Category
Technology
9 articles
Avatar: From a God's Descent to Your Profile Picture
The word avatar comes from Sanskrit and named the earthly incarnation of a Hindu god. That is how it travelled from Vishnu to your profile picture online.
Spam: The First Junk Email in History
On May 3rd, 1978, a salesman sent the first unsolicited mass email to 400 people. That we call it “spam” is the fault of a can of ham.
The Programmers Who Gave Away Empires
Torvalds, Bellard, Hipp: they wrote the software the modern world runs on, it was worth trillions, and they chose to give it away for free.
The Man Who Has Edited a Third of Wikipedia
Steven Pruitt has made nearly 7 million Wikipedia edits without earning a cent. The story of the most generous obsession on the internet.
Isaac Peral and his electric submarine
In 1888, Isaac Peral built an electric submarine that sailed underwater and fired torpedoes, yet Spain buried this future in paperwork.
Project Huemul: the secret Argentine experiment that promised to master nuclear fusion
How a physicist convinced Perón he could tame nuclear fusion on a Patagonian island, and how a young Balseiro exposed the spectacular fraud.
Why I Think an Internet Blackout Is Coming Soon
The day the internet forgets its own name, the roads will still exist but no one will reach them: why a DNS blackout may be closer than you think.
I'm Obsessed with a Song That Doesn't Exist! …Or Does It?
I fell in love with a Paul McCartney song in English, until I discovered it never existed and AI had written every note of it.
How Apple's AirTag ACTUALLY Works
Apple's AirTag doesn't transmit over long distances like many believe; here's how it really finds lost items using BLE and a vast Find My network.