kate + lemonade
I’ve been a fan of Lululemon since 2005. I’ve stuck by the brand through all its scandals, including not-really-“seaweed-infused” fabric (Who buys clothes for their seaweed-related properties anyway?), see-through pants (you learn to check carefully in the changeroom’s 3-way mirrors), and the founder’s size-ist comments (he’s since stepped down as CEO).
I can forgive all that. But today – in subjugating me to their atrocious gift-return policy – Lululemon finally went too far.
Paul Graham says you can’t try to write about everything that’s wrong with the world. If you did, you’d be Noam Chomsky.[1]
Hanoi is one of my new favorite places. Everyone told me it would be awesome, and they were right.
As a Canadian abroad, here’s what I long for.
In no particular order…
All-day breakfast. I really missed this in Japan. Places stop serving breakfast at 11 am (even McDonald’s!).
It seems like most people haven’t heard of Couchsurfing Hangouts. That’s a shame.
Weather is caused by a bunch of molecules. Since we don’t know exactly how the molecules will behave, weather forecasters make lots of models and then look at the average. That’s why they say things like “There’s a 70% chance of rain”—perhaps they’ve made 100 models, and it rained in 70 of them. (As described by Nate Silver in The Signal and the Noise.)
If we knew exactly what each molecule was, though, we could predict the weather with perfect accuracy.
Now, consider the extent to which the course of your life is determined by prior causes.
Agnostic people need to pick a side. I think they’re all secretly either atheist or spiritual.
Somehow I didn’t figure these things out until around age 18. Keep reading to learn from my mistakes, or just laugh at my general awkwardness.
