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Superior Air

The idea that the very rich can breathe different air than the rest of us takes entitlement to new heights.  On June 7, 2023, New York City briefly had the  worst air quality in the world . The sky turned auburn as smoke from wildfires in Canada spread throughout the boroughs. The horizon vanished into an orange haze. It was not hard to feel that we were living in an era Stephen Pyne, an emeritus professor at Arizona State University, has  called  the Pyrocene. It just so happened that I was in New York for work right around the time the air quality was breaking world records. The worst had passed by then but it felt horribly unpleasant no matter where I was - indoors or out. Then one evening, while out with a group of coworkers, I passed out and an ambulance had to be called. It was an awkward and scary experience. The paramedic told me later that they had many such calls in the last few weeks and I should stay hydrated and inside as much as possible.  I could see such technology doi

Being Ghosted

Over the last five years, I have being ghosted at an exponential rate. Both professionally and in personal life. Email has gone the way of phone calls it seems - most people will not respond unless they were expecting to hear from you (via email). Job applications end up in the reject pile about 99.9% of the time these days. Attempts to network and broaden the base of professional connections end up failing at about the same rate.  People I was once friends with don't respond to text messages for months and may randomly show up out of the blue asking if I want to hang out. I took them up on those offers a few times in the interest of jump-starting a near dead friendship but it proved to be a waste of time. You cannot maintain a meaningful connection with people if you see them at very random intervals of time - there is no story of you and this person that has grown together. Very fortunately for I have long exited the dating market so at least don't have to deal the special ki

Traveling Young

I met a young couple at a class we took recently. We shared the table and got chatting. To their credit they were eager to get to know people their parents' age and we were glad that they would even consider it. Adjusted for their age, they have traveled a fair bit together. It was interesting for me to understand if seeing more of the world than the average person of their age from this little town would somehow make a difference. It seemed like the experiences were like a small but unremarkable imprints on their life not that much different than having an nice time at the nearest beach town.  Meeting with these kids (if they about J's age, that is the only way I can think of them) reminded me of a Francis Bacon quote I had read years ago: Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel. I have found this to be true in my

Garden Salve

There is a small jar of gardener's salve on my kitchen window sill. It reminds me of Camden every time I use it. We were trying to start a life together after having failed before. It was mid-summer and the weather was glorious. That short vacation had elements of perfection and the undercurrents of despair. We bought the salve at a locally owned store but it was not quite locally made. But to me this has come to define the smell of Camden. It's ideal shelf-life might be a year but we are well over a decade here. The trip was the beginning of the end - an end, I pushed as far out as I could to believe I gave it my best.  Over the years, almost everything from that time was discarded but the remnants of the salve remains. The beeswax and coco-butter have turned a bit rancid but the lavender still shines through - I am not even sure how the smell can hold for all these years. I loved how it smelt and felt when I rubbed it into my hands - that was where dreams begin. I want to be

Mirror Image

This experiment sounds a bit like recording and replaying yourself to come to independent conclusion about the error of your ways.  Initial data on Laika is promising: 75 percent of the 60,000 students who have participated in the program since October 2023 reported that they wanted to change their relationship with social media after chatting with Laika, according to the team. However, the long-term impact of the program remains to be seen. And Laika’s impact might be more complicated than it seems. Julia Stoyanovich, the director of NYU’s Center for Responsible AI, expressed concerns about using a project like this with children, a vulnerable population, without prior evidence of its efficacy. The data could be viewed as promising or not. That 25 percent that did not feel moved to change their relationship with social media after interacting with the bot, could be seen as a cohort to be deeply concerned about. Maybe the exact opposite happened - they want to redouble their presence

Reading Muscle

Interesting essay about the degradation of reading skills among college students . Everyone is impacted by the malaise but the younger you are the longer you will live to suffer from it Even as a career academic who studies the Quran in Arabic for fun, I have noticed my reading endurance flagging. I once found myself boasting at a faculty meeting that I had read through my entire hourlong train ride without looking at my phone. My colleagues agreed this was a major feat, one they had not achieved recently. Even if I rarely attain that high level of focus, though, I am able to “turn it on” when demanded, for instance to plow through a big novel during a holiday break. That’s because I was able to develop and practice those skills of extended concentration and attentive reading  before  the intervention of the smartphone. For children who were raised with smartphones, by contrast, that foundation is missing. It is probably no coincidence that the iPhone itself, originally released in 200

Picture Perfect

This story about a woman who is a professional bridesmaid made for a fun read - particularly loved the infographic that details the cost of being one (the regular kind). It could put a serious dent in the budget of a young woman. I was watching a movie recently where the woman tells her long-time boyfriend that she wants her wedding to be perfect because that's supposed to be the best day of her life. It is pursuit of such perfect that makes it possible for a professional bridesmaid to exist. A wedding so perfect that is the best day of a person's life seems both like an impossible bar to achieve and also somewhat tragic. Life could be full of many wonderful (even spectacular) moments. Most people get married relatively early and still have the majority of life left to live. It's sad to think that the high point is long gone since nothing can exceed the greatness of a perfect wedding. If instead, the pressure is taken of that one day and its allowed to be of many joyful thi