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.
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]
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]
In Praise of Joe’s Shanghai
1 September 2013
Discovering The Small Miracle Of The Soup Dumpling
An appreciation of one of the deliciousest foods.
[NPR]
clips, Food
tags: Joe's Shanghai, NPR, Soup, Soup Dumplings
Thanks to Jason Kottke!
14 August 2013
Thanks to Jason Kottke for the kind mention of The Pioneer Detectives on his blog!
C-SPAN’s Book TV
5 August 2013
A few weeks ago I got to take part in a panel discussion about The Pioneer Detectives and cosmic anomalies at New America’s space in New York City.
C-SPAN’s Book TV kindly came and filmed the event and is broadcasting it on TV and on their website.
Future Tense Podcast
1 August 2013
I spoke with the New America Foundation’s Cyrus Nemati in this podcast about The Pioneer Detectives.
The Pioneer Detectives!
15 July 2013
Read C Max Magee’s kind announcement of publication of The Pioneer Detectives over at The Millions.
It was really a pleasure to work with Max and Garth Risk Hallberg at the Millions to produce, in Max’s words:
a scientific police procedural, tracking the steps of those who sought to unravel this high-stakes enigma. His thrilling account follows the story from the Anomaly’s initial discovery, through decades of tireless investigation, to its ultimate conclusion. The Pioneer Detectives is a definitive account not just of the Pioneer Anomaly but of how scientific knowledge gets made and unmade, with scientists sometimes putting their livelihoods on the line in pursuit of cosmic truth.
I hope you’ll check out the book, either at Amazon or on iTunes.
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]
Warp Factor
1 April 2013
An investigation
The saga of a NASA scientist who claims to be on the verge of faster-than-light travel.
[Popular Science]
The end of the “La-Z-Boy era” of sequential programming
20 March 2013
What comes after Moore’s law?
The challenge of parallelism.
[Zocalo Public Square]
Rand Paul’s Drone Delusion
7 March 2013
Many reasons to worry about drones, but killing Americans in America is not one of them
Why Rand Paul’s filibuster focused on the wrong points.
[Foreign Policy]
clips, Drones
tags: drones, Foreign Policy, Rand Paul, Targeted Killing
Can We Teach Computers What “Truth” Means?
26 February 2013
It’s harder than it sounds
How artificial intelligence can inform ideas about logic.
[Slate]