People are like streetcars — Image: fineartamerica.com You can’t miss Philadelphia’s streetcars. They’re everywhere, proudly barreling down the middle of the streets, cars making way for the 30 ton relics. Streetcars are a lot like buses; they travel along the road and have similar capacity. The difference is they drive on tracks. This has two…

The Shift Toward Quasi-Synchronous Email — (This essay was originally written for STSC 260, Cyberculture, at the University of Pennsylvania) Playing on a simple and straightforward metaphor, they decided to call the command MAIL. Tom Van Vleck and Noel Morris were researchers in MIT’s Political Science department the summer they developed the command that would evolve…

Debunking the classical story of wristwatch adoption among men in the United States — Elgin 7 Jewels Movement from 1913, Photo: http://dcwatches.blogspot.com/2012/02/how-to-disassemble-mechanical-watch.html 1928 was a big year for the New York Yankees. Legends like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig had led the team to a World Series victory against the Pittsburgh Pirates the previous season and the all-star team felt the pressure to do…

Cars and the future of urban life — Photo: The Huffington Post The sound of a jackhammer competes with the hum of a generator and the buzz of an electric drill. The setting is not a construction site but a street corner that is usually quiet, neighboring the Green Line Cafe, a Philadelphia coffee shop popular with locals…

How pharmaceutical advertising feminized anxiety  — The facts are simple. Twice as many women as men take prescription anxiety medication. The story of why that is is far less simple. We have by now learned better than to make sweeping Malcolm Gladwellian claims about the one big cause at the root. But in the case of…

How desperation and a WWII bomber created modern air travel  — Image Copyright Rascholefield Collection A lawyer from Montana Toward the end of World War II a lawyer from Lolo, Montana received an unexpected request from one of his clients. The company wanted him to join them—as their president. He had been a legal counsel to the company for 20 years and served on the…

Why we’ll stop using our phones & laptops and move to a system of shared interfaces. — Image by Microsoft R&D This article was originally published on Nir and Far. No one wants to make a mistake like the one Clifford Stoll made in 1996. In the February issue of Newsweek Magazine, his now infamous article carried the headline, “The Internet? Bah!” An “online database,” Stoll wrote…