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.
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]
Cosmic Certainties
19 September 2016
More trouble with string theory, an attempt to do away with inflation, and a novel theory of dark matter, critiqued.
A review of “Fashion, Faith and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe” by Roger Penrose.
[Wall Street Journal]
There and back again and there again
5 July 2016
Why I love the Lord of the Rings trilogy
A summer reading enthusiasm.
[Slate]
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]
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
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]
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]
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]
The Nucleus of the Digital Age
3 March 2012
A review of George Dyson’s “Turing’s Cathedral”
In pursuit of hydrogen bombs, a math genius and a brilliant tinkerer in Princeton developed the modern computer.
[Wall Street Journal]
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]
Bob Dylan
18 November 2004
I felt so symbolic yesterday
A review of Chronicles, the first volume of Bob Dylan’s autobiography, a new biography of Woody Guthrie, and a collection of essays about Dylan.
Book Reviews
tags: The Economist
Derek Walcott
4 November 2004
The death of earth
A review of Derek Walcott’s new book-length poem.
Book Reviews
tags: The Economist
Johnny Cash
16 September 2004
Ring of Firesales
A review of a new book about Johnny Cash’s Folsom prison concert
Book Reviews
tags: The Economist
Nicholson Baker
2 September 2004
Room with a point of view
A review of Checkpoint, Nicholson Baker’s new novel.
Book Reviews
tags: The Economist
In defense (reluctantly) of Michael Moore
8 July 2004
Sinned against
A review of a book which is a big fast stupid attack on Michael Moore.
Dan Brown’s aftermath
13 May 2004
Da Vinci, codes, and all that
The good, the bad, and the ugly of books about Da Vinci and the nature of mathematics.
Book Reviews
tags: The Economist