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O’Reilly 50%-off Book Sale Includes “Environmental Monitoring with Arduino”
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
In honor of this weekend’s Maker Faire in San Mateo, O’Reilly Media is having a big sale on DIY titles–and “Environmental Monitoring with Arduino” is included. Get it for half-off through May 18, and it wasn’t expensive to begin with, by using discount code WKMKRFR.
Friday Video Cheer: Seal holds “hands” with diver #Igetbywithalittlehelpfrommyfriends
Friday, April 19, 2013
Brooklyn <3 Boston
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Video streaming by Ustream
Projections by NYC Light Brigade and The Illuminator, earlier this evening at Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Watch This: Rescuers free entangled whale
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Dept. of Restoring My Hope for Humanity: According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this whale assist took place on Monday, when “a team of specially trained rescuers freed an entangled male humpback whale near Lahaina in the waters of NOAA’s Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary, saving the animal from a potentially life-threatening predicament.”
According to a NOAA press release, the team cut away two buoys and over 200 feet of line from the whale, but didn’t find or retain the key buoy that might have allowed them to identify where the gear came from. Entanglement in fishing gear is a major threat for whales and other marine wildlife.
Latest Byline: “Tackling a Hidden Threat to Marine Mammals,” for Ensia
Friday, March 1, 2013
Hot off the pixel presses, a new piece surveying the impact of persistent, bioaccumulative, toxic pollutants like PCBs and flame retardants on harbor seals, and potential for change: Tackling a Hidden Threat to Marine Mammals
Photo of harbor seal by Andres Trepte, www.photo-natur.de, via Wikimedia Commons
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Best. Traceroute. Ever?
Sunday, February 10, 2013
One Writer’s Process for Finely Crafting Tweets
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Writer Teju Cole’s news tweets are among the most compelling reading on Twitter. He calls them “small fates”:
Since his tenant Edith wouldn’t volunteer to leave, Onukafor released a snake in her apartment to encourage her. In Ago-Okota.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 8, 2013
They’ve inspired @dronestream, a project by @joshbegley to tweet every U.S. armed drone strike since 2002:
Dec 17, 2010: In the third strike of the day, houses were destroyed. 32 people died (Pakistan) thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/08/10/oba…
— Dronestream (@dronestream) January 8, 2013
Honored (and surprised) that small fates helped inspire the deeply ethical, profoundly disturbing @dronestream project. nymag.com/daily/intellig…
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 8, 2013
Today Cole explained how he composes his small fates.
It’s about craft and polish: working and re-working pace, punctuation, word choices until he gets what he wants.
I’m often asked what my small fates process looks like. It’s like the making of laws or sausages: unsightly.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 8, 2013
For the curious, here’s the anatomy of a small fate.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 8, 2013
First I find a story in one of a dozen Nigerian newspapers, either via their Twitter feeds or from their websites.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 8, 2013
Then I compose. In Word if I’m home, on email if I’m out. I use Helvetica Neue because I can estimate (from experience) the character count.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 8, 2013
The last fate (snake in an apartment) went through 8 drafts and took about 15 minutes. That’s about average for me.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 8, 2013
The basic concept for this one came early, so my editing was for speed of the line, rhythm, and ironic inflection.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 8, 2013
But often I’ll start with one concept and completely change it halfway through. Some fates go to 20 drafts. The longest took 30 minutes.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 8, 2013
Three commas are slower than one. A rare word can help stretch a story’s sense of time. But I wanted this particular story to zip along.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 8, 2013
I chose late on to use Edith Ndu’s first name instead of her last. When I got to “encourage her” instead of “help her decide,” I was done.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 8, 2013
Anatomy of a small fate. twitter.com/tejucole/statu…
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 8, 2013
Cole’s got me thinking about how I currently use Twitter, how I could better engage readers, and convey information more powerfully.
Recent Byline: “Best of What’s New 2012: Green” for Popular Science
Thursday, January 3, 2013
My first ever article for Popular Science: “Best of What’s New 2012: Green” features products with real potential to solve serious environmental problems, or dramatically improve people’s lives while also being clean, cheap, and low-impact.
The category’s grand award winner, DyeCoo, cuts the water out of industrial-capacity clothing dyeing (think tens of thousands of T-shirts or running pants) including the noxious wastewater left over from the dye process.
“…all hearts unbroken”
Tuesday, September 11, 2012