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.
Slate
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
There and back again and there again
5 July 2016
Why I love the Lord of the Rings trilogy
A summer reading enthusiasm.
[Slate]
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.
[Slate]
clips, Drones
tags: Alibaba, Drone delivery, Slate
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.
[Slate]
clips, Drones
tags: DJI, drones, Lawrence Lessig, Phantom, Slate, software, UAVs, White House Drone
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]
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]
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]
Why Didn’t We Know the Russian Meteor Was Coming?
15 February 2013
We’re getting better at spotting potentially dangerous objects, but this one was too small.
A pocket history
[Slate]
NASA Must Do More To Prepare for Catastrophic Asteroids. Much More.
14 February 2013
Why planetary defense should be NASA’s #1 priority
Which it really isn’t.
[Slate]
The book of primes
5 February 2013
A new largest prime number
And the significance of primes to mathematics.
[Slate]
CAPTCHA and the alternatives
31 January 2013
May it not rest in peace
Combatting spam and what it means to be human.
[Slate]
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.
[Slate]
Baumgartner’s leap
4 October 2012
What the record-setting skydive means for space exploration
And why it’s good news.
[Slate]
Extraditions to the US
2 July 2012
Which countries extradite the most people to the US each year?
And which extradite none at all?
[Slate]
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]
clips, Computer Science and Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy and Space, Science, Science and Technology, Science Policy and Technological Culture, Technology
tags: Calculators, constructivism, Education, Graphing Calculators, HH Wu, Longfellow Middle School, Math Education, NCTM, pedagogy, Promethean, Science Education, Slate, Smart Board
What Economists Get Wrong About Science and Technology
17 May 2012
The failures of trying to quantify research’s effects on the economy
And why they matter.
[Slate]