tingilinde

gross outfits in china

Expression and pushing the 'rules'

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When the weather turned cold in December, Cindy Luo started to wear her fluffy pajamas over a hooded sweatshirt at the office. Wearing cozy sleepwear to work became a habit, and soon she didn’t even bother to wear matching tops and bottoms, selecting whatever was most comfortable.

A few months later, she posted photos of herself to a “gross outfits at work” thread that had spread on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese app similar to Instagram. She was one of tens of thousands of young workers in China to proudly post pictures of themselves showing up at the office in onesies, sweatpants and sandals with socks. The just-rolled-out-of-bed look was shockingly casual for most Chinese workplaces.

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the san diego rotating house

Well worth watching!

seems reasonable

 

 

roulette

Greg notes remarkable story on beating the odds

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One spring evening, two men and a woman walked into the Ritz Club casino, an upmarket establishment in London’s West End. Security officers in a back room logged their entry and watched a grainy CCTV feed as the trio strolled past high gilded arches and oil paintings of gentlemen posing in hats. Casino workers greeted them with hushed reverence.

The security team paid particularly close attention to one of the three, their apparent leader. Niko Tosa, a Croatian with rimless glasses balanced on the narrow ridge of his nose, scanned the gaming floor, attentive as a hawk. He’d visited the Ritz half a dozen times over the previous two weeks, astounding staff with his knack for roulette and walking away with several thousand pounds each time. A manager would later say in a written statement that Tosa was the most successful player he’d witnessed in 25 years on the job. No one had any idea how Tosa did it. The casino inspected a wheel he’d played at for signs of tampering and found none.

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life expectancy in the us

The gap is huge and growing.

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In 1980, the average American lived to be 74 years old. Infant mortality in particular has greatly decreased, falling by more than half over in the last 40 years.The parts of America that were the wealthiest, healthiest, and safest lived as long as the average person does today. In this sense, America has made great strides in helping people live longer on the whole. Nevertheless, as we look at data from the Global Health Data Exchange, certain counties in America are not growing at the same rate as other counties, largely for reasons that policymakers understand well.

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gerrymandering

A thoughtful piece by Greg on gerrymandering.

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But why not adopt the obvious remedy? Just mandate compact redistricting by law, and the mischief will end. Stopping gerrymandering in its tracks.

Unfortunately, you may not be aware that compact maps are just as easily manipulated for political gain as a district that looks like a cracked mirror. Even more surprisingly, to guarantee an elected legislature proportionately reflects the views of its citizens, you must settle near kindred spirits, live in an echo-chamber, and gerrymander- or risk disenfranchisement!

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fantastic illusions

Ten winners from 2021

a tip of the hat to Greg

 

audio's uncanny olympic valley

An hour into the first of last year's AVP beach volleyball tournaments a warning clickthrough page appeared on the event's Amazon Prime Video page. Amazon' had been covering the AVP tournaments since 2018, but the pandemic forced a strict spectator-less bubble.  During the previous two years they hadn't spared any expense. Now they had to keep viewers engaged.  Rather than using sampled crowd audio and cutout spectators, they they focused on highlighting the event's audio.  A sports audio specialist was brought in and dozens of microphones were installed on the main court, players chairs, coaches, referees,  along with a number of moving microphones.   The first match immediately was sprinkled with some rather colorful language - enough to trigger Amazon's warning clickthrough.  

 

Watching the matches was something of a revelation. Sounds of the game ranging from sound normally masked by crowd noise to coaches discussing tactics with players during timeouts.  The announcers had been coached to work around the new sound field. By the end of the first tournament the viewer experience was excellent.  Similar things happened in other sports that took the "honest" route. Viewership often increased, while many of the major sports saw drops.  Now NBC and other large networks around the world have to deal with an Olympics with empty stadiums.  How will they react?  A miscalculation could damage viewer engagement.  It's a very interesting social technology experiment.

 

It turns out a lot of work has been done over the past sixty years.  Sports like football (not the American variety), tennis, rowing, past Olympic games, and online games have driven innovation.  Seven years ago 99% Invisible aired a radio documentary produced by Peregrine Andrews on the sound of sports.  It's fascinating and worth the hour.  Listen with stereo headphones or earbuds.  

Roman Mars · 99% Invisible-127- The Sound Of Sports

There's another fascinating question.  How do athletes react to empty stadiums? That experiment has been underway for a year now.  It's not simple.

 

quick and dirty merv-13 fan-in-a-box air filters

A simple solution.  Not as good as directly exchanging outside air, but it might be useful in some settings.

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So how did we do in our tests with our “Box Fan with a MERV 13 filter” cleaning device? In the tool room, the device removed 59.7% of the one micron sized particles and 86.4% of the five micron sized particles. In the breakroom, the device removed 74.6% of the one micron sized particles and 80% of the 5 micron sized particles. In short, the results show meaningful reductions in the target particle size range. The “Box Fan with a MERV 13 Filter” should be a useful tool in the fight against Covid-19.

One thing we need to make clear – this device is not a HEPA air purifier. It does not have a Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) which is the standard for measuring the effectiveness of air cleaners. Purchasing and using a HEPA air purifier is the better option. However, their cost may be prohibitive. In this case the “Box Fan with a MERV 13” filter is a reasonable option.

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a realistic typewriter font

An almost realistic typewriter font - no indentation on the page though.:-)