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Bet on anything
A trend I hate: that you can bet almost on anything now. It’s a capitalist parasitic scourge that takes advantage of the constant, information dense media environment.
Gambling culture is enveloping American sports, politics, media and trading, bringing betting out of the shadows and into the mainstream in a way that disturbs some and exhilarates others.
Why it matters: What was once a fringe vice is fast becoming a mass-market habit — raising urgent questions about addiction, fairness and who should regulate the business of betting on almost anything.
“Wanna bet on that?” That age-old contemplation has become more realistic than ever with the explosion of online sportsbooks and prediction markets.
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Women’s clothing sizes
Every adult woman already knows this, but sizing differs across nearly every major brand of clothing. An informative article with great visuals detailing how varied women’s closing sizes are.
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Bionic shoes
Nike is striding to the lead in developing bionic footwear, designed to allow people to move faster.
“What it’s doing is learning how your ankles are moving, how long your steps are, taking the algorithms and customizing them for you,” said Alison Sheets-Singer, Project Amplify’s lead scientist. “So that when it turns on, it feels natural and smooth.”
A phone app powers the footwear system on and off and can be used to toggle between various speed settings in “walk” and “run” mode. When activated, the leg shells pick up the heels and propel the feet purposefully forward.
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Origami inspires new structural design
Miles Wu folded a variant of the Miura-ori pattern that can hold 10,000 times its own weight.
Sitting in his family’s living room in New York City, 14-year-old Miles Wu was astonished to find that a simple piece of paper, folded into a Miura-ori origami pattern, could hold 10,000 times its own weight. For a total of more than 250 hours, Wu had diligently designed, folded and tested copious variations of the technique—a series of tessellating parallelograms that can fold or unfold in one fell swoop—to find one that could be used to build deployable shelters for emergency situations like natural disasters.
“I was really shocked by how much [weight] these simple pieces of paper could hold,” says Wu, who’s currently a ninth-grade student at Hunter College High School in New York City.
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Enclose.horse puzzle game
Enclose.horse is a tile based puzzle game where you attempt to create a fence to prevent a horse from escaping. You try to create the largest possible area.
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A credit union inside a high school
A Missouri credit union opened a real, working branch inside of the high school.
That’s because this school year, a CSD Credit Union branch officially opened inside the high school, making it the second student-run credit union in Missouri. Winnetonka students and staff can make deposits, open accounts and even apply for loans without leaving campus.
Working at the school’s credit union wasn’t as simple as enrolling in a class. Students who were interested in the job had to fill out applications and undergo extensive training. After getting the job, they’re managed by a credit union supervisor.
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Respect the parking spot chair during winter
In cities that experience blizzard accumulation of snow, unwritten rules exist surrounding parking spots, and who gets to use them, especially if you do the work of clearing the space. The people of Pittsburgh use a chair to claim their snow cleared spot.
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Sabbatical, a.k.a. the adult gap year
There appears to be a growing trend of working adults taking sabbatical or gap years between jobs.
Mini-sabbaticals. Adult gap years. Micro-retirement. Extended career breaks go by many names and take many forms, from using the time between jobs to explore or taking an employer-approved leave to becoming a digital nomad or saving up for a monthslong adventure. Creating space for a reset, whether mental, physical or spiritual, is the common thread.
Cost, personal responsibilities and fears of being judged by colleagues, friends and family members are some of the obstacles that prevent people from hitting pause on their work lives and setting out in search of new perspectives, according to sabbatical experts and people who have taken sabbaticals.
