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THI R D ANNU AL O R

W r ong T he or y : T he P o w e r o f I m p e r f e c t i o n b y

a d i c h S c o t t D

SILICON MODERN WH AT A TR IP FIRST LOOK 10 Rules for Airbnb’s Nike’s Awesome Making Great Vision for Your New High-Tech Stuff Now Next Vacation Air Jordans p. 106 p. 110 p. 122

dirty pretty things | OCT 2014

ANNOUNCING THE NEW POLO FLAGSHIP 711 FIFTH AVENUE, NYC

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THE NEW APPAREL COLLECTION #inmyelement | timberland.com

adam voorhes features 22.10 0 0 7

104

DESIGN 2014 The Rise of Silicon Modern

Nike looked to a 200-year-old weaving technique to make its new Air Jordan XX9.

kohler.com/numi

Kohler’s most advanced toilet

0 1 0 features 22.10 adam voorhes

10 LESSONS FOR A N EW ER A

108 Unite the Digital and the Physical

110 Build a Journey— Not Just a Destination

112 Customization for Everyone

114 Performance Is in the Details

116 Beauty Is as The handlebars vibrate to tell you Important as Utility when to turn.

118 Manage for Creativity

120

Orchestrate the Entire Experience

122 Reuse Proven Technology 134

124 FEAR & LIKING ON FACEBOOK Abandon What happens when you Your Assumptions give the thumbs-up to everything? It’s not pretty.

BY MAT HONAN 126

Be Wrong 138 BY SCOTT DADICH THE WINNERS Two gamblers found a king-size bug in a video poker machine. Then the Feds caught on.

BY KEVIN POULSEN

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0 1 2 contents

ISSUE 22.10 48 Videogames 76 What’s Inside Boost Literacy Glow sticks 14 The Network Kids love Minecraft. So let them read about that. What’s happening in 80 We Have Liftoﬀ the WIRED world BY CLIVE THOMPSON The science of jumping

20 This Issue From the editor’s desk ULTRA 23 Comments Reader rants and raves 51 Terry Gilliam’s New Dystopia 82 Sugar High The writer of Doctor Tricks for finding the Parnassusreimagines the best Halloween treats 27 future in The Zero Theorem INFOPORN BY BO MOORE 84 Beauty Secrets of Sandstone Eclipses: Weaving Patterns in the Sky 54 Zola Jesus Gets Back to Basics 86 Mr. Know-It-All On tech swag and banking your blood 56 Leonardo Ulian Turns Our Tech BY JON MOOALLEM Obsession Into Art ALPHA29 20/20 Hindsight 58 The history of technologi- Mega Man Returns cal innovation is a The robot hero ﬁnally GADGET LAB pageant of oversights. gets his due. 89 BY STEVEN JOHNSON Design Your Day 62 Extreme Triathlete 90 Wake Up How champion Ironman 36 Jargon Watch James Lawrence stays 92 Head Out The latest additions strong, mile after mile to the WIRED lexicon 94 Work 96 65 Halloween’s Top Stay Fit 38 Alpha Geek Scream Factories 99 David Newman has Have Fun a better way to think 100 Unwind about medicine 66 Alien Storyboards

40 68 Jawbone3-D-Printed not cutting Body Partit? ABody tattoo Arts that makes music Just print out a new one. 70 Waypoints: Mexico City 40 Pop-Up Wetlands A hidden pyramid and Rice paddies qu craft beer at 7,000 feet thirst when lak

44 We’ll Drink to Robots for win

46 How to Stop the Bad Guys Q: Rip apart their ASK A FLOWCHART a magic button 73 Dome Sweet Dome 148 Look around Hawaii’s faux What’s a Good Tech-Related Mars habitat Costume for Halloween? 46 All-Seeing Airships BY ROBERT CAPPS Not creepy in the least 74 A Mortician’s Tale Caitlin Doughty wants us ON THE COVER all to be undertakers Illustration for WIRED by Oliver Munday

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0 1 4 the network

WHO VIDEO PRINT/TABLET WE FOLLOW Design|Life Our annual style manual for gadgets and gear highlights 180 Bjarke Ingels products that’ll get you through @bjarkeingels the day effortlessly, from morn- The Nature ing power-up through office Conservancy hours and on into evening sleep @nature_org mode. Overwhelmed by all the choices? No sweat—our handy flowcharts will help you pick a kitchen knife, a speaker, or a drink. Grab Design|Life at news- Terry Gilliam Watch WxD stands, or download the extras- @terrygilliam laden tablet edition and hear top Caitlin Doughty We wish the Stag Theater at Lucasfilm’s Skywalker designers discuss their inspiration. @thegooddeath Sound HQ were big enough to let all of you attend Alexis Lloyd WIRED’s inaugural design retreat, which begins on @alexislloyd September 29. But the Stag isn’t a Tardis—that’s a Leonardo Ulian whole other continuity. Our solution: Go to WIRED @ulianleonardo .com, where we’ll post recaps and video of conversa- Steve Martocci tions with creative stars like Marissa Mayer, Carlton @smart Cuse, Sarah Stein Greenberg, Adam Savage, and more. Hi-Seas Bonus: You won’t have to wear a name tag. Or pants. @hi-seas ON THE WEB: WIRED .com John Maeda @johnmaeda Matias Duarte @matiasduarte Irene Au @ireneau Magik*Magik WEB @magikmagik Innovation Insights WIRED’s Innovation Insights blog dissects the critical issues facing businesses today.

ON THE WEB: WIRED.com/insights James Lawrence/ Iron Cowboy Facebook.com/ ironcowboy

Zola Jesus WEB @zolajesus Streamable Screams

Why settle for your neighborhood haunted house FOLLOW US when you can have one orbiting Neptune in 2047? @WIRED That would be the spaceship in 1997’s Event Horizon, N the most horrifying horror movie ever made. The O I DOWNLOAD T Underwire’s 12 other picks for a streamable Hallow- C E L een fright-fest will also scare the Skittles out of you. L O C ON THE WEB: WIRED.com/underwire T T E R E The New A.I. V E : Time to call the Turing police? N Get the digital O Z edition of WIRED for I A kind of artiﬁcial intelligence R your tablet at O called deep learning is taking WIRED H bit.ly/tablet . T over the net—by mimicking N E V the human brain. Like: Google E ; S uses it to let you search the web E G A I M WIREDby speaking’s series into “The your New phone. A.I.” Y T T examines this game changer. E G : N ON THE WEB: WIRED.com/tag/ I A deep-learning R B

ARE YOUR DEVELOPERS SPENDING . 1 4 0 2 . r p o C s e i n h c a M s e n i s u B l a n o t i a r n t e I n © . k r m a e d r a / t m o c . WRITING CODE THAT ALREADY EXISTS? m i b t a t l i s t n e r Bluemix on the IBM Cloud lets developers spend more time on what matters most. u c e e Today’s developers are creative innovators capable of making a huge impact on your S e . i d w business. But to create game-changing apps, they need time to conceptualize, build and d l r o ™ w ﬁne-tune them. Bluemix, IBM’s development platform, can help. It offers developers pre- s n i o TIME t existing services and codebases they can access in just a few clicks, instead of having i c d s i r j u to write code that already exists. This time savings and an automated infrastructure y n a m setup can mean a faster time to market for you. Business on the cloud is made with IBM. i n d r e t e i s g r e . , r p o C e s i n h c a M The IBM Cloud is the s e n i s u cloud for business. B l a n o t i a r n t e I n f o Build your business with Bluemix on the IBM Cloud at ibm.com/cloud s k r a m e d a t r r e a M B I h i t w e d a m d n a i x m e l u B , m c o . m b i , o g l o s i t d n a M I B

0 1 6 who does what What have you been most wrong about?

EDITOR IN CHIEF Scott Dadich @sdadich

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Jason Tanz@jasontanz MANAGING EDITOR Jacob Young@jake65 EDITOR, WIRED.COM Mark McClusky@markmcc AT 24, I TOLD MY CREATIVE DIRECTOR Billy Sorrentino@billysorrentino DIRECTOR OF EDITORIAL PROJECTS Robert Capps@robcapps ART DIRECTOR THE NSA! THAT TYPEFACES WERE FASHION EDITORIAL STATEMENTS. FEATURES EDITOR Mark Robinson@markrobs DEPUTY EDITOR Joe Brown@joemfrown ARTICLES EDITORS Cliﬀ Kuang @cliuang, Adam Rogers @jetjocko STORY EDITOR Chuck Squatriglia DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORS Erica Jewell, Joanna Pearlstein@jopearl SENIOR EDITORS Michael Calore@snackﬁght, Emily Dreyfuss (News and Opinion)@emilydreyuss, Jon J. Eilenberg (Digital Editions) @jjeilenberg, SOMEDAY Sarah Fallon @sarahallon, Betsy Mason @betsymason, Cade Metz, Susan Murcko @susanmurcko, THEY’LL MAKE A Caitlin Roper @caitlinroper, Peter Rubin @provensel BETTER FILM THAN SENIOR STAFF WRITERS ROBOCOP. Jessi Hempel @jessiwrites, Mat Honan@mat COPY CHIEF Jennifer Prior@jhprior ACTUALLY, TURNS COMMUNITY DIRECTOR Eric Steuer @ericsteuer EDITORIAL OPERATIONS MANAGER Jay Dayrit @jaydayhey OUT THAT DISCO EVERY HAIRCUT DOESN’T SUCK. SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITORS Bryan Gardiner, Kyle VanHemert I HAD IN THE ’80S. SENIOR WRITERS Andy Greenberg@a_greenberg, Robert McMillan @bobmcmillan, Greg Miller @dosmonos, THAT WHOLE SOLIPSISM THING Marcus Wohlsen @marcuswohlsen, Kim Zetter @kimzetter IN COLLEGE. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Alex Davies STAFF WRITERS Issie Lapowsky, Liz Stinson SENIOR COPY EDITOR Brian Dustrud @dustrud COPY EDITORS Lee Simmons, Pam Smith ASSISTANT RESEARCH EDITORS Julia Greenberg@julia_greenberg, Jason Kehe @jkehe, Katie M. Palmer @katiempalmer, Cory Perkins, Victoria Tang

DESIGN, PHOTO & VIDEO THE STRANGER I DESIGN DIRECTOR Caleb Bennett DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Patrick Witty @patrickwitty FOLLOWED FOR DESIGN DEVELOPMENT EDITOR Margaret Swart@meswart SENIOR ART DIRECTOR Dylan Boelte TWO BLOCKS. HE WAS NOT RYAN SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR Anna Goldwater Alexander @annagoldwater GOSLING. MANAGING ART DIRECTOR Victor Krummenacher@krummenacher SENIOR PRODUCER Sowjanya Kudva POSTPRODUCTION SUPERVISOR Nurie Mohamed ART DIRECTORS Allie Fisher, Josef Reyes PHOTO EDITOR Paloma Shutes ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Rina Kushnir UX DESIGNER Mathew Asgari I DON’T MUMBLE.

TECHNOLOGY & PRODUCT DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT Hayley Nelson@hayley_nelson TECHNOLOGY MANAGER Kathleen Vignos@kathleencodes WEB PRODUCER Nicole Wilke PROJECT MANAGER Stephen McGarrigle ENGINEERS Ben Chirlin, Ross Patton, Jorge A. Ruiz@muﬀnace, Jake Spurlock @whyisjake THINKING THAT APPLE WAS GOING PRODUCTION OUT OF BUSINESS IN 1996. PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Ron Licata@ron_licata ANY PRODUCTION MANAGERS Myrna Chiu, Ryan Meith INCLINATION GUESSING THE BART TRAIN TO LEAVE EDITORIAL BUSINESS MANAGER Katelyn Davies ASSOCIATE TO THE EDITOR IN CHIEF Blanca Myers THE HOUSE DOOR WOULD WEARING INFORMATION SYSTEMS & TECHNOLOGY Chris Becker, Josh Strom @jadedox FACILITIES Arthur Guiling KP Ron Ferrato STAY OPEN SHORTS ANOTHER TWO IN THIS CITY. CONTRIBUTORS SECONDS. (OW.) EDITOR Chris Kohler@kobunheat WRITERS Christina Bonnington @redgirlsays, Tim Moynihan @aperobot, Margaret Rhodes@callme_marge, Nick Stockton@stocktonsays, Angela Watercutter @waterslicer DESIGN Kelley Zerga PHOTO Rosey Lakos, Julia Sabot@juliasabot, Josh Valcarcel@joshvalcarcel, Ariel Zambelich @azambelich RESEARCH Jordan Crucchiola@jorcru, Timothy Lesle @telesle, Lexi Pandell @lpandell PRODUCTION Theresa Thadani WEB PRODUCERS Samantha Oltman@samoltman, Matt Simon @mrmattsimon COMMUNITY Alessandra Ram @alessandra_ram

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Mary H. K. Choi, Anil Dash, Joshua Davis, Jason Fagone, Charles Graeber, Jeﬀ Howe, Brendan I. Koerner, Lone Shark Games, Daniel H. Pink, Kevin Poulsen, Brian Raftery, Evan Ratliﬀ, Spencer Reiss, Clive Thompson, Fred Vogelstein, Gary Wolf, David Wolman

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Rhett Allain, Samuel Arbesman, Aatish Bahtia, Andy Baio, Mary Bates, Deborah Blum, Beth Carter, Rachel Edidin, Laura Hudson, Christian Jarrett, Brandon Keim, Erik Klemetti, Jeﬀrey Marlow, Maryn McKenna, Graeme McMillan, Doug Newcomb, Quinn Norton, Gwen Pearson, David S. F. Portree, Ryan Rigney, Lore Sjöberg, Philippe Starck WHEN I WAS IN CORRESPONDENTS THIRD GRADE, Erin Biba, Paul Boutin, Stewart Brand, Mark Frauenfelder, Lucas Graves, Chris Hardwick, Steven Johnson, I WAS CON- VINCED SMASH Jonathon Keats, Brian Lam, Steven Leckart, Bob Parks, Frank Rose, Steve Silberman MOUTH WAS A GOOD BAND. EDITORIAL FELLOWS USING “ST” TO Liana Bandziulis @lianabandz, Lydia Belanger@lydiabelanger, Brendan Klinkenberg@brendan_klink, Max Ufberg@max_u SEARCH FOR “SUBTWEET” CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS EXAMPLES ON Ian Allen, James Day, Christopher Griﬃth, Brent Humphreys, Platon, Joe Pugliese, Moises Saman, Art Streiber, Dan Winters TWITTER (AFTER HEARING CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS THE TERM FROM Brown Bird Design, Tavis Coburn, Carl de Torres, Gluekit, Mario Hugo, Erin Jang, Lamosca, Zohar Lazar, L-Dopa, A FRIEND). Jason Lee, Christoph Niemann, John Ritter, James Victore, Ben Wiseman

SENIOR DIRECTOR, COMMUNICATIONS Corey Wilson @coreypwilson COORDINATOR, COMMUNICATIONS Danika Owsley @danikaowsley

SENIOR MAKER Chris Anderson SENIOR MAVERICK Kevin Kelly FOUNDING EDITOR Louis Rossetto

Out-cleans the 5 big boys. In independent floorcare tests, the new DC59 Motorhead vacuum out-cleans the top five best-selling full-size vacuums across carpets and hard floors. Without the hassle of a cord.*

dyson.com/nocord

*Tested against upright market, dust loaded, using ASTM F608, ASTM F2607, IEC 60312-1 5.2, 5.9. Using competitor NPD sales volume data, MAT April 2014.

0 1 8 who does what (in a sui t) What have you been most wrong about?

Howard S. Mittman VICE PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER Stefanie Rapp Maya Draisin ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, MARKETING Rory Stanton Camille Signorelli A THIRD DIRECTOR, FINANCE & BUSINESS EXECUTIVE BRAND DIRECTOR COMEBACK OPERATIONS Y2K. WHAT AM I FOR NKOTB. Andrew Maiorana Melanie Altarescu GONNA DO WITH I’M STILL GENERAL MANAGER, ADVERTISING HEAD OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES ALL THIS SPAM HOPEFUL! AND KEROSENE?

SENIOR DIRECTOR, MEDIA INNOVATIONS SENIOR PREMIUM MARKET MANAGER INTEGRATED DIRECTOR OF EVENTS Christopher Bower Tracy Eisenman MARKETING DIRECTOR & SPECIAL PROJECTS SENIOR DIRECTOR, INTEGRATED SALES Michelle Meehan Nagham Hilly Meghan Finnell PREMIUM MARKET MANAGER SENIOR INTEGRATED ASSOCIATE PROMOTIONS MANAGER ACCOUNT DIRECTOR Lauren M. Burkey MARKETING MANAGERS Kelsey Taylor Christine Kauffman Michael Assenza, Christopher Cona, PROMOTIONS ASSOCIATE ACCOUNT MANAGERS UK, IRELAND, NETHERLANDS & Catherine Fish, Katherine Kirkland, Michelle Luis Tim Begley THE PLAYERS SWITZERLAND REPRESENTATIVE Elena Mehas, Francesca Truffini Joanna Evans I DRAFT IN David Simpson SPECIAL PROJECTS MANAGER FANTASY MARKETING DIRECTOR Samantha Storch Amanda Romano FOOTBALL. FRANCE, GERMANY, SPAIN Caitlin Rauch & PORTUGAL REPRESENTATIVE DETROIT DIRECTOR ASSOCIATE MARKETING MANAGERS BUSINESS MANAGER Stephanie Clement Laurent Bouaziz REALITY Anna Chelak, Meagan Jordan Aubelia Oesman SHOWS. SENIOR MARKETING ASSOCIATE BUSINESS ANALYST ITALY REPRESENTATIVE I THOUGHT LOS ANGELES DIRECTORS THEY’D GO Melissa Bickar Janelle Teng Elizabeth M. Murphy Elena De Giuli AWAY FIVE MARKETING ASSOCIATE Alissa Heideman Spiwak YEARS AGO. Nicole Riccardi ASSOCIATE TO THE PUBLISHER ASIA REPRESENTATIVE Claire Caragol SENIOR ART DIRECTOR MIDWEST ACCOUNT DIRECTOR Matthew Farrar Beth DeVillez Florence Pak ADVERTISING SALES ASSOCIATES ASSISTANT GENERAL MANAGER, ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR MIDWEST ACCOUNT MANAGER Saiba Arain, Patrick Brennan, ADVERTISING Lindsay Clark Mark Majdanski Charlotte Cornett, Cherie Grimm, Susi Park SENIOR DESIGNER Nikki Korch, Sara Mack, SOUTHEAST DIRECTOR Parker Bowab Meghan McCarthy, MULTIMEDIA DESIGNER Dave Hady MANAGER, PLANNING & PRODUCT Kathryn McNally, Martin Navarrete, Robbie Sauerberg Jessica Sander Greg Pruett SENIOR DIGITAL PLANNERS SENIOR PRODUCER, SOUTHWEST REPRESENTATIVE Charlotte Raimondi, Ed Sumner, MARKETING SOLUTIONS Julian R. Lowin Matthew Stevenson THINKING CATS Colin J. Weber MAKE EASY PETS. DIGITAL PLANNER NORTHWEST DIRECTOR THEY ARE CAPRI- Ashley Tabroff CIOUS AND Ashley R. Knowlton MANIPULATIVE NORTHWEST MANAGER FOR ADVERTISING OPPORTUNITIES, PLEASE CALL (212) 286 3868. CREATURES. Kara L. Wardley FOR IDEAS, EVENTS, AND PROMOTIONS, FOLLOW @WIREDINSIDER OR VISIT WIREDINSIDER.COM.

PUBLISHED BY CONDÉ NAST PREGNANCY TEST RESULTS. READ CHAIRMAN S. I. Newhouse, Jr. THE STICK WRONG, WAS DISAPPOINTED CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Charles H. Townsend THERE’D BE NO PRESIDENT Robert A. Sauerberg, Jr. BABY, NOW HAVE AN AMAZING CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER David E. Geithner 1-YEAR OLD. PRESIDENT, CONDÉ NAST MEDIA GROUP & CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER Louis Cona CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER Jill Bright CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER Joe Simon

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0 2 0 this issue @sdadich

On September 30, WIRED will host its ﬁrst design conference. WIRED by Design will be held at Skywalker Sound in Marin County, California, and will feature today’s top tech- nologists, artists, and thinkers.

STARTED MY COLLEGE CAREER studying mechanical engineering, it here, in our third annual design issue. but halfway through my sophomore year, I accidentally found my You can see it in the new edition of Design\ way into the world of design. I loved the problem-solving side of Life, our yearly style manual for gadgets engineering—and the math—but I’ll never forget the magnetic and gear. You can see it online at WIRED

pull of a certain computer lab brimming with Macintoshes, each .com/design, which has become one of the ; Y T T loaded with Illustrator, Photoshop, and PageMaker. My change of most popular sections of our site under the E G ; major felt like a seismic shift, and I worried that it meant I’d no visionary leadership of articles editor Cliff S N O longer be doing something “important,” but that’s because back in Kuang. And perhaps most excitingly, you’ll I T C 1996, I didn’t understand what we at WIRED have come to realize: see it at WIRED by Design, a live magazine U D O Design and technology just aren’t that far apart. Yes, the core of event about how design and creativity are R W P O my design coursework revolved around concepts like color theory shaping a better future. ¶ Cliff likes to say E H N C O Y and spatial systems, but all the while I was actually learning how to that design allows us to make sense of our B E K L C N think critically and making the best use of—you guessed it—emer- technology, and he’s right. That relation- E A N T S ¶ T gent technology. Maybe you never thought about it this way, but ship has never been more important, par- H Y G B I designers touch and shape every single part of your day; they are a ticularly in the world we cover. It makes me R N Y I O P T constant presence in your life. Your smartphone, glasses, activity tracker—some- happy that I chose to become a designer O A C R , T one made them, worrying over the details that turned those things into indispens- all those years ago—especially because it S S E U G L able companions. From the x-height of the type on your car’s in-dash display to gave me the chance to explore these new D L I I R ; Y the lumbar support of your new desk chair to that sacred moment every evening frontiers with you. B T S T E E when you finally jettison your Flyknits, pretty much every experience has been lov- G M ; A A ingly crafted—one might even say engineered—by designers.¶ In fact, there’s never J L Y L B A been a better time to be a designer. Every day, powerful new tools and technologies O B T R I O E put new opportunities at our fingertips. The designer’s toolkit is ever-expanding, H D P N : A and contemporary advances in manufacturing, prototyping, and production have T Y F R E B enabled nothing less than a modern renaissance in all forms of design, from indus- L ; P S O R trial to graphic. Even better, I’ve been delighted to learn that the designer’s quiver T E T M N O I and the editor’s quiver share more than a few arrows: We use systems and software R W as tools to unify, to improve function, and to beautify. Design is inextricably linked F N E A S D to innovation. The founders of this magazine understood this essential truth; as I ; W N K O ¶ SCOTT DADICH C T an organizing principle, the WIRED story has always centered on design. You can O A L L see that manifest itself this month, across just about everything we do. You can see Editor in Chief C P

ROBBIE G ORMLEY, MALTMAN AT THE BALVENIE FOR 39 YEARS.

