Readings: Shrinking Cities, Oldest Federal Judge, Exercise

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A few interesting articles I’ve read over the last couple of days…

1) “How To Shrink a City” [Boston Globe] – many American cities are shrinking in size:

Over the last 50 years, the city of Detroit has lost more than half its population. So has Cleveland. They’re not alone: Eight of the 10 largest cities in the United States in 1950, including Boston, have since lost at least 20 percent of their population. But while Boston has recouped some of that loss in recent years and made itself into the anchor of a thriving white-collar economy, the far more drastic losses of cities like Detroit or Youngstown, Ohio, or Flint, Mich. — losses of people, jobs, money, and social ties — show no signs of turning around. The housing crisis has only accelerated the process.

And so what is to be done? This article offers a glimpse of what some cities, like Detroit, are doing:

In Detroit, a city that now has more than 40 square miles of vacant land, Mayor Dave Bing has committed himself to finding a way to move more of the city’s residents into its remaining vibrant neighborhoods and figuring out something else to do with what remains. A growing number of cities and counties are creating “land banks” to enable them to clear the administrative hurdles that previously prevented them from taking control of blighted blocks of abandoned homes.

2) “At 103, a Judge Has One Caveat: No Lengthy Trials” [New York Times] – an intriguing look into the life of Judge Brown (no, not that Judge Brown), who is the oldest federal judge in the United States:

Born on June 22, 1907, in Hutchinson, Kan., Judge Brown, who had become a prominent local Democrat, first sought appointment by President Harry S. Truman to the federal bench while serving as a lieutenant in the Navy during World War II (at 37, he was the oldest man in his unit). He failed, but in 1962, after a stint as a bankruptcy judge, he was appointed to the district court by President John F. Kennedy He earned a reputation as a pragmatic jurist whose middle-of-the-road rulings reflect a desire to apply rather than make the law.

Judge Brown is still working, probably because he loves his job (or is totally dedicated to it).

The Constitution grants federal judges an almost-unparalleled option to keep working “during good behavior,” which, in practice, has meant as long as they want. But since that language was written, average life expectancy has more than doubled, to almost 80, and the number of people who live beyond 100 is rapidly growing. (Of the 10 oldest practicing federal judges on record, all but one served in the last 15 years.)

You can thank Judge Brown for this gem of a quote:

“At this age, I’m not even buying green bananas.”

3) “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin” [The Guardian] – perhaps a heretical perspective on trying to lose weight, but worth highlighting:

Most of us have a grasp of the rudiments of weight gain and loss: you put energy (calories) into your body through food, you expend them through movement, and any that don’t get burned off are stored in your body as fat. Unfortunately, the maths isn’t in our favour. “In theory, of course, it’s possible that you can burn more calories than you eat,” says Dr Susan Jebb, head of nutrition and health research at the Medical Research Council and one of the government’s go-to academics for advice on nutrition. “But you have to do an awful lot more exercise than most people realise. To burn off an extra 500 calories is typically an extra two hours of cycling. And that’s about two doughnuts.”

While the article is UK-centric, it’s worth reading. Are we confusing cause and effect in the relationship among dieting, exercise, and weight loss?

Readings: Goldman Partners, Atlanta’s Offices, The Wire at Harvard

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Here’s what I’ve read recently:

1) “At Goldman, Partners are Made, Unmade” [New York Times] – the article begins with a bold introduction:

On Wall Street, becoming a partner at Goldman Sachs is considered the equivalent of winning the lottery.

And then goes on to explain that while achieving partner status at Goldman is joining the elite, the status may be taken away:

As many as 60 Goldman executives could be stripped of their partnerships this year to make way for new blood, people with firsthand knowledge of the process say. Inside the firm, the process is known as “de-partnering.” Goldman does not disclose who is no longer a partner, and many move on to jobs elsewhere; some stay, telling few of their fate.

I find this fact fascinating: I knew that Goldman had partners at its firm (even though the company is public), but I had no idea that partners could have been unmade. This is in stark contrast to academia, where a professor who has attained tenure usually will not be stripped of the status unless he does something completely stupid.

