Having enjoyed the quotes from our brave astronauts about software troubles, I wrote for Econlog:

Tech Troubleshooting in Space (EconLog)

Click to learn the story of email quote and why it went viral. With all due respect to Christina Koch, I think I’m the first woman in history to paraphrase The Notorious B.I.G. at Econlog.

“I have two versions of outlook and neither of them are working” is actually a generational NASA quote now. Not quite One Small Step but every generation lives in a different world https://t.co/T1WvlvRRiy

— Grant Tremblay (@astrogrant) April 2, 2026

Are we complaining? Tech has made our lives better. With only a few exceptions, everyone in the country chooses to have TVs and smartphones.

Digital tools like email save me time over what I can only imagine used to be sending paper memos or something. Did people have owls or pigeons or what? But some of that saved time goes to fighting new problems of evil people in cyberspace. Someone (Tyler?) points out that the “better angels of our nature” argument doesn’t look quite as rosy if you consider of all the digital criminality.

I do not know whom to credit for this banger: “Man is born free and everywhere he has to 2-factor authenticate.”

I had to do my annual mandatory employee Cyber Security training session this week. I don’t get paid extra to do this. It’s just work on top of my job. It’s estimated to take 40 minutes to complete. (I powered through in under 15 minutes.) We are obviously living in the future with iPads that translate foreign languages for refugee kids in real time and all, but it would feel more glorious if I could stop these phishing trainings.

If quantum/AI means the end of privacy and cheap tech connectivity, then what will that mean for productivity? To send a secure message to someone, we might need to go back to owl post. Get ready for mandatory annual owl training.