Barley’s secrets are second nature to him. Turning the seed on time so it germinates evenly. Seasoning with enough peat in the kiln. Knowing when the grain’s ready, just by looking. Kept in his constancy, is the consistency of The Balvenie.

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Single malt Scotch whisky distillery growing its own Four malt men oversee a traditional 1 barley across its 1,000 acre farm: The Balvenie. malting ﬂoor. They spread and heat the grains until they’re ready for the kiln.

RARE CRAFT No.3: The Coppersmith RARE CRAFT No.4: The Coopers RARE CRAFT No.5: The Malt Master

A good handful 1,460 52

The Balvenie’s coppersmith keeps stills Number of days that coopers spend learning Number of years that Malt Master in peak conditions. Part of that process is how to maintain the casks. They need to David Stewart has spent ensuring sweetening the still with “a good handful” master the secrets of toasting, as well as The Balvenie single malt is the ideal of juniper, an expert skill few possess. repairing, rebuilding, ﬁlling, and sealing. marriage of spirit, wood, and time.

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comments @ wi re d m ai l@ wi re d. co m 0 2 3

THE ARTPHONE AGE

Ooh, pretty sunset. You know just what to do: Angle your iPhone, snap a photo, and post to Instagram. Fifty likes! Congrats—you’re part of the next creative revolution. Our August issue was dedicated to the “Artphone Explosion”: photographers, musicians, designers, and writers who are using their phones to create incredible art for a new (and hyper-ﬁltered) digital age. And it turned out we couldn’t talk about phones and creativity without diving into a dangerous texting game called Damage Control and the history of autocorrect. It was ducking awesome.

“I absolutely love Sara Cwynar’s cover RE: “THE ARTPHONE EXPLOSION” aart—it’s awesome to see a ‘traditional’ art “IT’S NOT THAT PEOPLE ARE MORE medium holding its own on the front of a tech magazine! Keep up the creativity!” CREATIVE; IT’S THAT WE SEEE Kelly Diamond via email MORE CREATIVITY MORE OFTTEN.” RE: “TEH HISTORY OF “We had a scientiﬁc Jim_hall1025 on WIRED.com AUTOCORRECT” conference for a disorder “I especially like the called ‘primary ciliary RE: “DANGEROUS GAME”: subliminal autocorrects. dyskinesia’ a few years back. The materials FRIENDS TEXT FROM EACH OTHER’S I work at Alcatel. My PHONES FOR LULZ all said ‘primary celery iPhone corrects that to “Last summer I got a text from some- dyskinesia.’ It is truly Alcatraz. Is it trying heartbreaking when your one whose number I didn’t recog- to tell me something?” celery can’t move.” nize. Rather than set her straight, I decided to play a game to see David on WIRED .com Pongo on WIRED.com what I could pry out. Over a couple of days, she became increasingly frustrated at my vagueness as she made references to what must have been a passionate relationship. RE: FEAST FOR THE EYES”: FOOD I ﬁnally realized I had to stop the PHOTOGRAPHY GOES MAINSTREAM charade and halfway apologized for the ‘mistake’ and, like a true chick- “There are classes at enshit, didn’t own up to my agenda Whole Foods that train people on tak- in stringing things out. To this day, I still feel guilty. It is indeed ing photoswith an ofiPhone. food a dangerous game when we play This is real, people.” around with other people’s Dan Sisco (@sis- emotions and their personal lives.” codan) on Twitter Fred Mills via email

0 2 4 comments @wired [email protected]

RE: “RAISE THE SHIELDS”: “My personal RE: “IMMERSE TIPS ON strategy is YOURSELF”: TOUGHENING MOBILE DEVICES UP YOUR to use weak HERALD A NEW PASSWORDS GOLDEN AGE OF and easy-to- JOURNALISM “Disagree remember “Frank with a passwords for low-risk sites Rose’s piece password (like this one, made me manager. sorry, wired) LOL. Yes, they That is and strong did teach putting ones for banks RE: “HOUSE BROKEN”: HOW TO BUILD and shopping. us how A SMARTER SMART HOME all your I don’t really The to fold “As a homeowner, the concept of the smart eggs into a care if some- New York home is a difficult sell. Far too much at hackable one hacks my Times the moment is gimmicky (i.e., controlling Disqus account, junior high!—in everything from your smartphone). For electronicbasket.” so I put my me, the real value is not needing the smart- Ask any Dan1101 on effort and phone in the first place. I didn’t bother memory into native WIRED.com with a Nest thermostat because I couldn’t remembering (Editor’s note: New Yorker justify $250 when a programmable Got something the password over the thermostat costs less than $50 after better? for Amazon, age of 60.” rebates and performs the same function Do tell: Our my bank, of keeping my utility bills down.” Rebecca Rubin trusty dead- email, etc.” via email Methos1999 on WIRED.com tree password manager Bailers77 on just isn’t WIRED.com the same since (Editor’s note: the Great Sure, friend— RE: “IMMERSE YOURSELF”” Coffee Spill we’re totally low- “A GOLDEN AGE FOR READERS of 2014.) risk. Totally.) DOESN’T NECESSARILY TRANSLATE INTO A GOLDEN AGE FOR WRITERS OR PUBLISHERS..” Andrew Leonard on Salon.com

RE: “THE LAST GUARDIANS”: MARVEL’S COSMIC CHARACTERS MAKE THEIR BIG-SCREEN DEBUT “If there was no comedy in this ﬂick, it probably wouldn’t

RE: “AUTO IMMUNE SYSTEM”: hold up well. Introducing DARPA FUNDS A DEVICE a Star Wars–type comic group TO HACK-PROOF YOUR CAR isn’t easy when very few UNDO kids know who these characters problem.“Vintage As in, cars the solvekind that the are. I think it’s an excellent Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek existed before onboard strategy to bring in young hacked into a Ford Escape, diagnostics was an acronym.” viewers and new readers.” not a Ford Explorer (“Auto Immune Nathan on WIRED.com Bugz Bugbee on WIRED.com System,” Alpha, issue 22.08).

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current tetrad

2 eclipses that are THE DARK part of a tetrad 4/15/2014 10/8/2014 4/4/2015 9/28/2015 SIDE OF THE MOON

We're in the middle of l a a four-eclipse set— t o don't freak out about it. t

Horsemen. Beatles. Cow stom- achs. Great things come in fours, and lunar eclipses are no excep- tion. These particular events

are called tetrads—four total 1 eclipses in a row, each about six months apart, with no par- tials in between. And because * e the moon reliably orbits Earth, d u and Earth reliably orbits the sun, i t n l tetrads have a temporal rhythm. g i a a t But you won’t see it by looking r m a e p at a list of eclipse dates. No, to s i p reveal the celestial tapestry that l c weaves itself eternally through E the night sky, you need to plot them out. This chart shows the magnitude of all lunar eclipses 0 over a span of about 5,000 years—total eclipses plus par-

X I tial and penumbral ones (where T S I T A the moon passes through the T S L fringe of Earth’s shadow but A U l Z I remains illuminated). The blue a V ; r 3 b 7 circles are part of a tetrad. End- 1 m 4 1 u 2 - time zealots are bug-eyed over n 9 e 0 p 0 the four-eclipse streak we’re 2 - P T now in the middle of, but just N O I T give them the meh-hand. Hap- A C I L pens all the time. Next tetrad B U P begins in 2032. —Seth Kadish L A C I -1 N H *The larger the number, the deeper into C E T A Earth’s shadow the moon travels. S A N : E 0 2 7 c c c c 0 d d d d d C b b b b a a a a a R 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 U 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 O 0 5 0 5 5 0 5 0 5 S 2 1 1 1 1 2 2

year

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MIND THE GAPS THE CONSEQUENCES OF TECH’S BLIND SPOTS

IN MARCH 1857, a full two decades before Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, the French patent oﬃce awarded a Parisian printer named Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville a patent for a machine that recorded sound. Inspired by anatomical studies of the human ear and fascinated with the art of stenography, Scott had stumbled across a radical new idea: Instead of a human writing down words, a machine could write sound waves. ¶ Scott’s contraption funneled sound waves through 029 a hornlike apparatus that ended with a membrane. Sound waves would trigger vibrations in the membrane, which would

then be transmitted to a stylus made of a stiff brush. Tim Mcdonagh The stylus would etch the waves on a page darkened by

030 alpha Argument oct 2014

the carbon of lampblack. He called his invention a phonautograph: the self-writing of sound. In the annals of invention, there may be no more curious mix of farsightedness and myopia than the story of the phonautograph. On the one hand, Scott had managed to make a critical conceptual leap—the real- ization that sound waves could be pulled out of the air and etched onto a recording medium—long before others got around to it. (When you’re two decades ahead of Edison, you’re doing pretty well for yourself.) But Scott’s invention was hamstrung by one crucial—even comical—lim- itation. He had produced the first sound-recording device. But he neglected to include playback. It seems obvious to us now that a device for recording sound should some new device will never find a The first sound- we don’t even have to think about include a feature that lets you hear mass audience. A classic of this recording reading once we’ve learned how machine was the recording. But that’s hindsight. genre: the confident predictions patented in to do it. Why would sound waves, The idea that machines could convey about the (tiny) demand for com- 1857. It never once you get them on the page, be sound waves that originated else- puters at the dawn of the digital age. occurred to any different? Sadly, the neural tool- the inventor where was anything but intuitive. “There is no reason anyone would to include kit of human beings doesn’t seem It wasn’t that Scott forgot or failed want a computer in their home,” a playback to include the capacity for reading to make audio playback work; it was Ken Olsen, the cofounder of Digital function. sound waves by sight. that the idea never even occurred to Equipment Corporation, is famously A similar myopia surrounded the him. It was in his blind spot. quoted as saying in 1977. invention of the laser in the postwar For understandable reasons, when But the more interesting blind era. Science fiction writers had been we tell stories of technological inno- spots are about how a novel technol- speculating on the military uses of vation, we tend to focus on insight ogy might be used. Strangely enough, concentrated beams of light since and even seeming clairvoyance—the working at the cutting edge of a field at least H. G. Wells’ The War of the people who can see the future before makes you more prone to these sorts Worlds. (The “heat ray” is a recur- the rest of us. But there’s a flip side of blind spots, because you’re explor- rent device throughout the sci-fi to such farsightedness that shows ing new territory without conven- canon.) When researchers at Bell up again and again in the history of tional landmarks or guidelines. You Labs and Hughes Aircraft actually innovation: the blind spots, the pos- design a tool with one specific use in began producing laser light in the sibilities that somehow escaped our mind, but that focus blinds you to 1960s, they never imagined that its field of vision but that, in retrospect, other ones. Scott, for instance, was first mainstream use would be scan- seem glaringly obvious. trying to build an automated ste- ning barcodes at checkout counters. Perhaps the most familiar kind nographer. He assumed that humans Another archetypal innovator of blind spot is the assumption that would learn to “read” those squig- blind spot: failing to anticipate gles the way they had learned to read how a new tool will be abused . The

STEVEN JOHNSON (@stevenb the squiggles of shorthand. It wasn’t inventors of the foundational email johnson) is the author of that crazy an idea, looking back on standards—Post Oﬃce Protocol and the new book How We Got to it. Humans had proved to be adept Simple Mail Transfer Protocol—had Now and host of the PBS series at recognizing visual patterns; we a clear vision of the commu- airing in October. can internalize an alphabet so well nications revolution their

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At a time of major transformation in energy use, as the world faces increasing demand for energy and cleaner solutions, Shell is exploring a broader energy mix complemented by innovative technologies. In the Morro da Mineira favela, Shell is directly empowering the local population by creating a more powerful and reliable lighting system powered by a mix of renewable sources — solar panels and strategically placed kinetic energy tiles invented by Laurence Kemball-Cook, Founder and CEO of Pavegen and a Shell LiveWIRE young entrepreneur award winner. With this mix, Shell is moving the future of renewable energy several steps forward. What better way to help light a fútbol ﬁeld — a previously vital community center in an economically challenged urban center that had fallen into disrepair — than by enabling the players themselves to generate some of the electricity needed by simply playing the game? “The matches held here bring families, friends and the whole community together to celebrate not only every player’s potential, but the potential of our community itself,” says Pedro Paulo. Kemball-Cook sees this project as literally lighting the way for the future. “It’s predicted that by 2030, 60 percent of people worldwide will live in a city, so densely populated areas like this are a great testing ground for the kind of technology we’re developing and for technologies that have yet to be invented,” he says. “Tomorrow’s energy solutions are going to be all about mixing diﬀerent sources of energy and continually playing with new ideas; we need to be constantly cultivating and encouraging innovation.”

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Each month the GEICO Gecko heads to the cities, neighborhoods, and streets across the USA where innovation is happening. Here at the corner of Avenue of Positive Change and Boulevard of Big Dreams, he ﬁnds some incredibly cool individuals doing incredibly cool things—and he shares every incredibly cool discovery via social media. IDEAS. Seattle: A Paciﬁc Northwest gem brewing up innovation INFORMATION.

In a city that so proudly geeks out over everything COLLABORATION. from music to coffee, Seattle has become a hotbed of top-notch techies. Big companies from social Oct 6–10, 2014 networking sites to online retailers and search Experience Live Online engines have all set up regional offices tapping into arstechnica.com the stellar talent pool. One of the Pacific Northwest’s most important emerging markets for large and small enterprises, Seattle fosters its online community through indie newsletters, offline networking events, SPONSORED BY and conferences.

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036 alpha argument lexicon oct 2014

brainchild would unleash. Their Assuming that current trends will system was designed to allow the continue sometimes causes us to maximum flow of messages with a worry too much about a problem that minimum of filtering or barriers. ends up not being such a big deal. The idea of hijacking the medium for Two hundred years ago, Thomas spam seems not to have occurred to Malthus predicted that population anyone until 1978, when a DEC mar- growth would lead to global famine. keter named Gary Thuerk sent out That turned out to be wrong—even a bulk email to the entire Arpanet, though the population grew faster inviting them to check out “the new- than he ever imagined—because est members of the DECSystem-20 he failed to account for increases in JARGON family.” Today spam constitutes agricultural productivity. more than 70 percent of all email. Drawing on that lesson, advo- Many blind spots arise out of cates of today’s “abundance” school the constraints of governing met- of thought, led by people like Peter WATCH aphors, as Scott experienced with Diamandis, argue that emerging his stenography metaphor. Many clean energy sources such as solar unfeelability cloak n. / n- f ē-l -'bi-l -tē 'klōk / of us failed to see the social media and nuclear power will make the ' The tactile equivalent of an invisibil- revolution coming, in part because dire energy forecasts of today look ity cloak. This new metamaterial the web’s governing metaphor was like Malthusian blunders in a few conceals the contours of an object drawn from the idea of the docu- decades. But optimistic forecasters by evenly distributing physical ment: hypertext and pages, not also inevitably have their blind spots. pressure. Potential applications include packing materials, carpets, people. World Wide Web inven- We could innovate our way out of and even sleeping bags. tor Tim Berners-Lee had explicitly dependency on fossil fuels only to be drawn on literary metaphors when plunged into chaos and war when the precrastinate v. / 'prē- kras-t -n t / he built the web’s HTML/HTTP world suddenly pivots away from Big ' standard; documents were clearly Oil. The solution you confidently see Getting tasks done ahead of schedule with extra effort. Precrasti- defined in the protocol—user iden- often hides its own set of problems. nating might be as detrimental to tities were not. Consequently, most productivity as procrastinating, of the early experiments with the especially when people precrastinate on trivialities like email, men- web drew on magazine or publishing WE FREQUENTLY FAIL TO tally exhausting themselves before models, not social networks. ANTICIPATE HOW A NEW TOOL turning to greater challenges. We often fail to perceive important developments or possibilities WILL BE ABUSED: THE INVENTORS nanojuice OF EMAIL HAD NO CLUE THAT IT n. / 'na-nō-jüs / because we assume that recent WOULD BE HIJACKED FOR SPAM. An ingestible fluid containing col- trends will continue to follow their ored nanoparticles, administered current trajectory. About a decade to diagnose disorders in the gastro- ago I wrote a book on the contempo- intestinal tract. The tiny particles vibrate when pulsed with laser light, rary state and near future of video- We can at least take comfort that creating pressure waves that reveal games, which focused on their the most embarrassing blind spots intestinal activity in real time. increasing complexity: an obvious sometimes lead to constructive out- and indisputable trend that could comes. Scott never made a penny trackvertising n. / 'trak-v r- tī-ziŋ / be seen in the evolution from Pac- from his invention and has been ' Advertising embedded in a music Man World of Warcraft to . Despite largely forgotten by history. But video to encourage viral sharing. the fact that I’d spent countless about 15 years after his first record- A track recorded by the Colombian hours researching and ruminat- ings, another inventor was tinker- pop superstar Shakira and sponsored by the yogurt brand Activia ing on the gaming industry, I coming with his phonautograph design is now the most widely shared

N pletely failed to anticipate the rise when he came up with a new tech- commercial in history, viewed more O T FarmVille than 300 million times on YouTube. R of microgames like and nique for capturing and transmit- U B Dots Y , whose simplicity made them ting sound. His name? Alexander —JONATHON KEATS E K I perfect for Facebook or the iPhone. Graham Bell.  [email protected] M

038 alpha geek oct 2014

by sarah fallon andrew hetherington

TRUTH IN NUMBERS

Unnecessary medical treat- ments cost $210 billion

US.a year David in the Newman’s site could help change that.

WHEN YOU TAKE A DRUG, you should know the odds. nostic procedures. He and his collaborators scour the What’s the chance those antibiotics will help your literature and crunch the information down to a single sinus infection but cause you to develop a fatal case metric called the number needed to treat—the num- of Clostridium difficile diarrhea? Is the blood pressure ber of people who need to take a drug for one person medication that makes you feel icky really preventing to benefit. The higher the NNT, the less likely you are a stroke? The information is out there, but it’s often to benefit. The results are eye-opening. For instance, buried inside swaths of studies—too many for doctors most people with mild hypertension don’t actually to keep up with and too complex for civilians to parse. benefit from drugs like beta-blockers, and antibiot- The result, says David Newman, a director of clinical ics aren’t always worth the side effects. But patients research at New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medi- get prescriptions for them anyway. “People tend to cine, is “ignorance on both sides of the stethoscope.” think that, if it’s a medical intervention, there’s sci- ¶ That’s why he created theNNT, a website that aims ence behind it,” Newman says. Now at least patients to provide clear and precise data for drugs and diag- can review that science for themselves.

Touchpad technology. Launchpad performance. The all-new C-Class.

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medicine migration oct 2014

by David MacNeal

BIG DATA IS FOR THE BIRDS

WHEN THEY’RE FLYING south for the winter, birds need to rest their weary wings—preferably some- where with food and water. But due to California’s agricultural development (not to mention its record-breaking drought), their preferred West Coast wetland stopovers are few and far between. So Matt Merrifield, a geographer with the Nature Conservancy of California, dove into geospa- tial data to help develop an alternative. The answer: flooded rice paddies. ¶ After the September harvest, farmers flood their fields to break down leftover rice straw. That’s water—but not on the right schedule. “We had to identify, very specifically in time and space, where there were a lot of birds Cranial Plate disk fit perfectly but not a lot of water,” Merrifield In 2013, Oxford between the two says. So he overlaid migration Performance affected vertebrae. data—crowdsourced from bird- Materials created ers—with satellite images showing a new skull for a Tracheal Splint farmland water use. Then the Con- man who had lost When an Ohio servancy paid rice growers 75 percent of infant had prob- in the overlapping areas of Califor- his cranium. The lems with his nia’s Central Valley to keep certain material, poly- windpipe in 2012, fields flooded when the birds arrive ¶ etherketoneke- the University of in October. The result: about tone, encourages Michigan printed 10,000 acres of popup wetlands bone growth. a special supertiny for birds to visit en route from A FEW YEARS AGO, if a horrific infec- tube to keep Alaska to South America, sited tion ate your jawbone, doctors had Jawbone underneath them at the exact time they need a landing. “Eventually to build makeshift mandibles from An 83-year-old his airways open. woman in the Shoulder Joint we want to do this not only in the your fibula, a process that left you Netherlands had A Belgian woman Central Valley but up and down sliced open as surgeons painstak- an infection in her had lost bone in the Pacific Flyway,” Merrifield says. That should make for some happy ingly whittled away at replacement jaw, but her age her shoulder this meant a 15-hour year. Mobelife birds. —ALLIE WILKINSON ¶ bone. Yech. Today they can just replacement engineers mapped hit Control-P: Based on MRI and surgery would be the area to craft CT scans of your busted-up body risky. So in 2011, an implant that a company called would fit the joint parts, hyperspecialized 3-D print- Xilloc printed and not require ers produce custom replacements, her a new jaw out removing any

Y no sculpture skills required. As of laser-sintered additional bone. C titanium dust. biomedical engineer Scott Hollis- Installation time: Hip Joint ter says: “We don’t all have to be four hours. A congenital dis- Michelangelos anymore.” And in ease had eroded a Spinal Cage Swedish teenager’s October, engineers, medical device In France this hip. In 2012 an makers, and doctors will meet at the summer, Medicrea implant based on FDA in Maryland to discuss regula- made a “spinal CT scans of the cage” for a patient aﬀected area, also tions for an industry that’s grow- with a deformed by Mobelife, got ing—one printable bone at a time. spine. The new her walking again.

