Sixty Yards Ahead
A woman in Philadelphia was arrested for standing in front of a delivery robot. In 1865 the law required a man to walk in front of the machine. Also a six-foot grocery robot that one shopper is sure is following him.
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.
No Plan Survives the Puppy
A puppy came home a week early, so I built him an app with eight buttons. Also frigatebirds that sleep 40 minutes a day, a collar that can't tell when you pet the dog, and the X-ray AI that is good at saying nothing is wrong.
Whistling to the Machine
A blind kid whistled at the phone company and it answered. Also four very small horses, and a taxi that took an hour to go ten minutes.
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.
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.
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.