TIL – The Gulf Stream is not the same as AMOC

2020s, Thought Provoking

First of all, I read this piece from the Guardian

Gulf Stream could collapse as early as 2025, study suggests | Climate crisis | The Guardian

Then I saw the following thread on Twitter

Finally, I watched this video on YouTube

Rent a person who does nothing

2020s, Thought Provoking

In Japan, a man rents himself out

Morimoto commits to “doing nothing” and basically just gives back-channel feedback when someone speaks to him. “I myself don’t like to be cheered on by others. I get upset when people simply tell me keep on trying. When someone is trying to do something, I think the best thing to do is to help lower the bar for them by staying at their side,” he explains.

This story is so quintessentially Japanese. I doubt if the same concept would work in another culture without being corrupted in some way.

People get less sick from an airborne virus if they wear a mask – Infectious Disease Doctor

2020s, Covid-19, Health, Thought Provoking

An infectious disease doctor writes

It seems people get less sick if they wear a mask.

When you wear a mask – even a cloth mask – you typically are exposed to a lower dose of the coronavirus than if you didn’t. Both recent experiments in animal models using coronavirus and nearly a hundred years of viral research show that lower viral doses usually means less severe disease.

and more

Most infectious disease researchers and epidemiologists believe that the coronavirus is mostly spread by airborne droplets and, to a lesser extent, tiny aerosols. Research shows that both cloth and surgical masks can block the majority of particles that could contain SARS-CoV-2. While no mask is perfect, the goal is not to block all of the virus, but simply reduce the amount that you might inhale. Almost any mask will successfully block some amount.

Read the full article here.

TIL – Where the term logbook came from.

Thought Provoking, Travel

From Neil Kakkar

The log is an interesting invention. It began with 16th-century ships – surrounded with water, no land in sight, no sense of direction, and no sense of speed. What did you have to compare your speed with anyway?

The sailors were ingenious. They used a log – a real piece of wood – attached to a string. They’d throw it in the water and use it to measure speed.

Then they’d track this speed over time, in a logbook.

That’s the origin story of log books, now known as logs.

On Wikipedia, I also learned about the origin of the term knot as a speed metric.

Order of food in a buffet influence what is eaten

2020s, Economy, Food, Health, Thought Provoking

Interesting study.

“What ends up on a buffet diner’s plate is dramatically determined by the presentation order of food. Rearranging food order from healthiest to least healthy can nudge unknowing or even resistant diners toward a healthier meal, helping make them slim by design.”

Serving Healthy Foods First in Buffet Lines Improves Overall Meal Selection