Just realizing I never did a May 2024 post. Here it is. I also made a range of political musings in May, which I have chosen not to include below, but they are on the record for anyone interested.
Most frightening and/or depressing story: What a modern nuclear bomb would do to a large modern city. Do we already know this intellectually? Sure. Do we constantly need to be reminded and remind our elected leaders that this is absolutely unthinkable and must be avoided at any cost? Apparently.
Most hopeful story: The U.S. might manage to connect two large cities with true high speed rail, relatively soon and relatively cost effectively. The trick is that there is not much between these cities other than flat desert. The route will mostly follow an existing highway, and we should think about doing this more as autonomous vehicles very gradually start to reduce demand on our highways in coming decades.
Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: Drone deliveries make some sense, but what we really need is infrastructure on the ground that lets all sorts of slow, light-weight vehicles zip around in our cities efficiently and safely. And this means separating them completely from those fast, heavy vehicles designed for highway travel.