Around 2021, well before ChatGPT launched, Vincent Hellendoorn suggested I try GPT-3 on the reading quizzes in my course. It produced convincing answers passing our rubric without actually seeing the assigned paper. At the time, I changed nothing. Five years … Read more
In the last 28 years of publishing software, I’ve had three distinct eras of software licensing. All of my recent stuff is available under the European Union Public License 1.2, and I thought to explain why. Midgard was all LGPLv2. … Read more
6 min read Willie Jones covers transportation for IEEE Spectrum and the history of technology for The Institute. Members of the Bell Labs Bellmac-32 team pose next to a giant circuit schematic of the chip taped to the floor at … Read more
1966 was a long time ago. The Beatles released Revolver. The No. 1 film was The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly. And computers, such as they were, involved paper tape and punch card readers. That same year, Robert Dennard invented … Read more
Ryan HockensmithApr 11, 2023, 08:00 AM ET Close Ryan Hockensmith is a Penn State graduate who joined ESPN in 2001. He is a survivor of bacterial meningitis, which caused him to have multiple amputation surgeries on his feet. He is … Read more
Until recently, gerrymandered districts tended to stick out, identifiable by their contorted tendrils. This is no longer the case. “With modern technology, you can gerrymander pretty effectively without making your shapes very weird,” said Beth Malmskog, a mathematician at Colorado … Read more
Back in 1982, computers meant one of two things in the popular imagination. Either they were room-sized machines used by the military-industrial complex to crunch data on stuff like nuclear wars and stock markets, or they were fridge-sized arcade games … Read more
Factory In 2018, my wife and I bought an old shoe factory in Paris. We entirely demolished and revamped the space. We were conscious of the importance of energy insulation. We used hemp-based insulation for walls and a double-glass window … Read more
I used to be very anti-advertising. I believed that in addition to being annoying, it was unnecessary—that if for some reason advertising became infeasible, sure, some companies would go out of business, but they’d be replaced by better companies with … Read more
From its obvious branding to its elaborate builder sets, Lego just isn’t what it used to be. Lego’s letter to parents (from a 1974 box set). Photo: Reddit A letter to parents promoting gender equality was found in an old … Read more