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<title>22 September, 2022</title>
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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Why Is Trump Openly Embracing QAnon Now?</strong> - The former President is likely signalling to prosecutors that he won’t go quietly, so they had better beware. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-is-trump-openly-embracing-qanon-now">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Behind the Campaign to Put Election Deniers in Charge of Elections</strong> - The states’ secretaries of state are supposed to insure election integrity, but a far-right coalition seeks to transform that office. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/behind-the-campaign-to-put-election-deniers-in-charge-of-elections">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Queen’s Death and Competing Narratives of Empire</strong> - Does the U.K. focus too much on its imperial past, or not enough? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-queens-death-and-competing-narratives-of-empire">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Why Ron DeSantis Thinks Weaponizing Asylum Seekers Is a Winning Strategy</strong> - The Florida Governor’s political stunt rests on the cynical assumption that no one actually wants to offer refuge to people fleeing adversity. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-ron-desantis-thinks-weaponizing-asylum-seekers-is-a-winning-strategy">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Putin Expands His War as Biden Tries to Rally the U.N.</strong> - The world body has proved weak and dysfunctional in solving existential crises. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/putin-expands-his-war-as-biden-tries-to-rally-the-un">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><strong>Remote workers are wasting their time proving they’re actually working</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="A person walks through empty office cubicles." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/piPp2J56cHBr3d4aO7L-vvQ-Y8M=/0x0:4444x3333/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71400711/1388581473.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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A person visits an art installation titled “Garden of Eden” representing an abandoned workspace. | Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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“Productivity theater” is getting worse.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="v4aQ4e">
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People who work from home say they’re working, and numerous objective studies show that’s true. But many managers are still worried that they aren’t.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PfSJ8D">
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In a <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/">new study by Microsoft</a>, nearly 90 percent of office workers reported being productive at work, and objective measures — increased hours worked, meetings taken, and amount and quality of work completed — prove them out. Meanwhile, 85 percent of bosses say hybrid work makes it hard to be confident that employees are being productive.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DtG8Yw">
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That uncertainty, coupled with a looming recession and many companies moving back to more time in the office, is prompting workers to increasingly <em>show</em> that they’re working — which is decidedly not the same as actually working. Rather, it’s what some have called “productivity theater.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mDOgtX">
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Productivity theater is when workers frequently update their status on Slack or toggle their mouse to make sure the status light in Microsoft Teams is green. They say hello and goodbye, and they drop into different channels throughout the day to chitchat. They check in with managers and just tell anyone what they’re working on. They even join meetings they don’t need to be in (and there are <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/">many more meetings</a>) and answer emails late into the night.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ODR8gn">
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On their own, these are small expenditures of time, and some of them are useful. En masse, they’re a dizzying waste of time. In addition to their regular working hours, office workers said they spend an extra 67 minutes online each day (5.5 hours a week) simply making sure they’re visibly working online, according to a <a href="https://qatalog.com/blog/post/qatalog-gitlab-study-press-release/">recent survey</a> from software companies Qatalog and GitLab. Workers everywhere are feeling burnt out by this behavior. In other words, fears about lost productivity could cause lost productivity.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3rpmhJ">
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Of course, this sort of productivity theater is as old as the office.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YD9EbM">
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At the office, people used to come in early and stay late to signify a good work ethic. Or colleagues would gather at the coffee station to recount just how busy they were, regardless of how much work they were actually doing. George on Seinfeld <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kafq7yrKAOQ">would just act annoyed</a> to make his boss think he was busy doing work when he was actually doing the crossword.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aV5MWu">
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But with remote work and now the specter of bosses <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/15/perspectives/remote-work-economy-recession/index.html">taking away remote work</a>, the situation has gotten more exaggerated. Add to that company belt-tightening and headlines about quiet quitting — a poorly named term for when people refuse to overwork but that managers interpret as working less than they should be — and you have a lot more performing going on these days.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sCh9JT">
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“Getting my work done is not a problem,” said a Minnesota-based writer, who asked to remain anonymous so as not to jeopardize his job. “I just want receipts that I’m not quiet quitting.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ErLkNF">
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About a third of all workers said they feel more pressure now to be visible to leadership than they did a year ago, regardless of their work accomplishments, according to unpublished August data from experience management company <a href="https://www.qualtrics.com/">Qualtrics</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BPDO8F">
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Who’s driving all this productivity theater? Employees and employers, but mostly employers. Workers feel as though they’re paying for the privilege of working from home and don’t want to get axed in a coming recession. Bosses are signaling that they prefer in-office work — requiring it, overlooking some remote workers, and overburdening others — and they hold a lot of the strings.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Qt0gsH">
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“I would say a great deal of it has to do with — and this probably isn’t fit to print but — shit rolls downhill,” <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/monicaparker/">Monica Parker</a>, founder of human analytics company Hatch Analytics. “The reality is that the most senior people in organizations have had the freedom to work the way that they want, and many of them are older and simply don’t feel comfortable with this new paradigm, so there is this downward pressure.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6TRAEx">
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The Qatalog and GitLab survey report found that C-suite executives were working on their own schedule while not providing the same freedom to junior staff members, a behavior that signifies a disconnect between employer and employees’ work and personal lives.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rPxpNz">
