Month: August 2021

Apple has taken a huge step towards protecting children by announcing its new plan to scan iPhone photos for images of child abuse. The company will use a “neural match” system to scan photographs and if anything looks suspicious, a human at Apple will be notified to review the images and contact the authorities if necessary.

According to Apple, the new system will “continuously scan photos that are stored on a US user’s iPhone and have also been uploaded to its iCloud back-up system.”

The system is designed to protect users’ privacy by scanning photos without making private communications readable by the company.

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Julia Cordua, CEO of Thorn, said that Apple’s technology balances “the need for privacy with digital safety for children.” Thorn is a nonprofit that uses technology to protect children from sexual abuse.

The neural match system was trained to find images of abused children by scanning a massive database of photos supplied by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

“The reality is that privacy and child protection can co-exist. We applaud Apple and look forward to working togeth… https://t.co/Isp5NImT5S

— NCMEC (@MissingKids)
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“Apple’s expanded protection for children is a game-changer,” John Clark, the president and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said in a statement. “With so many people using Apple products, these new safety measures have the life-saving potential for children who are being enticed online and whose horrific images are being circulated in child sexual abuse material.”

Ninety percent of all photos are taken with mobile phones and Apple is the number one selling smartphone in America. That means child abusers will have a much harder time getting away with their heinous acts without being caught.

Apple’s decision to scan the cloud to catch child abusers is a bit of an about-face for the company. In the past, it has steadfastly stood up to law enforcement agencies’ requests to use its technology to glean information for criminal investigations.

While organizations that protect children are excited about the new system, some fear the new technology will be exploited by bad actors to invade people’s privacy. Worse, it could open floodgates for governments across the globe to access Apple users’ personal data.

“What happens when the Chinese government says, ‘Here is a list of files that we want you to scan for,'” Matthew Green, a top cryptography researcher at Johns Hopkins, asks. “Does Apple say no? I hope they say no, but their technology won’t say no.”

“This will break the dam — governments will demand it from everyone,” Green tweeted.

“It is an absolutely appalling idea, because it is going to lead to distributed bulk surveillance of . . . our phones and laptops,” Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at the University of Cambridge, said according to Financial Times.

Some fear that the technology will be used to set people up. A bad actor could send someone a photo that triggers the system, putting the unwilling person in serious trouble.

If Apple’s new system goes according to plan, it will be a powerful tool to catch those who abuse children and will be a strong deterrent as well. But if the system’s critics are correct, it could destroy the trust consumers have with Apple and give authoritarians direct access to our private lives.

As if dealing with an ever-changing understanding of the novel coronavirus over the past year and a half hasn’t been enough, we’ve also had to try to understand the math behind the data analysis, which for some of us (hi, English major here) is a nightmare.

It’s vitally important that we understand these numbers, though, because misinformation peddlers are using them to push misconceptions about vaccines. And even though the math isn’t actually that complicated, those of us who aren’t particularly mathematically inclined may read headlines like “50% of COVID patients in XX hospital are fully vaccinated” and find ourselves alarmed. Wasn’t the vaccine supposed to prevent hospitalizations? If half of the people in the hospital are vaccinated, doesn’t that mean the vaccine makes no difference?

Well, no. That’s not at all what it means, and here’s why. It’s all about the denominators.

On a super basic level: 2 = 2, but 2 out of 20 is not the same as 2 out of 80. If 4 people are hospitalized, 2 vaccinated and 2 not vaccinated, in an area with an 80% vaccination rate, it’s not a meaningful measurement to say that half of the hospitalizations are in vaccinated people. Your chances of hospitalization with the vaccination are significantly lower because of the denominator.

Biostatistician Lucy D’Agostino McGowan simplified why the percent vaccinated in hospitalizations numbers aren’t as scary as they sound with some helpful visuals in a Twitter thread.

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If you see something like x% of the sick/hospitalized/deceased were vaccinated, the *better* the vaccine uptake the… https://t.co/ab2l5fBgzl

— Lucy D’Agostino McGowan (@LucyStats)
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What you need to do is look at the rates among the vaccinated and unvaccinated separately, and then compare them. H… https://t.co/NWBxhmYJm6

— Lucy D’Agostino McGowan (@LucyStats)
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The director of the Maine CDC, Nirav D. Shah, gave an even more thorough explanation for those who actually want to wade a little deeper into the statistical waters.

2/I have seen folks express concern upon learning, for example, that 45% of people hospitalized w/COVID19 are vacci… https://t.co/6DErdUoQSq

— Nirav D. Shah (@nirav_mainecdc)
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He wrote:

“It’s important to consider the full picture when interpreting data on things like the % of people fully vaccinated who are hospitalized with #COVID19, or the fact that 74% of the cases in the P-town outbreak were fully vaccinated.

I have seen folks express concern upon learning, for example, that 45% of people hospitalized w/COVID19 are vaccinated.

“But I thought the vaccine keeps you out of the hospital? Is this evidence that vaccines aren’t working?” No, it is not. I’ll walk through why here.

First, some basic assumptions. There are two Worlds, each with 1M people. And we’ll consider the same infectious disease affecting each World, with the parameters below.

There is also a vaccine, with the effectiveness parameters noted below. These could all be changed.In World 1, 50% of the population has been vaccinated against the disease. Out of the 1M people, there are 30,000 infections and 2525 hospitalizations.

