Infographic: The 100 most polluted cities in the world - Aljazeera: Out of the world’s 100 most polluted cities, 94 are in India, China, and Pakistan…How is air quality measured? Air quality is determined by the levels of air pollutants PM2.5, PM10, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and carbon monoxide.Particulate matter (PM) comprises tiny particles that negatively impact health. PMs vary in size, most damaging are PM2.5 and PM10 – with a diameter of less than 2.5 μm and 10μm respectively. A human hair’s diameter is 50-70 μm. PM2.5 levels lower than 12 are considered good, 55-150 unhealthy and 250 or above is hazardous…”
On being depressed. Instead of Beckett’s “I can’t go on, I’ll go on,” you’re left with “I can’t go on” ... Beckett
Financial Times: “The hidden ‘replication crisis’ of finance. Are swaths of prestigious financial academic research statistically bogus? Campbell Harvey, professor of finance at Duke university, who believes that at least half of the 400 supposedly market-beating strategies identified in top financial journals over the years are bogus. It may sound like a low-budget Blade Runner rip-off, but over the past decade the scientific world has been gripped by a “replication crisis” — the findings of many seminal studies cannot be repeated, with huge implications. Is investing suffering from something similar?…Harvey is not some obscure outsider or performative contrarian attempting to gain attention through needless controversy.
He is the former editor of the Journal of Finance, a former president of the American Finance Association, and an adviser to investment firms like Research Affiliates and Man Group. He has written more than 150 papers on finance, several of which have won prestigious prizes. In fact, Harvey’s 1986 PhD thesis first showed how the bond market’s curves can predict recessions. In other words, this is not like a child saying the emperor has no clothes. Harvey’s escalating criticism of the rigour of financial academia since 2015 is more akin to the emperor regretfully proclaiming his own nudity…”
13 Ways Of Looking at a Post-It Note
Forge/Medium: “It’s the best-designed “thinking tool” in history. What could it tell us about designing software?…For decades I’ve admired this humble little scrap of paper and glue. Nearly everyone in the modern industrialized world has seen them, and probably uses them.
You see them stuck on the edge of laptop screens, festooned across instrument panels in factories, peeking out from the pages of books, and sometimes just full-on wallpapering an entire office of some poor sod who’s been working on a Jarndyce-vs.-Jarndyce-level problem. Wherever you find a Post-it note, you find someone managing information; and wherever you find someone managing information, you find someone trying to think.
That’s why Post-It notes are so interesting to ponder. There’s a lot to be learned from studying why they’re so good at helping us out. Indeed, there are probably some great design principles we could take from Post-It Notes and bring into the digital world. If you’re crafting a piece of software to help people think, the astonishing utility of Post-It Notes is a cool benchmark…”