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Advances take time: just because you have an idea about how to solve a problem doesn't make it so. The process of investigation, research, formulation, trial, testing and revision is repeated and repeated until an answer is found. Detours, false positives, and promising solutions which crash and burn are par for the course. Eventually, if everything breaks just right, an effective answer can be found, though it can be years until that happens. 

For sure that's the current state of affairs with the pandemic affecting us all. However, this is not about that. Yes, it's a story of scientific advancement and problem solving, but one that has nothing to do with masks or hand washing. Rather, it's about another insidious infection that's been around far longer than COVID-19. And while it may be less deadly, in has also made people freak out for years. 

To understand the significance, you have to go back to the root of the problem. In 1971, MIT graduate Ray Tomlinson was working on ARPANET, the predecessor to the Internet. His focus was on creating a system to send messages from one computer to another. Eventually he developed a protocol that sent a message across his office to another machine, a distance of about a meter. Behold, the birth of email. 

By 1977, the format was standardized, with the now familiar From/To/Subject heading. Also included was a feature to be able to send out the same message to multiple people. Taking its name from its paper-based ancestor, it was called "CC" which in a "Mad Men" world meant carbon copy, a way of making a hard-copy clone of a document. That advance also engendered the equal and opposite reaction, namely that recipients of the note could respond to all who were on the original address listing with a single click. And that was the birth of the dreaded button labeled "Reply All." 

Perhaps no technological advance meets with such scorn when abused. Used correctly it does make it convenient to keep multiple interested parties in the loop. Used incorrectly it's a mass mugging, wherein countless people have to wade through useless information for which they have no need. A first world problem to be sure, but still. 

Examples are the stuff of nerd legend. In 1997 a Microsoft employee innocently requested to be taken off a distribution list called "Bedlam D3." He or she used the "Reply All" function for the request, sending it to 13,000 people. Many used the same function to respond, with variations of "me too." Others admonished the first batch of people to stop the madness by, you guessed it, replying to all. On top of that, for many a receipt was generated when the message was sent, another when it was read. The net result was 15.5 million messages in an hour, which chewed up about 195 gigabytes of traffic. That's roughly the equivalent of the complete works of Beethoven. Times five. 

That's just one example of a Reply Allpocalypse. In 2007, one at the Department of Homeland Security generated more than 2.2 million messages. In 2013, another at Cisco produced over 4 million messages and 375 gigs of network flotsam. And in 2015 Thomson Reuters had a little back and forth over seven hours after an employee requested a password reset that went to just about everyone in the company, resulting in 34.5 million messages, including a reply all that said "CAN WE PLEASE STOP REPLYING ALL. Kind regards." 

It took until now for a vaccine to be released. Rolled out his past week by Microsoft and called "Reply All Storm Protection," it detects possible non-no's and institutes a temporary time-out to solve the problem. If invoked, it blocks all replies in the thread for the next four hours and sends a notice to the originator, giving them a chance to make atonement before their sin goes public. 

The company promises tweaks and fixes as they see how it is received. Unfortunately, in this initial iteration, it's aimed at large organizations, and is triggered if 10 reply-all emails are sent out to a distribution list of at least 5,000 people within an hour. So for now, you and your trivia group, your golfing buddies and your knitting circle are still on your own: it's you against them. So think before you press send: in the name of all that is holy, don't be that guy.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford is very careful to whom he replies. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Letter #3

You know, Matthew, I never thought I would be writing this letter.  

I wrote the first when you graduated from high school. It was filled with the kind of trite if no less heartfelt wishes that any parent has for their children. It offered the observation that while we may have tried to lay a foundation, that time had passed. Whether or not you flourish and thrive going forward would likely have little to do with what we thought or said, and everything to do with what was inside of you.  

Four years later, on the occasion of that same rite of passage from college, I wrote a similar note. Like the first, I noted that my meager words then were also unlikely to have any great effect, that if you hadn't gotten the gist of how we thought you should live your life you were unlikely to suddenly have an epiphany. If you were starting out on your own at that first milepost, you were even more so at the second. Still, I said the standard for both was the same: to be able to ask yourself whatever it was, whomever it was for, if the action you were doing was the right thing. And if you could truthfully respond in the affirmative, then you had nothing further for which to answer.  

