It’s Fine to not Check Your Email
Stop compulsively checking your email. Frequent checking of one’s inbox will lead to stress for a few reasons so it’s best to schedule your email checking to every couple of…
technology
What It’s Like to Use the Internet in Cuba
The internet is a great resource for connecting people to people and connecting people to services and new ideas. Cuba, like other developing nations, has had a hard time connecting…
Capturing Animals in 3D for the Future
We are witnessing one of the largest extinction events in history because people deny that climate change is happening. Regardless of the deniers and the death of entire species we…
The Future of USDS: Trump, civic tech and the lesson of GDS
Across Washington, the country, and the world, the assumptions people have about various programs, policies and roles have been radically altered in the last 12 hours with the victory of…
Google Has Quietly Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking
Google is the latest tech company to drop the longstanding wall between anonymous online ad tracking and user’s names. The post Google Has Quietly Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web…
Simulations Help Predict How People Panic
Sadly there are still incidents of death that are a result of people panicking while evacuating spaces. For decades engineers have looked into ways to make buildings easy to evacuate…
Improvising a Digital Curriculum at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Since arriving as a Lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to integrate digital into the curriculum. I have a course…
Solar Sales Soaring Sixfold
Bloomberg is reporting that they anticipate a sixfold increase in star capacity thanks to the efficiency of a having a naturally-occuring ball of fire in our solar system. The sun…
Canada’s Draft Open Government Plan — The Promise and Problems Reviewed
Backdrop On Friday the Canadian Government released its draft national action plan. Although not mentioned overtly in the document, these plans are mandated by the Open Government Partnership (OGP), in…
How the Media Should have Responded to Peter Thiel
Much ink has been spilled about Peter Thiel’s funding of various cases against Gawker. However, the discussion of whether he should or shouldn’t mostly miss the point. Nor do the…
Email, Productivity, And How You Feel
Dealing with an endless stream of emails is challenge in any office environment – even just socially it can be rather taxing. The solution to email always seems to be…
What’s That? Use Your Phone to Identify Plants
Pl@ntNet is an app that can identify plants using the camera on your mobile. Presently, it’s limited primarily to Western Europe (since it was in France),Indian Ocean, and parts of…
On Command F: a Bittersweet Function
I tell my students of the magic of "command F" on Macs and "control F" on PCs. This F function key, that can find a word or phrase anywhere in…
A Way to Think About Digital Currency Replacing Cash
Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and other digital currencies are shaking up how the internet thinks about money. In turn, this has forced countries and large institutions to rethink how money works and…
The Unstoppable Renewable Revolution
For years naysayers have been arguing that renewable energy isn’t a good idea because the electrical input fluctuates too much on the grid. Now we have more evidence that those…
Junkyard wars
Syrian rebels have been using modern technology in the simplest of ways in their war against the Assad regime in Syria.In the picture at left, a rebel crew are shown…
Technology bargain betrayed—where have all the rewards gone?
Early in the Industrial Revolution, many workers were concerned about being replaced by machines. The most well known group were the Luddites, British weavers who smashed mechanical looms that threatened…
The Empire Strikes Back: How the death of GDS puts all government innovators at risk
The UK Government Digital Service(GDS) is dead. I’m sure it will continue to exist in some form, but from what I’ve read it appears to have been gutted of its…