Here Are The Actually Interesting Questions about RFID Chip Implants

“Wisconsin Company Offers To Implant Chips In Its Employees.” This was the first headline I saw about 32M’s employee RFID program, and it’s relatively chill, as headlines go. But I already knew that I’d be getting emails soon. You see, I make a podcast about the future that often talks about body modification. And also, reader, […]

Before You Can Enter, We Need to Search Your Brain

On Friday, January 27th, Donald Trump signed an executive order banning people from seven countries from entering the United States. And in the wake of that executive order, there have been a continuos stream of reports that people trying to enter the United States (whether from those countries or not) have been subjected to a […]

What Golems and Robots Have in Common

In Jewish folklore there’s a thing called a golem — a creature created by magic to serve its creator. There are lots of variations on the golem story, but the way I learned it goes like this: to bring a golem to life you form it out of dirt and then walk around it several […]

In Defense of Private Projects

It’s January, which means we’re still in the throes of people announcing and performing their resolutions. In a few weeks many of those resolutions will likely slip into guilty obscurity. By March people will mercifully stop asking you about that resolution. And by June you’ll be blissfully free of any memory of the resolution in the first […]

My Latest Bad Business Idea: 3D Printed Custom Menstrual Cups

Friends of mine know that I’m full of weird, mostly bad business ideas. There was the science tattoo consultant service, to help fact check your tattoo before you put the wrong DNA sequence on your body. There was the Brooklyn dog running company, that would go for runs with your dog. There was the proposal […]

Forcing the Issue

One of the best free diversions in London is the Wellcome Collection, the medical museum operated by the Wellcome Trust and supported by the posthumous generosity of Sir Henry Wellcome, the American frontier kid who became a British pharmaceutical tycoon. “Medicine Man,” one of the permanent exhibitions, is drawn from Sir Henry’s own extraordinary collection of memorabilia related to […]

How To Be A Good Online Friend

For better or for worse, I have a lot of experience dealing with online harassment. I also have a lot of experience with friends who are kind and caring and largely oblivious to what online harassment looks for feels like. Which is good! I hope they never have to experience it. It is not fun. […]