Tomorrow, I start a group multi-day hike in the Himalayas*
We carry our day-pack & a porter carries all the rest.
Anyone spot the moral hazard here? 🫣

*Lucky me!!

Ok, sure 🤜🏽🤛🏽

(Also, would love to see the derivation of that 13bn... she said... probably blasphemously...)

I'm in Kathmandu, and 🤞 going this afternoon to a temple so holy that any act of worship there is worth 13 billion anywhere else(!)
So if you have any tricky prayer requests, I'm happy to give it a go!

I can think of many, obv.

#communal-resource 🤣

Gladen

Two doses of polio vaccine in a try from a fridge

Looking into a fridge: tray with some doses of polio vaccine

Here's a sight to glade your heart: doses of polio vaccine in a fridge* in a rural health facility in India 🥳🥳

*a working fridge. I stuck my hand in it to check!

Wow! That looks fantastic 😊

Yes!

Map of Punjab at Partition

Visited today a school in rural Punjab. This was on the wall. Can you guess what it is? 🤔🫣

We’re looking for a writer We’re hiring a writer who can make the world’s largest problems understandable to our large Our World in Data audience.

Please help share what must be one of the best jobs ever. We are looking for a writer to join @ourworldindata.org to work with our fantastic team including @maxroser.bsky.social and @hannahritchie.bsky.social. £80k - £120k / ideally full time / location flexible
ourworldindata.org/hiring-write...

The team behind my favorite graph - @ourworldindata.org - is hiring a writer.

If you can explain complicated things in ways that change how people think AND you want that skill pointed at the world's largest problems, consider applying: ourworldindata.org/hiring-writ...

It's a terrible thing!!

Mark's right!
I have visited all the English Anglican cathedrals & their friends like BM, but am still so crap at this game!!! I can easily produce a correct list of where it isn't...but that's never the question 🤣😭

Yeah really...

Hotel room in which, from the bedroom & bed, you can see into the shower, and can see the toilet beyond that!!

You notice anything odd about this hotel room?
🤦🏽‍♀️

I guess that by this logic, one should have your insurance doc on you too 👍🏽

Top travel tip: on flights, for takeoff & landing, I always have passport, credit card & specs in the pocket of a jacket I'm wearing, & shoes on. Easier to run away from a burning aircraft, and whatever follows will be easier if I can read, pay for things & prove who I am.

Airport security queue sign, separating men from women

Excellently, Ahmedabad airport security separates men & women.... Many fewer women fly than men so it's quicker for us 😊

'Welcome' message hand-written on the ground outside a house. It says 'welcome' in big letters under which is a symbol drawn twice: it's a swastika which is an ancient Indian / Hindu / Buddhist / Jain symbol (of peace / good luck).

I know that it's an ancient Indian / Hindu / Buddhist / Jain symbol (of peace), but I will never not be startled by this symbol.

(Drawn here in front of a rural Gujarati house to welcome me. I was visiting with SEWA, the Self-Employed Women's Association, the world's largest (?) trade union)

I have learnt one sole word of Gujarati.

It's baltic. Bal, not borl.
It means.... physics 🤣

(Some people you can't take anywhere...🫣)

Aha. Thanks.

Top dataviz there 👍🏽🤣

What is the debate about oxygen? I'm not really aware of that. About how they shared it around, or about taking it up at all?

My conclusion: if you go to a place called The Death Zone, er, be not surprised if things don't turn out brilliantly! 🤔

Thanks. He pops up a lot in Tenzing's book, unsurprisingly

Book extract about poor climbing prep

Book extract - next page - about poor climbing prep

If you've read Into Thin Air, re a disastrous day on Everest, read the book by Sherpa Tenzing Norgay's son. He was on Everest that day, leading an IMAX crew. He clearly thought that Rob Hall - commercial team leader who died - was reckless. Hall submitted at 4pm, despite a turnaround time of ~noon:

This is how Bruce Springsteen opened his concert in Los Angeles last night. 🔥🔥

Footage from @margaret_nagle on Threads.

Wow!

You're welcome!

Non-flippantly, boredom - or handling it - can be good bc it kind of forces you to observe things or explore things.
Eg, that guy who was in prison & decided to use his time to contribute to science by tossing a coin a zillion times to see if it's really 50/50, and found that it isn't.

Boredom is good for science. Bored in church & watching the incense burner. Galileo (?) realised that as it swings, its amplitude falls but the period doesn't. And bored in church(?) watching a fly on the ceiling, Descartes realised he could describe its position using two perpendicular axes.
Handy!