Me at the Zoo
The first video on YouTube is 19 seconds of a guy noticing that elephants have long trunks. I have 141 hours of videos saved about how to make a video. One of these facts is embarrassing.
a public explorer of emerging futures
I build little pieces of the future to probe what they mean.
Experiments, speculative artifacts, and field notes from the seam where technology meets being human — shared out loud, while they’re still messy.
// Off My Bench · most weeks
Free, and a little weird. Or browse the breadboard ↓
Me and a friend at the Bench
The Breadboard
what’s a probe? →The latest things I’ve made, broken, or figured out. Newest first.
But Can It Run Doom?
Someone built a working screen out of rubber and vacuum, and its brain is also air. A short tour of computers with no electronics in them, including one made of pink water that flooded the London School of Economics.
Outhorse Your Email
Iceland trained three horses to answer your email. Google, Superhuman and 147 startups have been doing the same job without the hay, and the research on how that lands with the person reading it is not flattering.
The One Star Is for the Auntie Anne's
Three hikers who phoned the sheriff for directions, a tree, humans in the loop, and the worst airports in America.
Sixty Years on One Hand
A doctor cracked the knuckles of one hand for sixty years to test something his mother told him. Nobody else had bothered.
Elaborate Ways to Not Start
The green in every control room I have ever admired was a factory safety regulation, mandatory since 1948. I found that out while watching strangers give tours of their home offices, which is apparently how I do research now.
The biggest screen I could find
Twenty-five theaters in America can show The Odyssey the way it was made. None of them are in Massachusetts. I found that out after I bought the ticket.
Off My Bench
The good stuff from the Bench, plus the unfinished things I’m still chasing — in your inbox most weeks. One curious human, writing to other curious humans. No hype, no “in today’s fast-paced world.”
Free. Unsubscribe whenever the dot stops being interesting.
Work With Me
Pick something I don't understand. Build the smallest version that would tell me if I'm wrong. Put it where people can see it. Do it again.