And while being de-partnered sounds bad, I find it hard to agree with the claim made by Michael Driscoll:

“Being partner at Goldman is the pinnacle of Wall Street; if you make it, you are considered set for life,” said Michael Driscoll, a visiting professor at Adelphi University and a senior managing director at Bear Sterns before that firm collapsed in 2008. “To have it taken away would just be devastating to an individual. There is just no other word for it.”

What do you think?

2) “Atlanta Awash in Empty Offices Struggles to Recover From Binge” [Bloomberg] – an insightful piece explaining how the recession is still deep, especially in my hometown, Atlanta.

The gist:

Atlanta is no longer showing robust population and job increases. Unemployment topped 10 percent for most of the past year and exceeded the national rate for most of 2008, 2009 and 2010. While Atlanta’s office space increased 5.8 percent in the past five years, office jobs shrank 9.8 percent

I was surprised to learn that Bank of America (the company) was not the largest tenant in the Bank of America Plaza:

Bank of America Corp., the largest tenant in the 55-story tower, plans to reduce its space to 13 percent from 30 percent and cut its rent to about half the current $36.65 a square foot, according to the watch-list data.

The homebuilders in Atlanta are idle as well:

Atlanta’s homebuilders, who had led the nation in single- family construction permits from 1995 to 2005, have been largely idled. Permit volume declined 91 percent from 2005 to 2009, according to the Census Bureau.

A lot more sobering statistics in the Bloomberg piece.

3) “Why We’re Teaching ‘The Wire’ at Harvard” [Harvard Kennedy School] – one of the most compelling, gritty, and moving television shows of all time is HBO’s The Wire. One Harvard course in urban inequality is embracing this television show:

Of course, our undergraduate students will read rigorous academic studies of the urban job market, education and the drug war. But the HBO series does what these texts can’t. More than simply telling a gripping story, “The Wire” shows how the deep inequality in inner-city America results from the web of lost jobs, bad schools, drugs, imprisonment, and how the situation feeds on itself.

Powerful. Certainly a strong testament that education can go beyond the textbook.

The Face of Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg, Revealed

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If you’re reading this post, then chances are you’re probably on Facebook. Or at least have heard of it.

The latest piece in The New Yorker, “The Face of Facebook,” offers an intimate, revealing look into the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. It’s definitely a piece worth reading, not least because it goes on to show how Zuckerberg has changed since his younger days at Harvard. I highlight some passages which I found interesting below.

With whom is Mark friends with on Facebook? And what are Zuckerberg’s favorite artists? (More about his favorites in a moment).

According to his Facebook profile, Zuckerberg has three sisters (Randi, Donna, and Arielle), all of whom he’s friends with. He’s friends with his parents, Karen and Edward Zuckerberg. He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and attended Harvard University. He’s a fan of the comedian Andy Samberg and counts among his favorite musicians Green Day, Jay-Z, Taylor Swift, and Shakira.
I like this description of Mark provided by his girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, who met Mark at Harvard party:
He was this nerdy guy who was just a little bit out there. I remember he had these beer glasses that said ‘pound include beer dot H.’ It’s a tag for C++. It’s like college humor but with a nerdy, computer-science appeal.
On the inevitability of Zuckerberg becoming a billionaire:
If and when Facebook decides to go public, Zuckerberg will become one of the richest men on the planet, and one of the youngest billionaires. In the October issue of Vanity Fair, Zuckerberg is named No. 1 in the magazine’s power ranking of the New Establishment, just ahead of Steve Jobs, the leadership of Google, and Rupert Murdoch. The magazine declared him “our new Caesar.”
On Zuckerberg’s mannerisms:
When he’s not interested in what someone is talking about, he’ll just look away and say, “Yeah, yeah.” Sometimes he pauses so long before he answers it’s as if he were ignoring the question altogether. The typical complaint about Zuckerberg is that he’s “a robot.” One of his closest friends told me, “He’s been overprogrammed.” Indeed, he sometimes talks like an Instant Message—brusque, flat as a dial tone—and he can come off as flip and condescending, as if he always knew something that you didn’t.

