Recently, NASA released the list of NIAC funded research proposals. The NIAC grant is meant to fund pretty-out-there space tech concepts, which I think is excellent…in principle. However, as I’ve mentioned before, some math and a little thinking exposes a nasty downside to grants like NIAC. First, the math: the stage... [Read More]

A recent article in the NYT gave a pretty well-thought-out perspective on the consequences of the ever expanding capabilities of computers and robots on the labor force. (That is, it wasn’t on the extreme of ‘robots will make everything awesome!’ or ‘robots will kill ALL THE JOBS’ that I find... [Read More]

Specialization: the concept, in the context of trade from the excellent EconTalk Monologue hit me very personally.  Trade (in ideas and goods) both benefits from and encourages us to become even more intensely specialized. I wondered ‘where do I fit into this? Am I in trouble?’  I’m not intensely specialized... [Read More]

Saturday (Space) Stories! My sentiments exactly. Can I have induced hibernation until we have the technology to go to Alpha Centauri? And now someone (hackers, the government, businesses) will be able to control people like puppets through their internet-brain connections. Possible paradigm shifts for cubesat launches - something to watch I... [Read More]

As you might know, I’m a devoted listener of the EconTalk podcast. Since one a week isn’t nearly enough to fill all the walking that I do, I have also been listening through five years of archived episodes. While they are consistently high quality, this episode blew me away. In... [Read More]