Tag Archives: political-ish

MIT Under Attack

Posted on July 24, 2025 by jlredford

Last May 31st I attended Technology Day at MIT, where the school presents talks on all kinds of interesting research to its alumni. Commencement is always the day before, and the alumni reunion events are that evening. I’m a big … Continue reading →

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Tesla-Free At Last

Posted on May 6, 2025 by jlredford

I first leased a Tesla Model 3 in Dec 2019. It was the fastest and smoothest car I had ever driven! It was so quiet and had so much zip. Its interior was elegantly sparse – it had just a … Continue reading →

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“Sapiens” and the Fifth Order of Being

Posted on February 28, 2025 by jlredford

Yuval Harari’s “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” (2011) is a Big Think book, attempting to cover a vast range of subjects in a way that non-specialist readers can follow. In this case it’s the development of our species over … Continue reading →

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Trump Will Be a Disaster for High Tech

Posted on December 30, 2024 by jlredford

Trump will be a disaster for the entire country, of course, but let me concentrate on his effect on my own area, that of high-tech. I see the following places where he’s most likely to damage the field: curtailing the … Continue reading →

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Why Care That “The Rings of Power” Is Mediocre?

Posted on October 1, 2022 by jlredford

“The Rings of Power” is a new streaming series based on Appendix A of “The Lord of the Rings”. It gives the history of Middle Earth before the War of the Ring: the second rise and fall of Sauron, the … Continue reading →

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Ukraine v Russia Is a Tech War Like Union v Confederacy

Posted on May 23, 2022 by jlredford

In the 1860s the Europeans watched the American Civil War in horrified fascination. It had been almost 50 years since the Napoleonic Wars, when they had been in a real war with matched combatants. They had been mainly fighting colonial … Continue reading →

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My Mother Was a Ukrainian Refugee

Posted on March 6, 2022 by jlredford

Let me start by encouraging you to support the Ukrainians in any way you can. I gave money to AmeriCares, a relief outfit that is sending medical supplies and personnel to help refugees in Poland. The International Red Cross was … Continue reading →

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Why Care That “Foundation” Is Bad?

Posted on November 29, 2021 by jlredford

The new TV miniseries “Foundation” is full of meaningless CGI, ponderous religious imagery, thudding messages about terrorism, imperialism and climate change, and dialogue so clunky that even a serious actor like Jared Harris can’t deliver it. So what? There are … Continue reading →

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We’ve Got to Get To America 4.0

Posted on November 18, 2020 by jlredford

Every 80 years or so this country has been rebooted. Long-felt tensions exploded, and the country took a new direction. We’re at that point now. There is an outright criminal in the White House, there’s been a massive death toll … Continue reading →

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GM Abandons Green Cars, And Blue Staters

Posted on November 20, 2019 by jlredford

I’ve been a pretty satisfied customer of the Chevy Volt for three years now.  It’s a plug-in hybrid, meaning that it will go for about 50 miles on battery power and then switch over to a gas engine.   It’s quiet, … Continue reading →

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