Right to repair
What It Takes to Repair a Tractor You Own
A farmer, a broken sensor and a dealer two hundred miles away. Inside the quiet fight over who is allowed to fix modern machines.
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Staff writer
Nadia Rahman
Nadia Rahman is a staff writer who covers repair, language, and machines—and, more often than not, the places where the three meet, from a stalled tractor to a weather model humming in a basement. She worked for six years as a court interpreter before moving into journalism, and she is finishing A Grammar of Broken Things, a book about the words mechanics invent for faults their manuals never name. She lives in Halbridge, carries a pocket multimeter in her coat, and has kept the office kettle alive for nine years past its warranty.
3 pieces by Nadia
Language
Machine Translation Is Coming for Languages With 4,000 Speakers
For a small language, a decent translation tool is a gift and a threat. Its speakers are arguing about which.
Forecasting
The Weather Model That Runs in a Basement
A volunteer collective forecasts the weather for a mountain valley better than the national service. Their secret is local knowledge and a lot of old hardware.