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“He gets to work in 15 minutes. I come from Jersey, and it takes me an hour and a half on a good day,” a mother who works as a vice president at a media company based in Manhattan said, referring to her boss. She asked to remain anonymous to keep from losing her job. She said her company is still expecting the same amount of productivity employees were able to eke out when they were trapped at home earlier in the pandemic, but is now requiring them to also come in two days a week. Starting next month, it’s three.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jW5dVx">
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She wants to continue working from home most of the time in order to be able to care for her son, so she says she’s doing the equivalent of two people’s jobs. She’s also signaling that she’s working by answering emails right away, even late at night. “There are no more boundaries,” she said.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="B7aOdG">
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The tension is less at companies where a majority or all of the employees are remote, but there’s still plenty of performance going on. Kassian Wren, a programmer at web framework company Gatsby, said things are much better at their current job since it’s fully remote.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0XKF0a">
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“I’ve always had to like show up to prove my illness and disability aren’t taking away from my work,” they said. “It’s just even more so remotely.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ClMcDb">
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At a previous job, Wren spent up to 30 percent of their working hours “performing” work, while also getting their actual work done.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DlBUW4">
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“I call it performative because it usually takes extra time away from the work that I was actually doing to write all these reports to people about what I was doing,” Wren said.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="y8v9RC">
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It’s widely understood that remote work <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/03/20/helping-developers-stay-productive-working-remotely/">doesn’t</a> <a href="https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/working-papers/does-working-home-work-evidence-chinese-experiment">sap</a> <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHNFB">productivity</a>. What’s more open to discussion is whether people are particularly collaborative or creative from home — or whether they’re <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22904758/remote-work-innovation-workload">doing too much work</a> to be either. Creating an environment where workers spend extra time showing that they’re working is not helping anything.
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</p></li>
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<li><strong>When overtime isn’t optional</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="A pink padlock chained to an old pocket watch on a colorful background." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dLYQWwVck4b8yBaFKyDXaBpZYDc=/118x0:2003x1414/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71400563/GettyImages_1397612813.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Work isn’t just about money, it’s also about time. | Getty Images/iStockphoto/Isidora Jakovljevic
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Your boss is the boss of your job, not of your life.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PkaPM4">
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The<a href="https://www.iaff3531.com/index.cfm?fbclid=IwAR2BFmVjsaMFn5TSB2F178csPfmW7EEi5WpUy-9jYzF8vbxCV5PPhqtayfM"> Polk County Professional Firefighters</a> union is in the throes of its final weeks of bargaining before its current contract expires at the end of the month. The more than 500-member organization is fighting for one overarching issue: better work hours, and the extent to which its firefighters are being <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23341744/worker-burnout-great-resignation-reshuffle-quit">stretched</a>. And so multiple days a week, on its <a href="https://www.facebook.com/IAFF3531">Facebook page</a>, it posts how many of its members are working mandatory overtime. September 15: 24. September 12: 22. September 6: 25.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VL4FkU">
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A lot of the people like the extra money that comes with overtime, explained Jon Hall, vice president of Polk County Professional Firefighters. “There’s people who want overtime anyway, so having openings within our system, it’s not a terrible thing, our guys like to have the opportunity. It just has gotten to a point that it’s so much that it’s unbearable,” he said. “It’s being able to work it versus being forced to work it.”
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</p>
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<aside id="lrKIbK">
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<div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YwruSR">
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And the schedule is grueling. Generally, firefighters work a 24 hours on, 48 hours off system. Because of his department’s mandatory overtime rules — they’re expected to be on call for it two days a month and often wind up being required to do more — Hall said Polk’s firefighters are working an average 65-hour week. Time-and-a-half overtime pay kicks in when they reach 106 hours across two weeks. A 24-hour shift can easily turn into a 48-hour shift, and in some instances, it can become a 72-hour shift. The people required to stay are generally the ones who are already there, and they basically can’t say no. “It’s job abandonment, and you’re looking at termination,” Hall says.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xMvMqG">
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Much of the discussion around the state of work recently has focused on <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23205039/future-remote-work-experts-promotion-recession">remote work</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22557895/automation-robots-work-amazon-uber-lyft">automation</a>, and what jobs might look like in the future. That often overlooks longstanding issues affecting millions of workers across the country that, while not the flashiest of issues, have a real impact on people’s lives.
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</p>
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<div class="c-float-right">
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<div id="7PZKpi">
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<div>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rHsS61">
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Many American workers have very little control over their schedules. For some, that translates to too few hours, or a complete lack of control of when they’re expected to work week to week. For others, it means too many hours they can’t say no to. Often (but not always), mandatory overtime comes with a carrot of being paid time and a half for their labor. Sometimes, the carrot isn’t worth it, but workers have no choice. Their employer also has the stick and can fire them for refusing.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CyRAxl">
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“For many, many workers, they don’t really have a right to refuse forced overtime. It’s just a growing problem,” said Paul Sonn, state policy program director at the National Employment Law Project (NELP). “It causes huge stress for families; it fuels greater on-the-job injuries.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vZQLXY">
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The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) <a href="https://www.osha.gov/worker-fatigue">notes</a> that long work hours and extended, irregular shifts increase the risks of accidents and injuries, contribute to poor health and fatigue, and increased stress and illness, among other effects. Mandatory overtime contributing to these issues isn’t good in any industry, and in some of the industries where it can be quite prevalent — in manufacturing, warehouses, health care, and, as Hall points out, firefighting — it can be especially disturbing.
