Kyle Piira

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  • Strip Malls Could Be America’s New Main Streets

    I’ve never liked strip malls, but for a long time I couldn’t quite explain why. The buildings themselves aren’t especially offensive. If you strip away the context, a strip mall is not so different from a row of shops that you might find present on a quaint walkable Main Street in a small town. The…

  • The Toll No One Charges but Everyone Pays

    When you drive on a busy road, you always pay a price. The real question is how you pay it, with money or with time. In most of the United States, we have chosen to charge drivers in time. There is no toll for entering a congested road, but during peak hours you might spend…

  • Testing AR Glasses as a Treadmill Companion

    I’ve always found treadmill walking to be exceptionally boring. If I’m outside, on a park trail, a greenway, or any kind of walking path, I can walk for hours without thinking about it. The time just disappears. Put me on a treadmill indoors, staring forward at the same wall or the same row of machines,…

  • A Portable Screen That Mostly Gets Out of the Way

    I recently picked up a pair of Xreal 1S display glasses with one very specific goal in mind: something I could use on longer trips on planes, trains, and buses to watch movies and TV without hauling around a full VR headset or squinting at my phone. This is my first pair of display glasses,…

  • I’m Done With Bilt

    Bilt dropped details yesterday about their new credit cards. I’ve been using the original Bilt card for a little over a year, mostly for one very specific reason, and after reading through the announcement I’m pretty confident I won’t be switching to any of the new ones. I’ll probably just close the account at the…

  • Luxury Overnight Buses as an Alternative to Flying

    I recently came across an intercity bus service starting up in Europe that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. It’s an overnight bus, but not in the usual sense. Instead of upright seats and cramped legroom, the buses are built around fully lie-flat seats, similar to what you’d find in first class on…

  • Taxis still fall short

    I was recently in Miami, and like most trips I take in the U.S., my default plan for getting around was Uber or Lyft. I almost never take taxis anymore. It’s been many years since I last relied on one. But this time, I made an exception. I had just gotten off a cruise ship…

  • Challenges in Defining True General Intelligence for AI

    I’ve been thinking about the concept of artificial general intelligence and, more broadly, what we even mean by general intelligence. There are many proposed tests meant to benchmark AI against this supposed gold standard, but I think there’s a fundamental problem with how these tests are framed. If we treat modern humans as the baseline…

  • Chicago should follow Seattle’s lead in re-connecting to it’s waterfront

    I spent the past weekend in Chicago, and really enjoyed it. I rode the L all over the city and made good use of the CTA buses, which honestly impressed me in their coverage. The trains mostly radiate outward from the Loop, so they’re not always ideal for cross-town travel, but the buses fill in…

  • I had to take an Uber to cross the street in Charlotte

    I was recently heading out to dinner with my girlfriend at a restaurant in one of Charlotte’s suburbs. Before I left, I checked the transit options and noticed there was an express bus that went straight from Uptown, near my apartment, to a stop only about half a mile from the restaurant. Perfect. The timing…