Continuing yesterday’s theme, another unappreciated aspect in the history of technology is the nonlinearity of progress. Many steps in a seemingly straightforward progression are made possible through advances in other, wildly disparate fields. Take, for example, the miniaturization of microprocessors from yesterday. It wasn’t simply a matter of ‘oh, we’ve... [Read More]

A visit to the Computer History Museum has left me with an excellent brain buzz. Of the cognitive cogs that it set in motion, here is a first round of highlights: It is so easy to think of history as a series of large nodes, connected by lines through a... [Read More]

Saturday Stories! Sometimes people act like we have Space all figured out – mostly nothing with a few interesting phenomena, but we haveunknown unknowns in our own backyard!</p> Cremation Cubesats Anybody? Privacy concerns... in spaaaaaace Things I don't think the news needs to be reminding people: Trees record things in... [Read More]

Sad news from today: it looks like the planet-hunting Kepler telescope has been permanently crippled by a mechanical malfunction. I wonder what amount of the unfeasibility of sending a mission to fix Kepler is technical, what part is due to real cost-benefit analysis, and what part is just a lack... [Read More]

When an experience blows your mind, it leaves a permanent mark. That being the case, I schemed about Ditch Day a lot during my sophomore (s’more) and junior years.  One of my favorite parts of ditch day was how it led to the discovery of parts of campus that I... [Read More]