Human Wash

A “human washing machine” a futuristic pod designed to wash and dry a person in just 15 minutes sounds bizarre at first blush but maybe there is value. Developed by Science Co., a Japanese showerhead manufacturer, the device draws inspiration from the egg-shaped Ultrasonic Bath showcased at the 1970 Japan World Expo. This modern version, called the “Mirai Ningen Sentakuki” or “human washing machine of the future,” uses advanced sensors to monitor vital signs and customizes wash settings like water pressure and temperature for each user, even projecting calming images based on their stress levels.

The human washing machine aims to make hygiene more efficient and accessible not merely novel. Its key benefits extend to those with limited mobility, such as the elderly or disabled, offering them a convenient and safe alternative to traditional bathing. The machine could also streamline operations in hospitality or healthcare settings, saving time and resources where caregivers typically spend considerable effort helping individuals bathe.

Japan as always pushing the boundaries of technology and comfort in everyday life, turning what used to be a chore into a high-tech, possibly even relaxing, experience. Something to learn from and apply even if in smaller ways. 

Roman Dog

 The accommodations for Italian dogs are so fancy that it could put any upscale hotels for humans to shame. The private lawn (or pool) is hardly a common perk even in nice hotels. 

Rooms — with underfloor cooling — are suffused with aromatic oils such as lavender, tea-tree and mint and each has a private lawn. The property offers arnica massages, a communal garden where guests can mingle and large screens for video calls with faraway loved ones.

It is a telling sign of the psychological climate in Italy, rise in anxiety, stress, and feelings of uncertainty among its people. Economic pressures, political instability, and concerns over the future contribute to a general atmosphere of worry and unease, as folks struggle to adapt to rapid changes in society and the workplace. These factors, combined with lingering effects from previous crises, have amplified concerns about mental wellbeing across different demographics. When we were in Tuscany a couple of years ago, seeing completely shuttered homes and near ghost town villages became so common a sight, that it was surprising to see the bustle of everyday activity in some of the smaller towns that were still thriving mainly due to tourism.

It seems that Italians experience difficulty expressing their mental health struggles due to cultural stigmas and limited access to quality support services. Although awareness of mental health is slowly improving, traditional attitudes often lead people to internalize stress or avoid seeking professional help. This results in widespread feelings of isolation and frustration, particularly among younger generations facing job insecurity and older adults navigating the pressures of retirement in a changing society.

This story reflects broader global trends of increasing psychological strain and the growing need for accessible, community-based support. Initiatives in some cities to prioritize mental health offer hope, but the narrative in this case remains one of a nation grappling with profound personal and collective uncertainty, searching for ways to build resilience and create a more supportive environment for those affected.

Peak Popularity

On a beach trip a few weeks ago, I noticed that more people had tattoos than I've seen previously. All ages and demographics from what I could tell. It was like tattoos had a breakthrough moment and gone mainstream and as it turns out, such is indeed the case but that was news from twenty years ago and I just noticed.

Once a fringe practice associated with sailors, bikers, and criminals, tattoos in America have become more accepted over the past two generations. After years of steady growth, tattoo artists cite popular television series, beginning with The Learning Channel’s “Miami Ink” in 2005, as establishing tattoos as normal and opening the floodgates. Good public data is scarce, but estimates grant the existence of at least 15,000 parlors in the US and $2 billion in annual revenue. Tattoos and body piercings have gone mainstream, imbued with the respectable title of “body art.” Forty percent of people age 18-29 have a tattoo and 25% have a body piercing somewhere other than their ear.

With so much adoption, its now set to become uncool. I must have experienced peak popularity at the beach this summer. And now robots can replace tattoo artists. 

Infinite Loophole

I was familiar with the ideas this essay talks about but reading these lines particularly highlights why the whole rhetoric about getting the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes must seem very amusing to those who are meant to be "caught" in its dragnet. They can only be scornful of the masses and their cluelessness

Much of the debate around American tax policy focuses on the income-tax rate paid by the very wealthiest Americans. But the bulk of those people’s fortunes doesn’t qualify as income in the first place.

They and the rest of us don't live in the same universe. Its somewhat like Newtonian physics does not apply in their realm and yet they would have the masses believe that if we tried hard enough we could somehow make the laws of gravity work the same for them as it does for us. The author is spot on: 

The one guarantee of any tax regime is that, eventually, the rich and powerful will learn how to game it. In theory, a democratic system, operating on behalf of the majority, should be able to respond by making adjustments that force the rich to pay their fair share. But in a world where money readily translates to political power, voice, and influence, the superrich have virtually endless resources at their disposal to make sure that doesn’t happen. To make society more equal, you need to tax the rich. But to tax the rich, it helps for society to be more equal

Open Mind

There is a little bit of these traits in many of us but reading this brought a young person to mind that I care about and would like to see do well in life but sadly checks all of these boxes. Numerous psychological studies support the idea that traits like chronic complaining, procrastination, giving up, ignoring feedback, and indecision are rooted in emotional factors: especially fear, avoidance, and low resilience. 