044 alpha wine oct 2014

by ashik siddique jesse harp

BOTS IN THE BOTTLE Fru Sci Flo Thirsty vines mean concen- Lancaster HIGH TECH VINEYARDS trated flavor. Hawkeye SURE, THE LABEL on your Côtes du Rhinoceros suggests that the grapes were These sleeves Mark III tended by craggy, distant-eyed, French-accented wine savants who nurture track water This drone flow through images vine- the earth, as did their fathers and their fathers’ fathers before them. But the the stems, so yards in near- truth is, if modern technology can make for better vino and cut costs, plenty growers can infrared, of winemakers are going to buy it. (Anyway, between hotter summers and an influx of bulk wine from around the world, that French guy will soon be out of a job.) Here’s how they keep the Tempranillo flowing.

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046 Law Enforcement Defense oct 2014

by Brendan I. Koerner

AIR COVER A FLOATING SET OF EYES IN THE SKY

THE OLD WAY of scanning for threats like cruise missiles and enemy aircraft over US airspace: ground-based radar combined with fixed-wing airplanes. The new way: blimps. ¶ In October the US military will send a floating defense system 10,000 feet above Maryland for a three-year trial run. These aerostats—helium- filled aircraft that are tethered to the ground—use radar to see as far as 340 miles away, and they’re much cheaper than keeping a piloted plane aloft and burning fuel in the skies. (Also, ground-based radar has a much smaller range.) ¶ The two-craft test setup, which will monitor the region around Washington, DC, can stay up for 30 days at a time and, in theory, keep tabs on cars, trains, and boats as well as aerial threats. But don’t worry about government McSnoopersons: Though aerostats have been used for a while along the US border to scan for narcotics trafficking and have been deployed overseas by TO END HIGH-SPEED CHASES without resorting to gunfire, cops lay strips of the military, these aircraft won’t tire-shredding spikes in a fleeing vehicle’s path. But placing them on the road have cameras or infrared. They’re just for enemy airplanes. Not can be hazardous work: Officers are often struck by swerving cars and flying for people. Nope. —ELISE CRAIG debris after setting up the spikes, which must be deployed right as the fugitive approaches. Eric Spencer was stunned when his brother, a longtime police ser- geant, explained the perils at a family dinner. “Doing it all by hand seemed like the dumbest thing ever,” recalls Spencer, a patent attorney in Finksburg, Mary- land. His preteen son suggested deploying them from afar—an idea that struck Spencer as ingenious. Behold DynaSpike, a tire-puncturing system operated by remote control. By pressing a button from a safe distance, a cop can make the gadget’s spikes spread across a lane and a half of traffic in 1.5 seconds. The power source is a canister of compressed air that can be recharged by a car’s cigarette lighter in a few minutes. Though the $1,700 DynaSpike is about three times more expensive than manually deployed spikes, a dozen police depart- ments from New Mexico to Pennsylvania have purchased it. Spencer doesn’t have stats on how often the DynaSpike has helped nab fugitives, but he’s certain that no cops have been harmed while pressing the button.

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school. Games, it seems, can motivate kids to read—and to read way above their level. This is what Constance Steinkuehler, a games researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, discovered. She asked middle and high school students who were struggling readers (one 11th-grade student read at a 6th-grade level) to choose a game topic they were interested in, and then she picked texts from game sites for them to read—some as difficult as first-year-college language. The kids devoured them with no help and nearly perfect accuracy. How could they do this? “Because they’re really, really motivated,” Steinkuehler tells me. It wasn’t just that the students knew the domain well; there were plenty of unfamil- iar words. But they persisted more because they cared about the task. “It’s situated knowledge. They see a piece of language, a turn of phrase, and they figure it out.” Hannah Gerber, a literacy researcher at Sam Houston State University, found much the same thing. She monitored several 10th-grade students at school and at home and saw that they read only 10 minutes a day in English class—but an astonishing 70 minutes at home as they boned up on games. Again, it was challenging stuff. Steinkuehler found that video- READING MINECRAFT game sites devoted to World of War - craft , for example, are written at nearly 12th-grade level, with a 2 to 6 percent incidence of “academic” jargon. Passion for games drives writing too. When Steinkuehler informally HOW VIDEOGAMES observes kids contributing to game CAN BOOST LITERACY sites and discussions online, she sees serious craft. “Suddenly, being a writer is sexy and hip and cool. They have MINECRAFT IS THE HOT NEW videogame among teachers and parents. It’s consid- an audience that knows their stuff, ered genuinely educational: Like an infinite set of programmable Lego blocks, it’s and they expect you to be knowledge- a way to instill spatial reasoning, math, and logic—the skills beloved by science able,” she says. What about fiction? and technology educators. But from what I’ve seen, it also teaches something else: Oh, games have you covered there too: good old-fashioned reading and writing. ¶ How does it do this? The secret lies Behold the teeming seas of Minecraft not inside the game itself but in the players’ activities outside of it. Minecraft is fan stories at sites like FanFiction.net surrounded by a culture of literacy. The game comes with minimal instructions or Wattpad. My kids are deep into a or tutorials, so new players immediately set about hunting for info on how it trilogy of Minecraft novellas—writ- works. That means watching YouTube videos of experts at play, of course, but ten by a 13-year-old girl in Missouri. it also means poring over how-to texts at Minecraft wikis and “walk-through” I’m praising Minecraft , but nearly sites, written by gamers for gamers. Or digging into printed manuals like The all games have this effect. The les-

Ultimate Player’s Guide to Minecraft or the oﬃcial Minecraft Redstone Hand- son here is the same one John Dewey book , some of which are now best sellers. ¶ This is complex, challenging material. instructed us in a century ago: To get I analyzed several chunks of The Ultimate Player’s Guide using the Flesch- kids reading and writing, give them a Kincaid Reading Ease scale, and they scored from grade 8 to grade 11. Yet in my real-world task they care about. These neighborhood they’re being devoured by kids in the early phases of elementary days that’s games. 

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TERRY GILLIAM CREATES A NEW DYSTOPIA IN THE ZERO THEOREM

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You’ve done surveillance dystopias before, though. What’s diﬀerent about today’s version?

Initially, Mancom, where Qohen works, was much more like the Min- istry in Brazil. But I wanted to make a point that this body isn’t govern- mental. That’s something quite different now—corporations dominate, and the political side is almost secondary. The funny thing is, the film was supposed to be set in the near future—how near I didn’t know. But by the time most of my “futuristic ideas” had been TERRY GILLIAMM isn’t a fan of the real world. TheTh 73-year-old filmed, they were already in the past. director’s movies are each an exercise in escescaping it, whether through fantasy (2009’s TheTh ImaginariumI i of Dr. Parnassus), Your movies often combine satire (1985’s Brazil), or surrealism (pretty much all of Monty elements of the familiar and Python). His latest, The Zero Theorem—starring Christoph the speculative. Waltz as Qohen, a reclusive computer savant working for an all-seeing British corporation—is Gilliam’s flinching reaction When people do sci-fi films, they always seem to focus on futuristic to today’s hyper-stimulating Internet culture. In a move away technology. But the world is always from typical dystopian dullness, his vision of London is a riot a mixture of technologies. Like, I’ve of colorful advertisements that stalk pedestrians down the got an iPhone, which is more power- street, balanced by a dreamy virtual reality that Qohen uses ful than the computer that put a man to escape the onslaught. The world may have changed since on the moon. It’s extraordinary. At the same time, we’ve got leaky 19th- Gilliam started offering his scathing critiques, but not for the Terry Gilliam’s century plumbing. better—and he’s as pissed off as ever. new film continues in the spirit The mainframe computer at Before we get started, is it OK of 12 Monkeys Mancom seems like a step if I record this? and Brazil. back in time—it’s so massive.

Sure, sure. The NSA is, why shouldn’t As computers get smaller, the cen- you? tral computer gets bigger. And the NSA’s new data center in Bluﬀdale is so vast—acres and acres and acres. So That’s a great place to start— we modeled the Mancom computer The Zero Theorem seems to be after this huge blast furnace that we very much about surveillance. found in a steel mill. Maybe the future will need to be like that to deal with I think citizens actually love the fact the amount of information we’ll have. that somebody is watching and listening to them. Everybody lives for their selﬁes and their tweets—to actu- You can do a lot more with ally exist, somebody has to be talking a smaller budget today. to you or listening in on you. That’s Has that changed how you where The Zero Theorem started and make movies? ended. It became a focus for a lot of the things that were bothering me Six years ago, when we first talked today, including this constant con- about doing this movie, the budget

nection. Qohen just wants to be dis- was $20 million, and we ended up mak- connected, wants to escape from the ing it for $8.5 million. There’s prob- world that’s out there, full of people ably $500,000 of savings in there in just ﬁlling the Internet with pictures improved technologies—for exam- of the food they’re eating. ple, Christoph and Mélanie Thierry

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0 5 4 ZOLA JESUS THE SINGER GETS BACK TO BASICS

SINGER-SONGWRITER Nika Roza Danilova, aka Zola Jesus, grew up on 100 acres of Wisconsin wood- land. Her new album, October’s Taiga, takes us back there, but it’s also a return to her deeper Russian roots—the title refers to that country’s vast boreal forests. “I tried tapping into the feral energy of the taiga when I was writing these new songs,” she says. “It feels free, In The Zero and a little savage.” Though Taiga Theorem, is Danilova’s fifth LP, she’s calling Christoph Waltz it her “true debut.” Stripped of plays Qohen the layers and reverb that defined Leth, a computer her older, synth-dominated work, genius struggling it’s the clearest—and most acces- with existential sible—expression of Danilova’s art- angst in the istry yet. “It forced me to confront form of a math the music with a confidence I’ve problem. never been able to develop until now,” she says. With the first single, recorded some new lines on their their attention? When the big studios “Dangerous Days,” Danilova stands iPhones while he was in Berlin and she have $80 million to spend on a cam- at the intersection of Katy Perry was in France, emailed them back to paign for a film, it’s really hard to find and Florence and the Machine: industrial art-pop’s return to me, and they’re in the film. We couldn’t room to put up your billboard or your nature. That newly emboldened have done that a few years ago. But the poster. That’s what I find difficult now. voice powers the album’s other rest is people working for scale, work- tracks, like the shed-my-skin ing their asses off, being very clever, anthem “Ego.” It’s music in range and filming in Bucharest. And getting A bunch of your fellow Monty of chartable territory—even as it actor friends to come in and work— Pythoners did a reunion show calls to mind more uncharted cor- but I can’t take advantage of all my in July. Do you ever worry ners of the world. —JASON KEHE friends next time. that Python’s influence might

have gone too far? ) M E R O Does that budget impact the I look at my heroes, the ones who got E H T audience you can reach too? me going, and I’m very proud to feel O R E that we’re heroes to somebody else. As Z E I don’t really know how to think of we enter the last act, that feels pretty H T ( an audience, because there are a mil- good. But the press is going absolutely Y F I L lion diﬀerent audiences out there. It’s apeshit over this Python show—they P M more, how do you get the people that write about us as if we were the begin- A F O might like what you do—and they’re ning of comedy. What about the Marx Y S E T not always fans yet—how do you get Brothers? Where’s Buster Keaton? It’s R U like it’s all been forgotten. That’s the O C . BO MOORE (@usebomswisely) part of the modern world that I really T I K interviewed director Nicolas despise. There’s no history—every- E U L Winding Refn in issue 21.07. thing exists only in nanoseconds.  G

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Technological mandala 20—Resonator, 2014.

FOR ITALIAN ARTIST Leonardo Ulian, this is our universe. At its center: a microchip. Beyond: resistors, N A I L capacitors, inductors, transistors. Ulian’s “technological mandalas”—webs of circuitry in the form U O THE D of the Hindu or Buddhist symbolic diagrams of the cosmos—are icons for an electronic age, and R A N O he’ll be exhibiting them this fall in Milan. Each mandala, the biggest of which is nearly 5 feet across, E L

Y takes two weeks to create and requires as many as a thousand parts (mostly purchased from Rus- B H P sian sellers on eBay). They’re meant to trigger deeper questions about our relationship with tech- A R G COSMOS O nology. “People nowadays almost worship electronics,” he says. “I wouldn’t be surprised to hear T O ON A CHIP H that someone has created a religion based on microchips.” Chant with us: ohm … —Jason Ke he P

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0 5 8 MAGIK ACT ON-CALL SYMPHONY FORALL

Session musicians are the temps of the music world—bands built to disband. That can make finding them exceedingly difficult. So in 2008, conductor Minna Choi founded Magik*Magik Orchestra, a collective with the skills and versatility to back up just about anyone. Now they’re the not-so- silent force behind your favorite artists. ¶ With an expandable ros- ter, Magik*Magik has played for an incredible range of musicians, from Radiohead’s Jonny Green- wood to WIRED favorite Zola Jesus (see page 54). They even shared the bill on Death Cab for Cutie’s 2012 tour. “They bridge the gap,” says Chris Walla, former Death MEGA MAN RETURNS Cab guitarist, “between the sometimes stuffy classical world and the absolutely uneducated artists of the indie rock world.” ¶ That FINALLY, THE ROBOT bridge extends to film too. After Magik*Magik recorded Nathan Johnson’s score for the time-travel HERO GETS HIS DUE flick Looper , the composer called them back for October’s sci-fi western Young Ones. “My movies tend LIKE ’80S MOVIE STARS, classic videogame characters have now been around to have a nontraditional element,” long enough to mount Rob Lowe–like comebacks. After all, these iconic fig- Y Johnson says, “so Magik*Magik E M ures aren’t just flecks of light platform-jumping on a screen. They’re tiny was perfect.” As the group con- O tinues to gain collaborators, Choi T W Rorschach blots onto which Gen Xers can project their receding childhoods. N Y puts on more hats: arranger, pianist, B ¶ O Which makes those characters very hard to kill. Take Mega Man. The Magik*Magik manager. Next up is songwriting— R ; A can be a string Magik*Magik’s debut album, which C heroic little robot with big power-ups debuted in an eponymous Nintendo I R quartet— Choi penned, comes out next year. E game in 1987 and has spun off 131 titles; his games have sold more than 30 M or a 70-piece Curtain up. —KATIE M. PALMER A F million copies. He even had a TV show. But by 2011, the Blue Bomber was symphony. O O D doing the equivalent of supermarket ribbon-cutting. He was passed over N E T N for the Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 videogame, and Capcom, the Japa- I N F nese company that spawned him, announced it was euthanizing two new O ¶ Y Mega Man titles in the pipeline. Mega Man fans (they are legion) made S E T R their displeasure known. The Internet is good for this. After all, his num- U O C bers weren’t in the Mario range, but he was no Atari E.T. either. So Capcom ; M O C went into appeasement mode, rereleasing six classic Mega Man titles in P A C May. And in October he finally makes his debut in the popular Super Smash F O Y Bros. franchise, while tabletoppers will get Mega Man: The Board Game. S E T R U The resurrection of this 8-bit alter ego—and the entire vintage videogame O C : trend—is like Lik-a-Stix for our juvenile id. The Blue Bomber provides P O T simple pleasures in a complex world, and if you’re looking for a nostal- M O R gia fix, it’s hard to beat the speed and pluck of Mega Man. —Ren e Ch un F

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A TYPICAL adult American works out 17 minutes a day. James Lawrence is not a typical adult American. In 2012 he completed 30 ultradistance triathlons, smashing the previous world record of 20 in a year. And what makes the Utahn’s feat especially superhuman is that just four years earlier, he’d never even tried one. In fact, endurance really wasn’t his thing. “I didn’t have that back- ground, so I struggled with trying to learn and stay motivated,” Lawrence says. That’s changed, thanks to a meticulous regimen. In between four daily meals—and backbreak- ing workouts—Lawrence slams up to 10 snacks, and slurps a training drink every hour while he’s active. At his most extreme, that totals up to 8,000 calories a day. It makes sense when you look at his schedule: In October he’ll compete in the Iron- man World Championship in Hawaii, and next year he’ll attempt an ultradistance triathlon in each of the 50 HOURS OF BIKING states in 50 days. Hope he packs his 11 G S protein powder. —Greg Thomas N I E I R 8 M O M L I A michael friberg W C 0 S F O 0 T E 8 E 0 , F 2 0 , 6 For James Lawrence, each 3 5 week of peak G training means I N N cramming N U in lots of exer- R cise and enough S R calories to fuel U O a family of four. 5 H

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Erebus | PONTIAC, MI How do you conjure a murky swamp with no water? Erebus creates the illusion with smoke and green lasers swirling at waist level. Airbags smother you as you trudge across a floor covered in 4 inches of foam.

The Dent Schoolhouse | CINCINNATI, OH The walls and railings in this schoolhouse’s dim, candlelit hallways are studded with rubber shock pads— HIGH TECH HAUNTS when wanderers reach out for guidance, they get a zap.

ENGINEERING FEAR The Darkness | ST. LOUIS, MO 3-D glasses with prism-like film diffract light so reds and yellows appear close while blues and greens seem AVID PHOBOPHILES support more than 2,000 far away. That makes this haunt’s floor-to-ceiling clown graphics disorienting at best and full-on traumatic if haunted houses in the US, and fright-immune you never recovered from Stephen King’s Pennywise. repeat visitors force haunters to constantly

invent new, supersize scares. “We push the The 13th Gate | BATON ROUGE, LA boundaries as much as we can, and that means As guests try to push their way through a darkened room, we design a lot of the tech ourselves,” says 8-foot-tall air-filled sacs envelop them, turning the space into a claustrophobe’s nightmare. Watch out—at Erebus owner Ed Terebus. This Halloween, some houses, actors might grab at you from inside. expect the technologically enabled unexpected at these scream factories. —Mai Nguyen Paul Windle

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Under the Dome While working on Dune, Giger painted this concept of Harkonnen Castle with an eerie elongated carapace. He incorpo- rated that design into the Alien’s skull—though the eye sockets ultimately disappeared.

Huge Ships Chris Foss, who also worked on Dune, made this early illustration of the doomed ship Nos- tromo pulling a massive asteroid with a built-in reﬁnery. Elements of Foss’ rendition and an illustration by Ron Cobb both inspired the design.

. Mike Worrall D E V produced this R E S 1990 concept E R drawing of S T the xenomorph H G 3 I for Alien . R L L A . N O I T A R O P R The Storyboard Express Director O C Ridley Scott, known for exhaus- M L I tively storyboarding his films, pro- F X duced Alien’s “Ridleygrams” O F in three weeks. This one featured Y U R the alien ship with the fossilized T N E Space Jockey in the pilot seat—a C H SKETCHES FROM SPACE plot point Scott returned to in T I E Prometheus T 2012’s . N E W T A FRESH LOOK 4 1 0 2 © & M ATALIEN ARTWORK T ) . S K O O B THE ALIEN XENOMORPH may have first appeared onscreen burst- N A T I ing through poor John Hurt’s chest, but it originally spawned ( T E from the mind of surrealist H. R. Giger, whose work on a failed I V H C R Dune adaptation (sorry, Jodorowsky) caught the eye of writer Evolution of a Species The film- A E makers wove sexual imagery aplenty H Dan O’Bannon. Though Giger’s preproduction work on Alien has T into the Alien’s design—that double - N E occasionally surfaced online, fans won’t have to hunt through I mouth begs for a Freudian read— L A the darkened corridors of the Internet any longer: The new but the facehugger was even more M O blatant. O’Bannon pitched the R book Alien: The Archive is the first complete collection of con- F octopus-like foundation; Giger S O cept art and photography from the franchise. Just don’t put T added the fingers and terrifying O H your face too close to the pages. —Shirley Li (but later scrapped) eyeball. P

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ULTRA

OCT 2 01 4

A N G R Y N E R D 0 6 8 PUT A STAKE IN ORIGIN STORIES

HAVE I EVER told you of the genesis of my geek rage? When I was but a wee lad, my parents were assaulted by a deadly dull backstory. I swore then and there to avenge them! My latest foe is the new ﬁlm Dracula Untold, which takes Bram Stoker and a few scraps of Slavic folklore and whips it all into a frothy $100 Dmitry Moro- million blockbuster about how the zov’s tattoo famous vampire ﬁrst became a scanner plays bloodsucker. It’s like one of Rud- sounds that yard Kipling’s delightful Just So he can alter by Stories, except it’s several hours moving his arm. long, it’s not at all delightful, and

ofit undermines literature’s thegreatest mystery characters. of one But its real sin is that it’s super- fluous; it’s just a windup, part of an effort to turn the classic Univer- sal monsters into an Avengers-style megafranchise. (And I don’t mean that as a compliment.) Here’s an idea: Don’t force us to endure flicks about the Wolfman’s pimply adolescence or Van Helsing’s ram- bunctious college years. Instead, skip right to the climactic team-up movie! People will camp out for weeks to see the Mummy meets the Hunchback of Notre Dame meets the Invisible Man meets the Crea- SKIN TONES ture from the Black Lagoon. And when each monster can be onscreen

timefor only for 90 backstory. seconds, Cut, there’ll as the be nosay- ONE-ARMED BAND ing goes, to the chase!

