Steven Melendez
Features
The Hobos of Instagram
They're trading their flip phones for iPhones, browsing r/vagabond, and bringing an age-old tradition of trainhopping into the Information Age.
Steven Melendez
4.22.15
Features
The Other Mile-High Club
How frequent flyers snag cut-rate first class flights, all because of a little computer glitch.
Steven Melendez
3.2.15
Sex Ed Week
Tinder Bots Have Evolved to Mimic the Girl Next Door
They used to pretend to be prostitutes. Now, Tinder spam bots pretend to be football fans.
Steven Melendez
2.10.15
Features
The Fakers
Phony résumés, deception services, and the booming business of lies.
Steven Melendez
2.3.15
Features
Tumblr's Sugar Baby Support Network
Sharing tips on anonymity, makeup, and life in "the bowl."
Steven Melendez
12.22.14
Features
Do You Accept WankCoin? A Tour of the Most Niche Digital Currencies
From porn to tacos, there's an altcoin for everything. But for how long?
Steven Melendez
8.7.14
Features
Brain-Enhancing 'Smart Drugs' Are Going Commercial
As the demand for cognitive enhancements expands, nootropics have grown from the stuff of internet-driven self-experimentation to an expanding sector in the massive supplements market.
Steven Melendez
7.17.14
Features
'Everything Is Energy': How Time Lords See the World
I hung out with self-proclaimed time travelers, dream programmers, and channelers of the extraterrestrial at the recent New Life Expo in New York.
Steven Melendez
6.19.14
Money
How Non-Profits Are Cashing In on the Cryptocurrency Boom
The ultimate philanthropic potential of digital currency may lie in the developing world, where high exchange rates, bank fees and inflation can dilute the buying power of international donors.
Steven Melendez
5.9.14
Twitter
How Teens Are Making Money Off Novelty Twitter Accounts
For those who get lucky, like the 19-year-old behind @DrunkLadyProbs, the money easily beats a typical afterschool job.
Steven Melendez
4.29.14
Drugs
The Internet Turned Kratom, a Medical Plant, Into an Oxy-Adderall Lovechild
An increasingly vocal online community of users say the ground-up plant is a valuable natural painkiller. But is it next in a line of sketchy legal highs?
Steven Melendez
4.3.14
Motherboard Blog
This Is Your Brain on Bitcoin
The world's largest cryptocurrency-friendly psychedelic research group has netted an unsolicited $21,000 BTC, and says there is a link between drug culture and cryptocurrencies.
Steven Melendez
1.28.14
0102