What I was doing while I wasn't here

Author

Sylvia Wrigley
June 16, 2026

It’s been an absurdly busy couple of weeks. Manslaughter verdicts, sonic booms, a plywood pod, and Captain Picard’s dementia. Thank you for being along for whatever this is.

Accidents and Incidents

You probably saw this one already. I saved $200 on a flight by walking across the border into Juárez. What followed was a saga involving imaginary taxi drivers, an almost complete lack of airport signage, and a increasingly desperate hunt for the mythical “stamp of a plane.”

TRT World

I appeared on the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT)’s new show Nexus to discuss the Paris Court of Appeal’s decision to convict Airbus and Air France of involuntary manslaughter for their roles in the crash of Air France flight 447.

You can watch it here (the actual panel discussion starts at 2:54):

I also unpacked what the verdict actually means (and what it doesn’t) on Fear of Landing:

Deep Dive MH370: Myths vs. Forensic Data | Sylvia Spruck Wrigley

Sit Down with Sid

Sid is currently assembling the definitive forensic roster for his MH370 series, bringing in the heavy hitters to dismantle the persistent conspiracy theories. I spent an hour talking with him talking about actual radar data, debris analysis, and cockpit realities.

Watch/listen here:

Decentralized* Storage in a Plywood Box (ETHPrague 2026)

Subscriber Exclusive

I attended a conference focused on Decentralized Finance (DeFi) in Prague, where I slept in a plywood pod and had three straight days of cognitive overload. The conference itself was held in the opulent Municipal House where Czechoslovak independence was declared in 1918, now filled with hackers under a 5,000-pipe organ while speakers repeatedly pointed out that most DeFi is just trusting a handful of guys in a group chat.

The EPUB booklet is a paid subscriber exclusive. Let me know if you don’t have access and would like it!

Fear of Landing

My first U.S. military base air show. It opened with F-16 Fighting Falcons creating sonic booms from 18,000 feet and ended with the Patriots Jet Team painting hearts in the sky in their L-39 Albatros jets. In between I became weirdly obsessed with the air boss and developed an unhealthy desire to fly in a B-25 Mitchell bomber called Devil Dog.

You can read all about it on Fear of Landing: https://fearoflanding.com/airshows/legacy-of-liberty-2026

While I was there, the MC casually mentioned that the de Havilland Vampire was the first jet to land on a moving aircraft carrier deliberately. How do you land on an aircraft carrier by accident? This led to my researching and writing a surprisingly messy early history of carrier jet landings: https://fearoflanding.com/history/vampire-first-jet-aircraft-carrier/

Edinburgh Press, forthcoming

I have also been quietly dismantling ageist tropes in science fiction. I have finished and delivered my chapter for the Third Age of Trek, forthcoming with Edinburgh Press.

Star Trek: Picard presents a groundbreaking opportunity to explore aging through its elderly protagonist. The series initially confronts ageism and mortality through Picard’s feelings of obsolescence, compounded by a diagnosis of Irumodic Syndrome, a science-fictional proxy for dementia. However, rather than engaging with these later-life challenges, the series embraces magical cures and inspirational over-achievement narratives. Over three seasons, the show shifts from meaningful confrontation with age-related decline to narrative erasure, culminating in a third-season retcon that attributes Picard’s prognosis to alien tampering rather than a medical condition associated with aging. By abandoning established mentor relationships in favor of biological parenthood and “passing the torch” tropes, the series reinforces rather than challenges ageist stereotypes, presenting old age as something to heroically overcome. Ultimately, Star Trek: Picard represents a missed opportunity to confront science fiction’s persistent discomfort with ageing and disability as legitimate dimensions of human experience.

Sylvia Spruck Wrigley

The textbook is coming out some time next year and I’ll be delighted to share it with you when I can!

Thank you to my subscribers for subsidizing my relentless pursuit of international legal verdicts, sonic booms, and the occasional mythical airport stamp!