Research shows these habits are often manifestations of difficulties with mood regulation, self-esteem, and a tendency to avoid uncomfortable feelings or personal responsibility. When you see someone manifest a lot of patterns of behavior this article describes you have to wonder if there was ever a time in the person's life when they were not set in this mode of functioning. What makes them so terminally fearful to the point that they will avoid just about everything to avoid failure and when despite those efforts they do indeed fail they will claim they were not in the running at all, did not even try so it does not count. 

From my observation the most fatal flaw of all is the unwillingness to listen to other:

They plug their ears to well-intentioned advice, convinced that their way is the only way.

This closed-minded approach stunts personal growth and limits opportunities for improvement. By dismissing outside perspectives, they deprive themselves of valuable insights that could help them course-correct and avoid potential pitfalls. Moreover, this behavior often alienates colleagues, mentors, and friends who might otherwise be inclined to offer support.

Anyone who is willing to be somewhat open-minded and listen to those who mean well can overcome a lot. There was a time in my life when I simply refused to do anything other than what I had decided that I would. Nothing would make me reconsider. The results were remarkably bad and it took a decade to recover. Thankfully that was an isolated area of my life so the entire structure did not fall apart. When I did return to my senses, I was able to build back up. Just giving up on the idea that I was definitely right and no other inputs were relevant made all the difference in the world.

Morality Check

Interesting essay on why porn works across political and gender lines. The author argues the appeal lies less in violence than in the thrill of the forbidden, turning private desires into public display. Such portrayals of power and submission resonate across audiences because they capture the tension between outward denial and inward wanting. 

Condemning them outright risks missing these psychological complexities. Fishman suggests our unease with porn reflects deeper anxieties about desire, morality, and exposure. She talks about the fascination with the top categories where the average consumer of this content remains stuck. Maybe there is some safety in numbers at play to see what they would self-censor and consider deviant be listed as the most popular genre. 

There is the larger question about who is the audience and the depiction of women. What does it mean when you are supposed to have a rejective reaction but don't. Does that make the viewer part of the problem that in real life they claim wanting to solve. 

Under Share

I refuse to post on LinkedIn which is the only social media I am on because there level of pointless noise is so high. There really is no sense in adding to it. It turns out that there is a general decline in people posting in social media. Maybe that will create space for direct or small group conversations that are more meaningful. 

Being that platforms, especially Meta, are moving toward “computer-generated content,” flooding feeds with AI-created posts that are cheap, infinite, yet lacking in substance. As AI models increasingly mine public content posted by users, some may feel discouraged from sharing, wary their words and images will be endlessly harvested by algorithms to fuel further automation, often without credit or control.

Recent news highlights growing tensions about unauthorized AI scraping; major publishers have threatened legal action against AI companies accused of using copyrighted content to train their systems and generate new material. This feeds user reluctance: if posting online means relinquishing control to AI bots for repurposing, many prefer private channels or reduce sharing altogether. In essence, concerns about privacy, content exploitation by AI, and the rise of low-effort computer-generated posts contribute to the decline in personal social media sharing and a shift to less public, more controlled digital interaction.

An early career developer told me recently that StackOverflow is no longer the first place to ask for or get help. I thought he might be exaggerating but apparently not. 

Proto Feminist

Reading Tagore's views on women was interesting. If the world were ideal, women could in fact have their energy centered at home and have the family drawn towards it. 

He offers a nuanced perspective on gender that reflects aspects both consistent with feminist thought and limitations typical of his times. Tagore recognizes the creative, spiritual, and societal power of women, suggesting that their role is far beyond mere decoration or dependence. He admires woman as the symbol of “Shakti, the creative power,” and argues for harmony, respect, and the need to rectify inequalities between men and women. He is vocal in critiquing the economic and social disadvantages women suffer in their relationships and acknowledging the suffering caused by a lack of freedom (for which men are to blame).

At the same time, Tagore emphasizes inherent differences between men and women, warning against erasing distinctions and praising woman’s unique role in cultivating home and nurturing relationships. He sees women’s influence as spiritual, artistic, and essential to maintaining the human dimension against material ambitions. There is a truth to this when one considers how material ambitions have got more our more out hand in tandem with women acquiring freedom and equality. No one in the family until is holding the spiritual center. Adjusted to his era, it makes sense that he does not directly argue for social, economic, or political equality in the modern feminist sense. His vision elevates the feminine ideal and calls for liberation from oppression, couched in language that sometimes implies women’s place remains fundamentally within the sphere of home and harmony.

Tagore displays proto-feminist sympathies: he acknowledges women’s suffering due to male power structures, condemns “barbaric” social regulations, and celebrates women’s spiritual agency. However, his framework remains rooted in essentialist and idealized views of gender. He comes across as a  progressive thinker on women’s issues for his time, advocating dignity, freedom, and respect for women, but not fully embracing the egalitarian, activist platform of contemporary feminism. In this essay, he seems to hint and at will go wrong with society when women step out the realm of home and harmony

Being Unequal

The work permit journey in America is one I had known and endured for a long time. The news that came over the weekend about the $100K fee got me thinking like many others, about what this means for expat Indian professionals and their families. Former NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant reacted by suggesting that the policy, which restricts global talent from entering the US, would stifle American innovation but benefit India. According to Kant, the restrictive measure creates an opportunity for India’s top engineers, doctors, scientists, and innovators to fuel growth and innovation within Indian tech hubs such as Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, and Gurgaon.

