Sam Kornstein

We’ll Meet Again

Posted on December 21, 2014December 21, 2014 by Sam Kornstein in Comedy

Soon after the Colbert Report’s final episode on Thursday night, this lengthy interview from a few months earlier has been making its way around. If you enjoyed The Colbert Report, and are looking forward to Colbert’s late night show, I recommend giving the whole thing a listen. It’s a fascinating view into his process, and the more I hear Colbert out of character, the more intrigued I become about his new show. Here’s the ending song from the final episode with more celebrities than you can count, including Jeff Tweedy, Bill Clinton, and Mandy Patinkin:

2014 in Summary

Posted on December 17, 2014December 16, 2014 by Sam Kornstein in Current Events

From Vox, a well-made recap of 2014:

3D Printed Dogs Legs

Posted on December 16, 2014December 16, 2014 by Sam Kornstein in Dogs, Technology

From TechCrunch, another example of how 3D printing is reducing barriers, making cool things happen:

The Center of People

Posted on October 24, 2014October 23, 2014 by Sam Kornstein in India Food Waste, Photography, Travel

Via Joost Bonsen, whose Development Ventures Class in the MIT Media Lab was among the best course decisions I made in grad school, a graphic that’s trending on reddit showing the world’s population by longitude and latitude: From the graphic alone, I would have guessed this was in northwest India, but after looking up the coordinates, it turns out the center of people is just over the border in Pakistan: Coincidentally, as a direct result of Joost’s course, I ended up conducting some research on food waste in India right by the border, just 100 miles from the above coordinates in Pakistan. Here’s what it looks like:

How Do People Get New Ideas?

Posted on October 23, 2014October 23, 2014 by Sam Kornstein in Ideas

By chance I ended up coming across two pieces of content on the source of creativity today — both were very interesting and seemed worth sharing. The first is an NPR TED Radio Hour episode called ‘The Source of Creativity’ that first aired a couple weeks ago. The second is an essay written by the science fiction writer Issac Asimov in the late 50’s called ‘On Creativity.’ It was actually written for an MIT spin-off company that had a contract with the US government to brainstorm “the most creative approaches possible for a ballistic missile defense system.” The whole piece is interesting, but here’s the start: How do people get new ideas? Presumably, the process of creativity, whatever it is, is essentially

The Tallest Cow in the World

Posted on October 20, 2014October 20, 2014 by Sam Kornstein in Current Events, Nature

6ft, 4in, from Illinois. Nothing else to add:

Slo-Mo Dog Shake

Posted on October 20, 2014October 20, 2014 by Sam Kornstein in Dogs, iPhone Photography, Nature

After filming a bit the other day, I spent some time tonight experimenting with iPhone 6 slow motion video footage and the iOS video editor. I bring you the Slo-Mo Dog Shake: The music is Beck’s ‘Earthquake Weather (maybe)’.

First Impressions of the iPhone 6 Camera: Callahan State Park

Posted on October 18, 2014October 18, 2014 by Sam Kornstein in General, iPhone Photography, Nature, Photography, Technology

I’ve had my iPhone 6 for almost a month now, but hadn’t really tested out the camera in a meaningful way until today. With all the warm weather we’ve had this week, Laura and I decided to head out to Framingham to meet up with my Mom and take Bella for a walk in Callahan State Park. In rained for the first part of the walk, but the sun broke out right around the time we got to Eagle Pond. The light was perfect. I’d read the camera was a big step up from my previous iPhone 5, and after looking at a handful of shots on a big screen, I’m very impressed. The hardware is great, but I also

Uhhhh. Who gave this to you? The King of Sweden.

Posted on October 13, 2014October 13, 2014 by Sam Kornstein in General

I found this to be very funny. Via Chris Blattman, 2011 Nobel Prize winner Brian Schmidt shares his experience taking a Nobel Prize through airport security in Fargo: “When I won this, my grandma, who lives in Fargo, North Dakota, wanted to see it. I was coming around so I decided I’d bring my Nobel Prize. You would think that carrying around a Nobel Prize would be uneventful, and it was uneventful, until I tried to leave Fargo with it, and went through the X-ray machine. I could see they were puzzled. It was in my laptop bag. It’s made of gold, so it absorbs all the X-rays—it’s completely black. And they had never seen anything completely black. “They’re like,

World Away

Posted on October 12, 2014January 8, 2018 by Sam Kornstein in Music

Jeff Tweedy and his son Spencer, who plays the drums, recently released a 20 song album, Sukierae. I just gave it a full listen last week. First reaction: much of it is awesome. I didn’t expect to enjoy it for the drumming, but I found myself extremely impressed with Spencer. Particularly World Away and Diamond Light Pt. 1: Some of that is reminiscent of Bonham. Great rhythms. By about two thirds of the way through though, it seemed as though a handful of songs didn’t need to make the cut. They’re all good, but they simply reminded me of older Wilco or solo Tweedy, or even Mermaid Avenue without the Guthrie lyrics. And while I welcome new material, I’d enjoy the “whole