Among vaccinated folks, 25 end up in the hospital. The other 2500 hospitalized are UNvaccinated.World 2 is different: 90% of the population is vaccinated.

Here, there are only 14,000 cases. And only 545 people are hospitalized in total.

BUT, 45 of the hospitalized are vaccinated! Compare that with only 25 vaccinated folks in the hospital in World 1.What is going on?

How could it be that, in a World with 90% of the population vaccinated, 20 *more* vaccinated people are hospitalized with the disease (45 vs. 25?)? Is the vaccine not working in World 2?

It’s important to compare World 1 and World 2 side by side.

First, note that the case rate in World 2 (90% vaccinated) is far lower than in World 1 (50%). The vaccine is working.

Second, the hospitalization RATE is also far lower in World 2: 545/million vs. 2525/mil.But because there are simply more vaccinated people in World 2, something that affects them at the same rate as others (hospitalization) will generate more cases, numerically.

Indeed, the % of all hospitalized who are fully vaccinated is HIGHER in World 2 than in World 1.In World 2 (90%), 8.25% of all those in the hospital are vaccinated. But in World 1 (50%), it’s only 1%!

This is NOT evidence that the vaccines are ineffective. It is a function of the fact that there are simply more vaccinated folks in World 2 relative to unvaccinated.

The question to ask yourself is this: which world would you rather be in?

For that, you would look to the hospitalization rate: 545 vs. 2525/million. World 2, with its higher vaccination rate, is preferable, given that it experiences 1980 fewer hospitalizations. In World 1, fewer people are vaccinated, so their rate of hospitalization is just lower.

Where else does this (common) phenomenon occur?

For a stark example, consider this: what % of skydiving accidents occur in people who were wearing a parachute? Probably 100%.

Are parachutes not effective? They are. But the baseline rate of parachute wearing among those who sky dive is 100%.

Another example: what percentage of fatal car accidents occur in people who were wearing a seat belt? It’s about 52%.

Does that mean the effectiveness of seat belts is a coin flip? No, the baseline rate matters. Seat belt usage is around 85%. As with so many things, where you end up depends on the baseline rate of where you started.

Lots of vaccinated folks are being hospitalized with COVID because there are a growing number of vaccinated folks. But the RATE of total hospitalizations is going down. That’s good. Similarly, in P-town, 74% (346) of the cases were among vaccinated folks.

But there, what percentage of folks were vaccinated vs. unvaccinated? If the baseline rate of vaccinated was sky high, then this finding is entirely predictable. This is a common theme in epidemiology and statistics. Once you know to look for it, it jumps out all over the place. But without the context around background rates, denominators, etc., it’s easy to scare yourself and make incorrect decisions.

Another example: imagine World 3, also with 1M people. 999,999 are vaccinated.

Two cases of COVID occur. One in the unvaccinated person. The other in a vaccinated person.

So 50% of new COVID cases are in the vaccinated. Really? Yes, but deceiving. Denominators matter.”

Denominators matter. Even those of us who aren’t mathematicians or statisticians can understand that, but we do need media reports to be clear about it; otherwise, we end up with people believing that the vaccines don’t do much.

We also need to remember that data is always being gathered and that our understanding of this virus, the vaccines, and how best to balance safety measures and other needs will continue to evolve. The constant shifts are hard, but such is the nature of a novel viral pandemic, and it looks like we’re still going to be in it for a while.

This article originally appeared on 03.11.16

This post was originally published on Wait But Why.

When you’re a kid, or in high school or college, you usually don’t work too hard on your friend situations. Friends just kind of happen.

For a bunch of years, you’re in a certain life your parents chose for you, and so are other people, and none of you have that much on your plates, so friendships inevitably form. Then in college, you’re in the perfect friend-making environment, one that hits all three ingredients sociologists consider necessary for close friendships to develop: “proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other.” More friendships happen.

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Maybe they’re the right friends, maybe they’re not really. But you don’t put that much thought into any of it — you’re still more of a passive observer.

But once student life ends, the people in your life start to shake themselves into more distinct tiers.

It looks something like this mountain:

All photos are from the original Wait But Why post and used with permission.

At the top of your life mountain, in the green zone, you have your Tier 1 friends — the people who feel like brothers and sisters.

These are the people closest to you, the ones you call first when something important happens, the ones you love even when they suck, who make speeches at your wedding, whose best and worst sides you know through and through, and whose relationship with you is eternal; even if you go months or years without hanging out, nothing has changed when you find yourself together again.

Unfortunately, depending on how things went down in your youth, Tier 1 can also contain your worst enemies, the people who can ruin your day with one subtle jab that only they could word so brilliantly hurtfully, the people you feel a burning resentment for, or jealousy of, or competition with. Tier 1 is high stakes.

Below, in the yellow zone, are your Tier 2 friends: your Pretty Good friends.

Pretty Good friends are a much calmer situation than your brothers and sisters on Tier 1. You might be invited to their wedding, but you won’t have any responsibilities once you’re there. If you live in the same city, you might see them every month or two for dinner and have a great time when you do, but if one of you moves, you might not speak for the next year or two. And if something huge happens in their life, there’s a good chance you’ll hear it first from someone else.

