TechpadinTech News A Broken File Grounded the Whole Country A corrupted database file in the FAA's decades-old NOTAM system grounded every US flight yesterday morning, and it's got me thinking about all the quiet, ancient infrastructure that props up modern life. January 12, 2023·3 min read
TechpadinTech News The Biggest Keynote at CES Was About a Tractor CES 2023 kicked off with an odd choice for the opening keynote: John Deere, talking autonomous tractors and weed-zapping cameras, while its right-to-repair fight with farmers simmers in the background. January 6, 2023·4 min read
TechpadinTech News Watching Tesla Close Out Its Ugliest Year Tesla closed out its worst year ever on the last trading day of 2022, down about two-thirds — and a chunk of that drop traces straight back to Elon's Twitter mess, not the cars. December 30, 2022·4 min read
TechpadinTech News So Twitter Just Suspended a Bunch of Journalists Twitter suspended several journalists tonight over a same-day "doxxing" policy tied to yesterday's @ElonJet ban, and the tweets in question don't hold up to five seconds of scrutiny. December 15, 2022·4 min read
TechpadinTech News The Fusion Headlines Are Skipping the Number That Matters The DOE announced fusion ignition at NIF today, but the "net energy gain" headlines skip the part where the lasers themselves burn way more power than the reaction produced. December 13, 2022·4 min read
TechpadinTech News Fifty Fantasy Versions of Myself, Courtesy of Lensa I finally tried Lensa's Magic Avatars this week and came away with fifty fantasy-novel versions of myself, some real questions about where the training data came from, and a warning about the subscription toggle. December 7, 2022·4 min read
TechpadinTech News Orion Buzzed the Moon Today and Almost Nobody I Know Noticed While everyone's group chat was full of chatbot screenshots this week, NASA's Orion capsule quietly buzzed the Moon at under 80 miles and almost nobody noticed. December 5, 2022·3 min read
TechpadinTech News Watching Artemis I Finally Leave the Pad at 1:47 A.M. I stayed up until 1:47 in the morning to watch Artemis I finally leave the pad after three scrubbed attempts and a run-in with a hurricane, and it was worth losing the sleep. November 19, 2022·4 min read
TechpadinTech News 1:47 AM and the Rocket Finally Left the Pad Artemis I finally launched early this morning after three scrubbed attempts. I stayed up to watch it, and it was worth losing the sleep. November 16, 2022·4 min read
TechpadinTech News Eight Dollars for a Blue Checkmark: 48 Hours Later I paid $8 for a Twitter blue checkmark out of curiosity and watched it break the internet's trust signals in under 48 hours, fake Eli Lilly tweet and all. November 11, 2022·4 min read
TechpadinTech News Eight Dollars for a Blue Checkmark Twitter's $7.99 Blue checkmark started rolling out this week and it's already impossible to tell who's actually verified versus who just paid. Some thoughts on trust signals, plus the Meta layoffs that landed the same week. November 10, 2022·4 min read
TechpadinTech News The Weirdest Balance Sheet I've Read All Year A leaked balance sheet shows Sam Bankman-Fried's trading firm Alameda Research is sitting on billions of dollars of a token it basically made up itself, and something about that number won't leave me alone. November 4, 2022·4 min read