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</p>
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<div class="c-float-right">
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<aside id="eKlo9W">
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<q>“It causes huge stress for families; it fuels greater on-the-job injuries”</q>
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</aside>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UPbc4i">
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“The danger of being a fatigued employee is prevalent in any industry that you’re working with other people or machinery,” Hall said. “We’re operating million-dollar fire trucks and driving them down the road, making life-and-death decisions.”
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</p>
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<h3 id="GFmpFt">
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Overtime pay: Okay. Overtime pay when it means missing your kid’s birthday: Not so fun.
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="huoAUZ">
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The long and short of it is that the law does not prevent employers from implementing mandatory overtime. The <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/flsa#:~:text=The%20Fair%20Labor%20Standards%20Act%20(FLSA)%20establishes%20minimum%20wage%2C,%2C%20State%2C%20and%20local%20governments.">Fair Labor Standards Act</a>, which establishes some basics around work standards in the United States such as a minimum wage and time-and-a-half overtime pay when people go above a 40-hour work week, <a href="https://www.upcounsel.com/mandatory-overtime#can-employers-force-employees-to-work-mandatory-overtime">doesn’t generally put</a> any maximum on the amount of time people can work. (There are some caveats, like if the time creates a safety risk, or certain limitations on certain states.)
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Aiya0y">
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In many jobs, the basic gist is that if your boss says you have to stay, you have to unless you want to be fired. And overtime pay isn’t always guaranteed. Managers are <a href="https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/managers-are-not-always-exempt-from-overtime-pay-7667#:~:text=Managers%20generally%20are%20exempt%20from,important%20source%20of%20increased%20compensation.">often exempt</a> from overtime pay, and Sonn notes that many businesses do a bit of tomfoolery to have people who perform very little managerial duties declared as such. Salaried employees over a certain level aren’t required extra pay, either — namely, those making over $35,000 a year. (The threshold was supposed to be higher under an Obama administration proposal, but as <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/9/24/20835653/trump-overtime-pay-rule-explained">Vox explained in 2019</a>, the Trump administration lowered it.)
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="B1NkLn">
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Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, and former chief economist at the Department of Labor, noted that even when workers are getting time and a half, their base pay is so low, it can be worth it for their employers to force them into working extra instead of bringing on others to staff up. “Time and a half was really supposed to make it so employers had skin in the game and wouldn’t have absurdly regular very long hours for workers, but the fact that for so many workers pay is so low … if you’re an employer, you can game it out,” she said. If you’re paying someone $8 an hour, $12 an hour for some extra hours a week doesn’t hurt as much as, say, $15 that would suddenly become $22.50.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hDPDoB">
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For workers, it can create a grueling situation. Take a scan of Reddit, and you can find one worker complaining “<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/work/comments/om14ok/mandatory_overtime_is_killing_my_desire_to_be_a/">mandatory overtime is killing my desire to be a human being</a>,” describing 11-hour shifts Monday to Friday and then another eight hours on Saturday. Another poster called the practice “<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/sif4i5/mandatory_overtime_should_be_illegal_and_is/">borderline slavery</a>,” explaining that because of attrition rates and the need to complete their call center work, they were staying hours after their shifts ended.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bxNjAX">
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Some states have laws setting some limitations, such as requiring at least <a href="https://dol.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2021/03/ls611.pdf">one day of rest in seven</a>. Sonn noted there have also been shifts in regulations around the health care sector in both red and blue states, including <a href="https://www.littler.com/publication-press/publication/nurses-texas-may-refuse-work-mandatory-overtime">Texas</a>, <a href="https://labor.wv.gov/Wage-Hour/More/Nurses-Overtime-Safety/Documents/Nurses%20Overtime%20and%20Patient%20Safety%20Act%20Poster.pdf">West Virginia</a>, <a href="https://www.workforcehub.com/blog/employers-understand-how-to-manage-overtime-regulations-in-the-healthcare-industry/#:~:text=Missouri%20health%20code%20restricts%20employers,in%20a%202%2Dweek%20period.">Missouri</a>, and <a href="https://www.workforcehub.com/blog/employers-understand-how-to-manage-overtime-regulations-in-the-healthcare-industry/#:~:text=Missouri%20health%20code%20restricts%20employers,in%20a%202%2Dweek%20period.">New Hampshire</a> creating protections for mandatory overtime for nurses. “Some states also have, for extra-long hours, even higher overtime, premium pay requirements,” Sonn said.