Toward the bottom of the mountain in the orange zone, you have your Tier 3 friends: your Not Really friends.

You might grab a one-on-one drink with one of them when you move to their city, but then it surprises neither of you when five years pass and drink #2 is still yet to happen. Your relationship tends to exist mostly as part of a bigger group or through the occasional Facebook Like, and it doesn’t even really stress you out when you hear that one of them made $5 million last year. You may also try to sleep with one of these people at any given time.

The lowest part of Tier 3 begins to blend indistinguishably into your large group of acquaintances (the pink zone): those people you’d stop and talk to if you saw them on the street or would maybe email for professional purposes but whom you’d never hang out with one-on-one. When you hear that something bad happens to one of these people, you pretend to be sad but you don’t actually care.

Finally, acquaintances gradually blend into the endless world of strangers.

And depending on who you are and how things shook out in those first 25 years, the way your particular mountain looks will vary.

For example, there’s Walled-Off Wally:

And Phony Phoebe, who tries to be everyone’s best friend and ends up with a lot of people mad at her:

Even Unabomber Ulysses has a mountain:

Whatever your particular mountain looks like, eventually the blur of your youth is behind you, the dust has settled, and there you are living your life.

Then one day, usually around your mid- or late 20s, it hits you: It’s not that easy to make friends anymore.

Sure, you’ll make new friends in the future — at work, through your spouse, through your kids — but you won’t get to that Tier 1 brothers level, or even to Tier 2, with very many of them because people who meet as adults don’t tend to get through the 100+ long, lazy hangouts needed to reach a bond of that strength. As time goes on, you start to realize that the 20-year frenzy of not-especially-thought-through haphazard friend-making you just did was the critical process of you making most of your lifelong friends.

And since you matched up with most of them A) by circumstance, and B) before you really knew yourself yet, the result is that your Tier 1 and Tier 2 friends — those closest to you — fall in a very scattered way on what I’ll call the Does This Friendship Make Sense graph:

So, who are all those close friends in the three non-ideal quadrants?

As time goes on, most of us tend to have fewer friends in Quadrants 2 through 4 because A) people mature, and B) people have more self-respect and higher standards for what they’ll deal with as they get older. But the fact is, friendships made in the formative years often stick, whether they’re ideal or not, leaving most of us with a portion of our Tier 1 and Tier 2 friendships that just don’t make that much sense. We’ll get to the great, Quadrant 1 friendships later in the post, but in order to treat those relationships properly, we need to take a thorough look at the odd ones first.

Here are 10 common ones:

1. The non-question-asking friend

You’ll be having a good day. You’ll be having a bad day. You’ll be happy at work. You’ll quit your job. You’ll fall in love. You’ll catch your new love cheating on you and murder them both in an act of incredible passion. And it doesn’t matter, because none of it will be discussed with The Non-Question-Asking Friend, who never, ever, ever asks you anything about your life. This friend can be explained in one of three ways:

1. He’s extremely self-absorbed and only wants to talk about himself.
2. He avoids getting close to people and doesn’t want to talk about either you or himself or anything personal, just third-party topics.
3. He thinks you’re insufferably self-absorbed and knows if he asks you about your life, you’ll talk his ear off about it.

Giving you the benefit of the doubt here, we’re left with two possibilities. Possibility #1 isn’t fun at all and this person should not be allowed space on Tier 1. The green part of the mountain is sacred territory, and super self-absorbed people shouldn’t be permitted to set foot up there. Put him on Tier 2 and just be happy you’re not dating him.

Possibility #2 is a pretty dark situation for your friend, but it can actually be fun for you. I have a friend who I’ve hung out with one-on-one about four times in the last year, and he has no idea Wait But Why exists. I’ve known him for 14 years and I’m not sure he knows if I have siblings or not. But I actually enjoy the shit out of this friend — sure, there’s a limit on how close we’ll ever be, but without ever spending time talking about our lives, we actually end up in a lot of fun, interesting conversations.

2. The friend in the group you can’t be alone with under any circumstances

In almost every group of friends, there’s one pair who can’t ever be alone together. It’s not that they dislike each other — they might get along great — it’s just that they have no individual friendship with each other whatsoever. This leaves both of them petrified of the lumbering elephant that appears in the room anytime they’re alone together. They’re way too on top of shit to ever end up in the car alone together if a group is going somewhere in multiple cars, but there are smaller dangers afoot — like being the first two to arrive at a restaurant or being in a group of three when the third member goes to the bathroom.

The thing is, sometimes it’s not even that these people couldn’t have an individual friendship — it’s just that they don’t, and neither one has the guts to try to make that leap when things have gone on for so long as is.

3. The non-character-breaking friend you have to be “on” with

This is a friend who’s terrified of having an earnest interaction, and as such, your friendship with him is always in some kind of skit — you always have to be on when you’re interacting.

Sometimes the skit is that you both burst out laughing at everything constantly. He can only exist with you in “This is so fucking hilarious, it’s too much!” mode, so you have to be in some kind of joke-telling or sarcastic mode yourself at all times or he’ll become socially horrified.

Another version of this is the “always and only ironic” friend, who you really bum out if you ever break that social shell and say something earnest. This type of person hates earnest people because someone being earnest dares him to come out from under his ironic safety blanket and let the sun touch his face, and no fucking thanks.

