May 2021 Update I felt compelled to add yet another update because the world of Bitcoin is anything but boring. In only a few months, the price of a bitcoin hit a new record high of almost $65,000. One theory for its latest rise is that Tesla, a company that…

Years ago, a student out for a night run at a nearby university campus was grabbed by an assailant. She managed to get away physically unharmed, but the sense of safety in the wealthy suburban community was not so lucky. The student had been running on a sidewalk through a…

Fear has been a semi-helpful guide throughout history. It saved some of our ancestors from falling off cliffs on windy days, but it also led to some of them being killed for witchcraft. While the world today seems slightly less mysterious, fear remains an imperfect guide for making sensible decisions. …

Since social media emerged at the turn of the century, it has democratized the free expression of ideas, but inevitably not in the way that its creators and early proponents envisioned. …

Jaron Lanier is a founding father of the field of virtual reality and a Silicon Valley veteran with experience working for companies ranging from Atari to Microsoft Research. Without knowledge of his other writings, one might be surprised that he published a book in 2018 titled Ten Arguments for Deleting…

The glut of Ph.D.s in academia is common knowledge. The cynical consensus is that graduate assistantships and postdoc appointments provide much of the cheap labor that keeps university classrooms and laboratories operational without much concern for what comes afterwards. Any offered defense of Ph.D. overproduction tends to follow the vague…

Humans are not indestructible like cartoon characters or gods. Yet throughout history, we have sought to move across the ground, water, and more recently through the sky, at ever increasing speeds — the very conditions most likely to cause irreparable harm should something go awry. Why do we do it? …

Transportation in the US is the largest source of greenhouse gases — contributing over a quarter of the nation’s emissions in 2016. While transitioning to electric vehicles and increasing mass transit are necessary steps in addressing climate change, there is one simple action that is often overlooked. It is the…

Automobile accidents are the leading cause of death for children and adolescents under the age of 20 in the US — causing over 4,000 deaths in 2016. As sad as that unfortunate statistic may be, behind it hides stories of indescribable grief and guilt. …