There are revealing and embarrassing instant messages that Zuckerberg sent regarding Facebook when he was still at Harvard. Zuckerberg seems apologetic, regretful:

When I asked Zuckerberg about the IMs that have already been published online, and that I have also obtained and confirmed, he said that he “absolutely” regretted them. “If you’re going to go on to build a service that is influential and that a lot of people rely on, then you need to be mature, right?” he said. “I think I’ve grown and learned a lot.”
What is Zuckerberg’s ultimate goal?
Zuckerberg’s ultimate goal is to create, and dominate, a different kind of Internet. Google and other search engines may index the Web, but, he says, “most of the information that we care about is things that are in our heads, right? And that’s not out there to be indexed, right?” Zuckerberg was in middle school when Google launched, and he seems to have a deep desire to build something that moves beyond it. “It’s like hardwired into us in a deeper way: you really want to know what’s going on with the people around you,” he said.
Regarding favorites, such as artists and books: what Zuckerberg lists may not necessary be his favorites (I sympathize with his explanation):

I asked Zuckerberg about “Ender’s Game,” the sci-fi book whose hero is a young computer wizard.

“Oh, it’s not a favorite book or anything like that,” Zuckerberg told me, sounding surprised. “I just added it because I liked it. I don’t think there’s any real significance to the fact that it’s listed there and other books aren’t. But there are definitely books—like the Aeneid—that I enjoyed reading a lot more.”

I think The New Yorker piece paints an honest portrait of Zuckerberg. While he may have been slightly immature in his teens and earlier twenties, he has grown up considerably over the last few years. I have a feeling that if I were to meet Mark in person, we’d get along.

Readings: John Grisham on Writing, Lying Pants, Frog Census

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A few short reads for today:

1) “Dreams of a Desk Job” [New York Times] – from laying asphalt to selling underwear, John Grisham explains how, one day, he just started writing:

Writing was not a childhood dream of mine. I do not recall longing to write as a student. I wasn’t sure how to start. Over the following weeks I refined my plot outline and fleshed out my characters. One night I wrote “Chapter One” at the top of the first page of a legal pad; the novel, “A Time to Kill,” was finished three years later.

This is a fascinating op-ed. I really like John Grisham’s conclusion:

I had never worked so hard in my life, nor imagined that writing could be such an effort. It was more difficult than laying asphalt, and at times more frustrating than selling underwear. But it paid off. Eventually, I was able to leave the law and quit politics. Writing’s still the most difficult job I’ve ever had — but it’s worth it.

2) “Are Your Pants Lying to You? An Investigation” [Esquire] – a short, but informative piece explaining that not all brands of pants fit the same. I like the author’s frustration:
This isn’t the subjective business of mediums, larges and extra-larges — nor is it the murky business of women’s sizes, what with its black-hole size zero. This is science, damnit. Numbers! Should inches be different than miles per hour? Do highway signs make us feel better by informing us that Chicago is but 45 miles away when it’s really 72? Multiplication tables don’t yield to make us feel better about badness at math; why should pants make us feel better about badness at health? Are we all so many emperors with no clothes?
3) “Is That the Croak of the Pickerel?” [Wall Street Journal] – could a frog census be really important? This finding seems a bit haphazard:
A good frog census is important. Frogs have sensitive skins, so their changing population helps scientists track pollution, disease and other ecological maladies. Other research has indicated a sharp and somewhat mysterious decline in amphibians around the world, which helped spur the American census.

The Art of Non-Conformity: Book Review

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Have you ever thought “I don’t like where I am in life right now,” that there must be something more to life than what you’re currently experiencing?