A third example is the “You’re great, I’m great, ugh why is everyone else so terrible and not great like us” friend. Of course, she doesn’t really think you’re perfectly great at all — if she were with someone else, you’d be one of the voodoo dolls on the table to be dissected and scoffed at. The key here is that the two of you must be on a team at all times while interacting. The only comfortable mode for this person is bonding with you by building a little pedestal for you both to stand on while you criticize everyone else. You can either play along and everything will go smoothly, even though you’ll both despise yourselves and each other the whole time, or you can commit the ultimate sin and have the integrity to disagree with the friend or defend a non-present party the friend criticizes. Doing this will shatter the fragile team vibe and make the friend recoil and say something quietly like, “Hm … yeah … I guess.” The friend now respects you for the first time and will also criticize you extra hard next time she’s playing her pedestal game with a different friend.

What these all have in common is the friend has tall walls up, at least toward you, and so she builds a little skit for you two to hang out in to make sure any authentic connection can be avoided. Sometimes that person only does this out of her own social anxiety and can become a great, authentic friend if you can just stomp through the ice. Other times, the person is just hopelessly scared and closed off and there’s no hope and you have to get out.

In any case, I can’t stand these interactions and am in a full panic the entire time they’re happening.

4. The double-obligated friendship

Think of a friend you get together with from time to time, which usually happens after a long and lackluster email or text exchange during which you just can’t find a time that works for both of you — and you’re never really happy when these plans are being made and not really psyched when you wake up and it’s finally on your schedule for that day.

Maybe you’re aware that you don’t want to be friends with that person, or maybe you’re delusional about it — but what you’re most likely not aware of is that they probably don’t want to see you either.

There are lopsided situations where one person is far more interested in hanging out than the other (we’ll get to those later), but in the case we’re talking about here, both parties often think it’s a lopsided situation without realizing that the other person actually feels the same way — that’s why it takes so long to schedule a time. When someone’s excited about something, they figure out how to get it into their schedule; when they’re not, they figure out ways to push it farther into the future.

Sometimes you don’t think hard enough about it to even realize you don’t like being friends with the person, and other times you really like the idea or the aesthetic of being friends with that particular person — being friends with them is part of your Story. But even in cases where you’re perfectly lucid about your feelings, since neither of you knows the other feels the same way and neither has the guts to just cut things off or move it down a tier, this friendship usually just continues along for eternity.

5. The half-marriage

Somewhere in your life, you’re probably part of a friendship that would be a marriage if only the other person weren’t very, very, extremely not interested in that happening. 1 for 2 on yes votes — just one vote away — so close.

You might be on either side of this — and either way, it’s one of the least healthy parts of your life. Fun!

If you’re on the if only side of things, probably the right move is to get your fucking shit together? Ya know? This friendship is one long, continuous rejection of you as a human being, and you’re just wallowing there in your yearning like a sobbing little seal. Plus, duh, if you gather your self-respect and move on with your life, it’ll raise their perception of your value and they might actually become interested in you.

If you’re on the Oh yeah, definitely not side of the situation, here’s what’s happening: There’s this suffering human in the world, and you know they’re suffering, and you fucking love it, because it gives your little ego a succulent sponge bath every time you hang out with them. You enjoy it so much you probably even lead them on intentionally, don’t you — you make sure to keep just enough ambiguity in the situation that their bleeding heart continues to lather your ego from head to toe at your whim.

Both of you — go do something else.

6. The historical friend

A Historical Friend is someone you became friends with in the first place because you met when you were little and stayed friends through the years, even though you’re a very weird match. Most old friends fall somewhat into this category, but a true Historical Friend is someone you absolutely would not be friends with if you met them today.

You’re not especially pleased with who they are, and they feel the same way about you. You’re not each other’s type one bit. Unfortunately, you’re also extremely close friends from when you were four, and you’re both just a part of each other’s situation forever, sorry.

7. The non-parallel life paths friendship

Throughout childhood and much of young adulthood, most people your age are in the same life stage as you are. But when it comes to advancing into full adulthood, people do so at widely varying paces, which leads to certain friends suddenly having totally different existences from one another.

Anyone within three years of 30 has a bunch of these going on. It’s just a weird time for everyone. Some people have become Future 52-year-olds, while others are super into being Previous 21-year-olds. At some point, things will start to meld together again, but being 30-ish is the friendship equivalent of a kid going through an awkward pubescent stage.

There are darker, more permanent Non-Parallel Life Path situations. Like when Person A starts to become a person who rejects material wealth, partially because she genuinely feels that pursuing an artistic path matters more and partially because she needs a defense mechanism against feeling envious of richer people, and Person B’s path makes her scoff at people who pursue creative paths, partially because she genuinely thinks expressing yourself is an inherently narcissistic venture and partially because she needs a defense mechanism against feeling regretful that she never pursued her creative dreams — these two will have problems.

They may still like each other, but they can’t be as close as they used to be — each of their lives is a bit of a middle finger at the other’s choices, and that’s jst awkward for everyone. It’s not always that bad — but to survive an Off-Line Life Situation, friends need to be really different people who don’t at all want the same things out of life.