Kant believes that with the US “slamming the door” on foreign talent, the next wave of research labs, patents, startups, and technological advancements will be centered in India’s rapidly growing urban technology centers. Global tech giants who already have a strong presence in these cities could see a surge in local talent and innovation as highly skilled professionals opt to stay in or return to India rather than pay the exorbitant visa fee or face uncertainty in the US market.

This would be absolutely wonderful if tethered to reality for anyone who is adversely impacted by the policy. I did return to India as a single mom decades ago and tried my very best to make it work for me and J. I had the unwavering support of my parents and was fortunate to find a job in large global company in the midst of the dotcom bust. Considering my circumstances, I could not have been luckier. Notwithstanding, I was not able to last more than a year. Life on work visa in America was extremely complicated and catastrophically limiting for my career given my responsibilities as a single mother. I endured it lacking better options, specially back home in India.

If even a small part of Kant's claims were true back in the day, I would have stayed in the country of my birth at least until I had recovered from the most bruising event of my life. I simply could not for more reasons than I can count. This is the reality I have known and lived. To this day, young people seek any and all options outside India because what is on offer at home does feel enough in any dimension. Kant talks a big game that aims to appeal to "patriotism" and "duty" without real value for the person who is being asked to make many great things happen in India. The message is that America is clearly rejecting you so stop complaining, come home, and brace to fight the ceaseless uphill battles that it takes to survive.

Starting from approximately the same place several decades ago, China has rapidly developed a world-class ecosystem for high-level employment in technology, research, and manufacturing, investing heavily in STEM education, modern infrastructure, and innovation hubs that support large-scale domestic job creation for millions of graduates. Major cities such as Beijing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai rival global tech capitals, with local firms offering competitive salaries, advanced research opportunities, and robust career advancement, ensuring that Chinese talent has significant incentive to remain and thrive within the country. Government policies, including STEM-targeted “K” visas and expansive funding, further consolidate China’s reputation as a top destination for both domestic and international skilled workers.

Conversely, while India produces massive numbers of STEM graduates, its domestic job market remains less developed, with limited high-end opportunities concentrated in IT services and a continued reliance on global outsourcing. India’s skilled workforce often seeks opportunities abroad due to underemployment, skills mismatch, and slower growth in advanced manufacturing and research sectors within the country. Despite national initiatives aiming to strengthen local industries, India’s diaspora continues to power global tech economies, contrasting sharply with China’s increasing success in retaining and engaging its own top talent domestically.

All that said, this bit of wisdom from someone on LinkedIn is more useful - instead of paying an US university, fund your kid's startup dream. The comments show that skepticism abounds if this will really make India the startup capital of the world. It most certainly is not for the lack of talent or effort of the people which has always been abundant. It's just everything else.

Rental Grandma

I had lost both my grandmothers well before the most turbulent years of my life. My mother is not able to provide what J seeks in a grandmother - this is has been true from the time she stopped being a toddler. Time stayed still for my parents but moved on for both of us. I am not able to bridge the gap that can resulted in the process. 

Reading about grandmas for rent in Japan made me think this would great to have around the world. The elderly could feel useful in the world, see that they were making a valuable contribution and all of us who ever needed a grandma and did not have access to one could benefit. I am sure my mother makes a fine grandma for the kids in her immediate surroundings who are now J's age. There has been no loss of context or cultural disconnect that grow between her and J as she visits to her home in America declined over the years, J got busier. The person she knew best was a toddler and that is what she anchors to hopelessly.

According to the OK Obaachan website, they have been getting a lot of requests for an incredibly wide range of uses, such as teaching how to cook, mediating family disputes, writing things with nice penmanship, and babysitting. They are often also called upon to act as pillars of emotional support and have been requested by men planning to come out as gay to their parents to be present when it happens.

From what I have observed, the hardest part of aging is the feeling of irrelevance. That can take a person who is in good physical and mental health, into someone who is experiencing all around struggles with aging. Maybe a service like this can help reverse some of that. 

Teaching Chemistry

As someone who loved chemistry in high school and did not feel like that love was returned at all, this interview with Morten Meldal was very heartening to read. The fault is not with folks like me who might have gone on to have a professional life that involved chemistry but had no shot. Everything was made to feel impossibly hard and out of reach.

One of the things that I would really like if we could make chemistry part of the general education and have pleasure-driven teaching already from the first grades in chemistry, visualizations and so on. 

Pleasure-driven means that it should be very easy to consume for the students. Not all students come to school with equal ability to make abstractions or see images and so on. But if we make the images for them, if we are able to show this imaginary world as if it was something they could really see. To make cartoons of our chemistry world in order to make them understand this and not invoke any of all these calculations that you often have in chemistry at any early point but just let them be free and let them watch instead of let them use in the beginning. I think we could really reach far with that.

