What My Dialup Youth Taught Me About Sex and the Internet
On the other hand, my middle school sex-ed class offered a total paucity of information. I heard about the literal ins and outs of sex—here is the urethra, here is…
A Case Against the Peeping Tom Theory of Privacy
As compelling as that Apple ad is, the Peeping Tom narrative doesn’t capture the collective dimension of data privacy. The truth, as the tech analyst Ben Thompson points out, is…
Authoritarian Regimes Could Exploit Cries of ‘Deepfake’
A viral video shows a young woman conducting an exercise class on a roundabout in the Burmese capital, Nyapyidaw. Behind her a military convoy approaches a checkpoint to go conduct…
New York City’s Surveillance Battle Offers National Lessons
In January, when New York’s Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology Act went into effect, the City of New York Police Department was suddenly forced to detail the tools it had…
Hackers, Mason Jars, and the Psychedelic Science of DIY Shrooms
The overarching focus of these manuals was how to avoid contamination. Although mushrooms are often associated with dirt and rot, they require a sterile environment for cultivation. In the wild,…
The Secret, Essential Geography of the Office
I once worked for a few weeks at a big, busy company, and one day I asked, jokingly, “Where do I go to cry?” An hour later, I was taken…
How Choreography Can Help Robots Come Alive
Consider this scene from the 2014 film, Ex Machina: A young nerd, Caleb, is in a dim room with a scantily clad femmebot, Kyoko. Nathan, a brilliant roboticist, drunkenly stumbles…
Sad QAnon Followers Are at a Precarious Pivot Point
The QAnon conspiracy theory, spread in large part through social media, was recently supported by a majority of Republican voters. It is, at its baseless and thoroughly debunked core, the…
On the Capitalist Internet, Even Celebs Join the Gig Economy
When I was very little, Neville Wanless wished me happy birthday on TV. Wanless was the gentle glue who held our regional station in northeastern England together, and although I…
The Line Between Digital Trade and Security Is Always Blurry
On the Biden administration’s first full day in office, three Chinese state-owned telecommunications firms asked to be relisted on the New York Stock Exchange. The firms had been the subject…