8. The frenemy

The Frenemy roots very hard against you. And I’m not talking about the friends that will feel a little twinge of pleasure when they hear your big break didn’t pan out after all or that your relationship is in bad shape. I’m not even talking about someone who secretly roots against you when they’re not doing so well at some area of life and it hurts them to see you do better. Those are bad emotions, but they can exist in people who are still good friends.

I’m talking about a real Frenemy — someone who really wants bad things for you. Because you’re you.

You and the Frenemy usually go way back, have a very deep friendship, and the trouble probably started a long time ago. There’s a lot of complex psychology going on in these situations that I don’t fully understand, but my hunch is that a Frenemy’s resentment is rooted in his own pain, or his own shortcomings, or his own regret — and for some reason, your existence stings them in these places hard.

A little less dark but no less harmful is a bully situation where a friend sees some weakness or vulnerability in you and she enjoys prodding you there either for sadistic reasons or to prop herself up.

A Frenemy knows how to hurt you better than anyone because you’re deeply similar in some way and she knows how you’re wired. She’ll do whatever she can to bring you down any chance she gets, often in such a subtle way it’s hard to see that it’s happening.

Whatever the reason, if you have a Frenemy in your life, kick her toxic ass off your mountain, or at least kick her down the mountain — just get her off of Tier 1. A Frenemy has about a 10th of the power to hurt you from Tier 2 as she does from Tier 1.

9. The Facebook celebrity friend

This person isn’t a celebrity to anyone other than you, you creep. You know exactly who I’m talking about — there are a small handful of people whose Facebook page you’re uncomfortably well-acquainted with, and those people have no idea that this is happening. On the plus side, there are people out there you haven’t spoken to in seven years who know all about the new thing you’re trying with your hair, since it goes both ways.

This is a rare Tier 3 friend, or even an acquaintance, who qualifies as an odd friendship because you found a way to make it unhealthy even though you’re not actually friends. Well done.

10. The lopsided friendship

There are a lot of ways a friendship can be lopsided: Someone can be higher on their friend’s mountain than vice versa. Someone can want to spend more time with a friend than vice versa. One member can consistently do 90% of the listening and only 10% of the talking, and in situations where most of the talking is about life problems, what’s happening is a one-sided therapy situation, with a badly off-balance give-and-take ratio, and that’s not much of a friendship — it’s someone using someone else.

And then there’s the lopsided power friendship. Of course, this is a hideous quality in many not-great couples, but it’s also a prominent feature of plenty of friendships.

A near 50/50 friendship is ideal, but anything out to 65/35 is fine and can often be attributed to two different styles of personality. It’s when the number gap gets even wider that something less healthy is going on — something that doesn’t reflect very well on either party.

There are some obvious ways to assess the nature of a friendship’s power dynamic: Does one person cut in and interrupt the other person while they’re talking far more than the other way around? Is one person’s opinion or preference just kind of understood to carry more weight than the other’s? Is one person allowed to be more of a dick to the other than vice versa?

Another interesting litmus test is what I call the “mood determiner test.” This comes into play when two friends get together but they’re in very different moods — the idea is, whose mood “wins” and determines the mood of the hangout. If Person A is in a bad mood, Person B is in a good mood, and Person B reacts by being timid and respectful of Person A’s mood, leaving the vibe down there until Person A snaps out of it on her own — but when the moods are reversed, Person B quickly disregards her own bad mood and acts more cheerful to match Person A’s happy mood — and this is how it always goes — then Person A is in a serious power position.

But hey, not all friendships are grim.

In the Does This Friendship Make Sense graph above, the friendships we just discussed are all in Quandrants 2, 3, or 4 — i.e., they’re all a bit unenjoyable, unhealthy, or both. That’s why this has been depressing. On the bright side, there’s also Quadrant 1 — all the friendships that do make sense.

No friendship is perfect, but those in Quadrant 1 are doing what friendships are supposed to do: They’re making the lives of both parties better. And when a friendship is both in Quadrant 1 of the graph and on Tier 1 of your mountain, that friendship is a rock in your life.

Rock friendships don’t just make us happy — they’re the thing (along with rock family and romantic relationships) that makes us happy.

Investing serious time and energy into those is a no-brainer long-term life strategy. But in the case of most people over 25 — at least in New York — I think A) not enough time is carved out as dedicated friend time, and B) the time that is carved out is spread too thin, and too evenly, among the Tier 1 and Tier 2 friendships in all four quadrants. I’m definitely guilty of this myself.

There’s something I call the Perpetual Catch-Up Trap. When you haven’t seen a good friend in a long time, the first order of business is a big catch-up — you want to know what’s going on in their career, with their girlfriend, with their family, etc., and they want to catch up on your life. In theory, once this happens, you can go back to just hanging out, shooting the shit, and actually being in the friendship. The problem is, when you don’t make enough time for good friends, seeing them only for a meal and not that often — you end up spending each get-together catching up, and you never actually get to just enjoy the friendship or get far past the surface. That’s the Perpetual Catch-Up Trap, and I find myself falling into it with way too many of the rocks in my life.