That was nowhere close to my experience in high-school and from what I could tell it fell far short for J as well. She was good at chemistry and had some natural feel for it unlike me but that did not help her dive as deep into it as she might have wanted. Watching chemistry in action, learning the stories about what it makes possible in the world starting as early as elementary school would be such an amazing gift for kids.

Want Most

I've never had the need for the Instant Pot in my kitchen but have gifted a few over the years to young people starting out on their own. I've been told by atleast a couple of them that it is the most useful gift they ever got. It really does work as advertised and a big fit with the target consumer for a reason. Notwithstanding it has filed for bankruptcy. For the average person, the logic does not add up at all.

From the point of view of the consumer, this makes the Instant Pot a dream product: It does what it says, and it doesn’t cost you much or any additional money after that first purchase. It doesn’t appear to have any planned obsolescence built into it, which would prompt you to replace it at a regular clip. But from the point of view of owners and investors trying to maximize value, that makes the Instant Pot a problem. A company can’t just tootle along in perpetuity, debuting new products according to the actual pace of its good ideas, and otherwise manufacturing and selling a few versions of a durable, beloved device and its accessories, updated every few years with new features. A company needs to grow.

One might ask why a company needs to grow so compulsively. There is a world where Instant Pot never sold to private equity. Instead of chasing mass-market domination, it kept a lean team, made modest production runs, and treated its millions-strong Facebook community as its main sales channel.

No sprawling product lines, no desperate holiday discounts. The revenue engine wasn’t endless new cookers but high-margin accessories, recipe subscriptions, and colorful limited editions, something like KitchenAid’s iconic mixers. Manufacturing scaled only to meet predictable demand, avoiding the boom-and-bust cycle of the pandemic.

Profits were steady, if unspectacular. The brand stayed beloved, its cult intact, quietly thriving as a durable, slow-growing kitchen essential. In this alternate timeline, Instant Pot didn’t need to be everywhere. It just needed to be indispensable to the people who already swore by it.

Mismatched Pace

The phenomenon this NYT article describes has existed for a long time and did not materialize just now. It is not an American phenomenon either. Most of the men of my father's generation that I know are very much the product of said "mankeeping". They disintegrate physically and emotionally once the wife dies. In the overwhelming majority of of cases, the men had outsourced social connection with largely including stay in touch with children and grandchildren to the wife. They just needed the highlight reel that the wife would provide and go on with their lives without having to invest in keeping and building a bunch of relationships in life and the messiness that accompanies it. Having been the primary bread-winner and provider for the family, it seems to think this is a fair division of labor.

Dr. Ferrara, who researches male friendship at Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and Dylan Vergara, a research assistant, published a paper on mankeeping in 2024, after investigating why some men struggle to form close bonds — a growing and well-documented issue.

In a 2021 survey, 15 percent of men said they didn’t have any close friends, up from 3 percent in 1990. In 1990, nearly half of young men said they would reach out to friends when facing a personal issue; three decades later, just over 20 percent said the same.

Dr. Ferrara found that “women tended to have all of these nodes of support they were going to for problems, whereas men were more likely to be going to just them,” she said. She sees “mankeeping” as an important extension of the concept of “kinkeeping” — the work of keeping families together that researchers have found tends to fall disproportionately on women. 

I would imagine modern men continue to be this way because of what they observed the men in the lives do growing up. The conditions have changed dramatically for the women in the meantime. They are equal in every way and often better. So they have no capacity left to mankeep. 

Understanding Meaning

The news out of Kolkata is generally depressing. All my family and friends who live there see it as hopeless place where things are all but certain to grow worse over time. My friend S was telling me the the other day that speaking Bengali outside Bengal can be problematic these days so many choose to not to speak it outside their homes. Somehow that conversation triggered a the need to watch a Bengali movie and its been a really long time since I did that. Happened upon this one which is ironically a long ode to Kolkata. Some people I knew back in the day would have shared the sentiments the characters in the movie expressed about the city - that it has a heart and soul, that it grows on you over time. Those same people have turned indifferent or pessimistic now which is particularly sad to see. The movie featured two of my favorite Tagore songs, my mother would play them on vinyl and often sang along. 

The words form my earliest memories of the language. I was too young then to understand what they meant but could tell that they moved her deeply. It was usually in the quiet mid-afternoons when she was done with her domestic chores and had some time to herself. She seemed to be far away in her mind though she was physically with me. Looking back it was my first time I recognized even without knowing it that she had a world that she'd never allow anyone into. Anyone who was foolish enough to try would only end up disappointed. Watching the movie was an interesting experience in the range of emotions it triggered for me even though the storyline was too contrived and overboard all around for my taste. The protagonist is checks every box of the Indian woman to the point of absurdity. They hope to humanize her by showing that she enjoys her alcohol and drives fast - but for that she is the modern day Sita. 