If your answer to the above question is yes, then Chris Guillebeau’s new book, The Art of Non-Conformity, might be the book you need to read next. The book is subtitled “Set Your Own Rules, Live the Life You Want, and Change the World” — admittedly a grand series to accomplish (especially the last part), but Chris Guillebeau sets you on the right track…

Before I begin this review, a disclosure: I’ve been following Chris Guillebeau online over the last two years or so. I am a big fan of his blog and have been for a number of years. His Brief Guide to World Domination is a must-read. I was one of the 99 people to receive an advance copy of this book by leaving a comment in this post. Onward!

The Art of Non-Conformity on my desk...

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Readings: Highest Paid Athlete, Trying Again, Usain Bolt

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Some short (but interesting!) reads over the last few of days:

1) “Greatest of All Time” [Lapham’s Quarterly] – who is/was the highest paid athlete of all time? Hint: it’s not Tiger Woods or LeBron James. According to Peter Struck, associate professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, that honor goes to a Lusitanian Spaniard named Gaius Appuleius Diocles, who worked as a charioteer in Ancient Rome. According to Struck:

Twenty-four years of winnings brought Diocles—likely an illiterate man whose signature move was the strong final dash—the staggering sum of 35,863,120 sesterces in prize money…His total take home amounted to five times the earnings of the highest paid provincial governors over a similar period—enough to provide grain for the entire city of Rome for one year, or to pay all the ordinary soldiers of the Roman Army at the height of its imperial reach for a fifth of a year. By today’s standards that last figure, assuming the apt comparison is what it takes to pay the wages of the American armed forces for the same period, would cash out to about $15 billion.

2) “At First She Didn’t Succeed, but She Tried and Tried Again” [New York Times] – teachers: this is the story you forward (or discuss in class) to your students…How one lady in South Korea didn’t give up after repeatedly failing to pass the driving exam. Remarkable:

This diminutive woman, now known nationwide as “Grandma Cha Sa-soon,” has achieved a record that causes people here to first shake their heads with astonishment and then smile: She failed her driver’s test hundreds of times but never gave up. Finally, she got her license — on her 960th try.

Talk about motivation:

For three years starting in April 2005, she took the test once a day five days a week. After that, her pace slowed, to about twice a week. But she never quit.

3) “Usain Bolt: Fast and Loose” [The Guardian] – the world’s fastest sprinter sits down for an interview and explains that he actually wants to play football (soccer):

Ultimately, he [Usain Bolt] says, he’d love to make a go of playing football professionally. He’s being deadly serious. One of the perks of being Usain Bolt is that sporting stars love to meet him, so whenever he’s travelling and there’s time, he tries to train with a top football team. Last year it was Manchester United, a few days ago it was Bayern Munich. He’s still carrying a copy of the French sporting newspaper L’Equipe, which features a spread on his football skills and praise from Bayern manager Louis van Gaal. He shows me a photo of himself with his arm wrapped round the dwarfed 6ft German forward Miroslav Klose. “If I keep myself in shape, I can definitely play football at a high level,” he says.

A question I asked recently: will the 100m sprint be ever run in under 9 seconds? When do you think it will happen? In the next ten years? The next twenty? In other words, I am wondering if we’ll see the 10 second barrier become the nine second barrier…

 

Why I Love Trader Joe’s

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Trader Joe’s is one of my favorite stores. I love shopping there.

While I was at Caltech for graduate school, I lived in the Catalina Apartments. I can’t describe how happy I was to discover there was a Trader Joe’s where I could do all of my grocery shopping. Indeed, once a week or so, I would make the 0.3 mile trek (see my route) to the Trader Joe’s on S. Lake Street in Pasadena. I’d stock up on drinks, fish, fruits (bananas, and indeed all fruits and vegetables, are sold by the count, not by weight), bread, mochi ice cream, amazing blueberry scones, and so many other wonderful, delectable products. Usually, I’d leave with two bags filled to the top with food.

I am writing this post because of a really great article in Fortune Magazine, “Inside the Secret World of Trader Joe’s”, which I read over the weekend. I encourage you to read it, but I highlight the most notable parts below.

