My-Interests Essays on technology, science & society https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/ 2026-06-14T00:00:00Z Tim Kennedy Aging Parents Won't Accept Help? The Independence Paradox https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/aging-parents-independence-paradox/ 2026-06-14T00:00:00Z Why the conversation about elder care fails before it starts—and what to do instead. When Silicon Became Strategic https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/when-silicon-became-strategic/ 2026-05-16T00:00:00Z For decades semiconductors were just commercial products. AI has turned the GPU into a strategic asset—and caught firms like NVIDIA between profit and national power. Power and Principle in International Politics https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/power-and-principle-international-politics/ 2026-03-06T00:00:00Z Why the moral expectations we apply to individuals do not translate easily to the conduct of nations. Cooling the Digital Brain: Why Generative AI is Forcing a Revolution in Chip-Level Liquid Cooling https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/cooling-the-digital-brain/ 2026-02-15T00:00:00Z Generative AI is dragging cooling from the room down to the chip—and, in the end, back to the river. When Imagination Becomes Real: A Hopeful Counterpoint to the Fears Around Sora https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/sora-hopeful-counterpoint/ 2025-11-16T00:00:00Z Why the future of synthetic media depends less on technology than on the choices we make together. You’re Not Paying More for Electricity — You’re Paying for Reclassified Infrastructure https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/electricity-reclassified-infrastructure/ 2025-11-08T00:00:00Z How utilities use “reliability” labels to socialize costs you didn't cause. The Most Important Machine You’ve Never Heard Of https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/asml-euv-most-important-machine/ 2025-11-07T00:00:00Z Barely anyone can name the machine the modern world runs on. Only one company on Earth can build it. When Seeing Stops Being Believing: The Promise and Peril of Sora 2 https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/sora-2-promise-and-peril/ 2025-10-18T00:00:00Z When falsification becomes effortless, trust shifts from the lens to the ledger—and to whoever controls the ledger. Drones: The New Center of Gravity in Modern Warfare https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/drones-modern-warfare/ 2025-09-14T00:00:00Z Drones now define modern war. Russia has the most live practice, while America, China, and others race to match its scale. Is Amazon Quietly Eroding Its Own Reputation? https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/is-amazon-eroding-its-reputation/ 2025-06-21T00:00:00Z Amazon was built on trust. Its review system—now flooded with fake and AI-written praise—is quietly eroding the very thing that made it. The Language of the Future: Which Tongues Will Thrive—and Which Will Fade? https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/language-of-the-future/ 2025-06-10T00:00:00Z In an age shaped by algorithms, migration, and economic gravity, the winners and losers of linguistic evolution are beginning to emerge. Epigenetics Unbundled: Why Your Brain Might Be Younger Than You Think https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/epigenetics-organ-clocks/ 2025-05-20T00:00:00Z Your organs don't all age at the same speed—and thanks to epigenetic clocks, we can now read each one's true age. Why Phytoplankton Are Better Than Zooplankton (And Always Have Been) https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/phytoplankton-vs-zooplankton/ 2025-05-20T00:00:00Z Not all plankton are created equal. Some float. Some swim. Some save the planet. Some snack on the planet-savers. A Salted Solution: Inside TerraPower’s Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/terrapower-molten-chloride-reactor/ 2025-05-18T00:00:00Z Every few decades nuclear power lunges toward reinvention. Its latest bid runs on molten salt—and on chemistry that has defeated reactor designers for sixty years. An Apology to the Websites I Never Finished Reading https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/apology-to-websites-i-never-finished/ 2025-05-17T00:00:00Z A formal apology, issued on behalf of the modern attention span, to every article abandoned mid-scroll. The Internet We Deserve: How Incentives Shaped a Fractured Digital Commons https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/internet-we-deserve-digital-commons/ 2025-05-11T00:00:00Z Each generation inherits a public space. Ours was the internet—and it works exactly as designed. Mother’s Day: From Peace Movement to Global Holiday https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/mothers-day-peace-movement-origins/ 2025-05-11T00:00:00Z The “Hallmark holiday” began as a moral and political movement—and its founder spent her later years trying to destroy what she'd built. Running the Grid, Running the Cloud https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/running-the-grid-running-the-cloud/ 2025-05-11T00:00:00Z What electricity and artificial intelligence really have in common. The Rise of Synthetic Biology: Rewriting Life at the Molecular Level https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/rise-of-synthetic-biology/ 2025-05-10T00:00:00Z Biology was long a science of observation. Synthetic biology turns it into one of design—with