Visiting Parents

I haven't visited my parents in Kolkata often enough and definitely never stayed long enough. Every time I've been there I was glad to have checked the obligation off my list and get back home. This essay is very relatable to me:

.. our relationship to our parents’ homes is a complicating factor. Going back to our childhood homes as adults is inevitably a collision. This collision is kind of fun for some of us: We get to alienate our partners by regressing a bit while enjoying the indulgence and shared eccentricities of our families. Others experience this collision as disorienting and lonely. Was I ever really at home here? Do these people know me at all? Would they rather we just FaceTimed instead? There are very often new people living with our aging parents, people we sometimes don’t know very well. Even as adult children, it can feel odd to spend time with our parents in houses that can’t accommodate us anymore. It can be tempting to feel sorry for ourselves, as if something that was promised us is being withheld.

In my case, the place I am going to is not my childhood home. My parents bought this house many years after I had left home. I was already a mother by then. Maybe it is better this way but not by much. I do get the sense, my parents are satisfied with the video calls that happen often enough and like their own space to be as they have grown used to being. My presence produces a disruption in their flow that is harder and harder for them to deal with as they grow older. 

Cold Stare

This Guardian commentary by Emma Beddington humorously contrasts the much-discussed “Gen Z stare”(a blank, impassive, sometimes judgmental look) with the deeper, world-weary “Gen X look of dread.” Beddington notes how Gen Z (aged 13–28) have been accused of deploying a bored, superior expression when interacting with others, and this “stare” has become a meme-worthy subject on social media and TikTok. I have been at the receiving end of this stare more times than I can count but did not realize it was such a common, widespread phenomenon. Just assumed that I was being given that look because I had been deemed clueless and inept by the young person. 

But as a Gen X’er herself, Beddington argues that nothing compares to the anxious, haunted look perfected by Gen X. Where the Gen Z stare might signal disinterest or silent critique, the Gen X “look of dread” is rooted in the existential anxieties of a generation who weathered everything from nuclear panic in childhood to economic uncertainty in adulthood. I am no as versed with this look and am not sure I have observed it with as much frequency as the Gen Z stare. Maybe there is truth to it and I just need to pay closer attention.

Beddington’s tongue-in-cheek take throws light on generational stereotypes and pokes fun at the endless cycle of adults scrutinizing (and fearing) the facial expressions of the “youth.” Ultimately, she suggests that while Gen Z might have the viral stare of today, Gen X will always own the slightly haunted, permanently stressed glaze acquired after decades of bracing for doom, only to be met by the blank, unbothered faces of the next cohort. It seems to me that Gen Z has to prepare for doom no less than the rest of us. Some would argue even more. Maybe they will swap the stare out for the look for permanent panic over time.

Free Intelligence

We are not in the realm of free intelligence quite yet in the way Bill Gates describes it but teachers have already been somewhat redundant as early as kindergarten. The classroom is bristling with electronics, instruction is delivered by a screen while the teachers watches. It is not hard to believe the function to become solely monitoring the kids and stepping in to assist in exception mode while AI takes over their primary function. It would be up to educators to fight hard against this possibility turning into reality

All the hype around ‘AI will replace teachers’ is as unfounded as with any other profession, and the teachers in our research project are well justified in being unswayed – if not bemused – by such statements. Yet, this is not to say that the education community can simply ignore the current ‘AI will replace teachers’ hype. These are not narratives that look like naturally dying down, and it is important for the education profession to stand up and actively make the strongest case possible for why teachers cannot (and should not) be replaced by AI technology.

The time to stem the rising tide is not high school because kids how have been habituated to teachers taking backstage to AI starting from kindergarten are highly unlikely to want change twelve years later. From what little I have observed or read out, educators don't seem to think that kindergarten classrooms are the battleground which will decide the relevance of schools and teachers, if Gates' predictions will come true.

Feeling Useful

It was very instructive for me to read this essay. I have several elderly people that I am close to who are coping with age and its attendant problems in very different ways. 

Indeed, depression and suicide rates for men increase after age 75.

A few researchers have looked at this cohort to understand what drives their unhappiness. It is, in a word, irrelevance. In 2007, a team of academic researchers at UCLA and Princeton analyzed data on more than 1,000 older adults. Their findings, published in the Journal of Gerontology, showed that senior citizens who rarely or never “felt useful” were nearly three times as likely as those who frequently felt useful to develop a mild disability, and were more than three times as likely to have died during the course of the study.

This seems to coincide with what I've observed in my very small sample size. Men who are 75 and older that I know haven't felt useful in a long time and by this age it starts to show disproportionate mental decline while nothing is truly wrong with their physical health. Leaving the workforce leaves them without power, structure or community. Having over-invested in career they lack the social ties that can keep them afloat post-retirement. Many leave interactions with kids and grandkids up to the wife who is the social link between them and the world. Comes a time when they no longer have the means to feel useful. 

Stopping Short

This Pew Research unpacks what we've been observing for a while now. When you search on Google these days, there’s often a neat little AI summary right at the top. It’s super handy and a time-saver. You have quick answers without having to click a bunch of links. But it comes at a cost as the research shows. When people see these AI-generated summaries, they actually click on fewer links to explore further. In fact, click-through rates drop from around 15% to just 8%. Plus, many don’t bother digging into the sources cited within those summaries either. Instead, the summary feels like the final stop for their search.