Trader Joe’s is no ordinary grocery chain. It’s an offbeat, fun discovery zone that elevates food shopping from a chore to a cultural experience. It stocks its shelves with a winning combination of low-cost, yuppie-friendly staples (cage-free eggs and organic blue agave sweetener) and exotic, affordable luxuries — Belgian butter waffle cookies or Thai lime-and-chili cashews — that you simply can’t find anyplace else.

Absolutely true. No other store I’ve been to has an equivalent experience. Every week I went to Trader Joe’s, I bought one new product which I hadn’t bought before. It was hard to buy more because virtually everything I bought, I enjoyed. After about a month or so of shopping there, I bought the same items (the frozen tilapia, for instance), but I still loved discovering new items every week.

It’s little wonder that Trader Joe’s is one of the hottest retailers in the U.S. It now boasts 344 stores in 25 states and Washington, D.C., and strip-mall operators and consumers alike aggressively lobby the chain, based in Monrovia, Calif., to come to their towns. A Trader Joe’s brings with it good jobs, and its presence in your community is like an affirmation that you and your neighbors are worldly and smart.

Monrovia is just a short distance away from Pasadena. The store I mentioned (on S. Lake Street) is not the only Trader Joe’s store in Pasadena (the one on Arroyo Parkway, where I shopped once, is the flagship store; trivia: it is the flagship store because it was the first Trader Joe’s to open). Nevertheless, I really like the claim that people who shop at Trader Joe’s have a sense of affirmation of being worldly and smart.

You’d think Trader Joe’s would be eager to trumpet its success, but management is obsessively secretive. There are no signs with the company’s name or logo at headquarters in Monrovia, about 25 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

Perhaps this isn’t surprising. But my thinking is this: if it works, why change things?

So how did Fortune Magazine find out about the chain?

To get inside the mysterious world of Trader Joe’s, Fortune spent two months speaking with former executives, competitors, industry analysts, and suppliers, most of whom asked not to be named. What emerged is a picture of a business at a crossroads: As the company expands into new markets and adds stores — analysts say the grocer could easily triple its size in the coming years — it must find a way to maintain its small-store vibe with customers. “They see themselves as a national chain of neighborhood specialty grocery stores,” says Mark Mallinger, a Pepperdine University professor who has done research for the company. “It means you want to create an image of mom and pop as you grow.”

Indeed, I can understand the challenge. If Trader Joe’s expands too rapidly, it loses its vibe and niche presence. I know that people who live in Atlanta drive twenty or more miles to shop at a Trader Joe’s (when a Kroger or a Publix may be a few miles away).

Compared to most supermarkets, Trader Joe’s carries a smaller selection per product (the reasoning makes perfect sense to me):

Swapping selection for value turns out not to be much of a tradeoff. Customers may think they want variety, but in reality too many options can lead to shopping paralysis. “People are worried they’ll regret the choice they made,” says Barry Schwartz, a Swarthmore professor and author of The Paradox of Choice. “People don’t want to feel they made a mistake.”

But it’s the small things that matter. This is the most telling paragraph of the entire piece:

A ringing bell instead of an intercom signals that more help is needed at the registers. Registers don’t have conveyor belts or scales, and perishables are sold by unit instead of weight, speeding up checkout. Crew members aren’t told the margins on products, so placement decisions are made based not on profits but on what’s best for the shopper. Every employee works all aspects of the store, and if you ask where the roasted chestnuts are he’ll walk you over instead of just saying “aisle five.” Want to know what they taste like? He can probably tell you, and he might even open the bag on the spot for you to try.

A pleasant shopping experience, combined with personal attention, means you’re not only going to remember your purchase, but that you’re likely to become a loyal customer and keep coming back. As cliché as it sounds, shopping at Trader Joe’s is an experience. Like the food you purchase there, the experience is to be savored.

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Have you ever shopped at Trader Joe’s? Do you have one in your area? Was your experience similar to mine?

You Are the Victims of This Enormous Cheat…

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The other day, I finished reading this powerful, moving letter from Michael O’Hare, addressed to his students at University of California, Berkeley. I think it’s a must-read, even if you don’t care about politics or education.

