2020
There’s an Entire Industry Dedicated to Making Foods Crispy, and It Is WILD - Alex Beggs at Bon Appétit
Jason Kottke spent three weeks in Asia, including extended visits to Saigon and Singapore and 24 hours in Dubai.
As promised by Kottke, this essay is relatively long, but it’s a fast, enjoyable read.
He advises taking a food tour on your first visit to a new city. That’s a great idea!
My superpower is taking an extra day on a business trip to anyplace I haven’t been often, and seeing the sites. I often just take on-off bus tours for a good part of the day. A food tour sounds like another great option.
I anticipate significantly less business travel in the future, but still a lot compared with most people. And visiting a strange city is definitely a plus. Even if it doesn’t sound like a glamorous place to visit – if I have never been there before, it’s a plus to me. I spent an excellent day on my own in Dusseldorf a few years ago.
Kottke correctly identifies the pluses and minuses of solo travel. The pluses are, of course, freedom. The minus is that it can be damn lonely sometimes. Last year after Mobile World Congress, I stayed an extra day in Barcelona and got excruciatingly lonely and depressed, and ended up dialing in to the Friday news meeting, which was 5 pm local time, just to hear friendly voices.
Here’s one of Kottke’s impressions of Saigon:
Because of the motorbikes, the process for crossing the street on foot in Saigon is different than in a lot of other places. You basically just wait for any buses (which will absolutely not stop for pedestrians) or cars to go by and then slowly wade out into traffic. Do not make any sudden movements and for god sake don’t run. The motorbike swarm will magically flow around you. It’s suuuuuper unnerving the first few times you do it, but you soon get used to it because the alternative is never ever getting across the street.
The motorbikes make walking around Saigon absolutely exhausting. It’s not just crossing the street. You literally have to be on the lookout for them everywhere. They drive up on the sidewalks. They drive into and out of houses and buildings, turning every doorway into a potential intersection. Having to look both ways every few seconds when you’re walking 6 or 8 miles a day around the city really drains the ol’ attention reserves.
Things I saw carried on motorbikes in Saigon, a non-exhaustive list: trees, dogs, tiny babies, ice (for delivery to a drinks cart, the ice block was not even strapped down), a family of five, a dessert cart, an entire toy store, a dried squid shop, and 8 huge bags of clams.
The food in Saigon and Singapore sounds wonderful.
Kottke: The secret of enduring Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) during a long winter is just roll with it. Learn to enjoy the long nights and cold weather.
Relevant to me personally because Julie and I often talk about moving to Columbus, Ohio, where she grew up and where she has family. I’ve been there more than a dozen times and I like it but oh, those winters.
Funny thing, for most of my life I was an indoor mole, but in the past dozen years, since I started getting fit, I’ve gotten used to spending extended periods outside every day.
I like San Diego. I like the weather.
But the cost of living here is prohibitive. So much less expensive in Columbus.
Renowned Mathematician And Physicist Freeman Dyson Has Died At Age 96
His daughter Mia Dyson, a nurse and pastor who lives in Freeport Maine, says she fondly remembers her father being stumped by practical things, such as how to operate a soda machine, while contemplating the brilliance of the universe.
“Age of Treason” was a 1993 TV movie about Marcus Didio Falco, a threadbare private investigator working the mean streets of Rome, 2000 years ago.
I haven’t seen the movie, but I read and enjoyed several of the novels, by Lindsay Davies, that the movie is based on.
Bailing on Afghanistan will be a disaster but staying will be worse. 20 years of the War on Terror has gone a long way to destroying America. We still have ample time to recover. Getting out of Afghanistan is the first step.
Now. Just go.
On Selling Your First Novel After 11 Years – Min Jin Lee: A moving essay about an ex-attorney’s 11-year struggle to get her first novel published while dealing with financial difficulties, raising a child, helping her extended family and grappling with health crises.
Underscores my belief that creative writing programs are a scam.
The last time Elyse saw her father was at her college graduation. They’d been close growing up, but then he disappeared, other than a few short emails every year. She learned he moved from their home in Tennessee to the Philippines, where he started a new family, including a daughter he named Elyse.
Sansar, Linden Labs' follow-up to Second Life, was a victim of VR hype & failure to learn from SL mistakes – Wagner James Au
See Newly Digitized, "Super Detailed" Photos Of Old Greenwich Village
The turn of 20th century found Greenwich Village in the midst of a transformation – as affluent residents largely decamped uptown closer to Central Park and 5th Avenue, a bohemian enclave took shape in their wake. Residences were subdivided, housing became affordable, immigration was still on the rise, and “radicalism and nonconformity” were embraced, according to the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation….
Robots aren’t taking our jobs — they’re becoming our bosses- Josh Dzieza at The Verge:
On conference stages and at campaign rallies, tech executives and politicians warn of a looming automation crisis — one where workers are gradually, then all at once, replaced by intelligent machines. But their warnings mask the fact that an automation crisis has already arrived. The robots are here, they’re working in management, and they’re grinding workers into the ground.
The robots are watching over hotel housekeepers, telling them which room to clean and tracking how quickly they do it. They’re managing software developers, monitoring their clicks and scrolls and docking their pay if they work too slowly. They’re listening to call center workers, telling them what to say, how to say it, and keeping them constantly, maximally busy. While we’ve been watching the horizon for the self-driving trucks, perpetually five years away, the robots arrived in the form of the supervisor, the foreman, the middle manager.
AI supervisors drive Amazon warehouse workers to injure themselves and gobble company-supplied painkillers to keep going. AI determines whether call-center workers have enough empathy in their voices. And home-office telecommuters have their keystrokes measured and are required to turn on their webcams to be sure they’re at their desks.
How to delete all your saved articles in Instapaper
I wanted to delete all my saved Instapapaper article and make a fresh start, but had trouble figuring out how to do it. Here’s how:
From the web, find your account name on the top right, click the dropdown, and click Archive All. Then switch to the Archive folder, click the account name again, and select Delete All.
This can’t be undone.
Charlie, the store manager, 1968
“Mine’s bigger. My cucumber. It’s bigger. I think vegetables can be very sensuous, don’t you?”
One, two, and three years ago today I was in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress. Four years ago today was our nieces' Carly and Emma’s B’Not Bitzvah.
Mayor Pete says it’s ok to mix ranch dressing and salsa.
I’ve never tried this combination, or even thought of trying it. Gotta admit, it sounds tasty.
“My Ex-Boyfriend’s New Girlfriend Is Lady Gaga” - Lindsay Crouse:
Social media in 2020 is so ingrained that it’s no longer a supplement or even an addiction. It’s just an accelerated extension of the way humans have always behaved. We live in a culture of constant updates. You want to unsubscribe? Well, you can’t.