There are two orders of business right now:

First, think about your friendships, figure out which ones aren’t in Quadrant 1, and demote them down the mountain. I’m not suggesting you stop being friends with those people — you still love them and feel loyal to them, and old friends are critical to hold onto — but if the friendships aren’t that healthy or enjoyable, they don’t really deserve to be in your Tier 1, and you probably shouldn’t be in theirs. Most importantly, doing this clears up time to…

Second, dedicate even more time to the Quadrant 1, Tier 1 rocks in your life. If you’re in your mid-20s or older, your current rocks are probably the only ones you’ll ever have. Your rock friendships don’t warrant two times the time you give to your other friends — they warrant five or 10 times!

Your rocks deserve serious, dedicated time so you can stay close. So go make plans with them.

This article originally appeared on 12.07.15

Fifth-grade teacher Emily E. Smith is not your ordinary teacher.

Photo by John Pike. Used with permission.

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She founded The Hive Society — a classroom that’s all about inspiring children to learn more about their world … and themselves — by interacting with literature and current events. Students watch TED talks, read Rolling Stone, and analyze infographics. She even has a long-distance running club to encourage students to take care of their minds and bodies.

Smith is such an awesome teacher, in fact, that she recently received the 2015 Donald H. Graves Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Writing.

It had always been her dream to work with children in urban areas, so when Smith started teaching, she hit the ground running. She had her students making podcasts, and they had in-depth discussions about their readings on a cozy carpet.

But in her acceptance speech for her award, she made it clear that it took a turning point in her career before she really got it:

“Things changed for me the day when, during a classroom discussion, one of my kids bluntly told me I “couldn’t understand because I was a white lady.” I had to agree with him. I sat there and tried to speak openly about how I could never fully understand and went home and cried, because my children knew about white privilege before I did. The closest I could ever come was empathy.”

Smith knew that just acknowledging her white privilege wasn’t enough.

She wanted to move beyond just empathy and find a way to take some real action that would make a difference for her students.

She kept the same innovative and engaging teaching methods, but she totally revamped her curriculum to include works by people who looked like her students. She also carved out more time to discuss issues that her students were facing, such as xenophobia and racism.

And that effort? Absolutely worth it.

As she said in her acceptance speech:

“We studied the works of Sandra Cisneros, Pam Munoz Ryan, and Gary Soto, with the intertwined Spanish language and Latino culture — so fluent and deep in the memories of my kids that I saw light in their eyes I had never seen before.“

OK it was probably a LOT more subtle. GIF via “Toddlers and Tiaras.”

The changes Smith made in her classroom make a whole lot of sense. And they’re easy enough for teachers everywhere to make:

— They studied the work of historical Latino figures, with some of the original Spanish language included. Many children of color are growing up in bilingual households. In 2007, 55.4 million Americans 5 years of age and older spoke a language other than English at home.

— They analyzed the vision of America that great writers of color sought to create. And her students realized that our country still isn’t quite living up to its ideals. Despite progress toward racial equality with the end of laws that enforced slavery or segregation, we still have a long way to go. Black people still fare worse than white people when it comes to things like wealth, unfair arrests, and health.

— They read excepts from contemporary writers of color, like Ta-Nehisi Coates who writes about race. Her students are reading and learning from a diverse group of writers. No small thing when they live in a society that overwhelmingly gives more attention to white male writers (and where the number of employees of color in the newspaper industry stagnates at a paltry 12%).

— They read about the Syrian crisis, and many students wrote about journeys across the border in their family history for class. The opportunity particularly struck one student; the assignment touched him so much that he cried. He never had a teacher honor the journey his family made. And he was proud of his heritage for the first time ever. “One child cried,” Smith shared, “and told me he never had a teacher who honored the journey his family took to the United States. He told me he was not ashamed anymore, but instead proud of the sacrifice his parents made for him.”

I know you’re tearing up right along with me. GIF via “The Office.”

Opportunities like this will only increase as the number of children from immigrant families is steadily increasing. As of 2013, almost 17.4 million children under 18 have at least one immigrant parent.

Smith now identifies not just as an English teacher, but as a social justice teacher.

YES! Now I get why I loved the show as a kid. GIF via “Recess,”

Smith’s successful shift in her teaching is an example for teachers everywhere, especially as our schools become increasingly ethnically and racially diverse. About 80% of American teachers are white. But as of last year, the majority of K-12 students in public schools are now children of color.

As America’s demographics change, we need to work on creating work that reflects the experiences that our students relate to. And a more diverse curriculum isn’t just important for students of color. It’s vital for everyone.

As Smith put it, “We, the teachers, are responsible for instilling empathy and understanding in the hearts of all kids. We are responsible for the future of this country.”

This article originally appeared on 04.08.16

I’m trying desperately to be respectful of the person speaking to me, but my husband keeps texting me.

First he sends me a selfie of him with Rafi*, then it’s an account of who stopped him on his way into the NICU. Then he suggests I take a selfie with Jillian* so he can post them side-by-side on Facebook and boast that we finally have two babies.

People will ask if they’re twins, I’m sure. But they’re not twins. In fact, the babies aren’t even ours.

---

James’ dream come true: Two babies! Rafi in the NICU with Tatte, Jillian at home with Eema. Photo by Ann Lapin, used with permission.

Rafi and Jillian are two in a string of babies who have come into our care temporarily while their biological parents explore their parenting options.

