Nathalie tries to fly to Accra via Edinburgh. You won’t believe it: we couldn’t take off for Edinburgh on Tuesday! There was a total air traffic control blackout in the UK due to a system failure—or maybe a cyberattack! Over 1,000 flights were cancelled, and Cléa and I were among them. So, it was back…
Monica sends us a few snapshots from Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard — one of the northernmost permanent settlements in the world. Roald Amundsen is still here. Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen was the first person to reach the South Pole, in 1911. In 1926 he also flew over the North Pole aboard the airship Norge. Ny-Ålesund was part…
By Sylvie, France. Some things are waiting to be useful. Others are keeping a memory safe. The difficult part is knowing which is which. I like when things are organised. Old batteries have their special place. Cables have another box. The cables I use every day are easy, but the others — from old laptops…
The Human Bit, by Frank Peters. My mother-in-law lives in the UK. She is in her mid-eighties, not particularly healthy, and has meals delivered by a company called Parsley Box. It is a useful service. The meals arrive at the door, they can be stored, and they are easy to prepare. At her stage of…
AI is quickly increasing what we can do. In a conversation with Bruce Lloyd, I began to wonder whether the harder task is deciding what is worth doing — and how much choice we really have. By Bruce Lloyd in London & Frank Peters in Cleebourg. I discovered something in Lyon almost by accident. I…
By Frank Peters. We came to Lyon because we had to. There was a hospital appointment for my wife. That was the reason for the trip. But before any of that, there was the hotel. My entrance was dramatic. I needed a bathroom. Immediately. The receptionist pointed me in the right direction, and that was…
By Ritesh in Bangalore, Ismar in Campo Grande, Brazil. From supermarket trolleys in Brazil to temple lines in India and government offices in South Africa, waiting reveals something surprisingly human: our rules matter most when we are tempted to break them. By Atlantic Corridor A queue looks simple. One person stands behind another. Everybody waits…
By Janita Le Grange. I sat down at my desk, genuinely amped to write and dive straight into the day’s work. And then I hit a wall. A total blank screen. What do I even write about today? Where do I start? I looked over at my husband and asked the first thing that came…
By our editor, Janita Le Grange. Have you ever looked at something and thought, “Well, this is completely useless”—only to turn around a moment later, look at something else, and think, “This is absolute brilliance”? We live surrounded by logic that we rarely bother to question. Take our smart devices, for instance. We buy laptops,…
By Alexander, Germany. Some inventions make life easier. Others simply take up space. And then there are the ones we use every day without really understanding them. Before our conversation even started, I had already used several inventions without thinking about them. My phone. My laptop. My coffee machine. The coffee machine is a good…
