Why even photographic evidence can be mistaken [Article]

Are the pictures that you see on the news real or fake? What happens when the pictures that the news agecy has published prove to be wrong? David Turner writing in the Nieman Reports reminds journalists to verify news - major or minor - that they discover on social media. Also a reminder for readers to be aware of media bias.

Semblance of some balance [Video]

Tim Knoll tries a few tricks - and succeeds

A spectacular fall from grace - Rajat Gupta's Lust for Zeros [Article]

From being the head of McKinsey's global operations to ignominy, Rajat Gupta's motivations

“You have to watch out for it, because the more you have it, you get used to comforts, and you get used to, you know, big houses and vacation homes and going and doing whatever you want, and so it is very seductive. However much you say that you will not fall into the trap of it, you do fall into the trap of it.”

A bearable training [Video]

This guy has some balls. And the bear - well, you decide !

What if the Internet doesn't exist anymore? [Video]

Francois Ferracci's short movie deals with an apocalyptic scenario:

It's Oct. 10, 2020. A couple is on a date. They've only recently met, he's crazy about her, and he's snapping (or digitally producing) thousands of pictures — of her, of them, of Paris; he's the kind of lover who wants to record everything all the time. She's a little put off by his techie ardor, but he's obsessed — until, all of a sudden, his gadget freezes. He can't take pictures any more. The images he got start — they start to fade. 

Lost, not yet found - the first web page [Article]

NPR's Geoff Brumfiel is surprised that while you can find a lot of things online, there's one important piece of the Web's own history that can't be found through a search engine: the very first Web page is lost.

An old optical disk drive was lost at a conference in California. On it is one of the very first iterations of Sir Tim Berners-Lee's Web page from 1990. "It was such a beautiful object, that optical disk, that someone maybe has it on their coffee table or their bookshelf, and if we could find that, that'd be great," he says.

The caffeine song - Maria Ferrante & Alice Martelli [Video]

A spectacular operatic performance by Maria Ferrante, accompanied by pianist Alice Martelli, at TEDxCERN, on an unusual subject - caffeine!

Kalpavriksha: The story of the coconut tree [Video]

From the Perennial Plate, learn about food's origins, and also about how people eat and endeavor in cultures around the world. Chef Daniel Klein & cameraperson Mirra Fine travel around the world to tell these stories. This video's about the coconut in Sri Lanka (as also most of the south western coast of South India)
Link to The Perennial Plate

The loneliest human being - Al Worden [Interview]

Seven men in the history of humanity stand apart from the rest of us. These are the Apollo command module pilots who spent time alone in orbit around the Moon, while their colleagues walked on the lunar surface. When they were on the far side of the Moon, these astronauts were completely out of contact, and further from Earth, than anyone had ever been before. Or has ever been since. Discover the difference between being alone & loneliness in this fascinating interview with Apollo 15 command module pilot Al Worden

The new Eggs-box - [article]

A fresh look at a 100-year old packaging. BBC's future technology article on The egg box that updates a humble yet classic design shows student Eva Valicsek's attempt to design a replacement for the ubiquitous egg box!

How Facebook and Brooklyn Killed America's Obsession With Cars [Article]

Why aren't kids interested in cars anymore, at least in the US? Brian Merchant has some part of the answer.

That "liberation" you get from the car is fleeting—it quickly fades, first into schlepping your buddies around town, then into speeding tickets, and eventually into brain-numbing commutes across smoggy, congested highways. You realize that cars are ultimately confined to roads clogged with other cars, running on the same limiting rails—like trains, just more dangerous, and no drinking.

The Story of an eyewitness - the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco [Article]

Jack London wrote about the 1906 earthquake that almost destroyed the city. Om Malik shared a link to this story that makes the tragedy come alive a century later.

San Francisco, at the present time, is like the crater of a volcano, around which are camped tens of thousands of refugees At the Presidio alone are at least twenty thousand. All the surrounding cities and towns are jammed with the homeless ones, where they are being cared for by the relief committees. The refugees were carried free by the railroads to any point they wished to go, and it is estimated that over one hundred thousand people have left the peninsula on which San Francisco stood. The Government has the situation in hand, and, thanks to the immediate relief given by the whole United States, there is not the slightest possibility of a famine. The bankers and business men hare already set about making preparations to rebuild San Francisco.

Man Cave Rentals & Stuff [Article]

Scott Adams has some ideas for you, if you are contemplating building a new house.  Be prepared to be rocked.

Cleared student goes to space camp - [article]

A few weeks ago, a 16 year old high school student experimenting in her school lab in Florida, US, caused a minor explosion, & a major  uproar - she was charged with a criminal offence, & arrested. Better sense has prevailed since, with her being cleared of charges, and through the benevolence of a NASA veteran, with whose help she wll be going to Space Camp

Spending checks: US vs the rest of the world [Blog]

Economist Timothy Taylor puts the results of the one of the findings of the US Consumer Expenditure Survey into perspective - that the average US household spent $61.4 billion on their pets.

America spent about nine times as much on pet care as it did on choosing all its federally elections in 2012. 

and

the average U.S. household spends more on pets than the poverty line for humans in the developing world. And the statistics don't include the fact that pets live rent-free. 

Persistence pays: Unknown Mathematician Proves Elusive Property of Prime Numbers [Article]

Yitang Zhang couldn't find work in academia after earning his doctorate in 1991, so he's worked for several years as an accountant and even in a Subway sandwich shop. Two weeks ago, he became a sensation across the mathematics world for his theorem on the properties of prime numbers, although it has no known applications. How / why did he become famous? Read on

“The big experts in the area tried and failed. I personally didn’t think anyone was going to be able to do it any time soon.” said Andrew Granville, a number theorist at Montreal University.  It took Zhang several months to work through all the details, but the resulting paper is a model of clear exposition. “He nailed down every detail so no one will doubt him. There’s no waffling.”

How to caution the world about any new technology [XKCD]

Parenting stresses & Zen advice [Article]

As a father of six kids, Leo Babauta of Zen Habits shares some advice on dealing with the stresses that having kids entails:

The skills take practice, and I’m still learning them myself. I don’t claim to be the best at them, but the learning itself is a good process to go through.

3D printing in a medical environment saving a baby's life [Article]

No longer science fiction: how 3D printing in a medical environment gave 18-month old Kaiba Gionfriddo a new lease of life. His lungs were blocked, and needed a splint to carve a pathway through his blocked airway. They printed the splint to exact specifications of the baby's, using a powder called PCL (polycaprolactone). Doctors then took the splint, measuring just a few centimeters long & 8mm wide & surgically attached it to Kaiba's collapsed bronchus. They saw results within moments:

"When the stitches were put in, we started seeing the lung inflate and deflate," Green said. "It was so fabulous. There were people in the operating room cheering."

The Childhood Age That Predicts Future Success | LiveScience [Article]

If you want to see which kids will grow up to be the most successful adults, visit their second grade classroom, according to some new research from the University of Edinburgh.

"These findings imply that basic childhood skills, independent of how smart you are, how long you stay in school, or the social class you started off in, will be important throughout your life," said the study's authors, Stuart Ritchie and Timothy Bates.