Bundle Up! This Winter’s Best Tech Might Be a Good Coat
In a banner year for digital products, tools made of fabric have become essential for battling Covid-19. Continue reading Bundle Up! This Winter’s Best Tech Might Be a Good Coat
Category Archives: essay
My Joke Cryptocurrency Hit $2 Billion and Something Is Very Wrong
Dogecoin’s inventor looks to the past for insight into the future. Continue reading My Joke Cryptocurrency Hit $2 Billion and Something Is Very Wrong
A 60s Japanese Cartoon Predicted Our Autonomous Car Dilemma
Automating cars means automating death. Continue reading A 60s Japanese Cartoon Predicted Our Autonomous Car Dilemma
Path to Craftsmanship: The Art of Being Wrong
Every technical person knows, unlike artists and politicians, that they can be provably wrong; at least to a degree. Math tells the truth. Coupled with this knowledge is an ego which is often entirely based on our output. If our mechanism works, we feel good because we are provably good.
Unfortunately, unlike the robots we build or the simple minds we spin out of code, we are still human at the end of the day. When we feel the sting of being wrong we often respond poorly. Some of us slip into depression, claiming it all and dredging up a …read more
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The 50 Millimeter Lens Is The Only One You Need
The canvas is set, and it’s our job to make a picture appear within it. The post The 50 Millimeter Lens Is The Only One You Need appeared first on WIRED. Continue reading The 50 Millimeter Lens Is The Only One You Need
Continuing The Dialog: “It’s Time Software People and Mechanical People Had a Talk”
A while back I wrote a piece titled, “It’s Time the Software People and Mechanical People Sat Down and Had a Talk“. It was mostly a reaction to what I believe to be a growing problem in the hacker community. Bad mechanical designs get passed on by what is essentially digital word of mouth. A sort of mythology grows around these bad designs, and they start to separate from science. Rather than combat this, people tend to defend them much like one would defend a favorite band or a painting. This comes out of various ignorance, which were covered in …read more
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The No-Data Roaming Plan
The Internet has become just another home. Maybe it’s time to take a vacation from it too. The post The No-Data Roaming Plan appeared first on WIRED. Continue reading The No-Data Roaming Plan
It’s Time the Software People and Mechanical People Sat Down and Had a Talk.
With the advances in rapid prototyping, there’s been a huge influx of people in the physical realm of hacking. While my overall view of this development is positive, I’ve noticed a schism forming in the community. I’m going to have to call a group out. I think it stems from a fundamental refusal of software folks to change their ways of thinking to some of the real aspects of working in the physical realm, so-to-speak. The problem, I think, comes down to three things: dismissal of cost, favoring modularity over understanding, and a resulting insistence that there’s nothing to learn. …read more
Continue reading It’s Time the Software People and Mechanical People Sat Down and Had a Talk.