DMITRY MOROZOV’S TATTOO isn’t just about looks, it’s about sound. The Moscow-based artist has a hefty 8- by 3-inch barcode stretching down his left forearm, and when he scans it with the right gadget: music. ¶ Morozov grew up studying guitar and is a self-taught engineer. “I wanted to combine two passions—electronic music and robotics—and I already had tattoos,” he says. Morozov created the barcode in Photoshop and modded a scanner with two black-line sensors, a stepper motor, and a Nintendo Wii remote. ¶ As the motor guides the sensors along his tat, the length of each

bar dictates the duration of the sound; if he moves his arm, the Wii’s accel- R A Z erometer detects the shift and distorts the tone. It’s a little … monotonic, A L

R and not everyone is impressed—many Russians associate tattoos with A H O Z

criminal culture. But Morozov is determined to change their minds. “I try Y B to explain the theory and technology of the art and body, and then most N O I T A people respond positively,” he says. Sounds like progress. —Ha nn a Tr ud o R T S U For more Angry Nerd, go to L L Piotr Malecki VIDEO.WIRED.COM. I

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HIGHVOLCANOES, DESIGN AGAVE,IN MEXICO AND CITY BIKE-SHARING

SEE during the weekly Sunday bike ride, when 30 miles of busy streets are closed to cars. Visit the sustain- Check out a able develop- pyramid to the ment exhibit Aztec wind god at the Museo in the middle Interactivo of the bustling de Economía Pino Suárez to learn how metro station, Mexico City where workers is staving off found it during environmental construction. apocalypse. Take in the megacity view EAT from the iconic Torre Latino. “The Plaza de Skip the roof las Tres Cultu- and get a drink ras captures at the bar three some of Mex- stories down. ico City’s dark- Marvel at the est moments: lack of irony the Spanish accompanying conquest, the telecom bil- Enjoy the 1968 student lionaire Carlos country’s bur- massacre, the Slim’s collec- geoning craft 1985 earth- tion of antique beer scene money at the at Crisanta. despitequake. But all that, Museo Soumaya. (Try the choco- it’s still there. laty house It’s still alive.” DO porter.) Acquire — a taste for the Isaac Torres, pre-Columbian visual artist, drink pulque urban planner, (fermented and Mexico agave sap) at City native THE MUSEO SOUMAYA’S NEW BUILDING OPENED IN 2011. AMONG ITS 66,000 HISTORICAL La Pirata. Stop OBJECTS AND MEXICAN ARTWORKS IS A COLLECTION OF 2,300 SPOONS. at El Califa, Celebrate Saint open till 4 am, Jude, the patron for Mexico WITH NOTORIOUS AIR POLLUTION, legendary traffic, frequent earthquakes, and saint of lost City’s trade- a population approaching 25 million, how does the Western Hemisphere’s causes, on his mark dish: L feast day, Octo- late-night E largest metropolis stay livable? Good design. From October 15 to 19, Mexico Z Z ber 28, at San tacos al pas- E City hosts the sixth annual Design Week Mexico, showcasing artists who work M N Hipólito Church tor, filled with I T to bring this megacity down to a human scale. And innovative ideas are pop- in the heart spiced pork S U ping up all over the Distrito Federal. Architect Andres Meira, for example, is Y J of downtown. and topped B Explore the city with a slice N O at work on a domestic earthquake alarm that will warn residents before the I on two wheels of pineapple. T A R shaking starts. And the Uber-like startup Yaxi enables anyone with a smart- T S U phone to hail a safe cab—no Spanish-speaking required. —Li zz ie Wad e Jorge Dávalos L L I

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by Kate Greene

POWER SYSTEM Solar panels supply power and charge the batteries for the habitat. If juice levels fall below 5 percent, a hydrogen fuel cell kicks in.

BEDROOMS WORKSHOP & AIRLOCK Six pie-slice-shaped Crew can use the 3-D staterooms each con- printer to make hair tain a mattress, a desk, clips, replacement and a stool. Clothing parts, and anything goes under the bed, else they forgot back which sits at the wide on Earth. This area is COMPOSTING TOILETS side of the slice. Cozy also the door to the Repurposed poop like a closet. surface; they simulate (sans pathogens) from depressurization and one mission might pressurization before be plant food for and after sorties. the next one.

DOME H C WORKOUT AREA R A E Everyone exercises S E R in shifts, often to T HIGH CEILINGS E videos like P90X and N SWEET DOME The 36-foot-diameter A L Insanity . Other work- P dome has a living E outs: juggling and bal- U L I’d always wanted to visit Mars. Instead I got Hawaii. There, area of about 1,000 B loon volleyball. F square feet, and O about 8,200 feet above sea level on Mauna Loa, sits a geo- Y the second level is a S E T desically domed habitat for testing crew psychology and loftlike partial ﬂoor. R U COMMUNICATIONS To long-term inhab- O technologies for boldly going. I did a four-month tour at C S Mars is up to 24 min- itants, these spaces N the NASA-funded HI-SEAS—that’s Hawaii Space Explora- A L utes away as the appear to shrink over P ; tion Analog and Simulation—in 2013, and a new 8-month photon ﬂies, so crews time, so high ceilings S E R have NASA-issued are crucial. R mission is scheduled to start in October. It’s a long time to O E T D be cooped up, “so the psychological impacts are extremely anemail artificial addresses delay with L R A important,” habitat designer Vincent Paul Ponthieux says. and access to a web C Y made of cached, B The key to keeping everybody sane? A sense of airiness. ” Q nondynamic pages. “ Yep—even on Mars, you’re going to need more space.

074 by tiffany kelly jeff minton o ct 2 01 4

Are you really saying that people should handle their loved ones’ bodies? Can we do that?

Most people think dead bodies are dangerous or that they’re required to hire a funeral director to prepare a body. I’m a licensed mortician, but I want to teach people that they don’t need me. If you’re keeping the body at home, you could put dry ice around it and that would last for a couple of days without any problems. You usually only need to hire a professional for a cremation or cemetery burial.

But … why would I want that?

We don’t see dead bodies anymore. You have to talk about death when you have dead people laid out in your living room on a monthly basis or if you take care of bodies yourself. But when a group of professionals comes in and takes the body away and then basically sells the body back to you a couple of days later, nobody has any proof that we’re going to die. It’s become this taboo, pathological, hidden thing.

Pristine, embalmed corpses don’t help us embrace death, do they?

A chemically preserved body looks like a wax replica of a person. Bodies are supposed to be drooping and turning very pale and sinking in while decom- DEAD SIMPLE posing. Within a day or so after they’ve died, you should be able to see that this person has very much left the build- A MORTICIAN SHARES ing. That’s the point. I think dead bodies should look dead. It helps with the grieving process.

HER UNDERTAKING What do you want to happen to your body after you die? O I R CAITLIN DOUGHTY has been cutting pacemakers out of corpses, L I want a natural burial. Just straight E D E grinding human bones by hand, and loading bodies into cre- into the ground in a shroud. But that’s L O C because what’s not legal yet is having I mation chambers for seven years. But the 30-year-old morti- N your body laid above ground for ani- Y cian doesn’t want to keep all the fun to herself: She thinks the B P E U mals to consume it. That’s what I really K rest of us should get to have a little more face time with the want. I would love to be eaten by ani- A deceased. In her new book, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (that’s a cre- M mals, because I eat animals and I’m an D N A mation joke), Doughty argues for more acceptance of death in animal, and when I die they get to eat R I A our culture—and tries to spark a wave of amateur undertaking. me. That seems only fair. H

076 by julia greenberg Brendan James oct 2014

FLUORESCENT DYES: ANTHRA- CENE DERIVA- TIVES, LUMOGEN RED 300 WHAT’S INSIDE These dyes absorb and GLOW STICKS release energy produced by the hydrogen peroxide reaction, emitting HYDROGEN BUTYL a photon in the PEROXIDE BENZOATE process—chemi- luminescence! In bleaches and This super- Some manufac- disinfectants, solvent is also turers add salts, this strong oxi- used as a pre- like sodium sali- dizer rips apart servative in cos- cylate, to speed molecules to metics. Here it things up and whiten or clean. keeps the col- intensify the Here it’s sealed ors and oxalate glow. Most of in a glass cap- esters ﬂow- the dyes used sule that cracks ing and spread here have a open when you throughout the base structure bend the plas- outer tube, of three fused tic stick. Once so when it’s time benzene rings. it’s unleashed, to crack the It’s what hangs

H2O2 triggers a inner capsule, oﬀ those rings chemical chain your glowie that determines reaction that is as rave-ready what color is puts the glow in as you are. produced: One the stick. anthracene variant shines that DIMETHYL iconic ghostly OXALATE PHTHALATE green; another ESTERS glows blue. Add Best known for Lumogen Red The hydrogen keeping plas- 300 to anthra- peroxide reacts tics and rubbers cene blue to get with these mol- pliable, this oily purple; tweak ecules in the liquid also helps the ratios to outer tube to stabilize unsta- get pink. These form a highly ble chemicals dyes can irritate unstable com- like hydrogen eyes, skin, and pound that peroxide. Mak- the respiratory quickly breaks ing up nearly 90 system, but at down into percent of the the levels here,

CO2, releas- inner capsule, researchers ing energy that DMP dilutes say, kids could excites the dyes and preserves swallow this and produces the peroxide, stuﬀ (they light. Scien- extending your have) without tists developed glow stick’s harm. Hey, it this process shelf life all the can’t be any in the early way to next worse for you 1960s; Ameri- Halloween. than ecstasy. can Cyanamid Some compa- trademarked nies have cut its version as the phthalates, Cyalume. citing concerns that they could aﬀect repro- FlashingBlinkyLights ductive growth. Glow Sticks

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Style meets function This tech-enhanced Capture life’s important En joy the entertainment in this gorgeous and telescope allows you to moments in breathtaking you want when you spacious TOKEN Dry control the breathtaking detail with Sigma’s new want it. This Smart TV Bar. The Dry Bar can views through the compact digital camera. is equipped with WIFI, be customized to integrated WiFi and The sleek design pairs internet and built-in accommodate a variety Celestron SkyPortal app— a fast 30mm F2.8 prime apps to connect you of functions, ensuring available for both Android lens with the unique to the world or escape your home is the place and iOS. The rechargeable APS-C Foveon Quattro from it. With VIDAA, to be for happy hour. lithium-ion battery sensor to make full- you can easily move allows you to star-gaze bodied images, rich in from one experience to whenever and wherever tone and texture with an another with the single

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080 by Robert Capps jack hughes o ct 201 4

2,600

1 second 1.8 seconds BIG AIR The start of The athlete the jump. has reached 2,400 the bottom 1.2 seconds of the jump On the down- and is chang- THE ATHLETE ward motion ing direction, of the jump, starting to 2,200 the amount move upward. TEST of pressure Whether he initially drops maintains or because the loses power When the NBA season tips oﬀ this athlete is in here depends 2,000 month, the Cleveland Cavaliers will free fall. on his core. have more than just LeBron in their Those who 1.6 seconds show little arsenal. They’ll also have a new way The athlete is or no dip are to assess and train players, all based 1,800 starting to put capable of on a simple test: the vertical leap. power into the quick changes ground. How of direction, ¶ What can you tell from a jump? much depends which is why 1.8 to Quite a bit, according to Sparta Per- on the ankle, this is called the 2 seconds formance Science, the Menlo Park, 1,600 knee, and explode phase. In the drive

California, athletics-lab-meets- Thisquadriceps. is the athleteThis particular loses letephase, builds the ath- software-startup that developed loading phase. a fair amount a significant Bad loading of force, which amount of the tech. The single best measure of 1,400 = a need to may put him at force as he raw performance, it turns out, is how ) s strengthen the risk for a back pushes upward n much force an athlete can put into o lower joints. injury. Pre- with the glutes t the ground—it determines every- w scription: core and hamstrings. e exercises. This suggests thing from sprinting ability to the n 1,200 ( he’ll be a fast e velocity of a pitcher’s fastball. ¶ So c straight-line 2.1 seconds r Sparta developed an analytics sys- o runner, some- Athlete leaves f thing you want the ground. tem based on making subjects jump 1,000 in a wide on a force-detecting plate. Propri- receiver, 100- etary software records and analyzes meter sprinter, or (as is the the jump microsecond by microsec- case here) 800 ond. When crunched, this data shows center ﬁelder. where athletes are weak and where they’re strong. “It’s changed how I

look at exercise, because we can now 600 customize workouts for each indi- vidual,” says Andrea Hudy, assistant athletics director for sports performance at the University of Kansas, 400 which licenses the software for use in basketball and other sports. ¶ In

addition to the Jayhawks and Cav- 200 aliers, baseball’s Colorado Rockies, the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, and the University of Notre Dame all use the system. “We’re now used in every 0 major American sport,” says Sparta founder Phil Wagner. And things

are, presumably, only looking up. –200

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082 Chris Philpot oct 2014

I WANT CANDY

1. Choose the right town. Pick either a TRICKS FOR MAX TREATS hard-partying city (San Francis- co’s Halloween YOUR KIDS MAY BE CONTENT with a few fun-size Snickers and tiny enthusiasm is legendary) or the boxes of Nerds, but if you’re looking for quality candy and lots exact opposite— of it, you need a PhD-level strategy. Don’t worry, we’ve got you industry lore covered—we talked to a bunch of academics* to create this greed- holds that candy sales are high is-good guide to landing more loot. —Katie Arnold-Ratliff in areas where alcohol consumption is low. That makes 2. Target the perennially Salt Lake City, festive. During the year, watch land of teetotal- for blocks teeming with Christmas wreaths and Fourth ing Mormons, a potential boon. of July cookouts: They’ll be kind to trick-or-treaters too.

3. Run the numbers. Pop- ulation density, street intercon- nectivity (cul-de- sacs waste time), and higher average incomes yield the best haul.

4. Rely on shame. Knock on doors that are visible from the street. Aware that their neighbors can see them, residents are less likely to ignore the bell.

6. Share the wealth. Use social media to share information with fellow candy hounds about successful routes, which houses are running low, and who’s giving out the good stuﬀ. You’ll never 5. Capitalize on pity. Research shows that empa- collect a box of raisins again. thy inspires generosity, so incorporate an injury into your child’s costume—one-legged Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon, say—or, if you’re diabolical, compel your kid to fake something.

*Our Halloween Optimization Panel: Amy Hillier, assistant professor of city and regional planning, University of Pennsylvania // Shamus Khan, associate professor of sociology, Columbia University // Beth Kimmerle, candy historian // Robb Willer, associate professor of sociology, Stanford University

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084 by jonathon keats o ct 201 4

CHARTGEIST

Amazon Smartphone Features

Stuﬀ that Stuﬀ that makes it look makes it run pretty faster

S E R U Stuﬀ T A that sells E F you F O R Amazon Jiří Bruthans E products B created this M U pillar with N simulated salt UTILITY weathering; in nature (like at Bryce Can- yon, below), factors like Sources of Nintendo Proﬁts, frost and rain 1889–2014 UNDER PRESSURE also shape the landscape. Assorted Cutting- traditional edge playing gaming THE BEAUTY SECRETS cards devices

Anything with

S Pikachu I T F O ASOF THE STORY SANDSTONE GOES, the iconic spires in Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park R P once were human-animal “legend people,” until an angry coyote god turned TECHNICAL SOPHISTICATION them into rock. This is probably not how it actually happened, but scientists haven’t been able to add much more than to say “it’s a weathering thing.” So geoscientist Jiří Bruthans and his colleagues at Charles University in Prague tried mimicking the process in miniature: They took 4- by 12-inch blocks Who’s Looking Forward to the of “locked sand”—a material that’s between loose sand and sandstone— Fifty Shades of Grey Movie and crammed decades of erosion into weeks or months by simulating rain S N A H and intensive salt weathering. What Bruthans discovered is a sort of geolog- Jaded Masochists T U R hedonists looking B ical beauty trick in which the key factor is weight. I looking for two hours R I J The massive load of rock, which he approximates for ideas of torture F O

by squeezing his blocks with clamps, actually Y E S L E P Stay-at- T stabilizes the structures: The stress locks the O R E home moms U O P C grains of sand into place. It’s an elegant expla- F looking O H R for thrills P nation and one that beﬁts the sculptural forma- E A R B G M O tions. If Bruthans ever gets tired of geoscience, he U T N O H can always sell his experiments as modern art. DEPRAVITY P

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086 by Jon Mooallem [email protected] Christoph Niemann oct 2014

as scientists are always cautioning the media that it’s way to soon to speculate about their studies’ impli- cations, one of these scientists—the one named Wagers, aptly—was already placing her bet. Good for her, I say. I’m all for capitalism! But I’m also all for hemato- logical self-determination. (Or, say, blood freedom.) I’d hate, one day, to have to pay some multinational corporation for a synthetic knockoff of my own younger self’s blood—the very stuff that was pumping through my body for decades without costing me a damn cent. What a dystopia that would be! There’d be kids on the corner with clipboards, asking for donations so Americans for Hema- tological Self-Determination could sue these corporations. There’d be Blood Freedom teach-ins and Blood Freedom protest songs—which would be hard because “Blood Freedom” really doesn’t rhyme with much. So my answer is yes, absolutely. Stockpile your blood now, as much as MR. KNOW-IT-ALL can be squirreled away at the proper temperature. Just in case. Think of it as a tiny hedge against the Wagers YOUNG BLOOD, TECH SWAG of the future. I get a lot of swag from start- And introducing the young mouse’s ups—messenger bags, fleeces, blood—or even just introducing one hats, T-shirts—and my girl- I read that mice injected with particular protein found in the blood, friend makes fun of me for blood from younger mice called GDF11—to an old mouse does all wearing it. Which is the improve on cognitive tests. sorts of wonderful stuff: It allows the douchiest to wear? Like, is a Should I bank my blood? old mouse to run longer on a treadmill. fleece cooler than a hat? It changes the old mouse’s brain in SO YEAH, I went and read about this ways that suggests its memory has Look, I don’t care what you wear, but too. I read that for years scientists been improved. I read that it even reju- I do think that a startup fleece is defi- have been taking an old mouse and venates a crusty old-mouse heart. Like, nitely not cooler than a startup hat, a young mouse, putting them next to voilà! The heart isn’t crusty anymore. because a startup fleece puts the name

each other, and stitching their cir- I also read that a Harvard scientist and logo of the startup in closer prox- culatory systems together, just like named Amy Wagers was “already imity to your heart than a startup hat ump-starting a car. Then they let the working to commercialize” GDF11, would. My instinct is, keep this stuﬀ blood of one mouse circulate through which is found in human blood too. And away from your heart. Far away. The the other—a process called parabiosis. this was the eye-opener for me: Even closer to your heart, the douchier.

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by Scott Dadich YOU WAK E UP in the morning and you reach for … something. Your water or your smartphone, your glasses or an activity tracker—anything. As different as those products are, all have BRYAN EDWARDS one thing in common: Someone designed them, worrying over details that range from wood grain to user interface. These encounters play out over and over again as your day 0 8 9 progresses, from your commute to the office to that sacred moment when you finally jettison your shoes and turn off the workday. Here, in an excerpt from our special Design|Life issue on newsstands now, we plan out an idealized day in the life of a family with unim- peachable taste. It begins with a beautiful morning when you reach for … something.

Hey, sleepyhead. These dreamy products will make your early mornings a lot less challenging.

BY KATIE M. PALMER 0 9 0

1 | Lexon Mezzo Radio 2 | Withings Aura 3 | Yellow Submarino 4 | Bison + Max 5 | Manual The speaker grille Smart Sleep System Organizer Sprecher Signature Coffeemaker No.1 and analog knobs are The Aura rethinks Your toiletries will Straight Razor If you scoff at K-Cups— cutely retro, but sleep-tracking from want to sail across the It’s too pricey for your and you can spare this radio’s rubber- the bottom up. A pad universe—or at least travel kit but makes a a few extra minutes ized exterior signals beneath your sheet the sink—in this yellow priceless home groomer. for a truly worthwhile a decidedly modern measures your heart submarine. Four mag- The carbon-steel blade mug of joe—this sense of style. It rate, breathing, netically attached will last decades, and pour-over stand does references the past and body movements. compartments hold the the carbon-fiber handle justi ce to your without dipping into The bedside unit essentials. Made of won’t give out before single-source beans. sappy nostalgia. Can’t detects environmental hefty porcelain, it’s fin- the blade does. It’s a Double-walled glass say the same about changes and uses ished with a pop of yel- choice heirloom. Just keeps the water the Prairie Home Com- its LED and sound low rubberized paint, make sure your kid temperature stable panion coming out system to gently wake so it’s both vibrant and doesn’t turn into Swee- while your precious of the speaker … | $75 you. | $299 easy to clean. | $70 ney Todd. | $895 coffee brews. | $80

Commuting is less painful when you’ve got the proper gear. This stuﬀ will tame the meanest streets.

BY SHIRLEY LI 0 9 2

E G D E S K C 1 | The North Face 2 | Cylo One 3 | Paul Cocksedge 4 | Logitech Case+ 5 | Tylt Energi 5K+ O C K Fuse Uno Jacket Designed and manu- Studio Double O Logitech’s new iPhone When your gizmos are R A It’s all in the name: factured in Portland, Bike Lights case doesn’t just pro- running low on juice, M : S This North Face moun- Oregon, the Cylo One Regular bicycle lights tect your fifth append- Tylt’s slim battery T H G taineering jacket tackles some com- pack bulbs densely age. There’s a magnetic pack can provide a I L uses just one sheet of mon cycling woes: together, resulting plate on the back of second life. Its pair E K I material (hence “uno”) The bike’s frame in an eye-hurty glare. the standard-size case, of built-in cables—one B O by changing the fabric includes integrated These clip-ons from and a set of included Lightning plug for E L B type while weaving. lights so you’ll never British designer Paul components snap on your iOS devices and U O D The origami-like worry about losing Cocksedge keep you and off to suit any situ- one micro-USB plug ; O pattern reduces seams them, and its fenders, visible, yet their 12 ation. Add a windshield for Android phones, L Y C by more than 40 disc brakes, and car- LEDs are comfortably mount (shown), battery fitness bands, and : E N percent—making the bon belt drive perform spread out. Your pack, card wallet, or e-readers—will juice O O jacket lighter and like champs in the fellow commuters will folding stand for watch- up whatever mobile L Y more durable. | $399 rain. | $1,900 and up thank you. | $75 ing videos. | $200 gear you’ve got. | $90 C

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Sell your soul to the company, but keep your WORK sense of style. BY LIZ STINSON 0 9 4

1 | Blu Dot Stash Desk 2 | Adobe Ink and Slide 3 | Kujira Whale Knife 4 | Uni Promark 5 | Microsoft Surface This is a desk for Adobe’s foray into Japanese blacksmith View Highlighter Pro 3 With Type Cover thoughtful concentra- hardware has produced Toru Yamashita origi- The problem: You Redmond ﬁnally gets tion, not digital distrac- two slick tools for the nally created his hand- colored outside the it right with the Surface tions. A single drawer iPad: Ink, a cloud- forged whale knife lines. Again. The Pro 3. The 12-inch hides the tools you need connected stylus, and as a children’s tool to solution: these clever display awakens with but don’t always want Slide, a high tech ruler sharpen pencils. highlighter pens. the click of a stylus, to look at. Blu Dot (not shown). Both work And while this grown- Each one has a little which you can then use

calls it a pencil drawer, with the company’s up version certainly window near the tip to write directly on the T O D but it works just as well Creative Cloud suite of looks adorable, that you can peek touchscreen. The kick- U L for a phone, sunglasses, applications to make beware the blade: It’s through to see exactly stand on the back will B : K or charging cables. You perfect shapes. Even if sharp enough to slice what you’re highlight- adjust to sit at almost S E D can choose whether you’re not an architect, through the most ing before you mark any angle, and the key- H S it’s placed on the left or you can now draw like stubborn of envelopes. it. You get five bright board even boasts two A T right side. | $399 one. | $200 Or ﬁngers. | $55 colors in a pack. | $12 typing positions. | $929 S

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Take the work out of your workout by choosing some great gym buddies.

