[Santiasco] Chilean's air norms are the most laxist of Latin America

I discovered recently an article from 2015 comparing the norms of air quality in Latin America. It provides some interesting perspective about the air quality in Latin America:

every single country is have a different scale, with different conventions for the colors, concentration breakpoints and nomenclature.

It complemented my understanding of the particular situation of Santiago (i.e. it's not that Santiago produces more pollution than other cities, but that it cannot afford to produce pollution at the same level as other cities in the world):

For instance, for Santiago de Chile, it is both the topography formed by the Andes in the East preventing the pollution from dispersing latteraly, and the constant stream of air from the Hadley cell circulation which prevents the pollution from escaping upwards (creating an inverstion [sic] layer).

And it confirmed what I already observed, that the Chilean air quality standards are much more relaxed than the ones from the US.

But it is the following array which made this information more concrete for me:

The third and fourth row (range 100 to 200), labeled as "Regular" ("Usual") in Chile, receive labels such as "Unhealthy", "Muy Malo" ("Very Bad"), "Precaucion" ("Precaution"), "Inadecuado" ("Inadequate"), "Muito Ruim" ("Very Bad"). At this level of polution in Chile, NO MEASURES are taken to reduce polution (such measures start at the next level, "Alerta").

The reactions from Chileans with whom I shared the information follow two templates: people from low social levels are resigned and feel they can't do anything about the situation, while people from high social levels like to believe that they live in a place where the air quality is better (close to the sea, or high in the mountain) and advise me to do the same. Neither group believe in changing the situation :(

It's not only in Santiago that the air quality  is getting worse:  all over the world, cities are setting up norms to deal with air pollution and keep it at "reasonable" levels. The Chilean approach seems to be more about improving the "appearances" by changing the alert thresholds than about truly dealing with the problem. I wonder which effects such a policy will have on the life expectancy of the inhabitants of Santiago (and on mine)...

[HairCut] New year, new haircut!

For the last two years I did not go to the barber shop. My hair was long:

My hair was very long:

I was told I was starting to look like viking warrior:

So I sat down in front of the sea

and we cut my hair into 6 pony tails

My head does feel ligther!

I kept three breads, so that I would not feel too "normal" yet!

Thanks Ieva!

(The hair will be donated to an association which makes wigs for people who lost theirs due to chemotherapy. Consider donating as well!)

[Art] TNT "I like Smiling People"

For a very smiling lady :)

A tee-shirt, the front

and the back:

And the carricature of the person wearing the tee-shirt, engraved on a glass:

[Art] TNT "Citizen of the World"

One of my best student and teaching assistant will be leaving for Sweden next year, and has his birthday anniversary this week, so I did this glass for him:

I had it signed by some of his friends too:

I hope he will like it!

[Art] Coffee Cups for Carlos and Javiel

I have two amazing graduate students, Carlos and Javiel.
I did some glasses for them in the past, but I wanted for a long time to etch some coffee mugs.
I found some cups one year ago, and confirmed with them that they were the adequate size for their coffee intakes.
And then I did nothing, because I did not have the time, because I did not feel inspired (the cups are smallish, which makes challenging to try to draw something more interesting than just their name), because I was waiting for them to get their first publication...

But finally I made them, and I am quite happy of the result:

That will be their Christmas present, I hope they will like it!