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Peak Tragedy Is Long Past…
… at least in the US. By peak tragedy I mean a year in which the maximum number of young people died. It’s sad when old people die, but it’s tragic when the young are taken. They lose decades of … Continue reading
Peak Nuclear Has Passed…
… for both weapons and power. Nuclear weapons have been the great looming threat for most of my life. These were devices built to end civilization. So it’s startling to see how fast they have been declining: Source: “Global Nuclear … Continue reading
Peak CO2 Has Passed, Except…
for China. Here’s something that is not perhaps widely noticed: The CO2 emissions from the USA and Europe have dropped substantially since their peak in 2007. The US is now down about 9% from its peak, to late-1990s levels. Europe … Continue reading
A Welcome Break From Movie Mayhem
When I saw “Argo” a few months ago, I was struck by a line at the beginning. It’s 1979, and there’s a mob outside the fences of the US Embassy in Teheran. They’re shouting at the building, and rattling the … Continue reading
The Inspiring “Pale Blue Dot” and the Clunky New Horizons
I recently came across a striking animation of Carl Sagan’s famous passage from his last book “Pale Blue Dot”: Pale Blue Dot from ORDER on Vimeo. He’s commenting on this picture, taken at his request by Voyager 1 in 1990 … Continue reading
Lynn Conway, EE and Sexual Pioneer
The latest issue of IEEE Solid State Circuits magazine has a good piece by Lynn Conway about how she changed VLSI design. In a quite direct way she changed my career too. In 1979 I was just starting grad school, … Continue reading
Big Data Comes to Politics
The January 2013 issue of MIT’s Technology Review has an interesting article on the Big Data techniques used by the Obama and Romney campaigns in the US 2012 election: “A More Perfect Union” by Sasha Issenberg. No, this is not … Continue reading
“MIT Rising”, But Not Because of Startups
The November issue of Boston magazine has an article “How MIT Became the Most Important University in the World” by Chris Vogel. It talks about how MIT students are better dressed these days, more articulate, and more out-going. In fact, … Continue reading
“Chasing Ice” – Big Science Adventure
You’ve probably heard that climate change is melting the Arctic, but it’s another thing to see it happening in front of you: Or to see what it does to an icescape: That’s why James Balog, a well-known nature photographer, founded … Continue reading
Why Did Car Companies Cave on CAFE?
Car companies have been complaining about fuel economy standards ever since they began back in the 1970s. All through the 80s, 90s and Zips they’ve managed to block increases in the standards, by spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt about their … Continue reading
A Niche in the Library of Babel 