I wrote about the new sport – and yeah, it’s a sport – of drone racing for Slate. I headed to World Makerfaire in Queens at the end of September, which was definitely the first time I’ve ever been out to Queens. (It takes a long time when you’re heading in from Brooklyn, as it […]
Category: photography
It’s a Weird World After All – China’s Foreigner Theme Park
It’s a Weird World After All – Roads and Kingdoms “The white form of Christ the Redeemer, standing considerably shorter than his Brazilian counterpart, spun in slow motion atop a yellow pedestal on an orange, artificial mountain. Candy-colored gondolas bobbed gently above the Christ’s outstretched, beseeching arms. A waterslide, painted blue and rimmed with green, […]
Drone Mapping a Mental Hospital with the DJI Phantom 3 Professional
I recently bought a Phantom 3 Professional, operating under the logic that it costs $1200 and is therefore much more economical than a hexacopter. Myself and my partner, Daniel, are working on developing expertise in 3D mapping with a UAV, and I’d been looking for a new model capable of waypoint navigation and shooting high-quality, […]
Buffalo Racing in Cambodia: So Very Majestic
You know it’s a damn good holiday when there’s a chance you might get run over by frightened livestock. At least, that’s how it is in Vihear Sour Cheung village in Ksach Kandal district in the Cambodian countryside. Falling in either late September or fall on the Western calender, Pchum Ben is Cambodia’s Day […]
Flying the Drone at Wat Umong in Chiang Mai
Wat Umong is definitely my favorite temple in Chiang Mai. Set a bit outside of the center of town in a lush forest, the 700-year-old Buddhist temple attracts relatively few tourists and has a delightfully jewel-like, slightly eccentric character – commemorative stupas overgrown with greenery, a curious worship area dug into an underground tunnel, and […]
Anti-Vietnam Protests in Phnom Penh, Cambodia – Oct 6th
Protests against a Vietnamese officials statement about the historical ownership of Kampuchea Krom – what is now Southern Vietnam – continued into a third day on Monday, as members of various groups allied against the Vietnamese presence in Cambodia gathered outside the Vietnamese Embassy on Monivong Boulevard. By my estimation, around 100 people were at […]
Chongqing: River City
Chongqing is not exactly the tourism darling of China. This immense, aggressively vertical city lies in what looks to me like a wholly impractical place – wedged between the confluence of two massive rivers, stacked into the side of regularly shifting cliffs. An industrial and financial powerhouse, Chongqing doesn’t boast pandas, ancient Chinese historical sites, […]
In Defense of Kangding
Kangding does not exactly get a glowing reception in the major guidebooks, which describe this Chinese-Tibetan border city as “uninspiring,” maybe even “boring.” I am here to say that they are wrong, and that I am happy to defend Kangding’s honor – this pleasant little city with crisp mornings, a remarkable vegetable market, and a […]
MakerFaire – Day One
Today, I went to MakerFaire for the first time. A two day event organized by Make Magazine and located at the San Mateo Event Center, MakerFaire is rather like the country fair of your technological dreams. And far more fun than the state fair: this event features Arduino-powered robots, animatronic giant animals, flaming sculptures, and […]