You took that to heart. You proceeded down a number of paths, some more unconventional than others, ones which required a belief in yourself that I'm sorry to say we didn't always understand. Moving immediately to your own place. Turning down an early job offer. Going off to write on an island in the Caribbean. You didn't ask for advice, but nonetheless followed ours to a "t": regardless of our doubts you did what you thought you should. In some respect I guess you could say we were hoisted by our own petard.   

Your more recent pursuits bore much the same approach. When you floated the idea of quitting a successful career to go to law school, it was a laudable goal, even if we questioned the all-in approach. And when you dovetailed that with the announcement that you had been working on a script and were about to make a feature film, we questioned your decision once again. You accepted our concern and admonishments with sincerity and poise, indeed with far greater grace than perhaps I would have. But we were successful once again in that, in spite of us, you believed in you.  

Thankfully, but probably not surprisingly, you proved us wrong again, not once but twice. In the first instance you created a film of depth and complexity, a polished professional effort that was picked up by festivals, garnered wonderful critical reviews, and was bought for distribution. We were thrilled to see you stand up in front of crowds at screenings, and be interviewed by reviewers, kicking ourselves for not believing in you from the start. Thankfully, you did, and don't hold our shortsightedness against us.  

And now, the second achievement of graduating from law school. I know you decided to go because you felt it was the credential you needed to make a difference in the things you cared about, and the experiences you've had only reinforced that decision. I have no idea where this particular adventure will lead you, but I can tell you this: I've made the mistake of questioning your approach and wound up on the wrong side of that equation far too many times. I ain't betting against this one.  

As it is for so many others, I know this is not how you envisioned the culmination of such a significant achievement. Locked down, unable to celebrate in person with family and friends, cancelling a celebratory trip: reasons to be wistful for what can't be. Still, as much as those outward trappings of your success will be missed, they are merely deferred, not forgotten. And while we can do little under the current circumstances to mark the moment, what we can do is tell you just how special it is and you are. How special? It was 100 years ago that your great grandfather graduated from the same school as you with the same degree. And I think I can say without any hesitation and with absolutely no doubt that as far as we're concerned, this is indeed one for the century.

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Matthew Wollin, formerly of Bedford, graduated from NYU Law this week. His father's column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Struck

I'm struck by the number of people who wave at me. It used to be you waved at people you knew, or strangers with whom you had some kind of spontaneous bond: another Jeep driver, or a fellow bicyclist heading the opposite way. Now, perhaps because our human interaction is so limited, we seem to crave whatever interaction we can have. And just being out and encountering another person is unique enough that we have that alone as a serendipitous connection. Hence a small gesture of familiarity speaking to our common condition. 

I'm struck by how I see things I never saw before. For years and years we have walked our neighborhood on a quiet weekend. On those walks my wife and I talk about what happened in our week, what's coming up for the next and the goings-on around us. We more or less did the route by rote, using the journey as a chance to catch up with each other more than as a sightseeing expedition. But now that we're together 24/7, our discussions are continuous, hardly saved up for days at a time. And our walks have become a more or less a daily occurrence. And so our focus on them turns outward. It's not that there is a lot changing continuously. But the blooming of a plant, a toy left on a lawn, the sound of an animal or a bird that seems to have made a home in a tree are all worthy of attention. 

I'm struck by how quickly our new normal has become the old normal. Barely two months ago the sight of a person wearing a mask and gloves would have been cause for curiosity. We would have thought the person was an alarmist, eccentric at best, crazy at worst. Now I think exactly the opposite. I expect to see others masked up, and am more thrown by those not doing it. 

I'm struck by how blue the sky is. Especially as the weather is beginning to change, and after an especially bleak week or two when rain and gray skies were the norm, the woods have turned from brown to green and the sky to blue. I know that you can't see the virus, and nothing in the physical world shows it presence. And we've been told that it will not magically disappear or burn itself out as we move into warmer weather. But the appearance of the harbingers of a new season, one which offers new life, gives one hope that we will indeed emerge on the other side of this at some point. 

