A Wired reporter bemoaning the pizza backwater that is San Francisco rang up Mario Batali to find out why New York Pizza is so magnificent and got an intriguing theory out of the celebrity chef: New York’s old pizza ovens “capture the gestalt of beautifully cooked pizza.” A food development consultant believes Batali’s abstract ‘gestalt’ is, to scientists, vaporized ingredients that become “volatilized particles and attach themselves to the walls of the baking cavity. The next time you use the oven, these bits get caught up in the convection currents and deposited on the food, which adds flavor." more ›
Results tagged “wired”
At the American Museum of Natural History yesterday, British entrepreneur Richard Branson unveiled the aircraft for his Virgin Galactic space travel venture and promised, "2008 is really going to be the year of the spaceship." more ›
Think you've seen some big cockroaches around here? Apparently there are far superior critters in space! It's being reported that some cockroaches were conceived in space late last year onboard the Russian Foton-M bio satellite and are developing faster than the common terrestrial ones we see scurrying about the city. Some "highlights": more ›
Today we looked at Mayor Bloomberg's snacking habits. Was the banisher of trans-fat recently seen with an open bag of Cheez-Its on his desk? We'll likely never know (at least, not until his greasy fingerprint-laden desk set is back from the lab). While we await the results of the faux cheese traces, let's take a look at what some of our commenters had to say: more ›
Mayor Bloomberg, our city's tireless crusader against vice, whose victory against the artery-clogging forces of trans fat has drawn outrage from bakers and restaurateurs, was recently caught trans-handed in this Wired magazine photo. Or was he? amNY is absolutely one hundred percent certain that’s a Cheez-It in Hizzoner’s right hand (in the Wired photo, not the image here.) more ›
A look at some noteworthy television this week: more ›
Wired is asking if Diesel's latest ad campaign is evil or fun. The ads, which have been out for a few months now, show some major cities underwater as global warming takes over - and global warming chic becomes the latest trend! Wired decides:
In their exuberant outlandishness, the ads carve out a little mental space where it's possible for a few seconds to contemplate global warming without thinking about disease, disaster and the possibility that I'll spend my retirement years hiding from water bandits. I find that refreshing. Global Warming: Refreshing!Here's the New York City ad. What are these buildings that are just as tall as the Empire State Building?: more ›
Thirty years ago tonight, New York City lost electricity when a Con Ed substation was hit by lightning strikes and a "cascading effect" caused the system to shut down around 9PM. And NYC, as well as parts of Westchester County, were powerless for over a day in the sweltering heart of the summer. Subways were stuck, mobs set fires and stores were looted. more ›
The charms of Forest Hills Gardens are no longer a secret: Cottage Living has named it the number one cottage community in the country. The country! Forest Hills Gardens is within Forest Hills, Queens, and it was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., son of the famous landscape designer. The article's author, Justin Martin, lives in Forest Hills Gardens and writes:
Olmsted's gift was that he was equal parts landscape architect and social engineer. When planning Forest Hills Gardens, he chose to curve the streets—not to avoid any particular impediment but simply to promote a feeling of calm. This was an innovation at the time. The effect slows traffic, both auto and pedestrian, to a more leisurely pace. more ›
The New Yorker was actually shut out, not garnering a single award for any of its nine nominations; it was the most-nominated publication in 2007. New York's five awards were for General Excellence (250,000 to 500,000 circulation), Profile Writing, Magazine Section, and Design. The magazine's online site nymag.com won an award for Interactive Feature. Other big winners last night were National Geographic and Vanity Fair, with two awards each. Rolling Stone, Wired, Foreign Policy, and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists were other winners of General Excellence awards. If you'd like to judge for yourself, links to all of the nominated and winning articles are available here. more ›
(At The Wired Rave Awards, by an interested bystander at flickr) more ›
We have some exciting news to share with our readers - Jen Chung, co-founder, editor of Gothamist, and executive editor for all Gothamist sites, has won a Wired Rave Award! The Rave Awards look for people that are "innovators, instigators, and inventors" in their field, with Jen receiving the award for blogs (she's "The Town Crier"). Lest you think Wired hands the award out to anyone, Jen has some pretty good company. Some of the 2007 Rave Award winners include: Tim Kring, creator of Heroes (and Crossing Jordan!); J.K. Rowling; Alfonso Cuarón; fellow blogger, Arianna Huffington; and the Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger. more ›
Wired's science blog tells us that "only two dozen people have seen our planet in its entirety from space" (most have been low orbit views where the entire planet isn't visible). The AP asked them all to describe that view for Earth Day. more ›
THEATER: Strings, a new play by Carole Bugge, is loosely based on a real-life train ride in which American physicists Burt Ovrut, Paul Steinhardt and English physicist Neil Turok tweaked the Big Bang theory – and changed it forever. In Bugge’s version, three fictionalized characters – physicist George, his cosmologist wife June and string theorist Rory – spend the trip arguing physics and examining old scars of jealousy and infidelity. En route, the trio is visited by three famous dead scientists: Isaac Newton, Marie Curie and Max Planck. The role of George is played by Keir “Just what do you think you’re doing?” Dullea, who was Dave in Kubrick’s 2001. - John Del Signore more ›
This is definitely a case of when best laid New Year's plans go awry. An upstate man is now allowed to sue the Marriott Marquis in Times Square for $750,000. According to the Daily News, Jeffrey Dagen and friends got two rooms at the Marriott to ring in 2005 in the heart of Times Square. However, the Marriott decided to kick out Dagen's party when a woman was found "facedown" in a hallway right before midnight.
