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Alexis Madrigal

Alexis Madrigal - Alexis Madrigal is a senior editor at The Atlantic. He's the author of Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology.
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The New York Observer calls him, "for all intents and purposes, the perfect modern reporter." Madrigal co-founded Longshot magazine, a high-speed media experiment that garnered attention from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the BBC. While at Wired.com, he built Wired Science into one of the most popular blogs in the world. The site was nominated for best magazine blog by the MPA and best science Web site in the 2009 Webby Awards. He also co-founded Haiti ReWired, a groundbreaking community dedicated to the discussion of technology, infrastructure, and the future of Haiti.

He's spoken at Stanford, CalTech, Berkeley, SXSW, E3, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and his writing was anthologized in Best Technology Writing 2010 (Yale University Press).

Madrigal is a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley's Office for the History of Science and Technology. Born in Mexico City, he grew up in the exurbs north of Portland, Oregon, and now lives in Oakland.
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The NASA Sample on the New Kanye/Jay Z Album? It's From Apollo 11

By Alexis Madrigal

Aug 15 2011, 4:13 PM ET Comment

The new Kanye West and Jay Z album, Watch the Throne, brings together the two biggest stars in hip hop (sorry, Weezy) for one victory lap album.

The second track is not my favorite (it's "like Shia LeBoeuf in song form" as one reviewer put it) but it does feature a NASA sample that's obvious but hot.

About 3:18 seconds in, we get to hear the famous countdown sequence from Apollo 11, the first mission to land on the moon from 20 seconds on down. You can hear the original, which I synched up with the launch film above, or listen to the YeJay track below.



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