Chronicling Robots Since 2011
For too long I have flown over the middle of the United States ignoring the creativity of my fellow citizens below. Covid-19 changed everything, grounding planes, and forcing me on a cross-country adventure. To my surprise, the I-35 corridor that stretches from Dallas, Texas through Oklahoma City is one of the busiest centers for entrepreneurship … Read more
Observing MLK Day, I followed in the footsteps of Katherine Johnson at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Her memory still looms large over the Mission Control room that launched Apollo 11’s successful lunar landing fifty years ago. This historic milestone could not have been achieved without the mathematical genius of the African-American pioneer and … Read more
Near the end of World War II, Adm. William “Bull” Halsey of the famed Third Fleet steered directly into a typhoon, losing 790 crewmen and 146 aircraft in the Pacific. Dr. Eric Daimler, formerly an innovation fellow with the Obama White House, shared this story with me in 2017 as an illustration of the importance of trusting … Read more
While vacationing and experiencing a major family milestone, a hidden news story about a local-born scientist caught my eye. Dr. Avi Loeb, chairman of Harvard University’s astronomy department, controversially proposed that Oumuamua (the mysterious elongated astroid-like object that was discovered in 2017) could be an interstellar alien visitor. The scout from the Vega Galaxy “may be a … Read more