BY CORY PERKINS 0 9 6

1 | Sonos Play:1 2 | Nike Free 3.0 3 | Handsome 4 | Steeletex Gym Bag 5 | TomTom Runner The latest addition to Flyknit Shoes Dan Leather Head Your running shoes Cardio Watch Sonos’ line of wireless Nike employs strands Medicine Ball and sweaty gym TomTom combines speakers may be just of superstrong These 12-pound hand- clothes require the ulti- everything you need to 6.3 inches tall, but the polyester yarn to make made medicine balls mate in postworkout optimize your runs Play:1’s two custom this running shoe from Leather Head protection. Steele in one watch. With both drivers still pump out ultralight and to reduce are stuffed with hide Canvas Basket also a heart rate sensor plenty of hi-ﬁ sound. material waste in scraps left over from makes bags that and GPS, you can make

Stick it in the corner, manufacturing. Couple manufacturing other are used in armored sure you’re staying S O cue up your favorite that with the sole’s products. They’re cars—a perfect match! in the zone while you N O S chill-out Spotify play- hexagonal grooves, so soft that you may This duﬀel is water- pace out the miles. : 1 : Y list, and forget about which bend with even want to hold on resistant all around and Afterward, sync your A L P that horrible techno your natural stride, to one while grunt- antibacterial on the run data to popu- S O you endured at spin and you’re in for a ing through just a few bottom—supertough, lar tracking apps like N O class. | $199 feel-good run. | $140 more sit-ups. | $325 just like you. | $110 Strava. | $270 S

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When the workweek is done, be prepared to maximize your playtime.

BY BRYAN LUFKIN 0 9 9

B A L T R A 1 | Beyerdynamic T 1 2 | Schiit Valhalla 2 3 | Melissa & Doug 4 | Pop Chart Lab’s 5 | Leica T H C These aren’t just Headphone Amp Standard Unit Giant-Size Omnibus With a 16.3-megapixel P O P any old headphones. The first thing you Building Blocks of Superpowers sensor, two customiz- : S R They’re German-made learn about fancy Your kid’s not going If Carl Linnaeus had able control dials, and E W high-fidelity pleasure headphones: A solid to be the next Andre been an X-Men fan, the ability to mount any O P R factories for your ears. amp is definitely Agassi, but they could this 2- x 3-foot poster of Leica’s exemplary E P Superlight neodym- required. It’s hard be the next Alvar would have hung in T- and M-system lenses, U S F ium magnets make for to find one more Aalto. Start trai ning his bedroom. It maps this shooter captures O S more efficient drivers, solid—or more beau- those brain muscles the superpowers of images as sharp U B I so they deliver more tiful—than this. It’s now with this collection 600 heroes and villains, and beautiful as its own N M clarity, more nuance, stacked with some of 60 hardwood build- including many of the silhouette. Even the O E and above all more vol- of the best capacitors, ing blocks in a variety strongmen, telepaths, accessories are smart; Z I S ume than your ho-hum resistors, and of shapes, from basic and human fireballs the strap simply snaps T N A cans. Commence vacuum tubes on the cubes to arches from Marvel, DC, and into the camera’s alumi- I G headbanging. | $1,399 market. | $349 and columns. | $70 indie publishers. | $35 num shell. | $1,850

Relaxing is easy when you’re surrounded by well-designed objects. Kick back and spend some downtime with these beautiful tension-releasers.

BY PRANAV DIXIT 1 0 0

N E G A H N E P O C N N A M R O N : R E 1 | Sharp Aquos Q+ TV 2 | Spiegelau 3 | Amazon Fire 4 | Normann Copen- 5 | Harman Kardon T A There’s not a lot of 4K Stout Glasses TV + Controller hagen Swell Sofa Aura Wireless Speaker E S content out there Sure, you could sip your Having access to over A word of warning: If It looks like the Jony 3 A F just yet. But with the stout from a regular 200,000 movies and TV you have plans that Ive–designed sub- O S Aquos Q+ series, you’ll glass. You could also episodes and 100-plus don’t involve lounging woofer that comes L L E be ready for it when gulp down a Château games is nice. Find- around idly for hours, with the Harman Kar- W S it arrives. Packed with Margaux straight from ing what you want by avoid the Swell. don SoundSticks, but ; P R 10 million more a crusty old boot. These talking to your remote The sofa gets its name the wireless Aura A H S subpixels than 1080p, glasses from Left Hand is amazing. Tell the from a loaf of rising speaker spits out more : V this UltraHD set will Brewing Company and Fire TV clicker the name bread, and once you than just low frequen- T + Q upscale existing 1080p Rogue Ales accentuate of what you’re crav- sink into its doughy cies. Its six 1.5-inch S O images to make them the roasted malts ing—a movie, an actor, embrace, you won’t drivers and 4.5-inch U Q look almost as good as of any dark brew while a game—and it loads be leaving (or leav- subwoofer ﬁll your A P R the next-gen standard. preserving its frothy right up. | $99; $40 for ening) anytime soon. room with the full spec- A H | $1,900 and up head. | $25 for two the game controller | $3,850 trum of sound. | $400 S

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FEATURE S | 22.10

10 Lessons for a New Era of Design 104 | Wrong Theory 126 | The Facebook Experiment 134 | Outsmarting Video Poker 138

onformative 1 0 3

WIRED

10 lessons for a new era

105

WIRED

The Rise of Silicon Modern

BY CLIFF KUANG

IN 1941, Charles and Ray Eames began chasing a radical vision: mass-produced plywood furniture that curved like a flowing sand dune. In an extra bedroom, the husband-and- wife team rigged up a system to bind together thin layers of wood veneer, which they’d stack into a curvy mold studded with clamps. But the glue required hours to set, making the process unworkable. ¶ And then a friend who knew of the Eameses’ experiments told them about a problem facing injured GIs: Their metal splints didn’t fit well, causing them to crack. So the Eameses pitched the idea of a curvy wooden splint to the Navy and won a contract. The deal gave them access to top-secret materials, including a new fast- drying glue. The splints were a success, and when the Army declassified the glue after the war ended, the Eameses finally had what they needed. Their LCW and DCW—Lounge Chair Wood and Dining Chair Wood—became instant classics, heralding the start of what people now refer to as midcentury modern. ¶ In fact, many of the signature products of that school were made possible by a postwar technological bounty. When the Eameses wanted to make fiberglass chairs, they scrounged their prototype materials from military surplus stores and contracted with a manufacturer that had been making radar domes. Designers George Nelson and Harry Bertoia adapted once-obscure manufacturing techniques to create, respectively, their Swag Leg table and Diamond Chair. The conditions that allowed midcentury modern to flourish arose from surplus tech innovations that took on new life in a designer’s hands.¶ We’re living in an eerily similar time. Thanks to 40 years of increasingly cheap and tiny processors, new software, cheap sensors, and digital manufacturing, people can build products that would have seemed impossible a decade ago. The iPod—arguably the Eames chair of this new era—became feasible only when Apple’s head of hardware engineering, Jon Rubinstein, found a hard drive so tiny and capacious that its own inventors didn’t know what to do with it. Sensor technology created to track cattle and nuclear materials now enhance experiences like Disney World, where new MagicBands guide wearers through the park. Joris Laarman let algorithms make crucial design decisions for his 3-D-printed chair (right). It is, in fact, another golden age: the era of Silicon Modern. ¶ This new age will only get more exciting. When technical wizardry becomes commonplace, design becomes a competitive advantage. Yet design is so easy to copy that designers must

constantly improve upon their work. The result is a fevered pace of innovation. As companies compete to retain their edge, they create a virtuous circle that produces better and better products. ¶ In the following pages, we’ve collected 10 great exem- plars of the current movement. They encompass big ideas, inspiring projects, and new forms of expression. Silicon Modern is here, and it’s only going to get better.

Design 107

3-D-Printed Chair The cells in Joris Laarman’s chair can be packed closer

dependingtogether or onfarther where apart they fall in the 3-D-printed structure. His cellular approach to design upends traditional production, which relies on assembling premade parts. “You can introduce all these diﬀerent variables, and your machine can do that in one go,” Laarman says.

ERIK AND PETRA HESMERG

WIRED

Electronics Panel on handlebar stem gives access to wires and cables.

Titanium Frame 3-D-printed and welded titanium provides an optimal mix of strength, stiﬀness, and light weight.

Navigation App Discover My City app is designed for both iOS and Android.

Carbon Belt Drive Quiet, smooth, clean, and almost maintenance-free.

0 0 0

Design 109

A Bike With Buzz

Haptic Feedback Handlebars vibrate to tell you when to turn.

SO M E R U L ES of the road never change, whether Electronic Shifters you’re on a bike or Change the gears at the touch of a button. in your car. Like: Don’t use your phone. But what if you’re lost and need directions? The Solid bike was created with just such a situa- tion in mind. Developed by a Portland, Ore- gon, design shop called Industry and bike builders Ti Cycles, the 24-pound titanium prototype harbors high tech guts—it connects to a phone via Bluetooth and uses haptic feedback to provide turn- by-turn directions. As you near, say, a right turn, the right hand- grip vibrates. Go too far and both sides buzz. The point, says Indus- try cofounder Oved Valadez, is to put your phone away and enjoy the ride. “We wanted to empower people to look up,” he says, “to have the bike guide you.” Now it needs to learn how to ﬁx its own ﬂats. —Liz Stinson

Dynamo Generator in front hub produces energy for onboard electronics.

R E H C T E L LESSON UN I T E T H E F DIGITAL AND Y A THE PHYSICAL J

Y B

O G O L

AD AM VO OR HE S

WIRED

The Redesign

of Airbnb LESSON BUILD A JOURNEY— NOT JUST A DESTINATION

AI RBN B D ID N’ T C OME to be worth some $10 billion just by we have to think about making it dead easy to share a stranger’s house. The com- every step of the expe- pany got to 11 digits because it does that job elegantly—as rience. But as I’ve found in my career, you’d expect from a service built by two designers and an engineer. But to keep growing, Airbnb has to become even few organizations make that effort, because more appealing. To that end, the founders recently unveiled teams are siloed. Users a dramatic redesign of their app, site, and even their logo— can sense that discon- which reminded some wags of a certain female body nect. Our aim is to cre- about their guest’s part. Katie Dill, the company’s head of experience design, ate flow from one point stay. We also do simul- is ready to explain all those changes. —C li ff Kuan g to the next. For exam- taneous reviews—you ple, we’ve found can’t see your reviews that every trip has hero unless you give one moments—the best yourself. That’s they have to feel like parts of the journey, a powerful tool that The photos on the they are part of the whether it’s a meal reinforces the com- site used to be of same thing. Design you had or a street you munity’s values. And amazing apartments. consistency gives you walked. We want to use we’re looking at ways Now they’re homey that peace of mind and those moments to help we can better inform vignettes: people the sense that this is you craft a story. So we users—for example, shopping, playing gui- a stable place to build now have a place on with search results in create.Airbnb tar. Why the shift? a relationship. When- the site, our app geared to .com ever an app is buggy, , where travelers your location. That experience—of the grid doesn’t line can log their memories being home wherever up, or the type treat- and share them. We’ll you are—is unique ment is off, you start see if that makes sense What did you think to Airbnb. So the prod- to question a company to incorporate as a core when people said the uct has to be about and wonder where else part of the listings. new logo looked kind experiences, not just they’re slipping. What of … personal? properties. When you about my money? But eventually users think about taking Are they going to pro- My favorite response go offline and talk a trip, you might think tect me? You can fix on Twitter was some- face-to-face. How does about the trees you that by caring about thing like “If you see Airbnb foster positive saw or the sounds of the details. The number of Airbnb that in the mirror, you a café or the vines interactions? guests has skyrocketed. should see a doctor.” in the wind at a winery. This is a symbol that 10M We want to evoke that So what new products With the right cues— communicates several with imagery. lie in Airbnb’s future? for both the host and 8M things—belonging, the guest. I can’t talk a sense of place—and One day Airbnb will about everything 6M it’s simple enough to How do details like be able to have an we’re working on, but 4M draw in the sand with that tie to Airbnb’s impact on all aspects part of it is host train- your toe. That’s amaz- broader goals? of a trip—we want to ing. We’ve revamped 2 ing! People have fun help you find interest- reviews to offer more writing about the neg- When a guest and ing things to see and relevant pieces of infor- ative things, but the 2010 2012 2014* host interact with each better ways to remem- mation to hosts, such positives are what will other through the app, ber them. To do that, as private feedback *As of September make it live on.

JOE PUGLIESE

Design 111

WIRED

s e e l e l m s : k d f w s d o o e t c t r s h r o o u a a s t r o b o ﬁ s e e o b t s e l e r v m s b e , h e e o . e g h s t b l i f r p l n i n c t t t a t h e k g d t u s s f r e m c i r a t r u . o c r u u s a - r s j d j u t i u t B e o r d n d p s s d b e e a a a o e s g d h h t - t t h e e n g w t n a t e s r t h t i i n o d e a e e h h o p f e k n l a l c n S i g t r e o h r s l r c s o t e r p c o i r f a t h d t m a c e t h o h e e f n a w o m n s i S A n t h o e R A f r S e u w

s i c t e h t s o r P

n g i z l i a K T T I D n E R C Y - R o t e , s e l - d r e A - . r p h h s e i e , c v D e o t n t - k y g g n - d i o u a . N e e n t a k T h n a n h t l r n t O r e - m a n l o b s s n d t c n r r t h C - h s s a s k s n a . m e i ’ s o a - - o r s ’ a ’ i t u c a o e o d l s r e e t s f e u d i r t e o s t s e E h c t l h I S R C y s i t t s e m s e h m w l r o m r b U e n v u t r : f r o n c a x n e x i c d O ! a e o k o t b f s e a s a r r i e r a e l m R s b t y s t m r g a l a ¶ y e c e e o e n n O S e d u r h c s a u e e n t t n b h t . u , u t w P s p a t p , s n o a e r S o m t t e o u t l r i r e i o s n a p c s . a e a s d s o h , i t H D e i B s v o e t E C E N n ! T l c t . g e r o t h s l a s s c fi o v o o t o k a f o k c t a p r t h j u t o f o m n s e r e m t e r s e ’ n i m h e h e s e P l u l o e w t s b n o s n O O k s i u d ’ l t s m o v t d e t u g b h i e t n t a . n a t a I d e t p t n ’ e n m m S o g a l s i fi u r b r a h l i o V S R e o a i o e d g t e , o a n e n s s - t o n t a e - t t t S P e d g a i h c r c e n h i n k a e s r o a s c c e c n t e e I e r a h d s t e e a d n i p b A a M O — s l r a t n t c a s d e s r s i s k e l t e y t i r u n i I c n o C t a l e . r l O R b s k e d o a t e e u x a o s r p a t fi r fi p t e c w c c k a d r l t c p n fi l t h d a e b N z u e h y n a h e o y C I C h o i n a e a i w g fi M p i D g r a i r e t s r r r n s K N o a r r a r r a a u u 0 f n I o e n - e a h C l t h t e c o t i g u e O P n e N M p t p t f m g T h t b fl 1 o i I L t r w e 3 l n c s a a s t fi r a b s t t g a —

0 0 0 JUL 2014

Design 113

i c , i - t e r s l c t s e p l a a l a ﬁ h o p e p t r o s n p s p t o t o u e a r m m n e C l s e u i l d i h u b e . d r a p t c k p e c f a l i m s l d t m o v o c u o a t u d a e d h s n ; t h n e M - t s e l s e t h p ’ r l a s e m u e b i r n h d t o c r y e i o t n s e a r t t c d u u h e t a a u n r o C T w e m s a a

N I G S E D I E T I S R H C N A Y R B

S E N H O E R I N O T O A O Y V I Z R M M V E A O E D T A S R U O C F , e t r r a u p g . l y t m i n t e c t o n i n e s s e r u u r . a n k t i c t h t c f y c s i o c u e f s s s a y k h o t r r o e d e d g e n s s S p s i v o m a i n a u e r d r g i t d t h t h c h e e u m t s d y , e t b d o g e t u a a y l t i l t l e l n j P s a b u F o n p e o t d a o - o ’ s m t r r s l h h n m c r i m t s o e a s g o t s e r e s s k f r a u K b r u h a j u e m a l k o T a r t e d e o e a w r T t o n d o h I C S t w a a w C W w t t D N E G R C I S E Y D R A D R I N B O C E N W S R O O R B D E Y N B O N O I I S S T A I M R O T C S N N U L O L O S N I S E L

JUL 2014 0 0 0

WIRED

A Fast Read

CARL CROSSGROVE test, which measured has created a master- the “glance time” it piece—but he doesn’t took to recognize text want you to look at on a simulated dash it. At least not for long. display. Several char- A senior designer at acteristics suggested the famed type foundry faster reading: open Monotype, Crossgrove spacing between let- designed Burlingame ters, simple shapes, (shown at right), a font and large x-height (the that’s uber-clear at low height of the lower- resolutions and small case letters relative to sizes, so it’s legible capitals). ¶ This proved with a split-second what Crossgrove glance at a car dash- suspected, and he’d board display. And already built a video- after 25 years studying game display font with type, Crossgrove had a loose spacing and a hunch about the design big x-height that he’d specs that would work never used. He res- best. ¶ Type design- urrected the font and ers can account for all reﬁned it for optimized Redwood City, Ca kinds of little tricks digital performance our eyes play on us as with tweaks like a we read—for instance, curved foot on the low- 1. Head northwest toward Brewster Ave the crossbar on a capi- ercase l (ell) to distin- tal H will look centered guish it from a capital 2. Turn Right onto Brewster Ave

only if it’s 2 to 3 per- I . Extrawide apertures, 3. Turn Left onto Veterans Blvd cent higher than true or mouths, on letters center—but with Bur- like c and e help distin- 4. Take the 2nd right toward US-101 N lingame, Crossgrove guish them instantly. 5. Merge onto US-101 N via the ramp to had hard data to back These subtle details up his ideas. In 2012, have a huge impact on 2. Turn Right onto Brewster Ave

Monotype worked digital interfaces, but with MIT’s AgeLab if they’re designed and a transportation well, you’ll never give VOLUMEVVOO U research center on them a second glance. a typeface legibility —Sara Breselor

iOS8 Material an overhauled Google ecosystem. Both men have New Looks,Classic Ideals been hell-bent on positioning design as not just a look but a philosophy, with ideals inherited from the past 60 years of design thinking. Which makes sense: Even as designers get access to new technologies and tools, they’re trying to solve some of This fall brings new software to the two major smart- the same problems as their predecessors. So they phone camps. On Apple’s side, iOS 8 further refines come up with answers that are very similar. Want the pared down, functional aesthetic Jony Ive rang proof? Take a look at what the design stars of yes- in with iOS 7. At Google the similarly flat language of terday said about their work, next to the words of Material Design, shaped by Matías Duarte, will herald Ive and Duarte. —KYLE VANHEMERT

Design 115

LESSON PERFORMANCE IS IN THE DETAILS

Elegant Capitalism

SILICON VALLEY venture firms won’t hand out wads of cash to just anyone. Increasingly they’re looking to bet on something special—a blend of aesthet- ics and seamless experience that can elude your typical tech bro. The result? A new kind of capital- ist—the “venture designer”—who aims to infuse killer-app elegance into young businesses from TYPEFACES WITH PURPOSE Burlingame responds to the unique demands of reading birth. ¶ So, for example, ace creative consultancy in a screen-based world, but it’s just the latest in a long line of Frog, the brains behind the new Microsoft Office typefaces designed for specialized use. design and FEMA’s community-driven disaster-recovery plans, hired Ethan Imboden to be its first

head of venture design last December. One of his first moves was to focus a preschooler app from Roissy (1970): Charles de Retina (2002): Wall Street education startup Kidaptive on its adult customers, Gaulle Airport Signage Journal Stock Listings Adrian Frutiger designed The width of Retina char- creating a way for parents to engage in their child’s Roissy to harmonize with the acters stays constant when progress. “I know we’re successful when a team airport’s architecture and they’re set in boldface, so be legible from any angle when a stock price requires walks away with a diﬀerent understanding of their and distance. He turned it a bold listing (indicating a own business,” Imboden says. “That pays dividends into a print typeface, Fruti- change of more than 5 per- ger, which is still popular cent), the column width and beyond our work.” ¶ Now more and more traditional (it was refreshed in 2013). layout don’t change. VCs are riding designer coattails. Former Google UX leader Irene Au joined Khosla Ventures in April; John Maeda, who turns arty types into entrepre- neurs as design partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Cauﬁeld

Bell Centennial (1978): Clearview (2004): & Byers, was inspired to leave his post as president AT&T Phone Books US Highway Signs of the Rhode Island School of Design when he saw The cathode-ray typesetting After 10 years of research, machines once used to pro- mixed-case letters began his students starting companies. It’s too early to duce phone books worked replacing all-cap styling for say whether designers can boost their ventures to by ﬁlling in pixels on a grid. easier recognition. Plus, the Bell Centennial’s “ink traps,” shape of Clearview letters higher valuations. But for once, an art degree just strategically placed notches reduces halation—the blurry, on the letterforms, helped haloed appearance of words might be the way to deep pockets. —Bo Mo or e prevent clogging. on reﬂective signs.