Immediately into the essay, I was taken aback:

Welcome to Berkeley, probably still the best public university in the world. Meet your classmates, the best group of partners you can find anywhere. The percentages for grades on exams, papers, etc. in my courses always add up to 110% because that’s what I’ve learned to expect from you, over twenty years in the best job in the world.

I have never taken any course where a professor was so forthcoming and expected so much. Of course, I’ve never taken a college course where we were graded on a 110% scale.

And then Professor O’Hare goes for the gut:

The bad news is that you have been the victims of a terrible swindle, denied an inheritance you deserve by contract and by your merits. And you aren’t the only ones; victims of this ripoff include the students who were on your left and on your right in high school but didn’t get into Cal, a whole generation stiffed by mine. This letter is an apology, and more usefully, perhaps a signal to start demanding what’s been taken from you so you can pass it on with interest.

And what is wrong with their world? Succinctly, O’Hare explains:

I’m writing this to you because you are the victims of this enormous cheat (though your children will be even worse off if you don’t take charge of this ship and steer it). Your education was trashed as California fell to the bottom of US states in school spending, and the art classes, AP courses, physical education, working toilets, and teaching generally went by the board. Every year I come upon more and more of you who have obviously never had the chance to learn to write plain, clear, English.  Every year, fewer and fewer of you read newspapers, speak a foreign language, understand the basics of how government and business actually work, or have the energy to push back intellectually against me or against each other. Or know enough about history, literature, and science to do it effectively!  You spent your school years with teachers paid less and less, trained worse and worse, loaded up with more and more mindless administrative duties, and given less and less real support from administrators and staff.

I can’t comment on the students at Berkeley, but I do think this effect is prevalent all across America. The education budget keeps getting slashed and the students aren’t learning as much as they used to. But I don’t think that’s the entire story either…

What I loved about the letter was a challenge at the end:

You need to have a very tough talk with your parents, who are still voting; you can’t save your children by yourselves.  Equally important, you need to start talking to each other…

I can only hope the students in Professor O’Hare’s class(es) heed his advice and do something about it. Today is the day.

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Professor O’Hare also blogs at www.samefacts.com, and you can find that letter here. Do read through the comments, as there is a healthy discussion there as well.

Readings: Isolated Man, Straddling Bus, Truthful Airline Magazine

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Here are the three most interesting articles I’ve read over the weekend:

1) “The Most Isolated Man on the Planet” [Slate] – we don’t know his name, or whether he even has one. He is the most isolated man in the world and happens to live in the Amazonian jungle. Slate has an excellent piece profiling his existence:

He eats mostly wild game, which he either hunts with his bow-and-arrow or traps in spiked-bottom pitfalls. He grows a few crops around his huts, including corn and manioc, and often collects honey from hives that stingless bees construct in the hollows of tree trunks. Some of the markings he makes on trees have suggested to indigenous experts that he maintains a spiritual life, which they’ve speculated might help him survive the psychological toil of being, to a certain extent, the last man standing in a world of one.

2) “A ‘Straddling Bus’ Traffic Solution in China” [New York Times] – a novel idea about a bus which takes up no road space. It’s a fascinating look at what one company in the southern Chinese town of Shenzhen has proposed:

Though it is called the “straddling bus,” Huashi’s invention resembles a train in many respects — but it requires neither elevated tracks nor extensive tunneling. Its passenger compartment spans the width of two traffic lanes and sits high above the road surface, on a pair of fencelike stilts that leave the road clear for ordinary cars to pass underneath. It runs along a fixed route.

Read the article for more or watch the video below:

3) “An Airline Magazine That Makes Travelers Want to Pull the Rip Cord” [Wall Street Journal] – this isn’t your ordinary in-flight magazine. The in-flight magazine for Safi Airways tells the whole truth and nothing but the truth:

One recent edition featured a long, approving piece headlined, “Live Entertainment in Kabul: Dog Fighting.” The writer says dogs in Afghanistan don’t fight to the death, just until one proves dominant. “They are usually pulled apart before they can inflict serious damage on each other,” the article assures passengers, despite the photo of two worried Afghans carrying away a limp black-and-white behemoth from the fight.

