Shattering My Dreams of Disunion

Last updated on: August 4, 2014 at 6:02 pm By Paul Fidalgo

A piece in The Economist argues that despite popular fatigue with our country’s countless foreign entanglements, Americans ought to appreciate those entanglements, which enable us to maintain our world primacy, and therefore our ability to enormously influence the workings of the world to our advantage. I am sympathetic to this position. I take solace that it is currently we who are calling many of the global shots and not some other superstates, on the ascent as they may be. But when I think... Read more

Skipping the 5S, in Praise of Mobile Maturity

Last updated on: October 5, 2014 at 2:01 pm By Paul Fidalgo

I will not be getting an iPhone 5S, and unlike the time I thought there was no way I was going to upgrade from the 4S to the 5, I mean it this time. It’s not because there’s anything wrong with the 5S, but as I expected might be the case, the technology behind mobile computing has begun to mature to the point that an upgrade to next year’s device is not life-changing or really necessary to stay relevant. Remember... Read more

Walking on the Video Star Killed the Ocean (Two New Cover Songs)

Last updated on: August 12, 2014 at 12:27 pm By Paul Fidalgo

Here’s two cover tunes I cooked up in my almost nonexistent spare time: my own little versions of The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” (which I’d always meant to cover, and was spurred to do so when Emily Hauser dissed the song on Twitter), and Toad the Wet Sprocket’s “Walk on the Ocean,” which I used to sing to my son as a lullaby. And he’s four years old today! I love you, buddy! (You can see him sing... Read more

iPad Air, 20 Days In

Last updated on: November 23, 2013 at 2:50 am By Paul Fidalgo

Twenty days with the iPad Air, and a quick follow-up. I’m still in love, but the sparks of young romance are evolving into a mature and seasoned relationship. Whoa, that got weird. Anyway, it’s still great, of course, but I will say that despite my delight over the vast reduction in weight, it’s still not really a one-handed use tablet. The narrowed bezels certainly makes for easier thumb typing in portrait orientation, but it also means I’m never sure if... Read more

Why Use an iPad to Write?

Last updated on: November 21, 2013 at 3:10 am By Paul Fidalgo

Alan Jacobs, one of my favorite writers, declares that writing on the iPad, as opposed to a laptop, sucks. Lamenting the device’s frustrating limitations as an editor and formatter of text, he concludes: I’m typing this post on my MacBook Air, and it’s a real pleasure. It’s lightweight and fits in my lap nicely. It was trivially easy for me to insert all those links into this post, and it’ll also be trivially easy for me to upload what I’ve... Read more

Sisko’s Restaurant and My Blog: The Star Trek Economy is User-Generated

Last updated on: August 12, 2014 at 8:54 pm By Paul Fidalgo

If you’re deeply into Star Trek, as I am, you’ve wondered what the hell people do all day. Not the folks in Starfleet of course, but, well, everyone else. We are told that within the United Federation of Planets, or at least in Terran society, there is no money, and people labor merely for self-improvement and scientific or cultural advancement. Rick Webb has written a really fascinating piece trying to suss out the economics of the Star Trek universe, making... Read more

Two-Day Weekends and My Cold, Dead Hands

Last updated on: November 18, 2013 at 3:59 am By Paul Fidalgo

Joe Wiesenthal creates out of thin air the first-worldiest of all first-world problems. (And I say this as someone who loathes the “first-world problems” faux guilt-tag.) You know what our problem is? Too many days off: Far from everyone has a job where they’re truly stimulated, and get to be around people who provide them an invigorating level of social interaction. But for the people who do have that, two days is a long time to totally shut that out.... Read more

Now or Never for Elizabeth Warren

Last updated on: November 17, 2013 at 4:04 am By Paul Fidalgo

So there’s that new Noam Scheiber piece in The New Republic that everyone’s talking about, positing that Elizabeth Warren could well be the insurgent force that upends the Hillary Clinton presidential coronation. It’s good stuff, though I think it overstates the favorability of the environment for Warren to succeed or mount a serious threat to Clinton. Scheiber cites some compelling-seeming data on the Democratic electorate’s feelings about Wall Street and banks, and of course they all show how much we... Read more

I Am a Winner Because You Are a Loser

Last updated on: November 16, 2013 at 3:20 am By Paul Fidalgo

Psychotherapist Joseph Burgo writes in The Atlantic about research linking bullying to narcissism. (For some reason this is news.) Looking back at the near-constant bullying to which I was subjected in school, the description of this connection rings true: [T]he actual bully deliberately sets out to make his victim feel inferior. It helps to view the bully as a kind of competitor on the social playing field, one who strives not only to win but to triumph over the social... Read more

In Which My Boy Fills Me with Despair for My Own Mortality

Last updated on: November 13, 2013 at 3:28 pm By Paul Fidalgo

I recently wrote about how I had been compelled to introduce the concept of death to my son when he was a little over 2 years old, and how he was momentarily devastated by the idea that, in this instance, a little moth he had crushed was now “broken” and not coming back to life. Well, he’s about to turn 4 now. He and I have birthdays only a week or so apart, and here’s an exchange the two of us had two... Read more