This shift isn’t just about convenience, it might be fundamentally changing how young people think. Turns out, younger users (think teens and people in their early 20s) who rely more on AI for info also tend to show weaker critical thinking skills. When answers are served on a silver platter, it’s easy to skip all the mental heavy lifting: no cross-checking facts, no puzzles to solve, no second-guessing. This “cognitive offloading” means the brain’s workbench gets a little emptier, and that’s not great for developing deep reasoning or learning how to evaluate info carefully.

So, while AI summaries can save time and help get quick info, there’s a risk in leaning on them too much especially for young folks still building those crucial intellectual muscles. The challenge for educators is to make sure students don’t just stop at the summary but keep digging, questioning, and thinking critically. That applies to the rest of us to but we'd need to watch ourselves and keep from falling into this trap.

Too Far

This Ars story is a great example of how we can or cannot agree on where the line is for our expectation of privacy and what is tantamount to crossing it. This seems particularly germane at a time where people are spilling their guts to LLMs all day long in the personal and professional space. 

Per the story, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argues that the Sacramento Municipal Utility District's (SMUD) practice of flagging homes with high energy usage and reporting them to law enforcement constitutes a violation of privacy rights protected under federal and California law. EFF posits that this systematic analysis and sharing of energy use data represents a “mass surveillance scheme” and is comparable to conducting warrantless digital searches of households across an entire city. According to EFF, this undermines constitutional protections around the home and has led to police action against innocent residents whose high energy consumption has legitimate, non-criminal explanations, such as medical equipment usage or cryptocurrency mining.

While that argument is invalid, there is the the counter-argument which says that the utility’s actions can be defended as serving a legitimate public safety function rather than violating privacy. Utilities and law enforcement agencies have a responsibility to investigate potential criminal activities, such as illegal cannabis cultivation that often draws significant energy and can pose fire hazards and strain on public resources. 

The reporting of abnormal electricity patterns is based on observable, aggregate usage data not on fine-grained or intrusive surveillance of private activities. It could be reasoned that such aggregate consumption figures are akin to other neighborhood-level infrastructure monitoring, which is commonplace and often essential for community safety and regulatory compliance.

Liking Change

When I was young, I changed jobs every one year to eighteen months. Two years would be quite pushing it. Around the six month mark, I'd start to get restless and before the year was out bored. After that it was about finding the next thing. Clearly that was no way to build a career and I did not but I got the change, excitement and variety I craved. But changing jobs at my age is not quite the same thing. 

The market is what it, age does not help but I was so ready to go do something new, feel alive again. So here I am feeling young again because change has happened at the long last. J is excited and happy for me - I believe it inspires her to see its still possible. I left behind people who have good reasons not to take risks, tolerate monotony for the illusion of stability. While I haven't changed careers yet, I have plunged into the relative unknown because that's what feels exhilarating. Trying something I know absolutely nothing about and starting as an intern maybe the next thing to try to see how that feels. 

New pathways are sprouting up for those seeking encore careers. ReServe, which placed Mr. Weinberg in his position with the Hospital for Special Surgery, matches people who are over 55 with part-time paid positions at nonprofits. Encore Fellowships, a program created by Encore.org, offers a transition to the nonprofit sector for professionals from the private sector interested in moving into mission-focused work. Even programs like Teach for America, known for recruiting recent graduates, are looking for those in midlife committed to fixing our country’s schools.

On Rotation

 A tiny house that rotates could be the perfect vacation rental but living there could get confusing.  The concept is quite  unique, using a motorized rotating platform that transforms its single room into different living spaces, a bedroom, kitchen/dining area, or bathroom on demand. As someone who for the longest time lacked the stability of a home from where it was not needed to move and relocate ever so often, this is likely not the best idea for me as much as it interesting. I am having trouble conceiving how this would work but presumably you could set the rotation on schedule where during the day you'd use the space as a kitchen and dining area (which could also double as the workspace). 

At night it would turn into a bedroom. The idea of not finding the bathroom where its expected to be is probably the least appealing thing about this whole concept. If that could somehow be anchored then the rest could work out. In a "traditional" house everything is permanently fixed in place. Imagine there was this one offending room that did not get enough sunlight and was never inviting any time of the day. With rotation in place, this room would get its turn to shine. It's a great way to get the most value out of limited space. Much to like about the concept.

Finding Beauty

It was absolutely mesmerizing for me to pore over the details of these paintings of corner-stores. Would be amazing to see the actual paintings I am sure. The South Korean artist Lee Me Kyeoung has spent decades celebrating the humble charm of corner store. With delicate pen and acrylic ink on paper, she lovingly renders small markets nestled into mountainsides, streetscapes, and rural villages from Australia to Turkey, including Vietnam, Nepal, Mongolia, and Türkiye. 

I could help but wonder how she might render some a corner store in the corner of Kolkata where my parents live. The one that came to mind is a hive of activity but it does not look pretty. I cannot think of a way to imbue it with beauty but I am not artist. 

Each of her drawings, is like a distilled visual tribute, capturing the store's structural character and the surrounding flora, from cherry blossoms to persimmon trees, reinforcing the universal beauty in these modest, community-centered spaces. Her her attention to detail and emotional resonance is quite remarkable.