SIMPLICITY DETAILS HUMILITY EXPERIENCE

Paul Rand Charles Dieter Rams Bill Buxton Famous Eames Famous for Famous S E iOS 7 is G Jony Ive for the IBM “I think Famous for “No Braun hard- for the first A “unobtru- “Design M logo (1972). there is a the Eames detail is ware (1960s). multitouch I sive and is essential Y “I haven’t profound Lounge too “Good design tablet (1984). T deferen- in today’s T changed my and (1956). small to is unobtru- “It is ultimately E G Y mind about enduring “The details bring sive ... [and] actuallytial … It experiences, It deﬁnesworld. B modernism … beauty in are not a smile restrained, not things, S elevates your expe- T Matías Duarte I It means simplicity, the details, to your to leave that we are A your con- riences.” R simplicity; it in clarity.” they make face.” room for the designing.” T tent.” R means clarity.” the product.” user’s self- O P expression.”

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Waterprooﬁng

LESSON BEAUTY IS AS IM P OR TA NT Manhattan AS U TI LI TY

EVEN BEFORE the Wall Street new shops floodwaters of 2012’s and High Line–like pla- superstorm Sandy zas will nestle under had retreated from the elevated FDR high- the coastal cities of way. And the disused the Atlantic seaboard, spaces of Manhattan’s residents and policy- southern tip will blos- makers understood som into a museum that this wouldn’t be and public green. The the last time a chang- team calls it social ing climate threat- infrastructure. “Man- ened to submerge the hattan is really a child region. They had to do of industry and com- something about it. merce, and the bulk of That’s where Bjarke the mountain range Ingels came in. He that is its skyline is a and his Danish design product of that utilitar- firm were among 148 ian approach,” Ingels teams competing to says. “There’s the need devise some water- to protect the city and proofing for the still an opportunity to inter- damp coastline. Their vene in a part of Man- plan, dubbed the Big hattan that could be U—one of six federally richer and more lively. funded projects—will We’re merely the mid- transform Lower Man- wives of an evolution.” hattan. It’s infrastruc- Conversations with res- ture with ambition idents pushed Ingels’ and scope to rival the group into designing dreams of famed New “compartments” that York remodeler Robert work in ways appropri- Moses. But Ingels’ proj- ate to the neighborhood ect doesn’t just protect they’re protecting. ¶ It against storm surges; won’t come cheap. Con- it actually makes the struction on the first city better.¶ What’s compartment, in the going to change? On Lower East Side, will the Lower East Side, cost $335 million. tens of thousands of (Though doing noth- Battery old folks and people ing would cost more: In addition to new parks and berms, a museum will in low-cost housing— cleanup and recovery tell the story of the city— the least able to evac- from Sandy in Manhat- and feature an aquarium- uate—will get better tan alone has run well like window into the harbor that will let visitors see access to expanded over $1 billion.) But the the water level, from normal riverside parks, which Big U might help New to Sandy to apocalypse. will slope up from the Yorkers worry a little shore to provide up less—and look for- to 20 vertical feet of ward to a city remade. flood protection. On —Adam Rogers

Design 117

Lower East Side Previously, a highway separated the area from a poorly maintained park. Now LES residents will get new paths to the river as well as new parks, pools, and play spaces when they get there.

Chinatown Surge walls will drop down from overhead during storms.

Financial District Under the elevated FDR highway, new spaces will accommodate shops on the “dry side” and pop-up markets and galleries on the “wet side.”

BRYAN CHRISTIE DESIGN

WIRED

Design 119

LESSON RevolutionThe Burberry

A D EC AD E A GO sales at the Burberry fashion house were ent ways. Sometimes ﬂoundering. Together, CEO Angela Ahrendts and creative people say, “Wish chief Christopher Bailey turned the company around, you would do this kind MANAGE FOR CREATIVITY making Burberry an admired name in fashion and branch- of a coat.” ing into China and the digital world with equal skill—

which is probably why Apple poached Ahrendts last year How would you char- to help build out its already formidable retail capabilities. acterize your personal Soon after, Burberry appointed Bailey its new CEO, an design philosophy? unusual track for a creative director. Here he talks about managing a design-driven business. —Sc ott Dadich My father was a car- The tech giants are penter, and my grand- moving into wearables, father, an electrician, which suggests a con- was a gadget fanatic vergence between the heart of what we who bought every fashion and technology. When I went from cre- do. You either have the new thing. They both Do you see that? ative director to overall world as your canvas or shaped my world- boss, I found that I had you have a 1- by 1-inch view: quick-slow, quick- Apple succeeds to juggle much more screen. The important slow. For example, because of beautiful complex decisions. How thing, regardless of for- the making of a trench product design, but has it been for you? mat, is creating emo- coat is very slow, wearing a product tional reactions. Music, involving lots of handi- rather than putting Remarkably smooth. in particular, lets you do craft. But I also love it in your bag means Angela and I always that very quickly. It can the speed of what we that it’s on show. worked in partner- be exciting or melan- do online. I’m proud It tells people about ship, and our team is choly—or it can drive of that approach: Not your character. Now, still here. I have always you kind of crazy. everything should be what happens if you moved from one proj- quick; not everything put technology into ect to another, whether should be slow. ﬁbers? What happens it be architecture, tech- But people aren’t just if you put chips into experiencing your brand- nology, or design. My an accessory? We set new role just involves ing. They’re reacting to Doesn’t new technol- up a group to puzzle it on social media. ogy privilege the quick a broader audience— through these issues— investors, analysts, over the slow? the What If Group. and others. I took We started as a retail on this role because organization, having I don’t see it as a Burberry’s stock price has design and creativ- one-on-one conversa- problem. We’ve live- soared in recent years. But a trench coat might ity are Burberry’s soul. last a lifetime. Technol- tions with customers. streamed a runway $1,800 That’s always been Digital platforms allow show, but it takes four ogy life cycles shorten my approach. every day. How do us to do that again, to six months to get $1,400 while also revealing clothes into a store. So you reconcile that? trends that are useful we developed Runway Has your design vision $1,000 for new products. For Made to Order, which People will always want changed as you’ve set- example, we often will make you a piece in 60 a physical experience. O O tled into the new role? use our website Art of just six to eight weeks. These create the stories H A the Trench for design That’s a nightmare to we tell digitally, so there Y : E It’s been a natural evo- inspiration. It lets us do, because it changes isn’t really a clear-cut C R U lution, because design see a trench coat trans- our entire supply chain. division between those O JAN JAN JAN S thinking is always at lated zillions of diﬀer- But it’s really important. 2004 2008 2012 worlds. I like that.

JOE PUGLIESE

WIRED

Really Magic Short-Range RFID An RFID chip lets resort guests swipe their bands to Kingdom pay at any register in Disney World, access express lines, and unlock their hotel room. Readers throughout the park ﬂash the wearer’s name so that employees can give personal greetings.

YO UR OW N Disney World memories likely summon the thrill of Space Mountain, the snow-globe-worthy Long-Range Transceiver Main Street—plus long lines, a jumbled wad of tick- RFID is ﬁne for conscious, opt-in transactions like ets, and the feeling of being just one more dollar sign unlocking a door, but it’s in Mickey’s eye. Disney knows this, which is why it no use for being able to worked for years on a $1 billion technology platform recognize how people move around attractions. that aims to deliver an easier, personalized park That requires a long-range experience (see “Like Magic,” issue 21.09). Just 16 copper antenna. Sensors months after its ﬁrst public trial, some 50 percent hidden in the Be My Guest restaurant and some rides of Disney World’s visitors use its new MagicBand can detect your presence wearable device and the accompanying app to skip from up to 40 feet away. long lines, preorder food, and charge purchases to their Disney resort room. And it kind of feels … fun.

“The things you want to do at the park all become the Battery and Processor family’s mission,” says Tom Staggs, Disney’s chair of The battery lasts for at parks and resorts. “Being able to lock that mission least two years—but there’s no power button and no in de-stresses your whole vacation.” Such a bespoke plug. How’s that work? The suite of experiences was once unimaginable in the processor detects if the Happiest Place on Earth. Now, tiny electronics and band leaves Disney World and puts itself to sleep. big data have made it possible. Here’s a look at the Once back in the park, band, the experience, and the future. —Cli ff Kua ng it wakes up.

Design Disney wanted to simplify inventory and manufacturing, so every MagicBand ﬁts almost any wrist, from line- backers to toddlers. How? A portion of the rubber band can tear away, leaving a smaller-diameter wristband. LESSON ORCHESTRATE T H E EN T I RE EXPERIENCE

AD AM VO OR HE S BRYAN CHRISTIE DESIGN

Design 121

THE SYSTEM AT WORK

Flying Economy

VI RG IN AT LA N T IC H AS recently spent more than $5 million to redesign its economy cabin service. The App goal: less work for flight attendants and a leaner, Visitors can preselect three greener airline. Design firms MAP and Giraffe Innova- rides for which they can enter express lines. Taking tion, along with Virgin’s own team, used 3-D modeling into account ride availability and rapid prototyping to rework everything down to and proximity, the app plots the spoons, reducing each plane’s load by about 280 those choices into itinerary options. The app also offers pounds. Across its fleet of 38 planes, those tweaks (and updates on wait times for others in first class) make for an estimated savings of every ride. $15 million a year and a 2,600-ton cut in carbon emis- sions. We’ll expect the same from Virgin Galactic’s Entry Gates spacecrafts—if they ever launch. —Joseph Fl aherty A problem with the old turn- stiles was that everyone had to enter one by one—very slow. So Disney researched Built-In Place Mat A Top-Notch Teapot 26 different MagicBand- MAP tested more than 20 The widened spout cuts enabled entrances, finally combinations of materials pouring time per cup to settling on V-shaped gates and textures to find the just over two seconds, that allow visitors to walk perfect rubbery coating and a new angle for the side by side, speeding entry for the surface of the tray. handle improves control by as much as 25 percent. The result is fewer slips over the faster flow. and spills—and no wasteful paper liner. Restaurants Visitors can use the app to reserve a table and select a meal at Be Our Guest. When you (and your MagicBand) cross the bridge to the restaurant, a host greets you by name and the kitchen is alerted to prepare your food. Sensors in the tables let the servers know where you are.

Super-Light Cutlery Virgin replaced its drab utensils with mod purple ones. Reduced weight and updated materials ratchet down the carbon footprint. N G I Rides Tinier Trays S E New for fall: You can star in Designers shrank the serv- D D a Disney ﬁlm. Sensors detect ing tray by a third, squeezing R I where you’re sitting on the B more meals onto the heavy N Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, food carts so fewer are l l W P u O and high-speed cameras needed on board. Atten- R B capture your ride. The foot- dants deliver the main dishes Y B age is stitched into a down- from the trolley, then they N loadable movie featuring the O serve ice cream from light- I T dwarves. It’s just 15 seconds A weight “usherette” trays. R T long—perfect for Instagram. S U L L I Y What’s Next A R T The app might track and , Y respond to negative experi- Hooked Edge E N ences. The victim of a hellish S Shrinking the tray meant D I wait might get an oﬀer for the last one in the trolley F O free ice cream. Or if parts of might be out of reach, so the Y S Disney are crowded, visitors designers molded a hook E T might get a chance to skip a into the edge of each one R U line elsewhere, keeping them that queues up the next in O C from feeling too grumpy. line for the attendant.

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Nike Looms Large

NIKE IS GREAT AT applying the latest technol-

ogy to shoes, but for the new Air Jordan XX9, the company looked to a 200-year-old weaving technique. To make its unibody upper, sneaker legend Tinker Hatfield and his team enlisted Avery Dennison, a niche manufacturer of clothing labels. Hatfield had created color-coded diagrams for the XX9’s complex 3-D surfaces; Avery Dennison had master weavers and Jacquard looms, able to interpret the diagrams into warp and weft. The resulting $225 kicks are more svelte and 8 percent lighter than the Air Jordan XX8—making them more comfortable but also easier to manufacture and better suited to street wear, which helps their cross- over appeal. “That’s a sophisticated way to make a shoe,” Hatfield says. “It’s slimmer and sexier, since there’s only one layer.” All thanks to technology from the early 1800s. —LIZ STINSON

0 AD0 AM0 VO OR HE S BRYAN CHRISTIE DESIGN

Design 123

LESSON

Support Cable REUS E PR OVEN To stabilize the midfoot TECHNOLOGY during a sprint or jump, the Jordan team wove a series of 12 pockets into Singular Design Traditional sneakers are the upper. A thin cable usually made of many threads through the channels, distributing layers glued together. The tension from the laces: Air Jordan XX9’s upper When you pull on them, is fashioned from a single woven piece. By tuning the entire upper con- tracts around the foot the tightness of wefts— the threads running left like a corset. to right in a weave—the designers could assign precise tensions to specific Variable Weave zones on the shoe, creat- In areas where the foot ing its curving topography. needs more support (around the outside near the pinkie toe), the yarn Digital Model gets a tighter weave; at Hatfield sent his raw the top of the foot the yarn designs—in the form of is looser for breathability. a marked-up upper and The different zones give iPad sketches—directly the shoe a customized, to Avery Dennison. The glovelike feel—and beauti- company’s weavers then ful, intricate patterning. translated these into a yarn arrangement and an Adobe Illustrator file their looms could understand. Finally, the weavers uploaded them and pressed Start. Ordi- narily, assembling a shoe prototype would have taken days; the XX9 went from sketch to sample in hours.

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LESSON AB AN D ON YO U R AS S UM PT IO NS

Prototypingthe Future

AL EX IS LLO YD’ S O FF ICE , strewn with drones and screens full of code, looks more like a startup than a journalism outfit. Which is weird, because it’s on the 28th floor of the headquarters of The New York Times. As creative director of the Times’ R&D Lab, Lloyd has a tough job. She’s supposed to figure out new approaches to media consumption at what’s arguably the stodgiest institution in the business—they don’t call it the Grey Lady for nothing. But while the Times can’t predict the future, it can hire a bunch of wicked smart designers to prototype it.

The Times has fallen behind Buzzfeed in monthly visitors.

Lloyd’s main insight isn’t understanding. 80M So what’s the solu- touch on topics the so far concerns one “We’ve fallen into tion? A move from wearer has recently trend in particular: the assuming that if we just 60M recording to listening. explored online. The compulsion to record. get enough data and Lately, Lloyd’s lab has idea is that people People now use social process it in enough been trying to create around you will see media to post all their ways, we’ll cross this objects that don’t just your Blush glowing and pictures, report the threshold from knowl- catalog the world but know that you know details of their daily edge to wisdom,” Lloyd actively process and something about what E R exercise, and share says. “We’ve been quan- respond to what’s they’re talking about. O their most ﬂeeting tifying what can easily going on around them. A newer approach is S C JU L DE C MAY M thoughts. Companies be quantified, but it One early experiment, a table with touch- O 2013 2013 2014 C : (and probably the gov- misses all the ideas and Blush, is an LED brooch sensitive pads in the E C R ernment too) hoover concepts we encounter Buzzfeed that lights up when surface. When you hear U O it all up. But recording throughout the day.” New York Times Digital real-life conversations something interesting S

Design 125

at a meeting, you tap tening table and other the Times sold it to gadget might, for the possibilities the pad. At the end of speculative projects Bit.ly, the link- instance, automatically for the Times a bit the meeting, the table like it are meant to help shortening company. add articles to your more concrete. “It’s emails a digest of the the organization think So while Lloyd reading list when one thing to talk conversation to every- about how connectivity acknowledges that a friend mentions them about these things,” one who attended, might change people’s an always-on, wear- in conversation. Like- Lloyd says. “It’s with a transcript of the relationship with media. able listening device wise, an ecosystem another to actually moments they person- That’s her specialty— like Blush might sound of objects such as the try to build them.” ally flagged. at the R&D Lab, Lloyd creepy, the concept listening table could You can understand Of course, the Times also cocreated News behind it—a product create novel delivery why a 163-year-old won’t be getting into .me, a web app that that links digital con- routes for news. information business the jewelry or furniture creates personalized tent with face-to-face That’s the point of might be interested business anytime soon. news digests using interactions—seems the lab: to make the in the challenge. But Lloyd says the lis- Twitter data. In 2010 inevitable. A similar future less abstract and —KYLE VANHEMERT

JOE PUGLIESE

WIRED

LESSON BE W RO N G

Design 127

by Scott Dadich

Harness the power of imperfection.

WIRED I

IN THE LATE 1870S, Edgar Degas began work on what would become one of his most radical paintings, Jockeys Before the Race. Degas had been schooled in techniques of the neoclassicist and roman- ticist masters but had begun exploring subject matter beyond the portraits and historical events that were traditionally considered suitable for ﬁne art, training his eye on café culture, common laborers, and—most famously— ballet dancers. But with Jockeys, Degas pushed past mild provocation. He broke some of the most established formulas of composition. The painting is tech- nically exquisite, the horses vividly sculpted with Degas wasn’t just conﬁdent brushstrokes, their musculature perfectly thinking outside the box. rendered. But while composing this beautifully balanced, impressionistically rendered image, Degas added a crucial, jarring element: a pole running ver- creatingHe was purposely something that tically—and asymmetrically—in the immediate fore- ground, right through the head of one of the horses. wasn’t pleasing.

Design 129

Wrong Theory, a History

Throughout history, artists and innovators have advanced their ﬁelds by making deliberately “wrong” choices. Here are some great moments in Wrong Theory. —CORY PERKINS

1903 Paris’ fashion elite recog- nized Paul Poiret at a young age for his skilled drawings; but where other designers focused on cages and corsets, his work featured draped fabric and natural silhouettes. Think of it as one step in a cycle: In the early stages, practitioners dedicate themselves to inventing and improving the rules—how to craft the most pleasing chord progression, the perfectly proportioned building, the most precisely rendered amalgamation of rhyme and meter. Over time, those rules become laws, and artists and designers dedicate themselves to excelling within these agreed-upon parameters, creating work of unparalleled refinement and sophis- Degas wasn’t just “thinking outside of the box,” as tication—the Pantheon, the Sistine Chapel, the Gold- the innovation cliché would have it. He wasn’t try- berg Variations. But once a certain maturity has ing to overturn convention to find a more perfect been reached, someone comes along who decides to solution. He was purposely creating something that take a different route. Instead of trying to create an wasn’t pleasing, intentionally doing the wrong thing. ever more polished and perfect artifact, this rebel 1913 Naturally viewers were horrified. Jockeys was lam- actively seeks out imperfection—sticking a pole Igor Stravinsky’s pooned in the magazine Punch, derided as a “mis- in the middle of his painting, intentionally adding The Rite of Spring was a departure from tradi- taken impression.” But over time, Degas’ grungy feedback to a guitar solo, deliber- tional composition: The transgression provided inspiration for ately photographing unpleasant subjects. rising star abandoned harmonic consonance in other artists eager to find new ways to Eventually some of these creative break- favor of harsh, tense tones that incited a riot at inject vitality and dramatic tension into throughs end up becoming the founda- its first performance. work mired in convention. You can see its tion of a new set of aesthetic rules, and influence across art history, from Frederic the cycle begins again. S E G A Remington’s flouting of traditional com- For the past 30 years, the field of tech- M I Y positional technique to the crackling pho- nology design has been working its way T T E G : tojournalism of Henri Cartier-Bresson. through the first two stages of this cycle, S E G Degas was engaged in a strategy that an industry-wide march toward more A M I has shown up periodically for centuries seamless experiences, more delight- L L A across every artistic and creative field. ful products, more leverage over the

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world around us. Look at our computers: beigeige

EARLY/MID- and boxy desktop machines gave way to brightght 20TH CENTURY and colorful iMacs, which gave way to sleek In developing the Epic Theater style, drama- and sexy laptops, which gave way to addic- tists like Bertolt Brecht consciously reminded tively touchable smartphones. It’s hard not audiences of the play’s to look back at this timeline and see it as a artifice, encouraging actors to break the fourth wall great story of human progress, a joint effort and temper the authenticity to experiment and learn and figure out the of their performance. path toward a more refined and universally pleasing design. All of this has resulted in a world where beautifully constructed tech is more powerful and more accessible than ever before. Itt is also more consistent. That’s why all smartphonesnes I now look basically the same—gleaming black glassass with handsomely cambered edges. Google, Apple, and Microsoft all use clean, sans-serif typefaces in their respective software. After years of exper- imentation, we have figured out what people like and settled on some rules. 19 6 4 But there’s a downside to all this consensus—it IN LATE 2006, when I was creative director here at Sick of the utilitarianism dominant at the time, can get boring. From smartphones to operating WIRED, I was working on the design of a cover fea- Robert Venturi designed systems to web page design, it can start to feel like turing John Hodgman. We were far along in the pro- his Vanna Venturi House to include blatantly unnec- the truly transformational moments have come and cess—Hodgman was styled and photographed, the essary features—like the facade’s nonsupporting gone, replaced by incremental updates that make our cover lines written, our fonts selected, the layout arch and an interior stairway devices and interactions faster and better. firmed up. I had been aiming for a timeless design with leading to nowhere—that are now hallmarks of post- This brings us to an important and exciting moment a handsome monochromatic color palette, a cover modernism. in the design of our technologies. We that evoked a 1960s jet-set vibe. When I presented have figured out the rules of creat- my finished design, WI RE D’s editor at the time, Chris ing sleek sophistication. We know, Anderson, complained that the cover was too drab. more or less, how to get it right. Now, He uttered the prescriptive phrase all graphic design- Apple we need a shift in perspective that ers hate hearing: “Can’t you just add more colors?” allows us to move forward. We need I demurred. I felt the cover was absolutely perfect. a pole right through a horse’s head. But Chris did not, and so, in a spasm of designerly Google We need to enter the third stage of “fuck you,” I drew a small rectangle into my design, this cycle. It’s time to stop figuring a little stripe coming off from the left side of the out how to do things the right way, page, rudely breaking my pristine geometries. As if

Microsoft and start getting it wrong. that weren’t enough, I ﬁlled it with the ugliest hue I

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1 9 89 In the 1980s, Will Wright created SimCity , a cutting edge videogame. Instead of building a closed ecosystem—like most developers before him—he handed the tools over to players to map their own gamescape.

could find: neon orange—Pantone 811, to be precise. At the time, this represented a major creative break- My perfect cover was now ruined! through for me—the idea that intentional wrongness By the time I came to my senses a couple of weeks could yield strangely pleasing results. Of course I was later, it was too late. The cover had already been familiar with the idea of rule-breaking innovation— sent to the printer. My anger morphed into regret. that each generation reacts against the one that came To the untrained eye, that little box might not seem before it, starting revolutions, turning its back on so offensive, but I felt that I had betrayed one of the tired conventions. But this was different. I wasn’t just most crucial lessons I learned in design school—that throwing out the rulebook and starting from scratch.