Maybe the birth mom doesn’t know if she can parent. Maybe the father isn’t in the picture. Maybe the birth mom decided she wasn’t able to parent initially, but she began to wonder again after delivery. Or maybe the parents didn’t know they were expecting at all.

Whatever the reason, when babies are in my care, their parents are able to make important decisions. They can consider adoption options, set up their support systems at home, or get financial assistance if necessary — steps they might not have had the opportunity to take before the baby was born.

I take care of these babies because I’m what’s known as an “interim parent.”

Over the past four years, my family has cared for 22 newborns.

Our children often help parent the babies. Here, Gavri, 12, takes a break from feeding Ariel* to play a quick game of peek-a-boo. Photo by Stacey Natal/Total City Girl, used with permission.

From the time the babies are first discharged from the hospital until the day I place them in their parents’ arms, these babies are 100% in my care. I rock them to sleep, I feed them at all hours of the day and night, I give them their first baths, and sometimes I capture their first smiles.

I record the important (“March 23, Luke’s* umbilical cord fell off!”) and the not-so-important (“Jibraan’s* favorite song: ‘Wagon Wheel.’ Prefers Darius Rucker to Bob Dylan.”) details of their early days so I can later share them with their parents.

The program I’m part of is rare; there are very few like it in the United States.

While the babies are in my care, the birth parents retain their legal rights as parents and are encouraged to visit their babies (if that’s something they would like).

My three kids with our baby before he meets his forever mommy. Photo by Ann Lapin, used with permission.

If they weren’t in the care of interim moms like me, these tiny babies might wait in the hospital a few extra days while their adoptions are finalized — or they might enter the foster care system.

In New York, biological parents have 30 days after adoption proceedings begin to change their minds about their placement plan.

I became an interim parent when a local mom posted about it on our neighborhood Yahoo! group.

“That! THAT I can do!” I thought, as I looked at the computer screen.

I was thrilled. I felt incapable of doing other types of volunteer work, but I felt like I had finally found a community service that I could perform. So, my husband and I applied. And after months of doctor appointments, background checks, interviews, and letters of reference from close friends, we were accepted.

The hope with the interim boarding care program is that biological parents have time to gain clarity about their decisions without pressure.

It also helps adoptive parents feel secure in their status as parents.

The children don’t usually get the chance to be present when one of our babies goes home, so this was a special day. We left the adoption agency with an empty stroller — but it didn’t stay that way for long! Photo by Stacey Natal/ Total City Girl, used with permission.

Roughly 30% of the babies I’ve cared for have returned to their biological parents after their stay with me, and the rest have been adopted. Many of the birth mothers I’ve known have pursued open adoptions, selecting and meeting their child’s forever families.

People often ask me what the experience of interim parenting is like, but there’s no rule: Each case is different.

Babies stay with us, on average, for a few weeks. But one baby stayed with us with five days, another for nine and a half weeks.

Whatever the scenario, my family and I are available to care for these babies until they go home … wherever “home” may be.

Photo by Stacey Natal/Total City Girl, used with permission.

This work can be emotionally challenging, too. Some biological parents do not interact with us at all while they’re making big decisions, and some end up being very involved. Some text regularly, requesting photos and updates on the baby while the baby is in our care. Sometimes they schedule weekly visits with the babies. One birth mom became such a constant in our life that my son asked if we could bake her cookies.

I am often blown away by the biological parents’ gratitude.

Melody* was one of the most beautiful babies I’d ever cared for, and I met her parents a couple of times. When they came to take her home, it was as though she was the only one in the room. When they thanked me for taking care of her, my lip started to quiver.

I had also never met Jibraan’s dad, either, when I placed him in his arms the day they went home together. “From the bottom of my heart … I can’t tell you what you’ve done for me,” he said. I remember that he towered over me, the size of a linebacker, clenching his jaw to keep the tears from spilling down his cheeks.

When I wave goodbye to the social workers at the agency after introducing each baby to their forever family, I always wonder how long it will be before I get to hold another baby.

I don’t get attached to each baby, per se. But I get attached to having a baby, to taking care of a baby. I resent my empty arms, and I feel like I’ve lost my purpose. So each time I see the adoption agency’s phone number pop up on caller ID, my heart skips a beat.

Photo by Stacey Natal/Total City Girl, used with permission.

When the voice on the other end says, “Hi, Ann … are you ready to take another baby?” my first thought is, “Baby! I’m getting a BABY!” That excitement lasts for at least 48 hours.

But even as the adrenaline calms down and the sleepless nights begin to take their toll, the experience of caring for each baby proves to be more than enough motivation for me to keep going.

The emotions that swell when my babies go home with any parent — their adoptive parents or their birth parents — are not just because of the emptiness I feel in my arms or even because of the happiness I have for my babies and their families.

The emotions I feel are because of the fullness in my heart and the gratitude I have for being a part of each of these babies’ stories, even if it’s just for a moment.

In addition to being a Grammy-winning rapper, Megan The Stallion is also trying her hand as a financial advisor of sorts. Back in June, she gave away $1 million to teach “Investing For Hotties” through a partnership with Cash App. In an accompanying video, she went over concepts that included fractional shares and diversification while reminding viewers that “buying stocks isn’t only for the big players.” Now, for the next installment in her series with Cash App, Megan has shifted her attention to Bitcoin thanks to a brand new video that aims to teach people about the digital currency.