The swanky hotel was unable to find him and his friends suitable rooms elsewhere. So Dagen took off for his home near Albany - but he only made it as far as the Taconic Parkway, where he drove off the roadway into a tree, shattering his left leg and suffering chest injuries. more ›
Jesus of the Twin Towers, Dyker Heights by gkjarvis. more ›
The unveiling of the new buildings - Towers 2, 3, 4 - that will accompany the Freedom Tower at the redeveloped World Trade Center was met with excitement yesterday, proving there's nothing that beautiful computer renderings, a who's who of architects, and a healthy dose of optimism can't do. The NY Times updated its article about the announcement yesterday and also has an article about the pink elephant in the room: How slow progress has been at Ground Zero, thanks to battling egos and dollars on all sides. more ›
-- and a Publisher's note: My second-cousin Harry is literally inches away from winning the New Yorker caption of the week contest. I think you'll agree his "The hours here are obscene" is clearly the top pick of the group. more ›
- Perfectly modern marriage: The Clintons aren't seen in public together very often more ›
Well, the big day has come and gone, but not without leaving us with some impressive stats (feel free to help us out in the comments with better stats and info!): more ›
Another dispatch from the center of the world's most overblown real estate bubble: apartments in the soon-to-be-converted Williamsburgh Savings Bank building are going for up to THREE MILLION DOLLARS. What do you get for that price? A fairly long elevator ride and a great view of the north wall of Bruce Ratner's new Nets Stadium project. Hot! As if that news wasn't upsetting enough, the New York Post is reporting that beautiful lobby of the bank is going to be converted into a BORDERS BOOK STORE. If you want to see the building before it falls to the rampaging forces of redevelopment, Amy says you can take a tour on May 7th for $25. more ›
M.J. Rose, Author, The Delilah Complex, Book Blogger
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After Wired ran a story documenting the GoogleCenter of the United States a bunch of ists jumped on the opportunity to figure out their own middle. Gothamist, Chicagoist, Bostonist and Seattlest all zoomed in on their creamy GoogleCenters. A crack cartography team is hard at work determining the GoogleCenter of the Ist-a-verse as you read this... more ›
Wired has a story today on the Googlecenter of America-- the place that you find if you zoom in to the closest point on the default Google map (it's a fallow field outside of Coffeyville, Kansas.) This got us thinking: where is the Googlecenter of New York City? Turns out it's the corner of Chambers and Broadway, right behind city hall. That makes some sense to us-- although there are probably better candidates-- Times Square, Grand Central Station, etc. Curious about the Googlecenter of your borough? Read on: more ›
Ron Hogan, Author "The Stewardess Is Flying the Plane"
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A couple of weeks ago, we published a fairly controversial editorial ("Corporate Graffiti Sucks Balls"), calling out the Sony Corporation for dirtying up our city with their PlayStationPortable graffiti advertising campaign. A few days later, Secondary Screening picked up the story-- and their story got Digg'd a few thousand times. Wired noticed, and wrote an article about the controversy yesterday. And of course, our friends over at Wooster Collective have been covering the story the whole time-- and have begun collecting hilarious pictures of people vandalizing the fake Sony pieces. Even the AM Papers have done an article (with a small quote from us.) more ›