Just this month, Bitcoin and Ethereum—two of the most valuable cryptocurrencies—reached all-time highs in prices. The upsurge of cryptocurrencies in recent years has spurred on a new financial ecosystem—one built around blockchain, the same technology used by cryptocurrencies. Its users call it decentralized finance—DeFi for short—and it promises a financial system without traditional financial institutions,…
Saturday: a notepad sat on my desk. The paper’s slick surface reflected a curious yellow hue from a lamp. A clear resin pen, filled halfway with a dark grey ink, lay atop the notepad, a conspicuous accessory. I was up late at night, but the late-night writing did little to help with my insomnia. Rather,…
Over the past century, the average human diet has shifted drastically. And no more so than in the industrialized world. The foods more and more of us eat have become products of a globalized, industrial machine—a machine that gives us an abundance of calories at astonishingly low prices, all at the cost to the environment,…
It’s easy to picture how someone’s personal interests can go against the social good. Just consider a noisy conversation in a library that makes it difficult for everyone to concentrate. Think about how secondhand smoke negatively impacts others—it doesn’t just affect the smoker. Even driving in congested areas isn’t particularly helpful to society since it…
Privacy online is becoming a lost ideal. And pretty much everyone who uses the internet is under a gloom of surveillance—one that constantly records and monetizes their data. It’s no secret that privacy loss occurs all the time on the internet. And in many cases, it goes unnoticed. Users have come to acquiesce to the…
England, 1956. An old butler by the name of Stevens sets off alone on a summer holiday. As he unhurriedly drives through the English countryside, he reflects on his decades of service to Lord Darlington and his wish to serve humanity by serving “a great gentleman.” Yet now, near the end of his career, Stevens…
At first glance, the concept of mixing and matching two different vaccines is perplexing—if not horrifying. Perhaps it’s because we tend to think of vaccines like medicines: we feel like we have to complete the vaccine series by getting two doses of the same vaccine. Otherwise, we feel they might not be as effective. And…
In April, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised Canada’s 2030 greenhouse gas reduction target to 40–45%. That means over the next nine years, Canada will have to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to meet only 55–60% of the emissions levels measured in 2005. This all sounds great. But compared to other G7 countries, whose leaders met…
The prospect of robots taking over the world has been floating around in science fiction and popular culture for decades. Many of us might imagine some sort of machine uprising or super-intelligent revolutionaries gone out of control. But at least for now, these fears have yet to become reality. But we shouldn’t write them off…
English spelling is a bit of a mess. Often, spelling a word seems unintuitive compared to its pronunciation. Why “Wednesday”? (What’s that first “d” doing in there?) Why “onomatopoeia” and not “onomatopia”? Why “ingenious” and “minuscule” instead of “ingenius” and “miniscule”? A Brief History There are seemingly endless examples of this sort of inconsistency between…
One of the greatest filmmakers today is Christopher Nolan, and ever since he started his career in the late 1990s, he’s been known for his blockbuster action sequences and careful attention to cinematic detail. He does it all—from writing to directing to producing. And each one of his films is iconic in its own way.…
Several years ago, in an airport terminal, I sat in front of a wide, floor-to-ceiling window, waiting to board my flight. Outside, a murky fog had set in by that point in the evening, and for as far as I could see, the view was a dull mixture of greys—the concrete, the unsettlingly thick fog—broken…
Perhaps one of the most important skills anyone can develop is effective reading. Whether it’s a novel or a news article, effective reading helps us get what we’re looking for from what we read. It allows us to become better-informed individuals or simply enjoy a piece of literature. An effective reader acquires insight into what…
People occasionally ask me why I write with a fountain pen. It’s a remarkably deliberate writing instrument since you don’t see fountain pens all that often these days. It’s certainly become more of a niche hobby than a practical tool for writing. So, you could call me an enthusiast of sorts. In any case, today,…
We’ve all heard some variation of the minimum wage debate before. People often talk about what workers deserve; a living wage that provides an acceptable standard of living—that it’s something everyone has an inherent right to. Economic conservatives, however, have long defended a low minimum wage, claiming that government action in the economy will lead…