And who would be interested in advertising in such a magazine?

The magazine’s audience attracts advertisers as specialized as its content. There are an Australian firm that offers medical services in scary places; a Middle Eastern satellite-communications company whose gear works in the phoneless hinterlands; and a war-zone car-repair service with outlets in Kabul, Baghdad and Monrovia. The ad for Alpha Armouring Panzerung, a Munich company, shows an armored Mercedes SUV cruising through the flames of a roadside bomb.

In a world where in-flight magazines only taut the beautiful and the flashy, this magazine certainly sets itself apart from the competition. No word on whether the magazine is planning a SkyMall expansion.

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Editor’s note: more posts are coming this week. In the meantime, feel free to subscribe by email using the box on the right.

Readings: End of the Web, Apologizing, Dubai, Happiness

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I’ve been away from this blog for nearly a month, but here’s what caught my attention recently:

1) “The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet” [Wired] – the most sensationalist piece of writing I’ve read in a long while. Many have labeled this piece on the demise of the web as trolling by the lead author (and editor of Wired) Chris Anderson. Read the piece for yourself, but then read Alexis Madrigal’s brilliant retort in The Atlantic; especially notable is this point from Alexis:

[I]t’s impossible not to notice — if you worked at Wired.com like I did — that Anderson’s inevitable technological path happens to run perfectly through the domains (print/tablet) he controls at Wired, and away from the one that he doesn’t.

2) “How to Apologize” [Research Digest Blog] – there are three main types of apologies, as explained:

The three apology types or components are: compensation (e.g. I’m sorry I broke your window, I’ll pay to have it repaired); empathy (e.g. I’m sorry I slept with your best friend, you must feel like you can’t trust either of us ever again); and acknowledgement of violated rules/norms (e.g. I’m sorry I advised the CIA how to torture people, I’ve broken our profession’s pledge to do no harm).

Read the post to find out which apology to use in which situation.

3) “Good-Bye to Dubai” [The New York Review of Books] – this is an excellent summary of the rise and (relative) fall of one of the most prosperous cities in the Middle East (and the world). The piece is actually a nice summary of three books: Dubai: Gilded Cage, Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success, and City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism. A telling paragraph of how things were built in Dubai:

Moreover, the real estate boom was kept going by a Dickensian labor system that was bound at some point to self- destruct. At the height of the boom, tens of thousands of Southeast Asian laborers, banned by Dubai’s labor laws from forming unions, were put to work for eighty hours a week to build the Dubai fantasy and obliged to live in squalid residential camps in the desert. There, according to a report in the Guardian, they were packed “twelve men to a room, forced to wash themselves in filthy brown water and cook in kitchens next to overflowing toilets.” Before the crash, workers had begun to agitate for reforms; one target has been the kafala system, which requires foreign workers to have “sponsors” to obtain a visa and mandates their immediate deportation if they lose their jobs. A Kuwaiti government minister called this system “human slavery.”

4) “But Will It Make You Happy?” [New York Times] – a great case study of a couple who gave up their jobs and a number of materialistic possessions in their quest to become happier. The outcome?

Today, three years after Ms. Strobel and Mr. Smith began downsizing, they live in Portland, Ore., in a spare, 400-square-foot studio with a nice-sized kitchen. Mr. Smith is completing a doctorate in physiology; Ms. Strobel happily works from home as a Web designer and freelance writer. She owns four plates, three pairs of shoes and two pots. With Mr. Smith in his final weeks of school, Ms. Strobel’s income of about $24,000 a year covers their bills. They are still car-free but have bikes. One other thing they no longer have: $30,000 of debt.

If you’re interested about the topic of happiness, I highly recommend checking out Gretchen Rubin’s excellent blog The Happiness Project. She also came out with a book of the same name late last year.