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.
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
Not So Offal: Why Bone Soup, A ‘Perfect Food,’ Tastes So Meaty
16 July 2014
In praise of Tulang Soup, the most delicious thing I ate in Singapore
Trying to figure out the richness of bone marrow
[NPR]
clips, Food
tags: Bone Marrow, Hawker Centers, NPR, Singapore, The Salt, Tulang
How Gobbledygook Ended Up in Respected Scientific Journals
27 February 2014
The IEEE and Springer published dozens of algorithmically generated articles
What a slew of nonsensical publications says about the state of science.
[Slate]
Responding to the New York Times off-base math education editorial
10 December 2013
Math doesn’t have to be boring, but it does have to be math
The New York Times editorial board doesn’t understand the first thing about mathematics, and this is a big problem.
[Slate]
Chang’e 3
5 December 2013
The Second Space Race
Short voiceover of a photograph of China’s lunar rover.
[The Weekly Wonk]
PR Stunts
2 December 2013
Amazon Prime Drone Delivery? It’s Hot Air
Why Amazon won’t be delivering packages with drones by 2015.
[Slate]
How many nuclear weapons does China have?
11 November 2013
Consensus: China Offers Limited Deterrent
Probably fewer than 300.
[Aviation Week and Space Technology–Subscription Required]
Bard of Folly
21 October 2013
Book Review: ‘Command and Control’ by Eric Schlosser
A fantastic new book about nuclear weapons, and what it says about technology more generally.
[The American Prospect]
How High the Moon?
4 October 2013
Book Review: ‘Dreams of Other Worlds’ by Chris Impey and Holly Henry
Where the Milky Way’s missing arms went and other tales of astronomical discovery.
[Wall Street Journal]
America’s Last Nuclear test
3 October 2013
A photograph of divider
And the wacky names for other nuclear tests; a short voiceover.
[The Weekly Wonk]
Jack Ryan’s Quest
3 October 2013
Hunting Red October
In praise of Tom Clancy’s early work (and in criticism of his later work) on the occasion of his death.
[The Millions]
In Praise of Joe’s Shanghai
1 September 2013
Discovering The Small Miracle Of The Soup Dumpling
An appreciation of one of the deliciousest foods.
[NPR]
clips, Food
tags: Joe's Shanghai, NPR, Soup, Soup Dumplings
Voyager, the Pioneer anomaly, and NASA’s good old days
15 July 2013
The modest, mighty Voyager and Pioneer probes are still generating news today.
An essay on what made the Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft great, with special emphasis on the Pioneer Anomaly, treated in more detail in my new book, The Pioneer Detectives.
[Slate]
Red Rover: Inside the Story of Robotic Space Exploration, from Genesis to the Mars Rover Curiosity by Rogers Wiens
12 May 2013
A Review
When does NASA take risks? How it’s still possible to improvise, and what it’s like to run a scientific instrument on Mars.
[Washington Post]
Eyes in the sky
3 May 2013
What the rise of the helicopter tells us about the future of domestic drones.
How to think carefully about the spread of drones.
[Slate]
Warp Factor
1 April 2013
An investigation
The saga of a NASA scientist who claims to be on the verge of faster-than-light travel.
[Popular Science]
The end of the “La-Z-Boy era” of sequential programming
20 March 2013
What comes after Moore’s law?
The challenge of parallelism.
[Zocalo Public Square]
Rand Paul’s Drone Delusion
7 March 2013
Many reasons to worry about drones, but killing Americans in America is not one of them
Why Rand Paul’s filibuster focused on the wrong points.
[Foreign Policy]
clips, Drones
tags: drones, Foreign Policy, Rand Paul, Targeted Killing
Can We Teach Computers What “Truth” Means?
26 February 2013
It’s harder than it sounds
How artificial intelligence can inform ideas about logic.
[Slate]
Why Didn’t We Know the Russian Meteor Was Coming?
15 February 2013
We’re getting better at spotting potentially dangerous objects, but this one was too small.
A pocket history
[Slate]