Matrix Mama

Natalia Antonova
Twitter Goes to Court
Twitter is too easy to make fun of. It’s full of spam, memes that get old in roughly half an hour, and celebrities having spectacular meltdowns.1
Natalia Antonova
The Science (and Horror) of Green Clouds
Last week, Muscovites got treated to a peculiar sight: a huge green cloud over the city. Because I grew up in North Carolina, my immediate thought upon seeing it (I was jogging to the House of Journalists at the time, running late for a film screening) was “tornado.”1
Natalia Antonova
“Who’s paying you?” Russia’s version of Godwin’s Law
Most Internet users are familiar with Godwin’s law - an observation, made all the way back in 1990 by author and lawyer Mike Godwin, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches.”
Natalia Antonova
Chewbacca vs. Russian e-government
In my news story on the Dzhigurda debacle (to re-cap: in a new viral video, a Russian singer clashed with a guy who was trying to skip in line at the notoriously slow and inefficient Federal Migration Service. What the singer failed to realize that for people who register online, using a government portal called Gosuslugi means not having to wait in line. Hilarity ensued. “Chewbacca” was used as an insult.), I focused on the fact that it’s ignorance of what e-government is and how it works that drives such incidents.
Natalia Antonova
The Sad truth Behind YouTube’s “Crazy Babka” Phenomenon
Technology has a way of exposing social problems - and the social problem I want to talk about today is abandoned, mentally ill elderly people.
Natalia Antonova
Instagram comes to Android - and my head explodes
Late in the evening, as I was busy trying to keep a cranky baby happy while simultaneously catching up on the last season of “The Walking Dead” (what do babies have to do with zombies? Well, both are relentless, for a start), the long-awaited e-mail announcement from Instagram arrived.1
Natalia Antonova
Fake geek girls, gender and Russia
I was going to blog about something profound this week, but then this great post on “fake geek girls” by Tara Tiger Brown showed up on Forbes, and I got distracted.
Natalia Antonova
The Thriller Genre and Chernobyl
So Oren Peli, the guy who created the no-frills, seemingly effortless horror hit “Paranormal Activity,” is back as the writer of the “Chernobyl Diaries” - set in Pripyat, Ukraine. Should I be getting all huffy and offended here?
Natalia Antonova
Much Ado About The New iPad
Oh, the iPad3, a.k.a. The New iPad! A wonderful new advance for Apple and a glorious opportunity for... gadget speculators?1
Natalia Antonova
The Science of Pop Music
In Russia, pop stars fire up the crowds at pro-Putin rallies. In most of the cheap and mid-range restaurants, pop music is also pretty inescapable. And as much as people grumble about “popsa” as the Russians call it, does anyone ever stop and wonder why on earth this genre is so pervasive.
Natalia Antonova
Driving in Russia - Explained at Last?
An intriguing study caught my eye this week: according to scientists at UC Berkeley, wealthy people make for bad drivers. According to the Berkeley team of researchers, who observed driver behavior at an intersection in their college town, people behind the wheels of the most expensive cars were four times as likely to break the rules.
Natalia Antonova
The Darkness II - just as creepy as it sounds
It’s been a depressing kind of week, so I want to take some time to talk about a new video game which offers up some impressive new ways of killing people - and by that I mean, of course, “The Darkness II.”
Natalia Antonova
Dying of a Broken Heart - Not Just a Euphemism
I hate Valentine’s Day. This wasn’t always the case - I used to think of it as a good excuse to drink wine and receive useless, pretty gifts - but then I grew up. Now I dread this yearly celebration of the Romance Industrial Complex every year - and am always glad when it’s over.1
Natalia Antonova
The silence of the plants
If you work in Russian media, you treat the phrase “British scientists” as a kind of joke - because there is so much research that’s constantly being attributed to “British scientists” out there that it’s hard to keep track of what’s fact and what’s fiction.
Natalia Antonova
The sad truth about invisibility cloaks
Hurray! Awesome! Way to go! J.K. Rowling has totally predicted the future! We have invisibility cloaks now! Well... sort of.
Natalia Antonova
Spy rock - I am disappoint
As far as intelligence technology goes, Britain’s infamous spy rock remains a bit of a letdown - despite the fact that it has been confirmed to be genuine after all.
Natalia Antonova
Jimmy Wales has it right
Last year, Russian Internet users got a little sick of Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia - his face with its searing gaze, used on banner ads asking for donations to Wikipedia, became an amusing meme.
Natalia Antonova
Don’t pass the buck, Roskosmos!
The head of Roskomos, Vladimir Popovkin, has insinuated that the embarrassing failure of Phobos-Grunt (which I wrote about earlier) could be attributed to a shadowy plot of some kind. “I don’t want to blame anyone, but there are powerful means of affecting [the performance] of spacecraft out there,” Popovkin told Izvestia. “We cannot discount the possibility that they were used.1
Natalia Antonova
Look at the stars, look how they shine for you
It’s official - Russia’s magazine Science and Life (Nauka i Zhizn) has named Orion the prettiest winter constellation, in a move that’s obviously meant to encourage more young people to spring for that telescope and take a look at the night sky.
Natalia Antonova
No iPad? No Problem
One of the things that annoys me each and every holiday season is the amount of entitled whining that goes on after the kids open their presents and decide that the color of the gadget that mommy and daddy bought them this time clashes with the color of the sports car mommy and daddy bought them last time.1

Matrix Mama

Natalia Antonova

Girls, the stereotype decrees, are allergic to science and technology. But as a card-carrying member of the smarter sex who wears the scars from school playground "anti-nerd" bullies like a badge of honor, I'm here to tell you that myths like that are being consigned to the "delete" file of history faster than you can say... neutrinos. In this space you'll hear from me about discoveries and gadgets, breakthroughs in theory and applications in practice, about The World of The Geek in Russia and Beyond as she, and he, steadily inherit the earth.

Natalia Antonova is the deputy editor of The Moscow News.

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Matrix Mama

Twitter Goes to Court

The Science (and Horror) of Green Clouds

“Who’s paying you?” Russia’s version of Godwin’s Law

Chewbacca vs. Russian e-government

The Sad truth Behind YouTube’s “Crazy Babka” Phenomenon

Instagram comes to Android - and my head explodes

Fake geek girls, gender and Russia

The Thriller Genre and Chernobyl

Much Ado About The New iPad

The Science of Pop Music

Driving in Russia - Explained at Last?

The Darkness II - just as creepy as it sounds

Dying of a Broken Heart - Not Just a Euphemism

The silence of the plants

The sad truth about invisibility cloaks

Spy rock - I am disappoint

Jimmy Wales has it right

Don’t pass the buck, Roskosmos!

Look at the stars, look how they shine for you

No iPad? No Problem

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