AI
Why I Started Writing My First Drafts Without AI Again
A few months ago, I opened a blank document to write an email that mattered. It was a message to an old friend I had fallen out of touch with, and I…
Consumer Tech
I Switched to a Budget Phone After Years of Flagships. The Gap Is Smaller Than I Thought
When my flagship phone slipped out of my jacket pocket and cracked across the middle of the screen, the repair quote was almost half of what a brand-new mid-range phone would cost.…
AI
The AI Voice Scam Call That Made My Family Choose a Safe Word
My uncle got the call on a Sunday afternoon. The voice on the other end sounded exactly like his son: the same slightly rushed way of speaking, the same habit of starting…
AI
I Let AI Summarize My Meetings for a Month. Here’s What Got Lost
The first time I noticed it, I was reading the AI-generated summary of a meeting I had actually attended. It was accurate. Every decision was listed, every action item had an owner,…
The Changing Digital World
What Happens to Your Digital Life After You Die? I Finally Looked Into It
I used to think about digital death the way most people think about flossing: something I knew mattered, filed away for a day I never quite got around to. Then a relative…
The Changing Digital World
The Slow Death of the Personal Blog, and Why a Few of Us Still Write One
I have kept a personal blog, in one form or another, for longer than I have kept most friendships. It has moved between platforms, survived a few years of total neglect, and…
The Changing Digital World
Why Every App Suddenly Wants Me to ‘Verify It’s Really Me’
Over the course of a single month, I was asked to prove I was a real human being an unusual number of times, once by uploading a photo of a government identification…
Technology Life
I Turned Off Every Notification for a Month. My Focus Came Back, Slowly
I turned off every notification on my phone on a Sunday evening, not because of any single dramatic incident, but because I had noticed, over the course of an ordinary week, that…
Technology Life
How My Streaming Bill Quietly Became Bigger Than My Old Cable Bill
I canceled cable almost a decade ago with the smug satisfaction of someone who had figured out the system, tired of paying for hundreds of channels I never watched and a bill…
Technology Life
The Smart Doorbell That Made Me a Nosier Neighbor Than I Wanted to Be
I installed a video doorbell for the reason most people do, a vague sense that it would make the house feel safer, a way to see who was at the door before…