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</p>
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<div class="c-float-right">
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<aside id="Mp0e7V">
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<q>“Mandatory overtime is killing my desire to be a human being”</q>
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</aside>
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||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gNtnZL">
|
||
Still, many workers are stuck in situations they’d rather not be in; if they want to keep their jobs, they don’t have the option of not working extra hours when their boss says they have to. “We have employment law that is so profoundly anti-worker,” Shierholz said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="tKXSfZ">
|
||
Work is about more than $$$
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zzzb7w">
|
||
Hall, who has been with his department for six years, is in a bit of a unique situation — not only does he work for the Polk fire department, but his wife does, too. So the mandatory overtime rule hits them doubly hard. “It’s very hard to plan your schedule appropriately,” he said. “You are willing to put up with these problems for a reasonable amount of time, and eventually it comes to a point where either you can’t or don’t want to put up with the problems anymore.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="j774Su">
|
||
Mianne Nelson, communications director for the Polk County Board of County Commissioners, declined to comment directly on negotiations with the union but said that the county “most certainly would like to be more fully staffed” in an email. She said the county is facing challenges in competing for workforce and that as positions are filled, that will reduce both mandatory and voluntary overtime.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oyGN8V">
|
||
When we sign up for a job, we sign up for a certain set of parameters and agreements — what our tasks will be, what our pay will be, dress codes, uniforms, etc. And in some cases, we also sign up for overtime, mandatory and voluntary, and other circumstances where flexibility isn’t an option, or hours aren’t guaranteed. But it’s worth wondering whether it has to be this way, especially in the latter circumstances, and even more especially when asking for some leeway can mean you lose your job.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-float-right">
|
||
<aside id="rGSYYU">
|
||
<q>“We have employment law that is so profoundly anti-worker”</q>
|
||
</aside>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ujE4BK">
|
||
“There’s essentially no scheduling protection for workers in this country, and we have a problem on both ends of the spectrum,” said Sharon Block, a law professor at Harvard and former Biden administration official. “You don’t even have protections when you complain about it unless you do it collectively. But if you, just as an individual, go to your boss and say, ‘I’m just really tired of working all this overtime, do you think you could not schedule me for overtime this week?’ An employer can fire you for that.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Gdtmfg">
|
||
Block worked for Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and recalled his efforts to <a href="https://www.help.senate.gov/ranking/newsroom/press/kennedy-maloney-fight-for-workplace-flexibility-for-families">push forward legislation</a> that would just give workers the right to request<em> </em>flexible work options without jeopardizing their careers. Those efforts failed.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gFDEle">
|
||
Shierholz said unions are a good place to start in addressing workplace flexibility, including forced overtime, but she emphasized that even unionized employees have to deal with the issue — as is the case with Hall and so many workers like him. Unions are able to fight for parameters, but there are no guarantees they’ll get them. “It’s not like unionized workers never have to work forced overtime, but they will have some control over those kinds of employment conditions,” she said.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fAPvwp">
|
||
Hall’s firefighter union is trying to negotiate for a couple of different options to reduce their hours and address staffing issues that lead to so many members on mandatory overtime. If the issue isn’t fixed, it becomes a circular problem: New firefighters come in, they are mandated to work unsustainable overtime so they quit, and then the people left end up with even more unsustainable overtime, <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/23341744/worker-burnout-great-resignation-reshuffle-quit">as do new people who come in</a>. And again, Hall is unionized, so at least his unit can fight for better conditions.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="rXHVBq">
|
||
For workers who aren’t, the situation can be even harder to maneuver. One could envision a scenario where political change is achieved so that all workers, unionized or not, get more rights to flexibility, there are limits to mandatory overtime, and overtime pay applies to more workers. A spokesperson for the Biden Department of Labor said they’ve held listening sessions on overtime rules and are in the process of a “comprehensive review” of how they’re handled. What will happen remains to be seen, but workers don’t exactly have many cards here in the face of businesses and lobbyists.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MDIPoT">
|
||
“We have a concentration of power, political and economic power, in this country in the wealthy and in big corporations. They exert that power to undermine efforts to get new laws passed,” Block said. “Big corporations put shareholders first, and part of putting shareholders first is putting workers, seemingly, last.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LBVoDQ">
|
||
California recently <a href="https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/09/05/governor-newsom-signs-legislation-to-improve-working-conditions-and-wages-for-fast-food-workers/">passed a law aimed at</a> improving fast food workers’ pay and conditions, including establishing a council that, in part, can set maximum work hours. It is <a href="https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-california-restaurants-d97b4093142532c3edb70b085d1e1a1f">already being challenged</a> by the industry. In the public sector, budgets are constantly being stretched, with workers often bearing the brunt of that, including more compulsory overtime.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Cb0QNw">
|
||
The pandemic and current economic conditions have brought up several important conversations about work, including work-life balance. As the saying goes, time is a precious commodity, and it’s not an outrageous ask for workers to have more control over that commodity.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="aMNCG2">
|
||
<em>We live in a world that’s constantly trying to sucker us and trick us, where we’re always surrounded by scams big and small. It can feel impossible to navigate. Every two weeks, join Emily Stewart to look at all the little ways our economic systems control and manipulate the average person. Welcome to </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/the-big-squeeze"><em>The Big Squeeze</em></a><em>.</em>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NF25sR">
|
||
<a href="http://vox.com/big-squeeze-newsletter"><em>Sign up to get this column in your inbox</em></a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fEmYHz">
|
||
<em>Have ideas for a future column or thoughts on this one? Email </em><a href="mailto:emily.stewart@vox.com"><em>emily.stewart@vox.com</em></a>.
