repository (Chambersburg, PA), April 16, 1912; courtesy of publicopiniononline.com
Center Right: Chicago Daily Tribune, April 16, 1912; courtesy of CORBIS.com
Bottom Left: Houston Chronicle and Herald, April 16, 1912; courtesy of chron.com
Bottom Right: Daily Mirror (London, England), April 16, 1912; courtesy of cliff1066™’s Flickr account
My love for this photoset of cats upon iconic architecture runs so deep. Especially the last one, of the Kitty about to pounce on the Salk Institute, which I sent to my former beau in San Diego and predictably heard no response back. But it is a wonderful picture.
These apartments are located on the corner of Chau Van Liem Street and Tran Hung Dao Street in District 5. As you can see at the front of the flats, there are high “gates,” typical of the old style of historic buildings in Saigon.
This is a very helpful chart. Also, now I can know their names.
Percentage of conversations I’ve had since I moved to New York that included Downton Abby: 100%
