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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.
New Directions
24 June 2016
On the way to Desert Storm, U.S. troops stopped in California in order to buy consumer GPS units at local stores.
A review of “Pinpoint” by Greg Milner and “Finding North” by George Michelsen Foy.
[Wall Street Journal]
The All-American iPhone
9 June 2016
What would it take to make iPhones in the US?
A thought experiment; doing so profitably is possible.
[MIT Technology Review]
What Justin Trudeau got wrong about Quantum Computing
18 April 2016
A video of the Canadian Prime Minister giving an apparently impromptu riff on quantum computing had a few mistakes in it.
This is a critique not so much of his minor errors, but of the media storm which treated his lecture as a sign of genius.
[Washington Post]
Drone-based film-making
16 November 2015
Why good drone art is necessary
A review of the New York Drone Film Festival.
[The Economist]
Drone strikes and international law
22 April 2015
Fallout reaches the ivory tower
NYU law school students react to Harold Koh’s support for targeted killings.
[The Economist]
Civil disobedience in the air
15 April 2015
A man landed a gyrocopter on the Capitol lawn
Some thoughts on why this sort of thing shouldn’t be prevented by computer software.
[Washington Post]
Beware the ‘Big Data’ Gospel
27 February 2015
More debunking of the idea that ‘data’ can always be a tool for rigorous & disinterested analysis
A follow-up to my earlier CNN article, responding to a couple of poorly reasoned critiques
[Weekly Wonk]
A small step backward for mankind
5 November 2014
Why America needs to embrace a culture of risk in order to build the next-generation space program.
How and why to be resilient in the face of failed spacecraft, and the loss of life.
[Foreign Policy]
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]
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]