It were as if emergency military hospitals had taken inspiration from corporate event planning. The gym of West Bronx Recreational Center held two rows of ten partitioned spaces — five adjacent pairs — about four feet tall, so you could see everyone’s face but within a shroud of illusive privacy…

I just had an unintended but ultimately decent conversation with a friend who’s an anti-vaxxer. The conversation ended with his interest in potentially receiving a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. We’ll see. I know a few anti-vaxxers; my mother has increasingly become anti-vax, and spends a lot of time reading, listening and buying…

With daily Zoom conferences, it’s become clear that sometimes regular web cameras are insufficient. It’s not just that webcamera have comparably low-resolution; it’s the super-wide angle lenses make the human face look like a cartoon. In this short text, I’ll explain how to connect the existing technologies to dramatically improve…

Thursday, September 3, 2020 Since Spring Break I had been teaching remotely, and the journey down to Philadelphia felt like a memory from a distant past. The only thing I heard outside of the Liberty Bell was the recorded description of what the bell meant, playing in several different languages…

Half of the world is not going back to normal. Whatever ‘normal’ was. Half of the world has settled into Zoom calls, to staying at home, to doing laundry infrequently, to reading more and commuting less. Half of the world doesn’t want to pay for overpriced drinks anymore. Half of…

In 2016, the New York City Council passed the Criminal Justice Reform Act. The bill sought to reduce the penalty for low-level crimes, in an effort to divert people who could potentially end up with a criminal record. The path from a low-level offense to a criminal record was that…

Asian American Pacific Islander Movies You Can Stream in May 2020 The bad news is Netflix is really bad when it comes to classic and important Asian American cinema. The good news is they are funding films by Asian Americans right now. Here are some that you can see during AAPI month. Always Be My Maybe (2019) Rom-com done right: Ali Wong…

Cinema of, about, and by the intersection of Asia & America — May is Asian-Pacific American (APA) or Asia-Pacific Islander (API) or Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (AAPI)…I’m not really sure which is the best acronym. But rather than try to pin down May to one definition–what it’s about, or who it’s celebrating–I’m embracing the ambiguity through and through. What…

The similarity to the Redneck Fishing Tournament–a grassroots organized event aimed at merging sport fishing with environmental causes–was too good to pass up. Marine conservationists, such as Reef.org and Coastal Watch Alliance, have partnered with dive shops throughout Florida to encourage scuba divers to compete in lionfish derbies. Scuba diving…