Stan Horaczek
Senior Gear Editor
Stan Horaczek is the executive gear editor at Popular Science. He oversees a team of gear-obsessed writers and editors dedicated to finding and featuring the newest, best, and most innovative gadgets on the market and beyond. He lives in upstate New York with his family, a three-legged dog, and a truly unreasonable collection of hundreds of vintage film cameras and lenses.
Highlights
- Veteran tech writer whose enthusiasm for gadgets manifests as run-on sentences
- Believer in the idea that the “best” gadgets and products are those that fit your specific life
- Past bylines for: Men’s Journal, Engadget, Rolling Stone, Playboy, Stuff Magazine, GQ, Inked, The New York Post, Maxim, and even a few gear pages for EveryDay with Rachel Ray
- Professional photographer with an emphasis on storytelling
Experience
Stan took over as the technology editor at Popular Science in 2017, but transitioned to covering gadgets and new products full time as the senior gear editor in 2021. He started writing about gear more than 15 years prior as a contributor for Maxim magazine and the online editor for the gadget-focused Stuff magazine. Since then, he has contributed everything from super-short blurbs to long, reported features centered largely around the consumer electronics space. He has been to more than 10 Consumer Electronics Shows and only just recently finally threw away his badges. Stan is also the go-to person for everyone he knows when they’re seeking buying advice on a product. He’s always glad to help, but he’ll warn you that his answer will probably be way more in-depth than you expected (or wanted). That’s especially true for cameras, as Stan has worked as a freelance photographer since the early 2000s and also serves as the senior gear editor at PopPhoto.
Education
Stan graduated with honors from NYU’s department of culture and communications, which was headed up at the time by the late, great Neil Postman. Stan’s concentration was “new media,” which included some very useful insight into the rise of the internet, as well as some less useful classes such as Web Design Using Flash.
Favorite weird science fact
Photographic film works thanks to silver halide crystals suspended in a gelatin based emulsion. Exposing and developing the film converts some of those crystals into metallic silver while others get washed away. So, every black-and-white photo negative is essentially a microscopic sculpture of the scene you captured made from metallic silver. A perfect mix of art and science.
Notable Work
- Inside the factory where Kodak brings film back to life Popular Science
- Inside New York’s vanishing community of repair shops Popular Science
- The curious case of Magic Girl, the would-be greatest pinball machine of all time Popular Science
- A cheap set of LEDs is the best way to upgrade your fancy new TV Popular Science
- The weirdest, wildest, and coolest images from CES 2020 Popular Science