I War Gamed This in the ’70s. Now It’s Real

I War Gamed This in the ’70s. Now It’s Real

by | Apr 21, 2025

In the 1970s, I was in my 20s and locked in a long-running play-by-mail war game with a group of friends. It was one of those sprawling, imagination-fueled strategy games—light on rules, heavy on consequences. My fictitious country wasn’t the biggest or the boldest,...
Salk to Silicon: How COVID Changed the Vaccine Game

Salk to Silicon: How COVID Changed the Vaccine Game

by | Apr 21, 2025

Back in the 1950s, Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine with a team of fewer than a hundred researchers and about as much computing power as a toaster. No cloud servers, no AI, no billion-dollar grants—just lab coats, microscopes, and enough coffee to keep...
Screen Zombies at Lunch, AI at the Gate

Screen Zombies at Lunch, AI at the Gate

by | Apr 18, 2025

There he was—a preteen kid, hunched over a laptop in the middle of a family lunch, hammering away at a low-rent Mario knockoff like his life depended on it. He didn’t touch his food. Didn’t speak. Didn’t look up. When the battery finally gave out, his mother passed...
Mystery Meat and the American Malaise

Mystery Meat and the American Malaise

by | Apr 15, 2025

I remember school lunches the way you remember your first heartbreak—with equal parts nostalgia and indigestion. Back in the day, our cafeteria cooks had access to five-pound blocks of government cheese that came in plain brown cartons—USDA surplus with a side of...