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>Runners can be disqualified for starting after the gun. What gives?</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="A series of photos of runners midstride is shown on an illustrated pink background with runners’ lanes across it. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/SWXj4l96h-D3Jt0Fi_akQMrS4gE=/333x0:3000x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71400412/toofast_final.0.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
“What they were trying to tell us, is no human can possibly move that fast.”<strong> </strong> | Amanda Northrop / Vox
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The rules of elite running say no one can start a race faster than 0.1 seconds. Scientists say that’s wrong.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AVs46N">
|
||
In July, <a href="https://worldathletics.org/athletes/bahamas/tynia-gaither-14362366">TyNia Gaither</a> lined up in the second lane for one of her biggest races of the year: the semifinals of the 100-meter dash at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zJIf0X">
|
||
The 29-year-old Bahamian sprinter crouched down into the starting blocks. The crowd grew quiet. She waited for the sound.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sug9Hw">
|
||
“I heard the gun go off, and I took off,” Gaither says. “And then I heard the gun go off again.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gnmib1">
|
||
That second “bang” meant officials had stopped the race. Someone had false-started, and Gaither was surprised to find out it was her.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="SqR6gv">
|
||
“I thought it was an error,” she says. “I’ve never false-started ever in my life.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4eDbWe">
|
||
Per the rules, Gaither was immediately disqualified. When she tried to contest the call to the race official, he showed her a replay. It didn’t show a visible false start. But then he pointed to a number, lit up in red: 0.093 seconds, the amount of time it took for Gaither to start after the gun fired.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Le61OF">
|
||
Yes: She had started <em>after</em> the gun went off, and was still thrown out of the race.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="b5hB0K">
|
||
“I’m mind-blown,” she recalls thinking. “You’re telling me I’m penalized for something I did after the gun went off!?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-float-right">
|
||
<div id="9seuTC">
|
||
<div>
|
||
|
||
</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zLB63S">
|
||
<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/sports/opinion-world-athletics-championships-false-start-1.6527053">There’s a peculiar rule</a> in top-level running that says if a runner starts within 0.1 seconds of the gun, they’ve broken the rules. The assumption made by <a href="https://worldathletics.org/">World Athletics</a>, the organization behind this championship, is that it is physiologically impossible to start that quickly.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WUnadm">
|
||
“What they were trying to tell us,” Gaither says on <a href="https://www.vox.com/unexplainable"><em>Unexplainable</em></a> — Vox’s podcast about unanswered questions — is that “no human can possibly move that fast.”<strong> </strong>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dOY6jA">
|
||
Any racer who does is presumed to have anticipated the gun, meaning their brains gave the “go” signal to their bodies before they heard the sound.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9Jw2Ls">
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div id="g824dm">
|
||
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J83gwX">
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="f0UDXb">
|
||
But is that… true? What is the fastest possible human reaction time to a sound?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EmHNrT">
|
||
The answer could vindicate Gaither, who feels unfairly labeled as a cheater — “there was no guessing in my start,” she says emphatically — and other athletes who have been similarly disqualified for starting too quickly.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="msPFLp">
|
||
But this question also leads to bigger ones near the heart of the sport. Competitions like track ought to reveal the limits of human abilities, to push through <a href="https://hbr.org/2018/03/what-breaking-the-4-minute-mile-taught-us-about-the-limits-of-conventional-thinking">previously assumed boundaries</a>. But, here, World Athletics seems to have set a limit that might actually be holding its athletes back.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u5NrIb">
|
||
What would be better? Does racing, along with other sports, need greater scientific precision, a better understanding of human physiology? Or does it just need to accept that there may not be a perfect way to define, and record, a race?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="3enq7d">
|
||
It’s true runners can’t react immediately. But how fast can they go?