the cell as a chassis and DNA as code. When the Grid Thinks Back: Adaptive Inertia and the Age of Responsive Infrastructure https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/adaptive-inertia-responsive-grid/ 2025-05-09T00:00:00Z Stripped of the spinning mass that once steadied it, the grid must learn to simulate inertia—and, in effect, to think. Digital Immune Systems: How AI and Zero trust Are Reshaping Cyber Defense in Energy Infrastructure https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/digital-immune-systems-energy-cyber/ 2025-05-09T00:00:00Z Energy companies have stopped asking whether they'll be attacked. Their new defenses behave less like fortresses than like immune systems. Wisdom and Madness: Navigating Life’s Later Chapters in the Eyes of Great Authors https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/wisdom-and-madness-great-authors/ 2025-05-06T00:00:00Z For the great authors, the later chapters of life were never simple—a crucible where insight either blossomed or turned bitter. When the Grid Lost Its Balance: The Iberian Blackout and the Inertia Deficit https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/iberian-blackout-inertia-deficit/ 2025-05-05T00:00:00Z On April 28, 2025, Spain and Portugal went dark. The likely culprit was not sabotage but a shortage of something invisible: inertia. If the Unthinkable Happened: Nuclear Weapons and the War in Ukraine https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/nuclear-weapons-and-the-ukraine-war/ 2025-05-04T00:00:00Z Russian nuclear rhetoric has revived a question the world had filed away: what would actually happen, and what should ordinary people know? The Quiet Tyranny of the QR Code https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/quiet-tyranny-of-the-qr-code/ 2025-05-04T00:00:00Z Once dismissed as a digital curiosity, the QR code has quietly achieved global ubiquity—and now it decides where you go next. Why Energy Isn’t Power—And Why That Distinction Still Confuses Policymakers https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/energy-is-not-power/ 2025-05-03T00:00:00Z Power gets headlines. Energy keeps the grid alive. Understanding the difference isn't academic—it's essential. Stress Signals from the Grid: What the 2025/26 MISO Capacity Auction Reveals https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/miso-capacity-auction-grid-stress/ 2025-05-03T00:00:00Z As prices spike and margins narrow, the Midcontinent faces a preview of the reliability risks ahead. The Physics of the Power Grid: A System Held Together by Inertia https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/physics-of-the-power-grid/ 2025-05-03T00:00:00Z In the euphoria for renewables, the grid's most critical stabilizing force is quietly disappearing. Cognitive Biases You Didn’t Know Were Shaping Your Thinking https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/cognitive-biases-shaping-your-thinking/ 2025-05-02T00:00:00Z Even the well-informed are not immune to distortions of judgment. Some just have more refined illusions. Voices Across Borders: The Greatest Singers in Brazilian, German, and American Music History https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/voices-across-borders-greatest-singers/ 2025-05-02T00:00:00Z Not merely entertainers, these vocalists shaped the sound of culture itself. The Science of Brain Plasticity: How Our Minds Stay Adaptable https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/science-of-brain-plasticity/ 2025-04-26T00:00:00Z The brain is not a finished machine but a living system that rewires itself—at any age. Cognitive Offloading in the Age of AI; Are We Becoming Smarter — or Just Outsourcing Our Thinking? https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/cognitive-offloading-age-of-ai/ 2025-04-25T00:00:00Z Outsourcing thought is as old as writing. The question AI raises is how much we can hand over before we stop thinking at all. Superconductors and the Future of Energy Grids https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/superconductors-and-energy-grids/ 2025-04-25T00:00:00Z In the hum of power lines a quiet revolution may be stirring: materials that carry current with zero loss—if you can keep them cold enough. The Chemistry Behind Carbon Capture at Power Plants: A Deep Dive into Post-Combustion Amine Scrubbing https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/carbon-capture-amine-scrubbing/ 2025-04-20T00:00:00Z The most mature way to catch carbon from a power plant's exhaust is also an exercise in managing its costs—energy, corrosion, and a few worrying byproducts. The Chemistry Behind Thermal Power Plant Processes https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/chemistry-of-thermal-power-plants/ 2025-04-20T00:00:00Z Behind every thermal power plant runs a second, invisible plant—one made of chemistry, keeping the water pure, the metal intact, and the emissions legal. The AI Shift: How Large Language Models Are Reshaping the Future of Work https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/ai-shift-future-of-work/ 2025-04-19T00:00:00Z The future of work won't go to those who out-think AI, but to those who out-human it. Tariffs and Transformers: How U.S. Trade Policy Is Reshaping Energy Infrastructure in the Age of AI https://my-interests-essays.netlify.app/essays/tariffs-and-transformers/ 2025-04-19T00:00:00Z America wants to lead the world in AI. The tariffs meant to rebuild its industry may starve the grid that AI needs to run.