Continuing yesterday’s thoughts - the iPhone is another great example of the trend of technology towards being beautiful, convenient black boxes that work wonderfully until they don’t.  It is quite literally a black box capable of wondrous things. However, it’s extremely difficult for most people to get it to do... [Read More]

This post brought to you by my bathroom at work. Ok, not literally. Nor did I write this in the bathroom, but two separate plumbing malfunctions both perfectly illustrate something that I’ve been thinking about a lot. One of the urinals (of the extremely convenient, sensing and electronically controlled variety)... [Read More]

Today I used Cornell’s online purchasing system for the first time. If you needed more evidence that modern universities should be categorized among the hallowed ranks of bloated bureaucracies, look no further. Let’s quickly get past the fact that it took me a good 45 minutes to make a purchase... [Read More]

Did you know that the FAA measures the riskiness of private space operations in units of Expected Casualties? Yes, that morbid unit is exactly what it sounds like. From the FAA document that shouldn’t be read unless you’re writing a blog post about it or love the potent boredom inducing... [Read More]

Saturday Space Stories! Maybe NASA should work on playing up the technology rather than the incrementally interesting science. Photos from planet labs - pretty cool History + Technology for the win And this is how awesome happens - pulling together tech from entirely separate areas More sadly unexciting NASA PR -... [Read More]