They often spotlight the stores against stark white backdrops, allowing every nuance to stand out. The weathered signage, stacked crates, leaning bicycles, mismatched chairs, and layered crates. This minimalist framing draws viewers into each scene, inviting reflection on the cultural significance and quiet continuity embodied by these disappearing storefronts steeped in local history and daily life 

Such a poignant reminder that the seemingly ordinary can carry profound stories and timeless beauty.

Bleak Future

This Economist article about the plight of today's graduates paints a pretty bleak picture with no hopeful message to cling to. Several structural shifts are undermining the value of a degree: overexpansion of universities has diluted academic standards, leaving many graduates underprepared for critical thinking roles. 

The author notes that some English majors struggle even with Dickens. Simultaneously, the rapid spread of technological literacy means non‑degree holders are increasingly capable of performing jobs once exclusive to graduates, leading employers to ease educational requirements. Plus, key graduate-employing sectors like finance, law, and public-sector services have experienced contraction since 2009, shrinking options for new hire. The long-term consequences sound dire:

Peter Turchin, a scientist at the University of Connecticut, argues that “elite overproduction” has been the proximate cause of all sorts of unrest over the centuries, with “counter-elites” leading the charge. Historians identify “the problem of an excess of educated men” as contributing to Europe’s revolutions of 1848, for instance. Luigi Mangione would be a member of the counter-elite. Mr Mangione, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, should be living a prosperous life. Instead, he is on trial for the alleged murder of the chief executive of a health insurer. More telling is the degree to which people sympathise with his alienation: Mr Mangione has received donations of well over $1m.s

Growing Alone

My thoughts turned to my parents when I read this story about a companion bot for the elderly. While they have each other for company that will inevitably change at some point. I wondered if something like this could help them or anyone else in that position - the surviving spouse with children far away. There no good options at that point. When you have left home at eighteen and the physical distance has only grown over time, there is no path to being together again when both sides have aged and firmly settled in their ways. That said, like the author it made me sad to think that is the best we can do for the elderly in our lives.

ElliQ has laudable ambitions and is a pragmatic solution to a growing problem we are short on ideas for. But on some level it saddens me, because it’s another example of AI replacing people, and a robot is no replacement for a human companion or a medical professional. (To be fair, the company makes no such claims, and ElliQ does encourage you to speak to people.) Still, it’s humbling, and perhaps slightly worrying, how easily AI can manipulate us into anthropomorphizing machines. That debate and what it means for our future are beyond the scope of this review.

I know an old man who became a widower a few years ago. He lives a continent away from his only son and waits all year for the son to visit. He says at his age, the feeling of loneliness and purposelessness can slowly kill. He experiences both but there are too many logistical complications for this family to do anything different. 

Stepping Away

My friend N has two masters degrees and worked her way up in big pharma and one day she just quit. This is a woman who can stay in protracted fights and not flinch. Career growth had not come easy to her and it also involved needing to make way for her husband who is also doing very well for himself. When I asked her about the timing, she said her only daughter had turned fourteen and waiting any longer could prove a big mistake. This was the time to come home and stay home. N is one of the most thoughtful and methodical people I know so clearly that was the right decision. This essay talks about a broader trend N seems to be a part of. 

.. the so-called “teen-ternity” leave is becoming a thing. Parents are increasingly looking to take a step back from their careers to be around more for their kids during the trying teen stage. Some parents, like me, are fortunate enough to be able to work from home, either full- or part-time—not that it’s easy to juggle work and keeping teens away from drugs, alcohol, sex, and social media, even if your desk is the kitchen counter.

N is very clear-eyed about life after her only child leaves to college which is about four years out. She does not see it as being easy or even feasible. The husband has stepped on the gas as far as his career now that N is home. She says she feels fine about it, would be wasteful to not take advantage of the situation. The family unit will come ahead from this decision like N says. Maybe she will have a chance to get to know the young woman her kid is growing into. Maybe the seeds of a lifelong friendship will be sown in her last few years at home. No fancy job with a great paycheck could make up for that, even a chance of that I'd say. Atleast N will know she gave it her best shot. That does matter. 

Your Contributions

A guy I worked for a long time ago recently posted "Thank you for your contributions" when L (one of his directs) left the company and announced his departure on LinkedIn. Those of us who knew L and his boss were hardly surprised. Our only question was what took him so long but the market these days is nothing short of brutal. Had it not been for that L would have exited the hot mess he was in a long time ago. There was really never a path for anyone who worked there to succeed or even harbor the illusion that they might succeed. Reading this story about the former CEO of X reminded me of L and the thank you for your contributions. It was nasty on our small, local scale as it was for this woman who was clearly tasked with mission impossible as CEO of X.

I remember meeting L soon after he took the role and him asking me variations of the same three questions. What the hell is going on there? Is everyone else okay with with? How can this possibly work? That was exactly me when I was in his shoes. For me it was vindication that something was truly and irreparably broken in that place and it was not me. But one has to exit the scene to have such epiphany and L had only recently entered it. I tried to break it down to him best I could but it did not add up for him. He left puzzled and dissatisfied. Now that he is out of there and has been thanked for his contributions, I hope he feels like his questions are answered.

