Whenever drones pop up in the news, whenever they buzz unnervingly again into popular perception, people ask me what I think about these latest developments on social media. Most of the time, and regardless of the precipitating drone-related event in the news, they're about the same questions, revolving
In modern times, we have democratized the formerly inhuman god's eye view. We have extended to everyone the steely gaze of a god peering down upon the activities of mortals from a celestial perch, or the exalted viewpoint of an emperor regarding his holdings from the vertical fastness
In the early morning hours of July 4th, as the Guadalupe River reached catastrophic heights, city officials in Kerr County, Texas turned to an all-too familiar mechanism for getting the word out to area residents: Facebook. While the National Weather Service had been issuing warnings across multiple platforms about the
We have a body. We have a soul. It is possible to separate the two. Usually, this happens when we die. But not always. Sometimes, the soul, and the ability to perceive that accompanies it, separates from our bodies for other, stranger reasons. Throughout history and across cultures, humans have,
Data is real, and it can hurt you. Conversely, data cannot hurt you if you do not pluck it from the ether and rudely force it into existence in the first place. Let's talk, briefly, about data minimization. Data minimization is a term that describes what is, on
Ukraine took out a bunch of Russian nuclear-capable strategic bomber aircraft last weekend, and they did it with small, cheap drones. As well as with over a year of intricate and incredibly stealthy planning, which is, if you ask me, the really important part. Keeping in mind that information on
To build new technology, we must imagine it first. Every technological marvel that humanity has ever come up with came into being by this process of imagination, of both individual and collective musing about things we’d like to do, and the tools we might be able to build to
When the pandemic began, back in those flopsweat days of March 2020, I came to a horrible realization. Due to necessary quarantines, lockdowns, travel restrictions, and general social disruption, the human race was going to be forced into a state of collective and sudden Onlineness totally unprecedented in history. Billions
Apple's engineers have figured out how to design a robot lamp so adorable that everyone I've shown the video to says they'd die for it. By studying how to translate human expression into the movements of an outwardly-normal looking appliance, Apple's team
I'm back in the USA. I haven't been here since December 16th. I spent the last month in Sulawesi, and then spent a few more days in Jakarta and Singapore before boarding a flight back to California, where I'm staying with my parents for
I went to Thailand in March because I needed to get some work done. Bangkok is a pretty ideal place if you're looking for somewhere easy to hunker down for a while to grind away on projects, proposals, and emails. There's excellent public transportation, great and
As I write this, America's mad king Donald Trump continues his cruel and needless attacks on Canada, from asinine tariffs to batshit insane threats to make the country the USA's 51st state. Entirely understandably, Canadians are outraged by this act of betrayal from a formerly staunch