On Walkman’s 40th Anniversary, Sony Opens Retro Exhibition In Tokyo
Sony Corp. opened an exhibition Monday in Tokyo’s bustling Ginza district to mark the 40th anniversary of its signature Walkman. The handheld audio player debuted on July 1, 1979, offering portable music to ears across the world. In the years that followed, over 400 million units would be sold.
The Forgotten Story Of Pure Hell, America’s First Black Punk Band
When it comes to the history of punk music, there are few bands who have been as overlooked as Pure Hell. The four-piece lived with the New York Dolls and played with Sid Vicious, but they’ve been largely written out of cultural history.
The Secret History Of A Cold War Mastermind
The legend of Gus Weiss, hero of the Cold War, ends 11 stories below the balcony of his condo at the Watergate complex in Washington, DC, on November 25, 2003. A broken corpse on the sidewalk. He was a shrewd intelligence insider, pulled off an audacious tech hack against the Soviets in the last century. Or did he?
How We’ll Forget John Lennon
The report, “The universal decay of collective memory and attention,” concludes that people and things are kept alive through “oral communication” from about five to 30 years. They then pass into written and online records, where they experience a slower, longer decline.
What Happened To Giant Flying Boats? The Saunders-Roe Princess Story
In 1943, Saunders-Roe, an iconic British aircraft builder, began planning for the future by drafting a design for a truly next-generation flying boat. But by the time the Princess took its first flight, the world had been completely transformed by the rapid development of runways and advances in land-based aircraft.
The Epic Rise And Hard Fall Of New York’s Taxi King
The man known as the Taxi King arrived at his 2014 holiday party in a $384,000 Ferrari, wearing a custom Italian suit. Five years later, that man, Evgeny A. Freidman, stood in a mostly empty courtroom in Albany, N.Y., as a judge sentenced him to probation for tax fraud.
New IKEA Store In Vienna Omits Parking And Celebrates Nature
The querkraft-designed IKEA store in Vienna seeks to create a friendly, open, unconventional, and informal experience for users. The new building will be situated in an urban setting, and with no allotted parking, customers are expected to arrive by means of public transportation.
Buried In Sand For A Millennium: Africa’s Roman Ghost City
Timgad is a lost Roman city on the edge of the Sahara desert in Algeria that remained hidden beneath the sand for nearly a thousand years. Positively obscure compared to the international notoriety of Pompeii, this ancient city is nonetheless one of the best surviving examples of Roman town planning anywhere in the historical Empire.
At War With The Thruth
A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.
The Peruvian Corruption-Buster Bigger Than Mueller
With his implacable pursuit of the presidential trio, the corruption-busting prosecutor José Domingo Pérez has established an international template for how to prosecute former heads of state on graft charges.
For 40 Years, A Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II
Six members of the Lykov family lived in the Siberian taiga for more than 40 years—utterly isolated and more than 150 miles from the nearest human settlement. In 1978, Soviet geologists prospecting in the wilds of Siberia discovered them.
CBS News Coverage Of The Apollo 11 Moon Launch
The Saturn V rocket carrying astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 9:32 a.m. on July 16, 1969 — and just four days later, man first set foot on the moon. The moon mission was a milestone in human history. But it was also a groundbreaking moment in broadcast television.
Revisiting The Infamous, Twisted, Now-Defunct Presidential Fitness Test
Way back in the 1950s, an Austro-Hungarian physical educator named Dr. Hans Kraus developed a 90-second fitness evaluation with his colleague Sonja Weber of the New York Presbyterian Hospital. It involved a series of six different movements which tested for basic strength and flexibility.
Adidas Futurecraft Loop: A Running Shoe That Is Recyclable
The Futurecraft.Loop project ushered in a running shoe that has been designed from scratch to be recycled. Adidas’ thinking is not to take pre-existing products and make them more sustainable, but rather to create sustainable products from square one.
‘The Countryside Is Where The Radical Changes Are’: Rem Koolhaas Goes Rural
“There has been no architecture of a similar vigour in the last 100 years. It is based strictly on codes, algorithms, technologies, engineering and performance, not intention. Its boredom is hypnotic, its banality breathtaking.” For Koolhaas, the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center embodies a new kind of sublime.
How Silicon Valley Ruined Work Culture
More and more offices are adopting the work culture invented by the technology upstarts. These are not the offices where your grandparents worked, clocking out at 5 sharp, eyeballing the corner office. There is no corner office here—just “hot desks” and open floor plans, wide as the prairie.
“Quadrangle”, Award-Winning Doc About Marriage And Divorce
A documentary about two ‘conventional’ couples that swapped partners and lived in a group marriage in the early 70s, hoping to pioneer an alternative to divorce and pave the way for how people would live in the future.
How Global Trade Runs On U.S. Dollars
Nearly 90% of international transactions in 2019 were in U.S. dollars, giving the U.S. extraordinary power over nearly every entity that imports or exports anything anywhere. Here’s how the global economy runs on the U.S. dollar — and why some countries are trying to chip away at its dominance.
The Playboy Serbian Spy Who Inspired James Bond
His name was Popov. Dusko Popov. As a Serbian double agent during the Second World War, Popov was an expert gambler, known womaniser and even crossed paths with James Bond’s creator Ian Fleming. But was he really the inspiration behind 007?
Glass-Sided Rooftop Pool Tops Concrete Maltese House
The rooftop swimming pool at Casa B, a concrete house in Malta, is visible from both the street and from inside the living space below. Architrend Architecture designed the building to be inserted into a traditional terrace.
A Dramatic And Organic Bamboo Basketball Court In Thailand
This remarkable bamboo basketball court in Thailand is designed by Chiangmai Life Architects. It’s a tasteful open-air venue meant for all manner of sports, events and gatherings. And despite its lightweight appearance, it’s been designed to withstand high-speed winds and earthquakes.