“Bitcoin is a new kind of money,” the Houston rapper begins as a shirtless man pours her tea. “While the cash in your wallet is issued and regulated by governments, Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency. Like a wild stallion, it can’t be controlled by anyone.” She goes on to explain why Bitcoin is so valuable, why its price changes, and how to purchase Bitcoin during the two-minute video.

The video comes after she became the first rapper to cover the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. She also earned her first platinum plaque, for her 2020 debut Good News.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Three long years have gone by since Kacey Musgraves released her fourth album, Golden Hour. That somewhat changed on Thursday when the singer appeared on Dr. Maya Shankar’s podcast,

our first listen to KM4 pic.twitter.com/WnT2DPUYEL

— ash (@spaceyashley) August 5, 2021

Clint Eastwood is 91 years young, yet he’s more prolific than filmmakers a third his age. Even at his advanced age, he cranks about one a year. He was even filming during the pandemic. The result is Cry Macho, the 39th movie he’s directed in 50 years. It’s also the second since 2018’s The Mule to feature him driving around, with at least some time in Mexico. And as per the trailer, it very well might blow Pete Davidson and John Mulaney’s mind, much as The Mule did not so long ago.

The ad finds the erstwhile Man with No Name once again donning a cowboy hat, playing a former rodeo star who, like his horticulturalist in The Mule, has fallen on hard times. Desperate, he takes a job from an old friend (Dwight Yoakum), which involves fetching his son (Eduardo Minett) from Mexico and bringing him home. It looks like there’s plenty of reluctant bonding, grizzled aphorisms, even a rooster named Macho.

It also looks like yet another chance for Eastwood to ruminate on his long career. Eastwood won his first Best Picture Oscar for 1991’s Unforgiven, which found him wrestling with his violent screen image. Three decades later it appears he’s still doing it. “I’ll tell you something: This macho thing is overrated,” Eastwood’s character tells his young charge. “Just people trying to being macho to show they’ve got grit. That’s about all they end up with.”

There’s also jokes, including a double entendre at trailer’s end so saucy we can’t print it here. But what would you expect from a legendary actor and filmmaker who, in The Mule, gave himself not one but two threesomes?

You can watch the trailer in the video above. Cry Macho — and, almost needless to say, great title — arrives in theaters and on HBO Max on Sept. 17.

The University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma are heading to the SEC in the near future, with word breaking earlier this summer that both historic football powerhouses will be leaving the Big 12 by 2025 (if not sooner). That move sent shockwaves through the landscape of college sports, particularly through the lens of football, and that included visions of a super-league in the Southeast that housed the majority of top programs in the country. In recent years, though, Oklahoma has far surpassed Texas in terms of on-field accomplishments, and college football legend Steve Spurrier served up a reminder of that reality this week.

Spurrier, while appearing with Paul Finebaum on the SEC Network, delivered his opinion on the move. His thoughts began with surprise, to the point of thinking it was simply a rumor, but Spurrier went on to take something of a shot at Texas for their recent scuffles.

“Texas, they struggle to win the Big 12. I guess they’ve only won it twice in I don’t know how many years,” Spurrier said. “It made sense for them. If you’re going to struggle in the Big 12, you might as well struggle in the SEC. Can’t do any worse.”

Spurrier isn’t exactly wrong about Texas, as their brand has been larger than their effectiveness recently. It would be fair to note that the Longhorns do have a massive operating budget, a fertile recruiting base and a tremendous infrastructure, though, and they could be turning the ship around under Steve Sarkisian’s leadership. Still, Spurrier’s answer seemed to indicate that he views Oklahoma quite a bit differently than Texas when evaluating from the perspective of the SEC.

Spurrier said Oklahoma and its fans are “looking forward to the challenge” and that OU has a “rich football tradition.” That could also be true of Texas, mind you, but this is a something of a “Welcome to the SEC” moment for Texas in that Spurrier likes to make news with his unbridled opinions across the conference.

Toward the end of June, a clip from Netflix’s This Is Pop made its way to social media. in it, T-Pain detailed a past conversation he had with Usher where the Confessions singer allegedly told him that he “really f*cked up music for real singers” as a result of his auto-tune style.

T-Pain added that the conversation “started a four-year depression for me,” but he also insisted that he still has “love and respect” for Usher despite his comments. Nearly two months later, Usher offered a response to that conversation being made public during a profile with Billboard.

“I’m happy that T-Pain said something,” the singer said to Billboard’s Gail Mitchell. “I’m not sure if it was before or after our actual conversation, after I heard what was said. It was very hurtful to know that he had experienced that kind of hardship in life.” Responding to T-Pain’s claim that the conversation led to his depression, Usher said, “I wouldn’t wish that on any person.”

“Private conversations for me have always been intended to uplift,” Usher added. “But when or if people get pieces of it, they can always have some other interpretation. But we’ve spoken since and we’re good.”

The conversation with Billboard came after Usher launched his Las Vegas residency. He previously spoke about the string of shows and somewhat revealed what fans can expect when they attend.

“I want you to guess,” he said. “I want to keep you bubbling with anticipation until I have dropped the first record and you hear the first moment. When the lights go down and you feel the energy. I promise the classics and also new stuff.”

You can read Usher’s full profile with Billboard here.