I'm struck by how quickly we've have adapted to a new way of interacting both personally and professionally. Formerly we picked and choose what worked for us based on a variety of factors and their availability. In person, on the phone, electronically, online: we floated among the options presented, choosing the best for the circumstance. But virtually overnight the first in the list was rendered untenable. And within weeks even those who described themselves as technologically illiterate figured out how to do a Zoom call. While most miss the physical component, we have embraced the other formats to fill the gap with lightning speed. In fact, we've gone one better, creating gatherings where none existed before. Virtual meetups, on-line trivia contests, discussion groups, long distance happy hours (what my wife has dubbed "ZoomTails") are the norm. An imperfect substitute for a real world existence, but embraced by many with gusto. 

I'm struck by how nothing has changed and everything has changed. Unless you or someone close to you have had the misfortune to be stricken by the virus, in the small moments it can feel as if all is the same. The sun still shines, your home is still standing, the people you know are all still there. In those first moments when you wake up in the morning you can almost forget the current state of affairs. Then you remember. And that's when you realize that everything is different, that even when it returns to whatever is the new normal, it won't be like it was, at least not for a long time. 

I'm struck by the realization that we are at an inflection point. Much of our existence can be described as a time between history; that is, a period when nothing of major significance happens. While It might seem important at the time, when the textbooks are written, most events will be just a blip, rating a mention or paragraph at best. This looks to be different, one of those instances when a sea change happened while we were watching, made all the more rare by the speed with which it took place. 

I'm struck by the fact that I am one of the lucky ones. Our family is fine. Knock wood, at this point our livelihoods and lives are under pressure but still intact. Planning plays a part, but only to a point: luck is as much a determinate as anything else. I read stories of those who lost jobs and family members. I volunteer at a local food bank and see people who, through no fault of their own, need help they never thought they would need. And while thankful for our current fate, I see how quickly and profoundly it can change through forces and fates we don't control. 

I'm struck by that.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford is trying to take it a day at a time. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Time Machine

You baked bread. You watched all 150 episodes of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." You held Zoom calls with your tennis girlfriends. You watched the tulips come up and the deer fencing come down. And you walked around the block enough times to notice that when you hit your stride just past the Smither's and that spot in the curb where the water bubbles up that your pace is exactly same as the rhythm of 10cc's 1975 hit "I'm Not in Love." Nah, you're not bored. 

You've probably also tackled projects that you have put off for, well, almost forever. Up until now, there was always something more pressing, something that had a higher priority. It was easy to walk past that storeroom because the kids needed help with their homework. You could ignore your overstuffed closet because you had to write the memo for work. And that pile of papers in the corner could surely wait because dinner needed to be made. Something, almost anything was more attractive than sorting your sock drawer. 

But not now. Sure, you have time at home that you didn't have before. But curiosity started to play a part. And so you pulled out that box, wiped the dust from the top, and dived in. And what you found was, in equal doses, both smile inducing and cringe worthy.

In the quest to find another that other pair of sweatpants you just know you that have, you reach to the back of your closet, there to find artifacts that either you couldn't part with or just got left behind. Your best pair of well-worn wide-leg hip-hugger denim jeans with the floral applique on the leg. Or the crepe peasant blouse with a string neckline. Perhaps a pair of painter overalls or a white linen leisure suit with an Eisenhower jacket. It hurts just to think about slipping it on. 

But it's not just clothes. Maybe you have a workshop or storage area with a few tools, a place you keep lightbulbs and extension cords. There in the back, behind the old ironing board, is a shelf that hasn't ever seen sunlight. On it are all those things you used to have upstairs, but no more. A pair of brass sconces from before you repainted the living room. A saucepan with a loose handle from your first set of cookware that you were saving for when your daughter goes to college. A coffee mug with the legend "National Conference New Orleans 1992." And a picture frame with a slightly cracked piece of glass that fell off the wall at your Millennium party when you were partying like it actually was 1999. 

Flipping channels gets you to the same place, cycling back a decade or two or even three. Seeking to escape the constant barrage of infection totals and testing issues, you click away until your find the visual equivalent of comfort food. There's "The Golden Girls," "Parks and Recreation" and "The Sopranos." And for a dose of much needed "if we all work together we can conquer anything" spirit, there's every variation ever made of "Star Trek." 

