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In order to better serve you 24 May 2018

Updates to My Privacy Policy
In advance of the new General Data Protection Regulation.
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The Saudi prince who took a joyride on the space shuttle
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]

There and back again and there again 5 July 2016

Why I love the Lord of the Rings trilogy
A summer reading enthusiasm.
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Alibaba’s Teabag Stunt Doesn’t Prove That Drone Delivery Works 4 February 2015

Another drone PR stunt
A Chinese companies scheme to deliver tea doesn’t mean the logistics or economics of delivery via drone will be real anytime soon.
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Why Are Drone-Makers Helping Governments Crack Down on Drones? 28 January 2015

DJI’s brute force regulation through software
The dangers of users lacking control over the devices they use, as illustrated by one drone-maker’s reaction when one of its aircraft crashed on the White House grounds.
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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.
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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.
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PR Stunts 2 December 2013

Amazon Prime Drone Delivery? It’s Hot Air
Why Amazon won’t be delivering packages with drones by 2015.
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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.
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Can We Teach Computers What “Truth” Means? 26 February 2013

It’s harder than it sounds
How artificial intelligence can inform ideas about logic.
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Why Didn’t We Know the Russian Meteor Was Coming? 15 February 2013
NASA Must Do More To Prepare for Catastrophic Asteroids. Much More. 14 February 2013
The book of primes 5 February 2013

A new largest prime number
And the significance of primes to mathematics.
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CAPTCHA and the alternatives 31 January 2013

May it not rest in peace
Combatting spam and what it means to be human.
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Alzheimer’s and space travel 3 January 2013

Does radiation cause Alzheimer’s?
We don’t really know, and it’s not clear how it affects space travel.
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Drunk on Gadgets 5 October 2012

Politicians don’t understand science and technology, so they expect it to do too much
Ignorance of science drives politicians to treat it like magic.
[Slate]

Baumgartner’s leap 4 October 2012
Extraditions to the US 2 July 2012
Why Johnny Can’t Add Without a Calculator 25 June 2012

Technology is doing to math education what industrial agriculture did to food: making it efficient, monotonous, and low-quality.
How and why graphing calculators, educational software, interactive whiteboards and the like undermine actual learning in elementary, middle and high schools.
[Slate]

What Economists Get Wrong About Science and Technology 17 May 2012