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.
China’s innovation policy is all wrong
21 July 2011
But can the Chinese government come up with a new one?
Why China’s current innovation policy does not promote innovation
[CNN Global Innovation Showcase]
Ranking Countries on Innovation
4 July 2011
Why it doesn’t work very well
The flaws in a recent INSEAD study
[CNN Global Innovation Showcase]
Found in translation
22 February 2011
Translation by the numbers
How statistical machine translation evolved to work as well as it does
[Washington Post]
Looking for ET
25 February 2010
Signs of life
As the search for alien life turns 50, its practitioners find new methods
Relativity, the Photoelectric effect, and all that
1 January 2005
Modern times
The science of Albert Einstein, on the hundredth anniversary of his miracle year.
The playstation and the warfighter
2 December 2004
Playing to win
Can video games help train soldiers?
Technology
tags: army, The Economist, video games
The trouble with software
25 November 2004
Managing complexity
Most software projects fail to meet their goals. Can this be fixed by giving developers better tools?
Social Networks
30 September 2004
Circles of friends
What maths tells us about us.
Science
tags: graph theory, terrorism, The Economist