Imagine Goals

The premise is interesting but will it really work in scenarios where taking a break is not the answer. People are distracted because the background process won't quit, because its relates to a problem that they cannot solve with or without a break. Say you have a loved one who is fighting for their life. Their doctor gives them 50/50 odds to live or die. That will become your background process as you wonder what if anything you or someone else can do to help improve their odds of survival. You are distracted and when you take a break you will likely redouble your effort to solve the problem that might be unsolvable. But the idea could have other uses:

Inside the Neurable app is a little video game that lets you fly a rocket ship with your brain — and serves as a proof of concept. The trick is you have to focus on a set of numbers on the screen. The more intensely you focus, the higher the numbers go, and the faster the rocket ship flies. If you start to get distracted by, say, thinking about flying an actual rocket ship, the numbers go down, and the rocket ship slows. It’s one of the coolest innovations I’ve ever seen, if only because it’s so simple.

Imagine the outcome of the focus was to achieve more meaningful goals. Say a disabled person was able to focus on the numbers to initiate a conversation with a loved one or ask their caregiver for help. Maybe the victim in a domestic violence situation is able to call the police. Maybe not a cure for distraction in those situations but being able to use your mind to get work done on your behalf could be incredibly useful. 

Short Friendship

This essay about an unequal and unbalanced friendship between two young women brought to mind a few I have been in and others that I have observed from far. My first roommate in college was a lot like the girl who wore red lipstick in the story. The difference was that she was not entirely happy with who she was though she had a lot going for her. She wanted to absorb a lot of what made me, me. It got exhausting and suffocating to the point that we parted ways for good. But for that year or so, she and I were inseparable and many thought we were best friends. I did like her larger than life presence, the ability to do shocking things and not bat an eye - I was and still am way too risk averse to even consider. Though looking back, what she did was not all that crazy, it only appeared to me because of who I was. 

The author by her own example shows that such friendships have a short life-time. My roommate and I got a lot from each other but neither was willing to concede that the other had contributed, it hurt our pride. Today, I have no problem acknowledging that she developed my taste in classic rock and country music. I had passing familiarity with both genres coming into college - her knowledge was encyclopedic in comparison. I taught her about books and writers she had never heard of. She was great with makeup, I was mostly uninterested and still am. But along the way, I observed and learned how to do it right and its a skill that has proven useful over the years. We had some great conversations and held strong opinions, some shared and others not. There were secrets we shared with each other than stayed with us even when we were no longer friends. 

Wisdom Tooth

I was a very late bloomer as far as wisdom teeth. They showed up when J was born and a couple had to be extracted right away because of their unfortunate placement in my mouth. I used to wonder if my one shot at wisdom went away when I most needed. It was great that I could have the other two - better some wisdom than none at all. Reading this story reminded me of the very long and painful extraction process that made it hard for me to return to a dentist even for routine cleaning for several years. Getting a biological insurance for my troubles would have great: 

Banking one’s own dental stem cells eliminates immune‑rejection worries, and can shave months off treatment timelines that would otherwise require donor matching.

Extraction logistics are straightforward: the oral surgeon places each tooth into a sterile vial, couriers rush the package to a lab, and technicians thaw, isolate, and freeze the pulp cells in under 24 hours.

The upfront fee rivals that of cord‑blood banking, yet the potential payoff spans decades because adult stem‑cell lines can be expanded repeatedly for multiple therapies.

The research looks promising - dental pulp stem cells can help treat neurological disorders like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s by replacing lost neurons and protecting brain tissue, as well as aid in bone, cartilage, and heart tissue repair. If all of this checks and the human trials are successful, wisdom tooth banking could become a routine part of dental care.

Cold Comfort

This Economist article is cold comfort given the variety of flaws in its arguments. It argues that, despite widespread fears, artificial intelligence has not led to mass unemployment or significant job loss. The piece points to strong labor markets, stable or rising wages, and the limited current capabilities of AI as evidence that the technology is not replacing workers at scale. It also notes that organizational and technical barriers have slowed the adoption of AI in ways that would dramatically reshape the workforce.

There are several problems with this thesis. First, it relies heavily on short-term employment data, which may lag behind the true impact of technological change and can mask sector-specific or demographic disruptions. The article also underestimates the indirect effects of AI, such as the erosion of entry-level opportunities, the deskilling of certain roles, and the potential for wage stagnation as AI tools commoditize expertise. By focusing on what AI cannot do today, the analysis risks overlooking the rapid pace of improvement in generative AI and the possibility that more complex tasks will soon become automatable.

More broadly, the article’s perspective is limited by its focus on aggregate economic indicators and the US context, missing global shifts and subtle changes in job quality or social mobility. While AI may not have caused mass layoffs yet, its effects on the nature of work, career progression, and wage structures could be profound and gradual. In sum, the article’s reassuring message may underestimate the complexity and long-term risks posed by AI to the workforce. It the author was trying to assure those of us who are still in the workforce and wondering what cataclysmic change will impact or jobs, then it fell way short.