#knowable mag

[pandemic-info]

How optimizing indoor humidity can help stop the spread of Covid and flu

Recent CDC guidelines for indoor air quality disregard the benefits of humidity. But research shows it can kill viruses and help thwart infections.

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We really do have "the tools": N95+ masks, HEPA filters, ventilation — and humidifiers too (in addition to the other layers of protection like vaccination, paxlovid, etc.)

It's just surreal to see how the CDC & govt swerve mentioning them. You could say they avoid it like... the plague 😒

[olena]

Watch this.

And read this:

[jkottke]

Verticality, media, and China

This is the collision of two interesting "topic fields" I like to pay attention to. China in general, especially how media, social media, and commerce differ from the western models. And how the verticality of smartphones (and apps) is affecting media at large.

First, in this piece on The Next web about Chinese vertical dramas, we get a quick dive into the growing number of series built for the format. Aside from the visual shape, they are usually short episodes, fast-paced with many punchlines, and are exploring the possibilities of top to bottom transitions. You can find quite a few links and screenshot examples in the article.

Last time I guest edited here, I posted about an Ian Bogost piece on how Stories are overtaking social media, which focused in part on the vertical rectangle.

That name is vestigial now, because it's only incidental that an iPhone or a Pixel is a telephone. Instead, it's a frame that surrounds everything that is possible and knowable. A rectangle, as I've started calling it.

Back to China, this fascinating piece by Connie Chan at Andreessen Horowitz looks at the varied business models local internet companies are using, contrasting that to the mostly "one trick pony" approach of American counterparts. Chan focuses on books, podcasts, videos, and music, and although the examples are varied, they can be boiled down to a couple of main ideas; gamification of every possible aspect of the app and experience, and up-selling to VIP memberships and all kinds of merchandise.

Finally on the always excellent Logic mag, Christina Xu with a look at bullet comments culture in China, "an invasive species from Japan," which layers comments over video, each attached to a specific moment. Originally popularized on the Bilibili platform, they are now present in a number of other places and media.

They represent the essence of Chinese internet culture: fast-paced and impish, playfully collaborative, thick with rapidly evolving inside jokes and memes. They are a social feature beloved by a generation known for being antisocial. And most importantly, they allow for a type of spontaneous, cumulative, and public conversation between strangers that is increasingly rare on the Chinese internet.

[readingbooksinisrael]

Micro Review

This round’s prompt: currently reading!

- Join in even if you haven’t been tagged

- Answer as elaborately as you want

- Tag friends to make their own microreviews - Use the #microreview hashtag (optional)

Title and author: American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Total Pages: 588

Page you’re on: 452

Thoughts so far: Ooh, gods. But I wish they were more knowable. The only ones I knew from the beginning were Odin, Kali and Anansi. And Anansi because I just finished Anansi Boys. I love that Shadow is just stuck in this thing, half-not knowing how he got into it. And for sure not why. But I want to know why. There are just a ton of questions I want answered. And there are some characters I like, and some not so much. The Western gods are definitely more violent and they creep me out. 

Try to guess how it will end: All the old gods will die with the promise to come back soon and Shadow will be left bewildered, and then make a new life for himself in Lakeside. Maybe fall in love with Sam or Mag.

Tell us how you feel with a gif:

[olena]

Many people may never be able to put the pandemic behind them. They have long Covid, a catch-all term for illness that lingers long after a Covid-19 infection. More than 200 symptoms have been reported by patients, from hair loss and incontinence to severe tremors, anxiety, extreme fatigue and heart palpitations. “Even if the pandemic virus spread were to stop today, we still have tens of millions of people suffering long Covid,” says Yale immunologist Akiko Iwasaki. “That’s a parallel pandemic that’s happening, which is getting a lot less attention than the acute and severe Covid.”

In this video, we hear from people struggling with long Covid and what scientists have learned about the condition — or conditions — so far. Iwasaki explains long Covid’s diverse effects on the body — on the central nervous system, the gastrointestinal tract, the respiratory and cardiac systems, and more — and the search for biological origins. Long Covid is likely more than one disease, but without biomarkers that indicate who will get long Covid and the ways each case will manifest, personalizing treatments is challenging. The prevalence of long Covid has been a wake-up call, Iwasaki says, for society to investigate other syndromes that emerge after a viral infection.

[olena]

(via (12) Covid and the brain: A neurological health crisis - YouTube)