I. ObituaryThe legend of Gus Weiss, hero of the Cold War, ends 11 stories below the balcony of his condo at the Watergate complex in Washington, DC, on November 25, 2003. A broken corpse on the sidewalk.In life, Weiss had liquidy blue eyes and an aristocratic air. He stood 5’7″ and in later years developed…
“If you’re not going to give me information,” one of my students said during class, “I’m going to take what I have and run with it. Even if something is just a possibility, I’m still going to share it. I want people to know.”The class was discussing Covid-19, specifically how little we know about who’s…
Growing up, some of my fondest listening experiences came from a silver Phillips boombox. I have vivid memories of popping in Moby’s Play—and what I honestly recall to be six D-sized batteries—and wandering around with the bald-headed maestro in tow.These days, it’s easy to take your favorite tunes with you anywhere. But decades after squeezing…
Midday light streams through the windows of the Stanford Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, California. In a bed too big for his child-sized body, David Sanchez sleeps among a tangle of tubes plugged into a port in his chest. A machine nearby draws blood out of his veins, exchanging his deformed red blood cells for…
The novel coronavirus does not respect borders, but they loom large for heads of state and CEOs responding to the global health crisis. Geopolitics as much as public health will determine how the pandemic proceeds and its lasting effects on people and business. Ian Bremmer, president and founder of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, says…
When my phone alerted me that my Arlo Q camera had detected a person, I was concerned. I had positioned the camera in my bedroom window facing a bird feeder—not a place you’d expect, or want, to see people passing by.Thankfully, the “person” was just a little bird enjoying its lunch. Security camera-maker Arlo offers…
For the past nine years, Mandolin Noir has taken care of other people’s pets around Seattle, often working through companies like Rover and Wag. The work is steady; she visits the dogs when their owners are at work, and checks in on the cats when owners travel out of town. But in the past week,…
I’m writing this dispatch from Portland, Oregon, one of the first cities in the US to be hit by community spread of the coronavirus. This morning, my daughter sneezed and I froze. Should I send her to school? She didn’t appear otherwise sick. No snot. No fever. My partner, Don, spent the morning scouring Portland…
Today, the US Cyberspace Solarium Commission published its final report. The 182-page document is the culmination of a year-long, bipartisan process to develop a new cyber strategy for the United States. Established by the 2019 Defense Authorization Act, the commission draws its inspiration from one set up by President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s, as…
On Wednesday, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) canceled the Electronic Entertainment Expo — better known as E3 — over concerns regarding the spread of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus. The World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic on Wednesday. The ESA said it’s “exploring options with our members to coordinate an online experience to showcase…
