WELCOME
Thanks for coming to visit my website. I write about science, technology, foreign affairs, and other subjects.
Follow me on Twitter: @kkakaesDrones and Aerial Observation
I edited and wrote part of a short book published by New America in July 2015 and freely available online, about how drones are being used in new ways around the world. It's meant to be useful to people who want to fly drones.The Pioneer Detectives
I published a short book with The Millions.
It's the story of the Pioneer Anomaly, a long-standing mystery. The book is short and fun—the length of a novella—but also, in the words of Amazon's reviewer, "powerful and sad". If you've got any curiosity about how NASA works behind the scenes or why scientists believe what they do, I think you'll enjoy the book.
It is available on Amazon as a Kindle Single and also on Apple's iBooks.Drone Wars
I wrote a chapter on the long history of drone technology going back to the early 20th century in this edited Cambridge University Press volume.
Bad Math Props Up Border Wall
18 October 2016
Estimating the cost (in dollars) of Donald Trump’s proposed border wall
It would be many times more expensive than he claims.
[MIT Technology Review]
clips, Mexico, Technology
tags: Border Wall, Donald Trump, mexico, Tech Review
Book Review: ‘The Interior Circuit’ by Francisco Goldman
9 August 2014
Ka Wong Seng looks as if it fell into a Chinatown wormhole and emerged complete with roasted duck.
Review of Goldman’s memoir of Mexico City, which I think does not succeed in its aims.
[Wall Street Journal]
Book Reviews, clips, Latin America and the Caribbean, Mexican Business and Culture, Mexican Politics, Mexico
tags: Enrique Peña Nieto, Francisco Goldman, Guatemala City, Jonathan Candell, La Capital, Long Night of White Chickens, Marcelo Ebrard, memoirs, mexico, Mexico City, Say Her Name, The Interior Circuit, Wall Street Journal
Extraditions to the US
2 July 2012
Which countries extradite the most people to the US each year?
And which extradite none at all?
[Slate]
Chronicle of a War Foretold
5 January 2012
Violence Begets Violence in Mexico
How nobody understands what spurred 45,000 drug-related murders in Mexico, though Ioan Grillo’s new book El Narco does a good job of trying to.
[Zocalo Public Square]
The Philosopher-Fisticuffers
14 September 2011
A review of Enrique Krauze’s new book Redeemers
Which consists of 12 profiles of Latin American figures, and is a good read.
[Zocalo Public Square]
If Mexico Were a Movie
1 June 2011
Uncle Sam Would be the Villain
How the US has undermined Mexico’s development
[Zocalo Public Square]
Mexico
tags: mexico, Zocalo Public Square
The Last Days of Bank Secrecy?
1 September 2009
An article I wrote for Poder, a magazine about business in Latin America, that describes the crumbling of bank secrecy and what it means for the region.
The Caribbean
tags: Banking, Poder, Switzerland, Wealth
Shelter from the Storm
15 May 2009
An article for Poder, a Latin American business magazine, about the impact of the economic crisis on the Caribbean.
Rebuilding Haiti
12 February 2009
Weighed down by disasters
A modest success for the United Nations is threatened by nature and lassitude
The Caribbean
tags: Gonaives, Haiti, hurricanes, United Nations
Haiti
12 February 2009
The island and the outside world
Being in Haiti without being in Haiti
The Caribbean
tags: Gonaives, Haiti, Labadee, United Nations
Remittances to Mexico
11 December 2008
The end of the American dream
The recession up north bites in rural Mexico
The last days of the scribe
20 November 2008
The scribes’ lament
A dying profession in the heart of the city
Nicaragua–midterm elections
13 November 2008
How to steal an election
Daniel Ortega sets an ugly precedent
Mexico’s war with the cartels
30 October 2008
Spot the drug trafficker
The arrest of senior officials shows the government’s resolve in fighting drug traffickers-and that the rot in law enforcement reaches the top
Honduras and Venezuela
30 October 2008
Zelaya plays the Chávez card
Why Honduras wanted 4m light bulbs
Central America
tags: The Economist
Locked in the grid: how we fail each other
1 October 2008
An essay about how the breakdown of civil society in Mexico leads to inefficiency.
Mexico’s lame duck president
4 September 2008
Oh rose, thou art sick
The president faces a long goodbye
The Caribbean and the Olympics
28 August 2008
Champs and chumps
Why Jamaica outpointed Cuba
The Caribbean
tags: The Economist