The New Republic

Zoom

The Story Behind Curiosity’s Twitter Feed

Early Monday morning, NASA’s half-ton, nuclear powered Curiosity rover touched down on the surface of Mars. Minutes later, the rover tweeted, “GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!!” The Robot’s outburst prompted a retort from Stephen Colbert. “I don’t know who this Gale is, but gentlemen don’t kiss and tell,” he admonished on his Tuesday show. But Colbert had his facts wrong—Curiosity is no gentleman.

I discovered as much when I contacted NASA to find out who exactly is responsible for Curiosity’s sassy and flamboyant personality on Twitter, which has already managed to attract 900,000 followers. “She’s a robot with cameras, a drill, and a rock-vaporizing laser, powered by plutonium 238,” Veronica McGregor, Media Manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told me. “She’s the biggest, baddest rover we’ve ever had, and she knows it. She’s got confidence.”

Benjamin Soloway — “Poet Laureates of Mars: Meet the NASA Team Behind Curiosity’s Twitter”

Zoom

Is the Romney-Rosen Twitter war emblematic of the direction our political discourse is headed?

“The Democrats are crying foul—Rosen’s connection to Obama is being wildly overstated, for one thing. And for another thing, her offending comment—that Ann “hasn’t worked a day in her life”—was, let’s face it, an attempt (however poorly phrased) to tap into the Democrats’ class argument against Romney, rather than a straight attack on stay at home moms. What offends liberals like Rosen is not that Mitt Romney is invoking a stay-at-home mom as his source of wisdom on women’s economic concerns, but that he is turning to a stay-at-home mom who, while presiding over the zoo that a five-boy household surely was, was also not facing, from early in her home-making role (long before she obtained her two Cadillacs and a stable-full of horses), a whole swath of the pressures and anxieties faced by most women, employed outside of the home or not.”

- Alec MacGillis, My True Outrage About False Umbrage

Photo courtesy of The Blaze

Zoom

How did Jeffrey Toobin keep up the “train wreck” echo chamber?

“There are two ways to explain the early onset of liberal panic over last week’s health care hearings at the Supreme Court. In the first, Solicitor General Don Verrilli turned in an unexpectedly weak performance during last Tuesday’s oral arguments, flubbing tough questions from the court’s skeptical swing votes. In the second, New Yorker writer and CNN legal correspondent Jeffrey Toobin got on television and scared the hell out of all of us.”

- Simon van Zuylen-Wood, Jeffrey Toobin’s Big Week

Photo courtesy of The Charlie Rose Show

Zoom

Rick Perry’s post-debate reflections.

Check out Jonathan Cohn’s latest blog post, “’Oops!’— And Why Romney Should Thank Perry.”

And to survive this year’s endless slog of Republican debates, make sure to follow TNR on Twitter on November 22, 2011 to get minute-by-minute commentary from our expert political correspondants.

Courtesy of @governorperry.

Zoom

TNR Twitter followers, our exclusive Digital Subscription promotion continues!

Follow @TNR, and for a limited time don’t miss out on our exclusive digital-only subscription benefits and other special offers only for our Twitter followers.

As a new TNR Digital Subscriber you’ll receive only the best from America’s finest journal of politics, arts, and contemporary affairs!

Want even more? Join our TNR Society for all of the benefits of a TNR Digital Subscription, plus home delivery, access to The Treasure: TNR Archives (that’s 95+ years of TNR), subscriber-only content, special issues, exclusive insider newsletters, and more!

What’s better than a bobble-headed Rick Perry explaining social media?

In his 2010 campaign, the Texas governor explained the joys of tweeting. Now, with his poll numbers slumping and Perry’s campaign hanging on for dear life, will social media be enough to put him over the top?

Read Stump blogger Alec MacGillis’s insider account of the Perry camp’s recent shake-up, and his assessment of Perry’s 2012 chances.

Video courtesy of RickPerry.org

Zoom

Are you Army Strong?

Photo courtesy of @starsandstripes.

Zoom

Does a cross-cultural study of daily mood rhythms within the average person (conducted via analysis of the Tweets of 2 million people in 84 countries) prove a universal biological rhythm that transcends culture and environment?

Some think not: “Tweets may tell us more about what the tweeter thinks the follower wants to hear than about what the tweeter is actually feeling. In short, tweets are not a simple reflection of a person’s current affective state and should not be taken at face value,” says Dan Gilbert, Harvard Psychologist.

Check out these graphs of Twitter activity worldwide at the New York Times, and decide for yourself!

Photo courtesy of Luc Latulippe

The New Republic

The New Republic

About The New Republic

Stuff I Like

About The New Republic

Connect with me

Stuff I Like

Theme by Pixel Union