Personally speaking I have my own time machine. There's a shelf in my office with videos done over a 40-plus year career. A little $15 device from Amazon lets me digitize them for posterity, as if anyone will ever want to watch. Screening them is like stepping into another dimension of topics, fashion and design, one that whooshes me back to the heady days of the seventies and eighties. Aviator glasses, wide lapels and big hair abound. Clunky graphics in bleeding primary colors look like they were made by a toddler. And titles like "Your New 201E Electronic Typewriter," "Word Processing: It's the Future!" and "The Y2K Threat" speak to the technology of the time. 

Or maybe it's as simple as an old box of pictures. There you are in short shorts and a tie-dyed tee shirt, or a shag haircut, or a polyester floral print shirt, a wide belt sporting a big buckle and white pants. No, they never have to see the light of day. Then again you might just want to dust off those vinyl boots. Everything we know is in the process of changing. And that might mean, to paraphrase the great Peter Allen, everything old could really be new again.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford is slowly cleaning out corners. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Deepest Darkest Cabinets

The events of recent weeks have forced us to face many hard choices we've never really had to confront before. To be sure, there are the critical inflection points, the ones that define how we live today. Stay in/stay out, visit/don't' visit your parents, shut down/reopen businesses: these are the dualities with which we've all been grappling. 

However, added to those weighty decisions are much more mundane, but nonetheless real-world conundrums that come with sheltering in place with restricted access to the outside world and limited resources. How much toilet paper is too much? How many days can you wear sweatpants before realizing your jeans no longer fit? Does letting kids watch 6 hours of TV a day constitute bad parenting or is it therapeutic? Is walking to the mailbox considered exercise? And maybe most vexing, is salsa a condiment or a meal?

This last point speaks to that great journey of discovery, the contents of your pantry. Usually you just think of it as the place that has that extra bottle of mayonnaise or box of pasta or jar of strawberry jam. Up until a month ago, when you returned from a trip to the store, you just shoved whatever you bought into the front and used that first. It's only now that your trips the grocery are fewer and farther between that you are reaching farther and farther back, not sure if you will grab something you haven't seen in a while, or something will reach out and grab you.

You might stumble across a can of some processed food that was a staple for your kids way back when, but which they wouldn't go near now. It might be a can of Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli, maybe Franco-American SpaghettiOs with Franks. No haute cuisine to be sure, but something a 6-year old picky eater would at least sit at the dinner table and eat with you while you had salmon and broccoli. Then almost overnight they discovered tacos and sushi, and never looked back. And that can of Beefaroni has just been waiting for a moment like this.

Or maybe you are a steady and reliable consumer of chickpeas or artichoke hearts or kidney beans. Every week or so when you went to the store you grabbed another can or two and used them in your favorite salad or chili. All good. But when it came time to cook you likely just grabbed whatever was closest at hand, which was the stuff you bought last week. That spare can from the week before or the week before that got pushed further and further back. Until now that is. And while the freshness date indicates those garbanzos were at their peak flavor during the Clinton administration, there's nothing inherently wrong with them, as long as you can deal with the label touting a promotion where you could win a brand new 2001 Taurus. 

And if you keep looking, in the deepest darkest reaches of your cabinets are foodtsuffs that at one single moment in time seemed absolutely essential to your menu plans. Perhaps you came back from a dinner party, maybe it was a trip overseas, or a weekend away in the country at a little bed and breakfast. In each case you had something you have never had before, or something old in a new way, and you just had to try and reproduce it at home. That meant a search online or in some local gourmet shop for a spice or sauce that wasn't usually carried in Stop and Shop. You tried making the dish once, and it didn't taste as good as it did in Paris or the Berkshires or at Belinda's, and so you put the jar away. 

But there it is, stuffed into a back corner of your spice shelf or wedged behind the raisins. And now it's a true culinary challenge: what can I make with 3 jars of hot mango chutney, allspice and a can of organic young jackfruit? Well, wonder no more. Believe it or not, “The Vegan Larder” has a recipe for Jamaican Jerk Jackfruit with Rice and Peas that uses all three. And now that I know what we'll be having for dinner Tuesday night, can I save you a portion?

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Marc Wollin of Bedford is trying to use what we have on hand. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.