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pCWnYR">
|
||
According to scientists, the basic idea behind the 0.1 second rule does make some sense.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="oCKvWO">
|
||
Human beings cannot react instantaneously to a sound, says <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GUblyUkAAAAJ&hl=en">Matthieu Milloz</a>, a biomechanics scientist at the University of Limerick in Ireland who is completing his PhD on recording race starts. A long chain of physical and physiological events have to occur, and each component takes time: The sound of the gun has to travel to a runner’s ears, the ears translate the sound into a neurological signal, the signal has to be recognized by the nervous system, the nervous system has to send a command to start down to the muscles, the muscles take time to contract, and so on.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="P9qaTX">
|
||
A wily racer could get a jump on this process. “You can anticipate the gun,” Milloz says. Races can be won or lost by hundredths, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-olympics-never-ending-struggle-to-keep-track-of-time">even thousandths</a> of a second. So an early start can give a runner an advantage.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xejLlt">
|
||
What doesn’t make much sense to scientists is the number World Athletics says is the neurophysiological limit. “Currently, we don’t know what this neurophysiological limit is,” Milloz says. “But what I can say is that the 100-millisecond [0.1 second] threshold is not science-based. We don’t have the data.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oSLv0kAVFj0yOw9bea6LchVFH0I=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24042531/GettyImages_1409199469.jpg"/> <cite>Ezra Shaw/Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
TyNia Gaither competes in the women’s 100-meter heats on the second day of the World Athletics Championships.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="evaiQX">
|
||
That’s<strong> </strong>not to say there haven’t been <em>any</em> studies. The studies on sprint starts tend to be small, and they don’t always use the most elite athletes as subjects. If scientists aren’t testing the very fastest sprint starters in the world, how would they know what the very edge of the limit is?
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EIxUyq">
|
||
A 1990 Finnish study on <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2289501/">eight non-elite sprinters is often</a> cited, and this study did find evidence to support a 0.1 second limit. But other studies have recorded sprinters <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18460990/">starting faster than</a> that — perhaps even <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17127583/">faster than 0.085 seconds</a>. Other scientists have done some back-of-the-napkin calculations accounting for how long it takes <a href="https://www.basvanhooren.com/is-it-possible-to-react-faster-than-100-ms-in-a-sprint-start/">for a signal to traverse</a> the ears, nerves, and muscles, and concluded that start times faster <a href="https://www.basvanhooren.com/is-it-possible-to-react-faster-than-100-ms-in-a-sprint-start/">than 0.1 second are possible</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cOQsjp">
|
||
“I’m sure that you can react in less than 100 milliseconds,” Milloz says, noting he’s recorded it himself in unpublished work. Yet he doesn’t know what the exact number ought to be.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="egq1pm">
|
||
There’s no “gold standard” for studying race starts
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8NgRFn">
|
||
World Athletics <a href="https://www.letsrun.com/news/2022/07/the-data-keeps-pouring-in-and-it-continues-to-look-bad-for-world-athletics-and-great-for-devon-allen/">has maintained that</a> the 0.1 second rule is based on “the science on standard reaction times.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u6eP28">
|
||
Other sources disagree. <a href="https://twitter.com/pjvazel">Sports historian PJ Vazel</a>, who wrote a <a href="https://worldathletics.org/download/download?filename=1062c381-6278-484f-bfaa-df42f4ab70f9.pdf&urlslug=Women%E2%80%99s%2060m%20%E2%80%93%202018%20IAAF%20Indoor%20Championships%20Biomechanical%20Report">report</a> on the history of reaction time for the IAAF (the former name of World Athletics), says this rule actually dates back to the 1960s, and a West German sprinter named <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpusAWku-mw">Armin Hary.</a>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="z1JDpI">
|
||
Hary was known as the “Thief of Starts,” due to his suspiciously fast starting times in sprint races. It’s unclear whether Hary anticipated the gun, or just had a very fast reaction time (<a href="https://www-spiegel-de.translate.goog/politik/pfeffer-in-der-kiste-a-b9590a7a-0002-0001-0000-000043067362?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp">some tests</a> indicated the latter was the case). “He was constantly starting faster than the others,” Vazel says. “There was controversy.” Enough so that West Germany pushed for an automated system to be built into starting blocks themselves to measure false starts.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3tlVuE">
|
||
West Germany worked with the watch company Junghans, which developed the blocks. <a href="https://depatisnet.dpma.de/DepatisNet/depatisnet?window=1&space=menu&content=treffer&action=pdf&docid=DE000001524634A&Cl=17&Bi=1&Ab=&De=2&Dr=21&Pts=&Pa=&We=&Sr=&Eam=&Cor=&Aa=&so=desc&sf=vn&firstdoc=0&NrFaxPages=26&pdfpage=16">According to their patent</a>, the company says they performed tests which found that sprinters were not starting faster than 0.1 seconds. That limit became a rough rule of thumb for the next few decades, Vazel explains, until it was officially codified in 1989. “It’s unfortunate,” Vazel says, that people still think this rule was founded on a scientific basis. “It was not.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GtPlKw">
|
||
Scientific — in the purest sense of the word — would mean allowing outside researchers to verify the findings in an open and consistent manner.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u7SBPk">
|
||
When Milloz says he doesn’t know what the limit is, it’s because “there is no gold standard,” he says, on how to study this. Small changes to the experimental setup — what type of sensors are used, how they are calibrated — can yield different answers.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zYQk8H">
