Weekly output: Starship reaches orbit, Lola’s AI travel booking, SCTE emceeing, AI meets cybersecurity, White House AI accord, Google’s AI search, Firefox’s search switcher, Starlink in post-hurricane Jamaica
The end of the month often brings a flurry of articles as I try to max out what I can put on an invoice for each client. You can see that happening with this week’s list–as well as the reappearance of a client that hadn’t shown up on these lists in years.
I also had my own end-of-the-month deadline to meet at Patreon, where I owe my patrons two extra posts a month. I wrote my second for September late Tuesday night, about how long it took me to reach marginal competence in reading the quarterly earnings filings of publicly-traded companies.
9/28/2026: After One Hiccup, SpaceX Reaches Orbit With Starship’s 14th Launch, PCMag
I rushed to write a post off Starship’s 14th launch–followed by SpaceX calling off an attempt to proceed to orbit, SpaceX reversing that call, and Starship’s upper stage finally reaching orbit to deploy 26 V3 Starlink satellites–before heading to Dulles to fly to Atlanta for the cable industry’s SCTE TechExpo conference. After landing, I wrote a quick update covering the successful re-entry and controlled splashdown of Starship’s upper stage.
9/29/2026: You Booked the Flights. AI Travel Site From Kayak Co-Founders Wants to Do the Rest, PCMag
As a frequent user of Kayak, I was interested in the founders of that travel-booking site launching a new, AI-based site called Lola to book lodging, meals and experiences. So I squeezed in a call with one of Lola’s co-founders, Steve Hafner, Monday morning.
9/29/2026: Cross-Domain Network Evolution, SCTE TechExpo
I emceed this part of the programming at SCTE; that limited role meant I did not need to bring any technical knowledge to the stage but did need to pronounce names correctly. My compensation for that brief work was a comped hotel room a short walk from the venue.
9/30/2026: White House AI accord, Al Jazeera
I offered some brief commentary, translated live into Arabic for this Arabic-language news channel, on the substance-light commitment by six leading AI firms–Anthropic, Google, Meta, Nvidia, OpenAI and xAI–to develop AI responsibly.
10/1/2026: Don’t Worry About AI Overlords. Focus on Boring Stuff You Should’ve Fixed Ages Ago, PCMag
I don’t usually cover the panels I moderate, but my fellow speakers on this panel I led at HumanX Amsterdam two weeks ago—Aikido co-founder Madeline Lawrence, Noma Security chief information security officer Diana Kelley, and Tenable chief product officer Eric Doerr–had such quotable insights that I had to write up our conversation.
10/2/2026: When you should use Google’s AI for search — and when you should skip it, The Washington Post
It had been a while since I last could point to a new byline at my old shop. It’s been much longer–more than 15 years–since I offered any consumer-tech advice there. But one of my old colleagues asked if I would be interested in writing practical advice on technology, and I said I would–since the demise of my USA Today column, I haven’t had the chance to do much of that. This piece ran online Thursday and made its way into the “Trending” list while drawing more than 200 comments (yes, I do read the comments, and you can spot one reply from me in them), then had a print appearance in Saturday’s paper.
10/2/2026: Only one browser has this really helpful search tool, The Washington Post
I also wrote a tip–in essence, reviving the Help File column I wrote for the Post, but hopefully in less wonky form–about how Mozilla Firefox’s search-switch feature makes it easy to experiment with different search engines and how other browser developers should steal that good idea.
10/2/2026: How Starlink Helped Get Jamaica Back Online After Hurricane Melissa, PCMag
I wasn’t sure that SCTE’s insider-ish agenda would leave me much to write up for PCMag’s consumer audience, but this presentation Wednesday afternoon by two executives with the telecom firm Liberty Latin America yielded more than enough. I had a rushed chat with these guys right after their talk and then had to duck out to find a spot in a hallway upstairs to set up for that Al Jazeera appearance.
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