The technology issue | The Spectator

A canyon caper

Lavender Canyon, Utah Spring, and the Manhattanite’s fancy turns to thoughts of West Palm Beach. Me, 2,000 miles away in Wyoming, mine turns to the slickrock canyon country of southeastern Utah some 600 road miles southwest from Laramie, a trip that requires a stayover in a motel along the way to relieve the horses and rest ourselves before continuing on to God’s country by way of Grand Junction, Colorado, and Moab, Utah; within recent memory raucous with the shouts of uranium miners, ranch hands come to town and whores, today the playground of mountain bikers, runners and rafters from Salt Lake City and its environs.

Bill Kauffman

The story of Vince Maney

Batavia, New York 'Tis spring, and if a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love, as Tennyson opined, an older man’s reveries turn — no, not to lawn-mowing — to baseball. Not, in my case, to the grotesque parody of the American game on display in the major leagues, with their automatic extra-inning runners and TV timeouts and $100-plus tickets, but to the sandlot, the high school or college field, the amateur and independent and minor-league ballparks built on a human scale and played in with joy, even in error, by mere mortals.

Cosmo Landesman

The death of good conversation

London At London parties you can find plenty of smart beautiful women and handsome charming men. You can find a cornucopia of drugs and drink. And you can find someone who will sleep with you, marry you, publish you and best of all, flatter you. But what’s hard to find is someone to have a really good conversation with. Think about it. When was the last time you went to a social event and had a really interesting conversation with a stranger? You meet someone and suddenly you click: they get you, you get them. There’s no secret agenda — sexual or otherwise — just the pure pleasure of talking. And now that I don’t drink, take drugs or look for love, all that London parties have left to offer me is good conversation.

Chadwick Moore

Must we ‘be safe?’

Atlanta, Georgia "Be safe,” the grocery checkout girl says as I grab my box of orzo and turn to leave. From what, I wonder? Had there been a surge in pasta-related fatalities? Were packets of orzo exploding in homes across America and, if so, why are these dangerous things still on the shelf? Or was it some kind of threat? “Have a great weekend and be safe,” says the flight attendant over the intercom as we stand to deplane. Does she really care about my safety? Granted, we just touched down in Atlanta and some situational awareness isn’t a bad idea. But maybe she could have been more specific. “Have a great weekend, don’t take the MARTA after dark, and avoid Lenox Mall.

Ross Anderson

The VR and AR arms race

You probably don’t remember the Humane Pin, despite its dominating the tech-news cycle a few months ago. It’s an elegant AI-powered square that sticks to your lapel and can send messages, search for information and tell you about what you’re seeing, all through voice commands. The Humane company raised more than $230 million in venture backing, and its rollout included a runway appearance at Paris Fashion Week, a TED talk and a chic announcement video where the pin repeatedly misinformed its user. According to the pin, almonds have far more protein than they do, and April’s solar eclipse would have been best viewed from Australia, where it wasn’t even visible. Also, there’s no way to use the pin other than with voice control.

Life