Fast, efficient, domain-limited voice-command recognition can operate locally without sending personal data to anyone.

This technology can in principle respect privacy, but that doesn't guarantee it _will_ respect privacy. It could transmit data just so that a company gets personal data. How can we make sure it doesn't?

• If it has no form of communication, and no facility for the manufacturer to change the code or examine the data, that blocks the attempt.
• If the software in the device is free, users can make sure it is honest.

*Gun Violence Isn't a Problem — it's actually 5 Problems, with Different Solutions.* Not all, but most deaths due to guns, fit into 5 specific patterns, and it might be possible to prevent many of them with specific actions.

If you are having something made in China, avoiding forced labor is not going to be easy.

Poor men in their 50s in England today are considerably less well than comparable men who were in their 50s four decades ago.

*The case for … cities where you're the sensor, not the thing being sensed.*