Tag: images

Kong Sihk Tong

My greatest connections with memories with cha chaan tengs in Hong Kong is sitting down to plates of condensed milk “French” toast in the morning, preferably those with peanut butter. Those would be filled with a thick layer of the nutty condiment and drowned in condensed milk, a morning heart attack. As if that was not enough, many times a slice of butter would be placed on top and start melting as the toast was served.


The version of condensed milk & peanut butter toast ($1.95, above) here was comparably super healthy, with very small amounts of both between slightly toasted pieces of white bread. Light as a feather, and to be honest not nearly as satisfying.

Green BQE

Bjarke Ingels Group has released details of transforming a 6-lane highway into a connected realm between the city and waterfront. The scheme centers on the Robert Moses-designed Brooklyn Queens Expressway. As officials prepare to carry out needed repairs on the highway, existing proposals fail to address the barrier created by the infrastructure, dividing the city and waterfront. BIG’s scheme outlines how the Expressway could be turned into parkland, accommodating vehicular traffic without compromising on the quality of public space. The first step in the BIG scheme is to construct an at-grade roadway along Furman Street and Brooklyn Bridge Park covered with a simple deck structure. The deck provides a platform for adding significant new parkland along the underused corridor while connecting the Brooklyn Heights and Brooklyn Bridge Park with a series of crisscrossing rampways, greenery, and park amenities. Local park access is accommodated on a meandering parkway, while space is created for a potential spur of the nearby light-rail line. The deck also extends south to Atlantic Avenue, creating a new crossing and urban nexus that serves as an introduction to the linear park.

Dog Bunny

Puppy noticed bunny was getting treats every morning and started wanting a handful of lettuce too. Now they eat lettuce together every day. Kitty started getting curious about what the pupper and bunny are up to and has started to investigate the green leafy stuff. This has become a morning ritual for all 3 pets.

Reality & Straight lines

Does reality drive straight lines on graphs, or do straight lines on graphs drive reality?

Here’s a graph of US air pollution over time:

Some people pointed out that this showed the Clean Air Act didn’t matter. The trend is the same before the Act as after it. This kind of argument is common. If we wanted to be really harsh, we could make a graph like this:

But the same argument that disproves the importance of photolithography disproves the importance of anything else. We’d have to retreat to a 1000-coin-flips model where each factor is so small that it happening or not happening at any given time doesn’t change the graph in a visible way.

Prospiracy Theories

Last week I wrote about how conspiracy theories spread so much faster on Facebook than debunkings of those same theories. A few commenters chimed in to say that of course this was true, the conspiracy theories had evolved into an almost-perfect form for exploiting cognitive biases and the pressures of social media. Debunkings and true beliefs couldn’t copy that process, so they were losing out. This sounded like a challenge, so here you go: