Inside industrial warfare at its finest — Tesla’s Autonomy Day came and went, and investors and critics felt unimpressed by the ambitious presentation. We’ve all heard this story before; self-driving cars have been on the horizon for years. For many, the idea is pure fantasy, a misunderstanding of how difficult it is to search large datasets and…

And other tales from the battlefront — The post-debate glow surrounding Kamala Harris is beginning to fade. In what amounted to a rebuke of Biden’s elder stature, her confrontation over ‘70s era busing politics was the optic needed to prime her prosecutorial bona fides. In the wake, however, confusion over desegregated schooling is seeping into the weeds. …

Riding the wave of neoreaction across the South Pacific — When I first heard of Starlink launching sixty satellites into low Earth orbit, the consequences didn’t seem obvious. You think it’ll just be cheaper Twitch.tv streaming from Patagonia, or maybe lag free teleconferencing. What you don’t consider are all the side-effects of high-throughput, low-latency global networks. As a crude example…

And the quiet Democratic Party revolution — In a Tuesday fundraiser, former Vice President and frontrunner for the upcoming Democratic nomination uttered phrases that caught segments of the party by storm. His comments aimed at an audience of donors ready to hand over piles of fresh green cash, resources critically needed for a midwestern 2020 blitz. In…

Genetic engineering and global rivalries — For nearly the past decade, the tool known as CRISPR has been sweeping the scientific world. The acronym stands for a process I won’t attempt to explain, suffice it to say it does its job with enough precision that the tiniest genetic sequences can be removed, inserted, or mutated into…

How Congressional forces are gathering for the ultimate showdown — O n Monday, Democrats will begin hearings to further investigate President Trump. Their mission is clear and concise, which is through public sessions, testimony, and document review, prove to the voting public that Trump both engaged in a conspiracy with Russian officials to influence the 2016 election, and when confronted…

From flooding insurance to economic loss — From floods to high-speed winds, tropical cyclones have devastating consequences for coastal economic activity. Whether involving flood insurance or housing and infrastructure loss, damage from storm surge and extreme winds affects critical financial choices. …

Tracking tech through an Adornian perspective — In Theodor Adorno’s polemic titled The Culture Industry Reconsidered, the critical theorist confronts the real power of industrial communication and its effects. By interrogating the processes of production, manipulation, and commodification present in the manifestation of our technological era, there is a rigorous mapping of something altogether in-human inherent in…

A Latin American Story — Clientelism in the context of politics in Latin America is the practice of voters (clients) receiving gifts or payments in exchange for votes for political candidates (patrons). However, this phenomena effects how party politics is organized throughout elections, and particularly primes electorates toward personalistic populist rhetoric, which in many cases…