That's how smart and good Ed is.  For his column, he writes about very high-tech subjects, but in clear, human English, often with a good dose of Bottian humor. 

And last week, Ed had a superb article about passkeys.
 
He notes in the piece – “After a lengthy online exchange on the subject with a friend who finally achieved an "Aha!" moment, I think I figured out why the topic is so confusing.”
 
I can speak from personal knowledge when I say how terrific the column is – because the “friend” Ed refers to is…me!  About six weeks ago, I’d read yet one more article purporting to explain how easy passkeys are, and it was utterly bewildering.  So, I wrote to Ed about passkeys being so convoluted.  And that began a long exchange of emails between us, where he tried to explain them – until, finally, after a barrage of questions, I did indeed have that “Aha!” moment.  And for Ed, as he writes in this column, based on that exchange, it was an “Aha!” moment for him, as well, in realizing how to explain it easily.
 
The challenge in explaining what a passkey is and how it works, he notes, is that “A passkey is not a tangible thing -- it's an abstraction.”  And Ed figured out how to easily explain the abstraction.

(I try not to bug Ed too much with techie questions, since I know he SO graciously spends a lot of time explaining them.  Amusingly, in checking our passkey exchange, my first email to him had the Subject line:  "Minor passkey question."  Ha!  It turned into anything but that!  I'm deeply appreciative each time he goes into Bott Mode and explains so wonderfully, but he always says that "Explaining is what I do," and adds that often my questions and our discussions lead to column ideas for him.  My favorite came after a lengthy exchange we had about me getting a new computer and all the options.  He later wrote an article about it, and in a video interview about the column, he told the interviewer, "I was having a discussion with a friend -- let's call him....."Bob".)
 
I’ll let Ed's passkey article speak for itself, because it’s so good and so fun to discover one’s own “Aha!” moment.  But just to put it in perspective and set the table, I’ll give a very brief, easy -- and very simplistic -- background.  But it should give you a basic starting point.
 
First, the reason to get rid of passwords is that a password can be figured out by scammers or stolen.  Passkeys cannot.  Passkeys only reside physically on your own computer (or tablet or phone).  And they’re hidden in a totally secure area on your system – so hidden that even you don’t know where they are.  As Ed wrote to me in our email exchange, "That passkey can't be stolen. It's locked in a secure vault and is never exposed. Ever." 
 
And second – and this is part of the “Aha!” moment realization – is that passkeys are nothing more than like a high-tech handshake between the website you’re logging into and that hidden passkey on your system. Think of it this way: 

When you’re asked by a website, “Do you want to log in with a passkey?” and answer yes, that website checks to see on its own site that “Oh, okay, this person has a passkey” -- and it then sends a question  to your device, to ask “Is this person who they say they are?”  What your system then does is simply confirm that the request came from a legitimate site, and then asks you to confirm your identity.  Once you do, your computer goes ahead and checks that secure, hidden area that is physically on your system to see whether you really do have a saved passkey.  If it finds one, it sends a confirmation back to the website (but does not send the passkey itself!), and you get access.  Again, to clarify, the passkey is never even sent.  It stays secure and hidden on your system.  The only thing sent back is the confirmation that all is well, so let the person into your website.
 
That’s it.  There’s nothing for you to remember.  No keystrokes that an outside hacker can steal. No way at all for an outside scammer to get access to your passkey unless they literally are sitting at your system and using it.  (And even at that, they still have to be able to first identify themselves with either biometrics, like facial recognition, or the PIN you set up on your device to log in.)
 
So, that's what a passkey is:  just the website you want to log into shaking hands with the passkey hidden on your system, and matching.
 
That’s all.  That’s also just a very basic explanation.  Ed explains it so much better.  So clearly.  So simply.  So much more enjoyably.  And his article also has more, interesting things to know about passkeys and using them on multiple devices.
 
So, do yourself a favor and take a look at his article about it here.  
 
Because passkeys are here already.  (I use about a dozen so far.)  And they are going to eventually replace passwords.  Because they are extremely safe.  And easy.

On this “The Weekly Show” podcast with Jon Stewart, his guest is Charlie Warzel, staff writer at The Atlantic and author of its "Galaxy Brain" newsletter.  As the show writes, “In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Jon is joined by Charlie Warzel. Together, they explore how algorithms distort the way we experience these tragic events while rewarding the most extreme reactions, investigate the online ecosystems that can radicalize individuals, and consider whether our responses to violence perpetuate the very cycles we condemn.”
 
As I’ve noted, the show now provides a nice feature, a sort of "breakdown" of when specific topics are covered during the conversation, so you can jump to the sections that most interest you.  If you watch the video on YouTube, those time codes are hyperlinked to the video and will jump you automatically to the right spot.  But for those who choose to watch it here, this is the schedule, and you can just manually go to where you want, if you decide not to watch the whole thing.
 
0:00 - Intro
3:38 - Charlie Warzel Joins
9:40 - Social Media Is Changing Our Behavioral Incentives
15:55 - Algorithms
24:47 - January 6th
30:22 - "Everything Is Content" Economy
37:30 - Online Communities & Subcultures
42:00 - Charlie's Blank Slate X User Experiment
50:15 - Irony-Poisoned Nihilism of the Internet
59:11 - People Need to Start Taking the Internet More Seriously
1:09:20 - Breaking Down the Discussion

What most analysts say is that it's not likely that police will be out looking for people holding their phone at a stop light, and are not likely to ticket people if they do spot someone.  (Though if they did, this being Los Angeles, they could probably make enough money on fines to get rid of the national debt...)  Still, with the cost of the fines and risk of getting points on your record, that's a lot to rely on "likely."

