From my desk

Views expressed on this blog are my own.

Current affairs

• Academic inflation vs. artificial intelligence (Dec. 2024) on the widening gap between the time and money sunk into tertiary degrees and the rapid obsolescence of graduate-level knowledge triggered by advances in reasoning models.

• Pavel Durov arrested in France (Aug. 2024) on why Durov is not the free speech martyr he is being portrayed as.

• Humanity as a relay race (Aug. 2024) on how autocrats break the unspoken intergenerational contract.

• On Pride month and Alan Turing (June 2024) on why pride is a powerful counter to shame historically caused by bigotry.

• A eulogy to Madeleine Albright (Mar. 2022) on a life well lived.

Scuba diving and freediving

I have been a PADI Open Water Scuba Instruction (OWSI) and AIDA*** freediver since 2011, although I am only diving recreationally these days. More so than the underwater environment itself, I enjoy reading and writing about the technical aspects of diving, including innovation in equipment, experiments in gas mixtures, and research into the physiology of diving and baromedicine.

• Hydreliox: the future of deep technical diving? (Apr. 2024) on the innovative use of hydrogen as a diluent gas for deep rebreather diving.

• We are all narced (Apr. 2024) on a little-known mildly anesthetic effect of nitrogen on our daily lives.

• On spatial asymmetries (Mar. 2024) on the unreasonable challenges of deep diving.