S E every graphic element should serve a recognizable I was following the rules, then selectively breaking A G M I function. This stray dash of color was careless at best, one or two for maximum impact. Y T T a postmodernist deviation with no real purpose or Once I realized what I’d stumbled on, I started to E G : T value. It confused my colleagues and detracted from see it everywhere, a strategy used by traine H C E R the cover’s clarity, unnecessarily making the reader B ; . C more conscious of the design. N I , E But you know what? I actually came to like that L P P A crass little neon orange bar. I ended up including a : R I A version of it on the next month’s cover, and again the K O O month after that. It added something, even though I B C A couldn’t explain what it was. I began referring to this M ; Y M idea—intentionally making “bad” design choices— A L A as Wrong Theory, and I started applying it in little : C A M ways to all of WIRED’s pages. Pictures that were I , R E supposed to run large, I made small. Where type was T P U M supposed to run around graphics, I overlapped the O C two. Headlines are supposed to come at the beginning P O T K of stories? I put them at the end. I would even force S E D our designers to ruin each other’s “perfect” layouts.

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scans showed that the subjects who got the unpredictable sequence registered noticeably more activity in the nucleus accumbens—an area of the brain that processes pleasure. Yes, our minds learn to prefer activities that we repeatedly enjoy, because we recognize those patterns and come to expect a payoff. But the study suggests that when our predictions are wrong—when we walk into a surprise party instead of a planned dinner, for who make the decision to do something deliberately instance—that’s when our pleasure centers really wrong. Whether it’s a small detail, like David Fincher light up. We may find comfort in what we know we swapping a letter for a number in the title of the movie like, but it’s the aberrations that bring us to attention. Se7en, or a seismic shift, like Miles Davis intentionally seeking out the “wrong notes” and then trying to work his way back, none of these artists simply ignored the rules or refused to take the time to learn them in the first place. No, you need to know the rules, really master their nuance and application, before you can break them. That’s why Hunter Thompson could be a great gonzo journalist while so many of his followers and imitators—who never mastered the art of traditional reporting and writing that under- lay Thompson’s radical style—suffer in comparison. Why does the Wrong Theory work? After all, sym- metry is naturally pleasing. Put two faces in front of a 1-year-old and she will immediately pick the more symmetrical one. But what if we’re after something deeper than simple pleasure? It turns out that, while we might initially prefer the symmetrical and seam- H less, we are more challenged and invested in the imperfect. Think of Cindy Crawford’s mole or Joa- quin Phoenix’s scar. Both people are stunning, but they stand out for their so-called imperfections. A better thought experiment might be to put that child in a room with 99 symmetrical faces and one asym-

metrical one. Which one do you think HOW MIGHT THESE ﬁndings be applied to technology she’ll be drawn to? design? It’s still a bit early to say. Right now we are A 2001 study conducted by Baylor late in the second stage of the design cycle—apply- College of Medicine and Emory Uni- ing agreed-upon rules to an ever-widening array of versity might begin to answer that products, apps, sites, and services. Put another way, question. In it, neuroscientists con- designers are still trying to get things right, not delib- ducted fMRI scans on 25 adults who erately make them wrong. But even as they do so, they received squirts of fruit juice or water are learning how to push up against once-sacrosanct into their mouths in either predict- conventions. As a result, they’re giving us glimpses able or unpredictable patterns. The of what “wrong” technology might look like.

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plotlines—like the maybe-too-byzantine Arrested Development reboot—and the joys of binge-watching. Or take a look at the growing subgenre of intention- 1 9 9 7 ally frustrating videogames—like Flappy Bird or Industrial designer Hella Super Hexagon—that ignore standard on-ramping Jongerius molded perfectly proportioned tableware, and throw players directly into chaos. then fired it at exceedingly All of these examples point the way toward the high temperatures, slightly deforming each piece. next challenge for technology design. What happens after you’ve learned how to make technology Take Instagram. When Kevin Sys- that is supremely appealing and trom and Mike Krieger were first functional? A whole new range of developing the photo-sharing social opportunities opens up. By break- network, they wrote a sentence on ing those rules, we can create technology a whiteboard that summed up the that is more than merely useful or beautiful accepted wisdom around photo shar- or natural. We can imagine technology that 2 007 ing: “Today online, people post photos that they is complicated and personal—nostalgic, funny, self- The Sopranos’ artfully H C I take with cameras, and they store them in albums deprecating, abrasive. Yes, there will be crafted final scene L E built tension expertly— B M to share with only their friends.” Then, systemati- missteps. For every Kind of Blue there then shocked audiences A Z by abruptly cutting L cally, they began replacing words. Cameras became were about a million Metal Machine I E to black just before the R A phones, in albums became as single photos, only Musics—unlistenable exercises in self- expected climax. : E N their friends became everyone. In the process, they indulgence. But only by courting failure O H P ; stumbled upon an innovative insight about how can we find new ways forward. It’s time B A L S people’s behavior would change. This isn’t really an for us to create the next wave of technology.ogy. It’s titime U I R example of Wrong Theory—the result was incredi- for us to be wrong.  G E N O bly appealing, not intentionally off-putting. But the J Y S method they used to create it, understanding Editor in chief SCOTT DADICH ( @sdadich ) wrote E T R U and then subverting explicit established rules, about invisible design in issue 21.10. O C : suggests the kind of thinking that S U I R can move us into this new era. E G N O Indeed, we’re starting to see J ; S E that kind of thinking everywhere. Snap- G A M chat built a multibillion-dollar empire I Y T T on a notion that seems deeply wrong at E G : first blush—actively preventing users V T 7 0 from archiving and accessing their com- 0 2 , munication. And Netflix undercut the X I N E entire structure of television by decid- O H P , ing to release every episode of its orig- D O R F inal series at once. That meant trading W A R off some of the pleasure of the weekly C , S I cliffhanger and the day-after water- V A D cooler chatter for more complicated

O K B O C E F A O N K I N G L I & A R F E

b y M A T H O N A N j e n n i f e r D an 1 3 i e l 4

W h a t h a p p e n s w h e n y o u g i v e t o e t h v e e t h r y t h u m i n g b s - ? D u p i s a s t e r .

There’s this great Andy Warhol quote you’ve probably seen: “I think everybody should like everybody.”

You can buy posters and plates as intended, we shouldn’t be able Right away, Facebook responded with pictures of Warhol and that to stop ourselves from liking all to my sudden, newfound appreci- phrase plastered across his face the stuff it shows us. ation by giving me even more to in Helvetica. But when you view That, of course, would be just appreciate. You might have noticed Warhol’s quick quip in its full fine with Facebook’s advertisers. that when you like an article on context, from a 1963 interview Advertising budgets are won or Facebook, it often responds by in ARTnews, it is just as much a lost based on how many people suggesting a few other items it prescient description of how we make the decision to give an ad thinks you might also be interested interact on social media today as or page or brand the thumbs-up. in. Let’s say you like a story about it is a definition of pop art. It may seem like an insignificant cows that you see on the Modern gesture to you, but the fortunes Farmer website. Facebook will Warhol: Everybody looks alike of ad agencies, media empires, immediately present you with and acts alike, and we’re getting and even Facebook itself hang three more like-ready options more and more that way. I think on your every click. Liking is an below that cow story: “related everybody should be a machine. economic act. links,” in Facebook parlance. Prob- I think everybody should like This summer, I decided to be ably more stories about cows. everybody. Facebook’s perfect user and like ARTnews: Is that what pop art everything I saw. For 48 hours, I is all about? liked literally everything Face- Warhol: Yes. It’s liking things. book sent my way—the status ARTnews: And liking things is updates, the suggested pages, the like being a machine? ads—even if I hated it. I wanted Warhol: Yes, because you do to see how it would affect what the same thing every time. You Facebook showed me. I wanted do it over and over again. to see how my Facebook experience would change if I constantly This sounds a lot like Facebook, rewarded the robots offering up where the default response is a News Feed content, if I continu- “like.” New job? Like. Toms are ally said, “Good job, robot, I like 10 percent off with free shipping this.” The results, it turned out, today only? Like. Bedbugs? Oh, were rapid and dramatic. I’m so sorry. Like. By putting that binary option on everything it shows us, Facebook encourages The first thing I liked was Liv- us to be really efficient, Warhol- ingSocial, some kind of discount esque liking machines. And service. My friend Jay had liked every like informs Facebook’s it, a fact that was announced at algorithm, which uses that data the top of my feed. Then I liked to feed you more stuff it thinks two status updates from other you will like. By that logic, the friends. So far, so good. But the more you like, the more you will fourth thing I encountered was like, an ever-escalating spiral of something I didn’t really like. I satisfaction. To follow that to its mean, I don’t truly like Living-

logical end, in Facebook’s per- Social, whatever the hell it is, but fect world we would like every- this was different. This fourth thing we see—from our friends’ update was something I actively status updates to news stories to disliked: a bad joke—or at least a ads. If its algorithm truly works dumb one. I liked it anyway.

Related links quickly became When I checked my phone one Feeds were becoming increasingly a problem for my experiment, last time before bed, I saw a con- divergent. On the laptop, while I because as soon as I liked the servative post about Gaza. Ah still saw mostly branded content, four related links below a brand— crap. This was a fraught issue I continued to see the occasional and with brands, they give you that I was not eager to weigh update from my friends. But in four, not three, related links— in on one way or the other. But less than 24 hours my mobile feed Facebook gave me four more. whatever. I hit the Like button, was nearly devoid of human con- And then four more. And then then turned in for the night. tent. I was only presented with the four more. If I kept it up, I’d be By the next morning, the items chance to like ads or stories from stuck in an eternal loop of related in my News Feed had moved various websites. On that little

links. So I made a rule: I would very, very far to the right. I was bitty screen, where real estate is like the first four, but no more. offered the chance to like the Sec- so valuable, Facebook’s robots Sometimes liking was awk- ond Amendment and some sort decided that the way to keep my ward. My friend Hillary posted of anti-immigrant page. I liked attention was by hiding the peo- a picture of her toddler, Pearl, them both. I liked Ted Cruz. I liked ple and showing me only what with bruises on her face. It was Rick Perry. The Conservative Tri- other machines had pumped out. titled “Pearl versus the con- bune came up again and again and crete.” I didn’t like it at all! It again in my News Feed. I got to was sad. Normally this was the learn its very particular syntax: As day one rolled into day two, kind of News Feed item that I began to dread dropping in on would compel me to leave a Facebook. It had become a temple comment, instead of hitting a of provocation. My News Feed had button. Oh well. Like. The only not only drifted further and fur- time I declined to like something ther right, it had oddly also drifted was when a friend posted about further and further left—a digest the death of a relative. I had just A sentence of bipartisan extremism. What recounting experienced a death in my own began as scattershot likes of ran- some contro- family, and I wasn’t about to dom stories had snowballed into versial news. make someone else’s grief part Good! rigid ideology. Leftie posts from of my experiment. Rachel Maddow, Raw Story, and But there was still plenty to A sentence Daily Kos were interspersed with like. I liked one of my cousin’s explaining items that were so right-wing that updates, which he had reshared why this I was afraid liking them would from Joe Kennedy, and was sub- is good. land me on a watch list. sequently besieged with Ken- This is a problem much bigger nedys to like (plus a Clinton and a An implied than Facebook. It reminded me of Shriver). I liked Hootsuite. I liked call to action, how we often talk at each other The New York Times, I liked Cou- posing as a instead of to each other. We set pon Clipinista. I liked something question. up our political and social filter from a friend I haven’t spoken to bubbles and they reinforce them- in 20 years—something about selves. Our media diets become her kid, camp, and a snake. I liked hyperniche feeds that cater to Amazon. I fucking liked Kohl’s. our specific prejudices and never In a surprisingly short amount give us any other perspective. of time my News Feed took on We go down rabbit holes of spe- an entirely new character. After cial interests until we’re lost about an hour, there were no in the queen’s garden, cursing human beings in my feed any- everyone aboveground. more. It became about brands and Worse than the fractious politi- messaging rather than humans Once I saw this pattern, I started cal tone my feed took on was how with messages. For all the talk noticing it everywhere. And it deeply stupid it became. I was about Facebook as a social net- wasn’t just employed by upstart given the chance to like a Buzz- work, this was a stark reminder publications you’ve maybe never Feed post of some guy dancing, that it ultimately exists to get me heard of. SFGate, the San Fran- and another that asked “Which to click on ads. cisco Chronicle’s website, uses Titanic Character Are You?” A Likewise, content mills rose a similar tactic. It is a very spe- third BuzzFeed post informed to the top. Upworthy and the cific form of Facebook messaging, me that “Katy Perry’s Backup Huffington Post owned nearly designed to get you to engage by Dancer Is the Man Candy You my entire feed. That first night first being provocative and then Deserve.” (Thanks?) According as I scrolled through my News giving you a question at the end to New York magazine, I am “offi- Feed, the updates I saw were (in that encourages you to interact. cially old” because Malia Obama Y T T order): Huffington Post, Upwor- And if you take the bait—if you went to Lollapalooza (like!), and E G Y B thy, Huffington Post, Upworthy, a hit Like—you’ll be shown even CNN helpfully offered “Hus- S Levi’s ad, Space.com, Huffington more from that publisher, and band Explores His Man-ternal O T O Post, Upworthy, the Verge, Huff - more, and more, ad nauseam. Instincts” alongside a photo of H P ington Post, Space.com, Upwor- I was also weirded out to see a shirtless man cupping his nip- L L 1 3 7 A thy, Space.com. that my laptop and mobile News CONTINUED ON PAGE 146

TWO GAMBLERS FOUND A KING-SIZE BUG IN VIDEO POKER. IT WAS THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED TO THEM. BY KEVIN POULSEN

Michael Friberg

earned him enough Player’s Club points to pay for his own Game King to play at his home on the outskirts of Vegas, along with technicians to service it. (The machine was just for fun—it didn’t pay jackpots.) “He’s played more than anyone else in the United States,” says his lawyer, Andrew Leavitt. “I’m not exaggerating or embellishing. It’s an addiction.” To understand video poker addiction, you have to start with the deceptively simple appeal of the game. You put some money in the machine, place a bet of one to five credits, and the computer deals you a poker hand. Select the cards you want to keep, slap the Draw button, and the machine replaces the discards. Your final hand determines the payout. When the first video poker machine hit casinos in the 1970s, it was a phenomenal success—gamblers loved that they could make decisions that affected the outcome instead of just pulling a handle and watching the reels spin. The patent holder started a company called International Game Technology that debuted on the Nasdaq in 1981. IGT’s key insight was to tap into the vast flexibility offered by computerized gambling. In 1996, the company perfected its formula with the Game King Multi-Game, which allowed players to choose from several variations on video poker. Casinos snatched up the Game King, and IGT sold them regular firmware upgrades that added still more games to the menu. On September 25, 2002, the company released its fifth major revision—Game King 5.0. Its marketing material was triumphal: “Full of new enhancements, including state-of-the- art video graphics and enhanced stereo sound, the Game King 5.0 Multi-Game suite is sure to rule over your entire casino floor with unprecedented magnificence!” But the new Game King code had one feature that wasn’t in the brochure—a series of subtle errors in program number G0001640 that

evaded laboratory testing and source code review. EVEN BEFORE the phone rang in his suburban Pittsburgh The bug survived like a cockroach for the next seven years. home, Andre Nestor had a gut feeling that everything was It passed into new revisions, one after another, ultimately about to change for him. Superstitious and prone to hunches, infecting 99 diﬀerent programs installed in thousands of he’d felt it coming for days: April 30, 2009, would be exactly IGT machines around the world. As far as anyone knows, 15 years since Nestor ignored an urge to play a set of num- it went completely undetected until late April 2009, when bers that came up in the Pennsylvania lottery Big 4. John Kane was playing at a row of four low-limit Game Kings That was the story of his life—always playing the right outside the entrance to a Chinese fast food joint at the Fre- numbers at the wrong time. Games of chance had been court-

mont, smoke swirling around him and ’90s pop music rain- ing and betraying Nestor since he was old enough to gamble. T N E ing down from the casino sound system. In 2001 he’d moved to Las Vegas to be closer to the action, M T R A He’d been switching between game variations and rack- answering phones for a bank during the day and wagering P E D ing up a modest payout. But when he hit the Cash Out but- his meager paycheck at night. That’s when he met John Kane E C I L ton to take his money to another machine, the candle lit at in an AOL chatroom for Vegas locals. Though Nestor was 13 O P N the top of the Game King and the screen locked up with a years younger than Kane and perpetually flirting with pov- A T I L jackpot worth more than $1,000. Kane hadn’t even played a erty, they developed an intense addicts’ friendship. O P O R new hand, so he knew there was a mistake. He told a casino Nestor’s records show he lost about $20,000 a year for T E M attendant about the error, but the worker thought he was six years before he gave up, said good-bye to Kane, and S A G joking and gave him the money anyway. moved back to the sleepy Pittsburgh suburb of Swissvale, E V S At that point, Kane could have forgotten the whole thing. Pennsylvania, in 2007. For about two years he had a sta- A L Y S Instead, he called a friend and embarked on the biggest ble life, living off public assistance, gambling infrequently, E T U R gamble of his life. and playing the occasional lottery ticket. Then Kane called O C to tell him about a bug he’d found in video poker. Nestor T O H Contributing editor KEVIN POULSEN (@kpoulsen) wrote drove to the airport that night and camped there until the S G U about hacking OkCupid in issue 22.02. next available flight to Las Vegas. M

Kane picked him up at the curb at McCarran airport. After their surprise, the button sequence didn’t work. Over the a quick breakfast, they drove to the Fremont, took adjacent following days, they explored the Hilton, the Cannery, then seats at two Game Kings, and went to work. Kane had some the Stratosphere, Terrible’s, the Hard Rock, the Tropicana, idea of how the glitch operated but hadn’t been able to reli- 0 the Luxor, and five other casinos, drawing the same dismal ably reproduce it. Working together, the two men began 0 results everywhere. For some reason, the Game King glitch trying different combinations of play, game types, and bet 5 was only present at the Fremont. levels, sounding out the bug like bats in the dark. At the end of a frustrating week, Nestor headed to the air- It turned out the Game King’s endless versatility was also port for his return flight with just $8,000 in winnings. As its fatal flaw. In addition to different game variants, the a final insult, he lost $700 in a video poker machine while machine lets you choose the base level of your wagers: At I S waiting for his plane. the low-limit Fremont machines, you could select six dif- Kane decided to wring what he could from the four Fre- ferent denomination levels, from 1 cent to 50 cents a credit. H mont machines. He learned to speed up the process by using The key to the glitch was that under just the right circum- the Game King’s Double Up feature, which gave players a stances, you could switch denomination levels retroactively. S chance to double their winnings or lose everything. Respect- That meant you could play at 1 cent per credit for hours, A able payouts that might once have satisfied Kane were gar- losing pocket change, until you finally got a good hand— bage now. After five weeks using the new strategy, Kane had like four aces or a royal flush. Then you could change to F 50 D pocketed more than $100,000 from the Fremont. cents a credit and fool the machine into re-awarding your O E Unsurprisingly, the Fremont noticed. In modern casinos, payout at the new, higher denomination. E H every slot machine in the house is wired to a central server, Performing that trick consistently wasn’t easy—it involved C where statistical deviations stick out like a fifth ace. The four a complicated misdirection that left the Game King’s inter- C .machines under the Chinese food sign shot to the top of the T nal variables in a state of confusion. But after seven hours N TFremont’s “loser list” of underperforming games: They’d rooted to their seats, Kane and Nestor boiled it down to E a A Ogone from providing the casino a reliable $14,500 a month step-by-step recipe that would work every time. U W Pto costing it $75,000 in May alone. Nestor and Kane each rang up a few jackpots, then broke KOn May 25, a slot manager approached Kane after one for a celebratory dinner, at which they planned their next Q D of his wins and announced that he was disabling the Dou- move. They would have to expand beyond the Fremont E N Cble Up feature on all of the Game Kings—he was aware that before the casino noticed how much they were winnin Sg. A AKane used the option copiously, and he figured it must have Fortunately, Game Kings are ubiquitous in Vegas, installed J something to do with his run of luck. everywhere from the corner 7-Eleven to the toniest luxury C Kane took the development in stride: The bug, not the casino. They mapped out their campaign and then headed I , 0Double Up, was the real secret of his success. But he was back to Kane’s home for the night. T in for a shock. The next time he played the Game King, the G 0 Kane lived in a spacious house at the far northeast edge of U magic button sequence no longer worked. In an instant, the town. His Game King was in the foyer. A spare bedroom down A 0Fremont was no better than all the other casinos that had O , the hall was devoted entirely to a model train set, an elabo- M 0been immune to the glitch. rate, detailed miniature with tracks snaking and climbing H He phoned Nestor, who processed the news. With the through model towns, up hills, across bridges, and through E 1Double Up option turned on, the bug worked; turned off, it tunnels, every detail perfect. The home’s centerpiece was the S didn’t. Whatever internal stew of code made the Game King living room with its three Steinway grand pianos. Kane T H is a A exploitable, Nestor concluded, the Double Up option had been virtuoso pianist; in the early 1980s he was a leading dance C Aa key ingredient the whole time. They just hadn’t known it. accompanist in the Chicago area, and even today he sells This wasn’t bad news at all. It was the missing link. It recordings under the vanity label Keynote Records. He Dleft Eexplained why the bug had failed them everywhere but at the professional music world only after failing to advance E T Mthe Fremont. Most casinos don’t enable Double Up because in the prestigious Van Cliburn International Piano Compe- P I Ait’s unpopular with players. But that could easily be changed. tition. Now he ran a management consulting practice that P H CHigh rollers and slot aficionados often have favorite game claimed one-third of the Fortune 100 as clients. A Evariants or features that aren’t available by default but can Kane’s business was lucrative, so he was accustomed T , Bbe enabled by any passing slot attendant. to handling money. But now that they were on the verge S Nestor purchased two dress shirts and caught another of a windfall, he was worried about Nestor; he could see flight to Las Vegas, where he joined Kane at Harrah’s. Row his younger friend returning every cent to the casinos R at N Tafter row of Game Kings were waiting, and, true to the plan, the roulette tables or blowing it all on frivolities. “If you O O Uthe staff didn’t hesitate when Kane and Nestor asked for had a million dollars, what 10 things would you do?” Kane T T ODouble Up to be enabled. asked him. He wanted Nestor to make a list and really think Nestor got the first significant winning hand of the trip: through his priorities. S T Yfour fours and a kicker for $500. He tapped the magic Nestor started a list, but it would prove unnecessary. E U Asequence, hit Cash Out, and watched with delight as his $500 After another day at the Fremont, they branched out. N To B Pbecame a $10,000 jackpot. He tipped the slot attendant $20.