|
||
Scientists aren’t even sure how, precisely, the official recording systems are calibrated. According to Milloz and colleagues <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-020-01350-4">writing</a> in the journal <em>Sports Medicine,</em> “The precise details of event detection algorithms [i.e how the starting blocks record a start] are not made public by SIS [start information system] manufacturers.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GYuZ4b">
|
||
On top of that, variables like how <a href="https://sites.ualberta.ca/~dcollins/Articles/Brown2008.pdf">loud the sound of the gun is</a>, and how <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5435752/">long runners have to wait</a> before the starting gun is fired can all influence their speed. (Both a louder gun, and a longer wait tend to result in faster starts.) Ideally, World Athletics and outside scientists could agree on how to control for all this.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="um4Jon">
|
||
Vazel says World Athletics needs to be more transparent around how the machines actually calculate their results. In fact, there is reason to believe that the sensors at the World Championships in Eugene may have been recording <a href="https://www.letsrun.com/news/2022/07/the-data-keeps-pouring-in-and-it-continues-to-look-bad-for-world-athletics-and-great-for-devon-allen/">faster reaction times</a> than normal.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="P0yOfG">
|
||
Gaither wasn’t the only runner at the World Championships to be disqualified for starting after the gun. Julien Alfred was disqualified for starting <a href="https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/story/2022-07-17/track-field-world-athletics-championships-devon-allen-nfl-philadelphia-eagles-false-start-hurdles">0.095</a> seconds after the gun, and Devon Allen was disqualified for starting <a href="https://www.letsrun.com/news/2022/07/was-devon-allen-screwed-theres-at-least-a-99-9-chance-that-he-was/">0.099</a> seconds after the gun, just one thousandth of a second too quickly.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zJ5j2i">
|
||
We reached out to World Athletics about why the 0.1 second rule has not been changed when scientific studies have shown runners can react more quickly.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HGWkpz">
|
||
They stand by it. According to World Athletics, “The 100ms rule was initially set as it was determined to be the minimum auditory reaction time.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5h7Iil">
|
||
We pointed out that World Athletics even commissioned its own study <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jukka-Salmi/publication/278022260_IAAF_Sprint_Start_Research_Project_Is_the_100_ms_limit_still_valid/links/55793fdb08aeacff20028f6b/IAAF-Sprint-Start-Research-Project-Is-the-100-ms-limit-still-valid.pdf">on reaction times in 2009,</a> which determined that the limit should be lowered from 0.1 second.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ysof9c">
|
||
When we asked why <em>that</em> didn’t prompt a change, World Athletics replied, “The Technical Committee felt that the study, which was carried out using only six non-elite athletes, was not sufficiently robust to warrant a change.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YiAARe">
|
||
So round and round we go. Scientists say there isn’t data to support keeping the 0.1 second rule. And here World Athletics is saying there isn’t data to throw it out either.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="naQMlj">
|
||
At least one World Athletics council member has <a href="https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1127164/pihlakoski-athletics-reaction-time">called</a> for a rule change. “It is standard procedure after each world championships for the World Athletics Competition Commission to review the championships and recommend any rule changes,” World Athletics told us.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8a7Ytq">
|
||
Basically: They’re looking into it. Like they say they do every year.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="R5gyk7">
|
||
In the meantime, one thing seems clear: We don’t know how fast a runner can start, but it seems likely to be faster than 0.1 seconds.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="RoxuIO">
|
||
What would a fairer race look like?
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hNN3Fo">
|
||
There’s some evidence that the 0.1 second limit and the strict rules surrounding it might be holding racers back from starting as fast as possible. Over the years, the costs of false starting have increased. It’s now the case that a single false start can get a runner disqualified from a race. As the rules have grown stricter, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02640414.2012.746724?journalCode=rjsp20">studies suggest racers have started more cautiously.</a> One study found starts in international championships slowed down by <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02640414.2012.746724?journalCode=rjsp20">20 percent from 1997 to 2011. </a>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JpGxfn">
|
||
So what’s the answer here? Milloz thinks the sport could benefit from more science and standardization. He would like to bring the top athletes in the world to a lab to test their fastest possible starts on machines and with methods that all stakeholders can agree are the “gold standard” for the sport and science. “Gather a lot of response times,” Milloz says. “And try to plot the distribution,” to more clearly see what time would be an unacceptable outlier.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3A5cus">
|
||
But even then, there could still be some questions about the start of a race. Often in sports, the more you zoom into a moment with technology, the more complicated calls become. When you look more closely at starts, Milloz says, you’ll find the first parts of the body to move after the gun goes off are not the feet on the starting blocks, but the hands, pushing off the ground. Might it be fairer to record starts from the hands, and not the feet? Milloz says the hands can start moving 50 milliseconds before the feet.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/m-1EciX16TtWPLlHhJRTJzEM5yo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24042539/GettyImages_1241968278.jpg"/> <cite>Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Devon Allen is disqualified ahead of the Mens 100m Hurdles Final on day three of the World Athletics Championships .
