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.

broadcast

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.

Aug 27 · 6 min read

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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.

Aug 20

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Chains of Snowflakes I started a hundred-day making streak. Then I spent two days researching whether streaks actually work. This went about as well as you'd expect.

Aug 13

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Skating on a Little Lake of Ink I'm spending the week at FAB26, the Fab Lab network&

Jul 30

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Every Fake You See Is for Real Tom Cruise promised you real jets, not CGI. You got both. "

Jul 23

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Work Harder, Not Smarter I gave the assistant that runs my calendar the power to refuse me until I name a reason. Turns out the obstacle is the feature: learning science, behavioral economics, and HCI all drew the same line between friction that works for you and friction that works on you.

Jul 16

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It's Not the Fake, It's the Lie A band with no humans in it, an actress who doesn't exist, a five-star write-up sitting on a hundred food-poisoning complaints. The machine isn't the scandal. The unlabeled swap is.

Jul 9

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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.”

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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.

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