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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.
Elon Musk’s Biggest Worry
26 April 2022
The limits of Chinese Military Power
24 October 2019
The US military is without peer in its ability to project power around the world, and that’s not about to change.
The United States spends more money on the military than any other nation on Earth—far more. This enormous budget— $649 billion—pays for the only global fighting force in the history of the world. But in the last 30 years, China has gone from spending about $20 billion each year on its military to spending about $250 billion each year.
[MIT Technology Review]
What Neil Armstrong got wrong
26 June 2019
Space technology has changed the world—but not in the way the dreamers of the 1960s imagined it would
Even though humanity hasn’t returned to the moon since 1972, there has been slow and steady progress in human spaceflight, remarkable robotic exploration of the solar system, and—perhaps most important—a profound reordering of life on Earth by satellites orbiting it.
[MIT Technology Review]
The write stuff: ten of the best astronaut memoirs
26 June 2019
Very short excerpts from books about space by people who have been there
At the time of writing, 558 people have orbited the Earth. Approximately 10% of them have written books about the experience.
[MIT Technology Review]
Scientists didn’t just “reverse time” with a quantum computer
14 March 2019
Amazing headlines about time machines are a long way off the mark.
Debunking some bunk science journalism.
[MIT Technology Review]
It’s only a matter of time before a drone takes down a passenger plane
21 December 2018
And no, technology can’t fix the problem.
Why swarms of drones pose a threat to commercial air traffic.
[MIT Technology Review]
Robots at the Front
26 June 2018
“Army of None” Review
Autonomous weapons are becoming a common feature of modern war, raising practical and philosophical issues that remain to be solved. This book doesn’t do much to help solve them.
[Wall Street Journal]
The Future of the International Space Station
12 June 2018
NASA’s leader wants to privatize it. That’s a remarkably terrible idea.
There’s a case for killing the space station. There’s no case for turning over the keys to a private company.
[Vox]
In order to better serve you
24 May 2018
Updates to My Privacy Policy
In advance of the new General Data Protection Regulation.
[Slate]
The Saudi prince who took a joyride on the space shuttle
and other space misadventures 30 March 2017
and other space misadventures 30 March 2017
International Collaborations in Space Always
Reflect Politics on Earth
A brief history of the countries that send people to space, and why.
[Slate]
clips, Physics, Astronomy and Space, Science, Science and Technology, Science Policy and Technological Culture, Technology
tags: Gagarin, Interkosmos, International Space Station, ISS, NASA, Rodrigo Neri-Vela, Slate, Soyuz, Space Shuttle, Spacelab, SpaceX, Sputnik, Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, USSR, Virgin Galactic
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]
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]
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]
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]