There's a lot that's great in the law.  But there's so much, too, that makes you want to shout, "What are earth were you thinking???!!"​

​There was a video yesterday of a panel that Trump was on, and as Mehmet Oz (who currently is serving as Trump's administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) is speaking, Trump -- sitting next to him -- is struggling to keep his eyes open.  In another video from yesterday, he was introducing the co-sponsor of a bill and asking where the guy was, looking out into the audience -- the congressman had been standing behind Trump the whole time.

It's just the latest examples, even if small, of how Trump is clearly fading, and having cognitive issues (the polite term).  But his word salad, off-topic ramblings, paraphasia and more keep fading more and more.  

It all brought to mind a short comment about technology that Trump made a couple months back on how amazingly skilled his young son Barron was with computers.
 
His statement was so head-shaking, "Wait, what???!!," that it wasn't a case of “Imagine if President Biden had said something this creepily inept,” but rather…imagine if anyone over the age of three said something so creepily inept.?

And most of the media just normalizes him as Trump being Trump.  Yes, it is Trump being Trump.  But the point is that Trump being Trump is someone who is a malignant narcissist and is in the process of major cognitive decline -- from normal old age, senility and (as many expert psychologist have written for years) shows signs of dementia, which is degenerative.

If you didn't see Last Week Tonight with John Oliver last night, his Main Story was on something that is called "AI Slop."  This is basically AI-generated videos or graphics that are sent around, largely as spam.  The report is interesting, funny and disturbing for how problematic the videos are.

Also, the broadcast including a disclaimer at the very beginning that the episode had been recorded on Saturday, before Trump bombed Iran, in case you were wondering why that wasn't the Main Story.  Though they do address the conflict briefly and well.

When I was back in Chicago -- Evanston actually, staying just a few blocks from the beloved Northwestern -- I saw the news story on how the Trump administration (in its ongoing fascist effort to destroy education in the United States) had added Northwestern to its list and was demanding "changes" or else they would freeze $790 million in federal funding from the school. This stems from, as the New York Times stated it, Trump team "accusations of racial discrimination stemming from their efforts to promote diversity."

As the article later notes, Northwestern (a Big Ten university) is the first non-Ivy League school to have funding from the Trump administration targeted.

A spokesman for the school, Jon Yates, said -- "Federal funds that Northwestern receives drive innovative and lifesaving research, like the recent development by Northwestern researchers of the world’s smallest pacemaker, and research fueling the fight against Alzheimer’s disease. This type of research is now at jeopardy.”

Before we get to that, I think it's important to know what this actually means, and that's it's not just "spokesman fluff".  When he says "recent, that "world's smallest pacemaker" was announced literally less than two weeks ago, on April 2, and it's utterly remarkable.  Jaw-dropping breathtaking.  Whatever you may have in mind about "world's smallest pacemaker," you almost certainly might want to think smaller -- and even that's not the only thing that's stunning about it.  The device is so small, it can be inserted with a syringe, and then dissolves after it’s no longer needed!

Yes, that's a pacemaker.  And yes, that is small.  And it dissolves when not needed.  Here's a 90-second video about it --

And that's the thing about this fascist Trump effort -- accepted and enabled by MAGOPs in Congress -- to destroy education.  No doubt the base (and the word was never more accurate) loves when its party tries to undermine and shred education by freezing funding for all those "elites."  Except what so much of the federal funding goes for is critical research that impacts the lives of everyone -- Red, Blue and every color in between -- and also helps the U.S. lead the world in scientific and medical advances.

The $2 billion in funding that Trump/MAGOPs now want to freeze may be a joy to the base, but they might want to find out first that the bulk of the money goes for medical research into cancer and Alzheimer's Disease (neither of which discriminate on the basis of political belief...), and also Harvard-based hospitals, like the renowned Mass General and Boston Children's Hospital.  Neither of which discriminate on the basis of...oh, you know.  

If you (whoever you are) ever need and can benefit from the medical care or scientific advances from any of this research that Trump/MAGOPs are trying to freeze, because they want to destroy education and have it heel to their fascist beliefs, just know what could be lost could affect you or your loved ones.  And leadership in the fields might now go overseas.

That's what this is about. Not falsely presumed "elites" or the MAGOP-hated "education."

Which is why I was thrilled to see Harvard turn down the Trump/MAGOP demands, even if it meant losing $2 billion.  It will hurt Harvard -- but it will also hurt all Americans, because they're who benefit from medical advances and needs.  They and everyone in the world.

As Harvard President Alan Garber said, spot-on properly: “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”

I must assume there will be lawsuits from Harvard and all the universities under threat of their government funding being frozen, including of course Northwestern.  So, hopefully, they will either get to keep their funding for research or won't be blocked.

In the meantime, though, great for Harvard.  What a courageous, important stand to take.

Which leads me to end with this from Tom Lehrer.  To be clear, it's a comic song that has nothing to do with medical research (though does with scholarship), and is really just a chiding number about what a football fight song should be for the school.  But its title fits perfectly, and so that's why we're going with it. 

"Fight Fiercely Harvard," indeed.
​