In 2011, I wrote about how little that year’s climate conference had accomplished. The latest edition of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change just wrapped up in Paris over the weekend with a historic agreement. Nearly 200 nations acknowledged the importance of keeping global temperatures from rising […]
Miscellaneous
This past Friday evening, when I heard that the 195 nations represented at the COP21 climate meeting in Paris had reached a draft agreement, I was pleasantly surprised. On Saturday morning, when I saw the stronger-than-forecast draft text, I was shocked. And on Saturday afternoon, when the final agreement was signed—signed!—I was thrilled. The Paris agreement won’t singlehandedly head off the worst […]
December 7 – 11, 2015 The week begins on a dark note. Bad things are governed by quantum entanglement, I maintain: one bad thing can set up a force field, out of which spring subsequent bad things. Update: the washing machine is making screaming sounds and the laptop’s cursor works intermittently. The dark note gets […]
I recently wrote a story for The Atlantic about a question that I have been obsessed with for a long time: How many photographs am I in, in the world? It’s something that has bugged me for years, and before you chalk this up to pure narcissism, here’s a fact: Facebook can now identify you […]
The very first blog post I wrote as an LWON regular, in August, 2013, was about singing in a group–how singers’ hearts speed up and slow down in unison, as we breathe in and slowly, tunefully, exhale. At the time I’d just sung on a recording that included the 16th-century motet “Haec Dies,” by William […]
It’s not my imagination. Even gmail is telling me that my email is out of control, threatening that if I don’t dump some of my tens of thousands of emails (or pay them money) I will be “unable to send or receive emails.” That’s starting to sound appealing. I’ve caught myself fantasizing about creating an auto reply: […]
November 30 – December 4, 2015 Cassie provides a flashback for every parent, remembering the ultra-marathon that is early infancy. Christie marks her birthdays by exercising the privilege of a healthy body and honoring those who didn’t get to live this long. Erik is a father! His birth story involves bribing a cop and rushing through […]
This post was a response to a column called “Freelancing Sucks,” which was published just about a year ago. Well, freelancing still sucks—and we still need freelancers. Last month, Fast Company senior editor Reyhan Harmanci published a column called “Freelancing Sucks.” She wrote: Everyone knows this: the freelancers, who are forced to beg for months-late checks; the editors, […]
