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- 2020 Is Already the 2nd Worst Year in US History
- “The New Alchemy Institute” – a Tech Road Not Taken
- Moore’s Law In Spaaaace: Data Rates from Mars
- Nature Advances Fast When Humans Retreat
- Some Firsts Who Were Women
- Mad Science #7 – Radioactive Lighting
- William Gibson Reading “Agency”
- What Has the US EV Tax Credit Cost?
- The Carboniferous and the Anti-Carboniferous Eras
- Mad Science #6: Nazi Fusion Fraud
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Author Archives: jlredford
2020 Is Already the 2nd Worst Year in US History
One concrete way to describe how awful something is is by how many people are killed by it. It’s a measure that all can agree on, and is relatively well quantified. There are many other ways in which things can … Continue reading
“The New Alchemy Institute” – a Tech Road Not Taken
Back in the 1970s a lot of people, including me, were worried about Big Tech. It was polluting, it was dangerous, and it operated on inhuman scales. Big Tech was vast refineries, coal power plants, open-pit mines, and steel mills. … Continue reading
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Moore’s Law In Spaaaace: Data Rates from Mars
The visionary scientist Freeman Dyson died early this year at age 96, but he gave a terrific talk in 2011 on four revolutions he had seen: space, computing, nuclear power, and genomics: You may know him from the Orion project, … Continue reading
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Nature Advances Fast When Humans Retreat
The last two months of quarantine have been beautiful here in the Boston area: This is the Boston skyline from Robbins Farm Park in my town of Arlington. I have never seen it be this clear; there’s usually a white … Continue reading
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Some Firsts Who Were Women
The Web keeps throwing stories at me about remarkable pioneering women, so let me get down a few before It gets mad: First Known Author – Enheduanna, Ur, ~2200 BCE That is, the first writer whose name was recorded. Seems … Continue reading
Mad Science #7 – Radioactive Lighting
Charles Fraser-Smith had a problem. He had a lot of problems actually; he was the chief gadgeteer for the British espionage agency MI6 during WWII. He was responsible for all the gear that agents would need on the Continent, from … Continue reading
William Gibson Reading “Agency”
Gibson is on a book tour for his new novel, and I got to see him read from it and take questions in the First Parish Church in Cambridge. There was a big crowd! It was nearly full, largely with people … Continue reading
What Has the US EV Tax Credit Cost?
Last month the US EV tax credit expired completely for Tesla. I happened to get my Model 3 lease just under the wire, and actually saved something. The dealership was really busy in the credit’s last few days! The credit … Continue reading
The Carboniferous and the Anti-Carboniferous Eras
Here’s a cool recent discovery – the reason the earth has so much coal is that it took fungi 60 million years to figure out how to digest lignin, the compound that gives wood its strength. Before that the trees … Continue reading
Mad Science #6: Nazi Fusion Fraud
I can’t believe I’ve never come across this story. An actual Nazi scientist, Ronald Richter, was working on an actual super-technology, lithium-hydrogen nuclear fusion, in an actual secret lair, the island of Huemul, surrounded by razor wire, machine guns, and … Continue reading