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T H E R E W E R E no limits now. They could play and continuing to argue over the split. anywhere and beat the house wherever they Nestor was now of the opinion that he went. Nestor, who’d been scraping by on a . shouldn’t have to pay Kane anything. It $1,000-a-month welfare check, saw a whole new D was Nestor, after all, who’d figured out future unfolding: home ownership, an investment account, I that the Double Up feature was part of security, better clothes, and gifts for his friends back home. A the bug. That should make them square. For his part, Kane was already well on his way to erasing S “This was my gift to you,” Kane shot the massive losses he’d suffered since moving to Sin City. back testily. “If you’d found this bug Working as a team had its advantages. While experiment- instead of me, you would never have ing with the bug, they discovered that they could trigger a H E told me about it.” jackpot on the same hand more than once: All they had to The accusation stung. Nestor gaped do was lower the denomination again and repeat the steps at his friend, then he stood and walked to activate the glitch. They could effectively replay their , away from the machine. win over and over, as much as they wanted. It was a risky S The next day Nestor nursed his hurt play—even the busiest casino might notice the same player O feelings with a solo trip to the Rio. He repeatedly winning with the same hand. But now that they N found a Game King displaying four were playing together, Kane and Nestor could ride on each aces and a kicker and hit it for $5,600. other’s jackpots. Nestor won $4,000 with four aces; then, E I Then he wandered into the high-limit after waiting a bit, Kane slid over to the same machine and N S room and found another four aces. He replayed the hand for another $4,000. A A punched this one twice: $20,000 at a They could even piggyback on other players’ wins. K No C $5 denomination, then, after a decent longer confined to four low-limit slots at a single casino, interval, $8,000 at the $2 level. Nestor’s they prowled the floor at Harrah’s looking for empt Ty E .records show that he eventually left the machines still showing a player’s jackpot. Once they Egot H Scasino with about $34,000 in his pock- an attendant to turn on Double Up, it took only seconds to T Oets. He didn’t need Kane at all. “There replay the hand at up to 10 times the original value. Video S was so much money to be made, what poker wasn’t even gambling anymore. “You had complete P Ndid it even matter?” he says. F I control over how much you could win,” Nestor says. U “If O On his last day in Vegas, Nestor contin- you wanted to go to a casino and win $500,000 in one day, S ued his solo run, hitting a Game King at you could win $500,000 in one day.” N T Athe Wynn for a combined $61,000. Back At the end of the evening, Nestor says they went to Ahis U Cin his room at Bill’s, he added up his win- cheap hotel room at Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall and Saloon to set- nings: He was going home with $152,250 tle up. As the benefactor of Kane’s discovery, Nestor had , O in cash in his luggage. And he wasn’t done L E agreed to give his old friend half his winnings. But now Hyet. There were casinos in Pennsylvania, that the cash was rolling in, he was having second thoughts I Y too, where he could operate without the T about the arrangement. A A slightest risk of Kane knowing what he Every jackpot, he realized, was being reported to Jthe T was up to—or demanding a cut up front. IRS, and he’d already won enough from the bug to propel OAfter Nestor left, Kane tore into Vegas him into a higher tax bracket. If he paid half to Kane off Nthe S T with a vengeance. Official numbers have top, he might wind up without the reserves to pay his I tax never been released, and Kane declined to speak for this debt come April of the following year. He broached the . Karticle, but the FBI would later tally Kane’s winnings at subject with Kane: He’d be more comfortable holding T on R Cmore than $500,000 from eight different casinos. The to the money until his taxes were paid. It was just a year. H O AWynn, where Kane kept four nines on one Game King for He’d happily give Kane half of his post-tax winnings then. T Bdays, was the biggest loser at $225,240. Kane was indignant but not surprised; leave it to Nestor G Back in Pennsylvania, Nestor targeted the newly opened S to turn even free money into a problem to obsess over. I He casino at the Meadows Racetrack in Washington County. E O insisted Nestor honor his agreement, and Nestor grew more N GIn contrast to Kane, who played the bug with joyless, busi- agitated, his voice rising in pitch. “What am I doing? Why nesslike intensity, Nestor was voluble and chatty at the N am I even doing this?” he complained. “I’m not winning Aany Meadows. He dressed smartly and, according to court doc- D T money doing this if I’m giving you all this up front.” Ouments, brought along a small entourage for company: his Kane finally agreed to accept a third of Nestor’s $20,000 R E roommate, a retired cop named Kerry Laverde; and Patrick take for the day. Nestor says he counted out $6,000 in hun E- L NLoushil, a server at Red Lobster who agreed to collect some dreds onto an end table, and Kane said good night. of Nestor’s jackpots for him, so they wouldn’t all show up on The tension between the men lingered the next day T at L ONestor’s tax bill. Nestor hammed it up every time he won, the Wynn, a towering upscale supercasino with more than F A Dgushing excitedly to the slot workers—“I’m so excited! Here, 1,300 slots. They played side by side, raking in money A C feel my heart!”—and tipping generously.

BU T IT ALL began to unravel the night Kane found himself waiting for a payout at the Silverton. The casino’s head of security stood just outside the slot area. Kane paced and huffed, spun the swivel chair back and forth like a metronome, and complained to passing slot attendants. Finally, three men strode up to him. The head of security directed Kane to an alcove, handcuffed him, and escorted him away from the video poker machines. An armed agent from the Gaming Control Board arrived soon after. He sealed the machines Kane had been playing on with orange evidence tape and collected Kane from the back room, where he’d been handcuffed to a chair. Kane’s wallet and the $27,000 in his pocket were confis- cated, and he was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on suspicion of theft. After a night in jail, Kane was released. On Mon- day he called Nestor to warn him that the bug had been discovered. He sounded more upset than Nestor had ever heard him. “Stay out of the casinos,” Kane said. “Do not go back to the casinos.” Nestor’s heart sank for his old friend. It was painful to imagine Kane suffering the indignity of a night in jail, mug shots, fingerprints, being treated like a common criminal. But after the call, Nestor talked himself into an alternate theory. What if there’d been no arrest? What if Kane suspected—as he must have—that Nestor was using the bug and had made up the story about the Silverton to scare Nestor into stopping, so Kane could have the exploit all to himself? By this time Nestor had been back in Pennsylva- nia three weeks and had already won nearly $50,000 from the Meadow’s Game King. He decided to ignore Kane’s story and started planning his next trip to the Meadows.

” . e e u 0 y t r o 0 a THREE DAYS LATER, in Las Vegas, engineers from l e d Y d p n “ 0 , A . e m s 0 n the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s Technology o l ” , y 0 o c a 5 o s $ n d t r r i Division descended on the Silverton. The foren- a o n n t i h o s w u c e sics investigation of the Game King scam had o l d Y N u “ o c fallen to John Lastusky, a 25-year-old clean-cut USC computer engineering graduate. Lastusky pulled up the game history on the two machines Kane had played and reviewed the wins, then slid out the logic trays, the metal shelves housing the Game King’s electronic guts, and checked the six EPROMs containing the machines’ core logic, graphics, and sound routines. There was no sign of tampering. He conﬁscated the logic trays and packed them up for the trip back to headquarters. Housed in an anonymous oﬃce park near the airport, the GCB’s Technology Division was formed in the mid-1980s to police video gambling as it began its Nevada ascent. The division helps set the rigorous standards that gamemakers

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like IGT must meet to deploy machines in the Silver State. A 3,000-square-foot laboratory at the back of the office is packed end to end with slot machines in various states of undress—some powered down, some in maintenance mode, others stripped to their bare electronics, though most are configured as they would be on a gaming floor. A smaller, locked-down room adjacent to the lab is more important: It houses a permanent repository of the source and executable code for every version of game software ever approved in Nevada—more than 30,000 programs in all. The code vault is at the center of the gaming board’s massive software integrity operation. Every new addition is care- fully examined: Is the random number generator random enough? Does the game pay out at the advertised rate? Is there logic where there shouldn’t be? “We’re not necessarily looking for something nefarious, but the goal is to ensure the integrity of the product,” says division chief Jim Barbee. There’s a real, if mostly unrealized, danger of gaming software being backdoored. The concept was proven in 1995, when one of the GCB’s own staffers, Ron Harris, went bad. Harris modified his testing unit to covertly reprogram the EPROMs on the machines he was auditing. His new software commanded the machine to trigger a jackpot upon a particular sequence of button presses—like a Konami Code for cash. He was eventually caught, and he served two years in prison. That stain on the board’s integrity haunts the division to this day. But by all evidence, the division’s paranoia, cou- pled with the game industry’s self-interest, have kept video gambling code clean and mostly free of exploitable bugs. has a security bug, customers can download the patch in a That made the Game King case an intriguing puzzle for Las- few minutes over the Internet. Slot machines aren’t online. tusky. Armed with the surveillance footage of Kane in action, New programs are burned onto EPROMs by the manufac- Lastusky sat at one of the Game Kings in the lab and began turer and shipped in the mail in plastic tubes. experimenting. Within a few days he was able to reliably Blind to the firestorm erupting in Vegas, Nestor spent reproduce the exploit himself. He gave his findings to IGT, the rest of July and most of August playing at the Mead- which rushed out a warning to its customers advising them ows, until August 31, when the casino finally got suspicious to immediately disable the Double Up option. “Replacement and refused to pay Nestor on a four of a kind. Nestor pro- programs are being expedited,” the company explained. tested but walked away, breaking into a run as he reached Every Game King on the planet running a vulnerable ver- the parking garage. sion would need a patch. The upgrade process would be Nestor was up more than $480,000. The Game King ride grueling. When an operating system like Windows or OS X was over, but he had enough money to last him forever.

The “Double Up HOW bug” lurking in the software of Game THEY King video poker machines survived BEAT undetected for nearly seven years, THE in part because the steps to reproduce 1. Locate a Game 2. Flag down a slot 3. Insert money or a 4. Choose your favorite HOUSE it were so complex. King video poker attendant and ask them voucher and select the game variant—Triple machine conﬁgured to enable the Double lowest denomination Double Bonus Poker is John Kane and for multi-denomina- Up option. Say thank level oﬀered by the fun—and start playing. Andre Nestor exper- tion play. If you’re you and smile until they machine—for example, imented until in Las Vegas, you’re walk away. $1 per credit on a $1, they could trigger probably already $2, $5, $10 machine. it at will. —K.P. standing next to one.

BRATISLAV MILENKOVIC

AT 1 :3 0 P M on October 6, 2009, a dozen state and local police The Las Vegas prosecutors charged Nestor and Kane converged on Andre Nestor’s split-level condo on a quiet, with conspiracy and violations of the Computer Fraud and tree-lined street in Swissvale. He was dozing on his living T Abuse Act. Passed in 1986, the CFAA was enacted to punish room couch when the banging started. “State police! Open A hackers who remotely crack computers related to national up!” The battering ram hit the door seconds later, splinter- defense or banking. But in the Internet age the government ing the frame and admitting a flood of cops into the house. 5 had been steadily testing the limits of the law in cases that Nestor says he started toward the stairs, his hands over didn’t involve computer intrusion in the usual sense. Kane his head, when he came face-to-face with a trooper in full 1 and Nestor, the government argued, exceeded their other- riot gear. “Get on the floor!” yelled the trooper, leveling his - wise lawful access to the Game King when they knowingly AR-15 at Nestor’s face. Nestor complied. The cop ratcheted R exploited a bug. The casinos only authorized gamers to play the handcuffs on Nestor’s wrists, yanked him to his feet, and A by the rules of video poker. “To allow customers to access marched him into the kitchen. previously played hands of cards at will, would remove the For the next two hours, Nestor watched helplessly, hand- D S element of chance and obviate the whole purpose of gam- cuffed to a kitchen chair, while the police ransacked his neat E I bling,” assistant US attorney for the District of Nevada home. They flipped over his mattress, ripped insulation from L H Michael Chu argued in a court filing. “It would certainly his ceiling, rifled his PC. At about 4 pm, Nestor’s roommate, be contrary to the rules of poker.” Laverde, arrived home and was arrested on the spot as L an The defense attorneys pushed for dismissal of the com- E G accomplice to Nestor’s crimes. N puter hacking charge, on the grounds that anything the It was the first major gambling scandal in Pennsylvania since Y Game King allowed players to do through its interface the state had legalized slots in 2004. The media portrayed I was “authorized access” by definition: The whole point Nestor as a real-life Danny Ocean, and prosecutors hit him ! L of playing slots is to beat the machine, and it’s up to the with 698 felony counts, ranging from theft to criminal con- R E computer to set and enforce limits. “All these guys did is spiracy. The district attorney seized every penny of Nestor’s V simply push a sequence of buttons that they were legally winnings and gave it back to the Meadows. Nestor and Laverde entitled to push,” says Leavitt, Kane’s attorney. spent about 10 days in the county jail before making bail. O E The pretrial motions dragged on for more than 18 months, L . A defiant Nestor vowed to fight the case—no jury woul Ld Ewhile in the larger legal landscape, the CFAA was going convict a gambler, he was certain, for beating a slot machine F , under a microscope for the first time since its passage. at its own game. But on January 3, 2011, when it was time CIn January 2013, coder and activist Aaron Swartz com- R A for jury selection, Nestor was hit with another surprise. E E mitted suicide after being charged under the same law Two FBI agents showed up and pulled him from the Wash H- P Ffor bulk-downloading academic articles without permis- ington County courthouse. The Justice Department ha Td sion, spurring calls for reform. Three months later, the US taken over the case. Nestor and Kane had both been charged O SNinth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out computer hacking , federally in Las Vegas. N O Rcharges in a closely watched case against David Nosal, a As the agents walked him to their car, Nestor stopped R former executive at a corporate recruiting firm who per- in front of a television camera and let loose. “I’m being O Osuaded three employees to leak him information from the T arrested federally now—for winning at a slot machine!” T he T firm’s lead database. The Ninth Circuit found that pilfering shouted in disbelief. “This is what they do to people! They E Scontacts doesn’t become computer hacking just because put a machine on the floor, and if it has programming that E the data came from a computer instead of a copy machine. doesn’t take your money and you win on their machine, G H ESeeing parallels to the Game King prosecution, the judge they will throw you in jail!” T Noverseeing Kane and Nestor’s case CONTINUED ON PAGE 146

5. Keep playing at the 6. With your royal flush 7. Insert more 8. Touch the More 9. Press the Cash Out 10. Wait for the slot $1 level until you win showing but not money or a voucher Games button again, button. “Jackpot! attendant to show up a big hand. An $800 yet cashed out, hit the into the machine. and change to the $8,000” will appear with an IRS form royal flush is perfect. More Games button maximum denomina- on the screen and W-2G (“certain gam- on the touchscreen and tion—in this case, the light on the bling winnings”). Once select a different $10 per credit. Then top of the machine you’ve signed it, they’ll game variation. Play it return to your original will illuminate. get the machine to spit until you score a win. $800 royal flush. Congratulations! out a jackpot ticket.

1 4 5

COLOPHON

GAMBLES THAT HELPED GET THIS ISSUE OUT:

Ordering fish at the Third Street Shell station taco truck; taking the 405 at rush hour; four summer camps in 10 weeks; messaging a 13-year-old Minecraft fanfic writer on Wattpad; that horse at the Sonoma County Fair; the Gumptions; getting married; asking for a refund on duck legs (I was charged for breasts!); Facebook No Limit going for the high B-flat in Brahms’ Ger- man Requiem; Legoland’s Chima water CONTINUED FROM PAGE 137 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 145 park; eating pinkish pork; waiting until after the Vegas business trip to learn how to file expenses. ples. “A cloud that looks like a penis.” “Stop ordered the government to justify the hack- WIRED is a registered trademark of what you’re doing and look at this baby who ing charge. The prosecutors didn’t even try, Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. Copy- looks exactly like Jay Z.” My feed was show- opting instead to drop the charge—leaving right ©2014 Condé Nast. All rights ing almost exclusively the worst kind of media only an ill-fitting “conspiracy to commit wire reserved. Printed in the USA. Volume 22, No. 10. WIRED (ISSN 1059–1028) is pub- tripe. Garbage. I liked it all. fraud” count remaining. lished monthly by Condé Nast, which is While I expected that what I saw in my News Prosecutors had a weak hand, and they knew a division of Advance Magazine Publish- Feed might change, I never expected for my it. As a December 3, 2013, trial date approached, ers Inc. Editorial office: 520 Third Street, Ste. 305, San Francisco, CA 94107-1815. behavior to have an impact on my friends’ the Feds made Kane and Nestor separate but Principal office: The Condé Nast Build- experiences. I heard about it immediately. identical offers: The first one to agree to testify ing, 4 Times Square, New York, NY 10036. That first night, my friend John sent me a against the other would walk away with five S. I. Newhouse, Jr., Chairman; Charles H. message. “Have you been hacked?” Nope. I’m years of probation and no jail time. Townsend, CEO; Robert A. Sauerberg, Jr., President; David E. Geithner, CFO; Louis just really into Kohl’s now. The next morning, The old gambling buddies had one more game Cona, Chief Marketing Officer; Jill Bright, another friend sent a note. “My fb feed is liter- to play together. It was the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Chief Administrative Officer. Periodicals ally full of articles you like, it’s kind of funny,” Without speaking, they both arrived at the postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post Pub- she complained. “No friend stuff, just Honan optimal strategy: They refused the offer. A few lications Mail Agreement No. 40644503. likes.” I replied with a thumbs-up. This con- months later, the Justice Department dropped Canadian Goods and Services Tax tinued throughout the experiment. When I the last of the charges, and they were free. Registration No. 123242885 RT0001. Canada Post: Return undeliverable Cana- posted a status update to Facebook just say- dian addresses to PO Box 874, Station ing “I like you,” I heard from numerous people KANE AND NESTOR haven’t spoken since 2009. Main, Markham, ON L3P 8L4.

that my weirdo activity had been overrun- After his Silverton arrest, Kane began record- POSTMASTER: Send address changes ning their normal flow of baby pictures and ing classical music in his house and upload- to WIRED, PO Box 37706, Boone, IA ice-bucket videos. ing the videos to a YouTube channel. Last 50037–0662. For subscriptions, address changes, adjustments, or back issue Facebook’s response to this, essentially, is March, after the federal case was dropped, inquiries: Please write to WIRED, PO Box that the News Feed performed as it should he sent a CD of some of his performances to 37706, Boone, IA 50037–0662, call have. I was liking all kinds of updates and his high school piano teacher. “I’m essentially (800) 769 4733, or email subscriptions@ WIRED.com. Please give both new and pages from brands that I normally wouldn’t now retired from a career in business, have old addresses as printed on most recent have, so of course it showed me even more of remained single, leading a quiet suburban label. First copy of new subscription will be them. “Your News Feed is what you make it,” a life,” he wrote. mailed within eight weeks after receipt of order. Address all editorial, business, and Facebook spokesperson explained in an email. Nestor’s greatest regret is that he let the production correspondence to WIRED “You connected with over 1,000 new pages in 48 Game King bug come between him and Kane. magazine, 4 Times Square, New York, hours, and your News Feed changed to show “I didn’t want it to go that far,” he says. “I NY 10036. For permissions and reprint requests, please call (212) 630 5656 or you mostly page content, triggered by these thought he and I were friends long enough fax requests to (212) 630 5883. Visit us new connections. If you had made 1,000 new that these kinds of issues didn’t need to hap- online at www.WIRED.com. To subscribe to friends in 48 hours, your News Feed would be pen.” He claims he always intended to pay other Condé Nast magazines on the web, mostly new-friend content.” Kane his cut from the secret jackpots. Now visit www.condenet.com. Occasionally, we make our subscriber list available to care- Maybe so. And it does speak to how remark- he can’t. His roommate, Laverde, signed over fully screened companies that offer prod- ably adaptive the News Feed is. But the thing Nestor’s money in exchange for avoiding ucts and services that we believe would is, I was also liking every update I saw, from a trial of his own. (There are no court fil- interest our readers. If you do not want to receive these offers and/or information, every one of my friends, even the ones I did not ings to suggest that Kane’s winnings were please advise us at PO Box 37706, Boone, normally interact with. Yet in just a day, those seized.) Nestor says the Meadows still has IA 50037-0662, or call (800) 769 4733. updates from actual human beings largely van- his winnings, and the IRS is chasing him for WIRED is not responsible for the return ished. Maybe that’s because Facebook rewards $239,861.04 in back taxes, interest, and pen- or loss of, or for damage or any other injury volume over substance. The more content alties—money he doesn’t have. to, unsolicited manuscripts, unsolicited artwork (including, but not limited to, draw- something churned out, the more likely I was If there’s one silver lining, it’s that Nestor ings, photographs, and transparencies), to see it and the more likely I was to interact has been banned from Pennsylvania casinos. or any other unsolicited materials. Those with it, which meant the more likely I was to He still gambles occasionally in neighboring submitting manuscripts, photographs, artwork, or other materials for consid- see more of the same. That meant that pub- states, but his more pressing addiction right eration should not send originals, unless lishers and advertisers won out. now is Candy Crush, which he plays on a cheap specifically requested to do so by WI RE D It also meant that, by liking everything, I Android tablet. He cleared 515 levels in two in writing. Manuscripts, photographs, artwork, and other materials submitted must turned Facebook into a place where there months, using a trick he found on the Internet be accompanied by a self-addressed, was nothing I liked.  to get extra lives without paying.  stamped envelope.

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