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="H7T45K">
|
||
But why stop at the hands? Might a more perfect start detection system, in the future, actually tap into a racer’s brain to see when they first gave their body the motor command to run? Deciding how to record the start of a race comes with some choices to make about when and where it starts.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cPm19E">
|
||
“There is no perfect way to record something,” Milloz says. Every estimate will come with some range of error, or with some careful choices to make. “There is always some limitation.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WEJPq5">
|
||
Perhaps anticipating the gun could be a part of the sport. But from our reporting, this seems like an unpopular idea that would lead to more false starts, more race restarts, and messier races overall. Perhaps World Athletics could encourage officials to have more discretion to overrule the computerized start system when the margins are tiny. But then, with discretion, comes inconsistency.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dMQXuH">
|
||
Ultimately, even if a lower reaction time threshold is set — depending on where and how it’s set — it’s still possible someone could come along one day and break it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="G69CIT">
|
||
Each choice here comes with a compromise.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZXvErV">
|
||
The idea of perfect fairness in sports may simply be impossible. “There’s no way to make sports perfectly fair,” says sports writer <a href="https://joeposnanski.substack.com/">Joe Posnanski</a>. “What you want to do is make it fair enough that people have faith in it.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZkHgij">
|
||
At the very least, World Athletics can start by making the reaction time limit lower than 0.1 seconds. Given that race starts may always be a gray area, it may be impossible to prevent all false accusations of cheating. But hopefully it will at least be possible to lower the number of athletes unfairly disqualified.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YNGwq2">
|
||
Since the World Championships, Gaither’s false start has weighed on her. “I’ve kind of been experiencing a little PTSD with it,” she says, calling the incident embarrassing. “Now, when I get to my blocks, the only thing that I’m thinking about in my blocks is ‘be patient.’ That’s literally the thing that’s been engraved in my head since that moment. Be patient because you can’t afford for that to happen again.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eLGz76">
|
||
We told Gaither a synopsis of our reporting: That it’s scientifically plausible she started that quickly. “I really appreciate that,” she says.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PHpHow">
|
||
“Our sport,” she says, “is nowhere near perfect.” But loving it means wanting to see it get better. ”I’m one of the true lovers of this sport,” she says. “And, you know, as big of a blow as that was, it hasn’t changed.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5wuyOb">
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cl0aoc">
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="s6Hyt1">
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Aditi Ashok to lead Indian charge in Women's Indian Open golf</strong> - Four-time Ladies European Tour winner Linn Grant will also be seen in action in the $4,00,000 tournament</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Need to improve my fitness and stamina: Anahat</strong> - Teenaged squash talent stresses on importance of experience</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Supreme Court appoints ex-judge Justice L. Nageswara Rao for amending constitution of IOA</strong> - The Court asked Justice Rao to prepare a road map for amending the constitution and holding elections by December 15, 2022</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Wah Ms Zara, Succession and Bohemian Grandeur shine</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Petronia and Midas Touch excel</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>KSERC turns down plea to review tariff revision for industrial consumers</strong> - Petition filed by Kerala High Tension (HT) and Extra High Tension (EHT) Industrial Electricity Consumers Association</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Exotic is the invasion</strong> - On hectares of farmsteads in Kerala, rubber and other traditional cash crops are slowly making way for exotic fruits such as rambutan and dragon fruit. The demand for these fruits only keeps rising and the farmer is guaranteed good returns</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Fortis Healthcare seeks legal advice after Supreme Court orders forensic audit in its share sale</strong> - The Supreme Court on Thursday awarded six months jail term to former promoters of Fortis Healthcare Ltd</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>T.N. medical university begins admission for PG in public health journalism</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Andhra Pradesh: Naidu takes up NTRUHS issue with Governor</strong> - TDP national president urges Harichandan to ensure that the name of the health university is retained</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Zelensky calls for ‘just punishment’ for Russia</strong> - In an impassioned UN speech, the Ukrainian leader calls for the creation of a special war tribunal.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Putin warning: What does Russian military call-up mean for Ukraine?</strong> - Ukraine’s advances prompt Russia to launch a partial military mobilisation, raising the stakes.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine war: Russia arrests hundreds as call-up sparks protests</strong> - Russia’s partial military call-up triggers protests - and a rush for flights to foreign destinations.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Danish queen tests positive for Covid day after Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral</strong> - Queen Margrethe II attended Queen Elizabeth’s funeral and is now Europe’s longest-serving head of state.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Germany nationalises gas giant amid energy crisis</strong> - The German government is taking a 98.5% stake in Uniper, one of the country’s biggest suppliers.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>New tech can make your house a solar microgrid</strong> - New version of support hardware can keep homes solar powered during outages. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1874815">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Andor first impressions: Star Wars inches toward the best of modern adult TV</strong> - The darkest <em>Star Wars</em> series yet takes too long to establish positive momentum. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1883626">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Fearing copyright issues, Getty Images bans AI-generated artwork</strong> - Getty sidesteps potential legal problems from unresolved rights and ethics issues. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1883513">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Logitech builds Android-powered Steam Deck clone for portable cloud gaming</strong> - Is your local Wi-Fi infrastructure ready for a portable cloud gaming device? - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1883453">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Einstein wins again: Space satellite confirms weak equivalence principle</strong> - MICROSCOPE experiment measured accelerations of free-falling objects in space. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1882442">link</a></p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><strong>What’s the difference between sex and cake days?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Most Redditors have had cake days
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/FancyAlligator"> /u/FancyAlligator </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xkoc49/whats_the_difference_between_sex_and_cake_days/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xkoc49/whats_the_difference_between_sex_and_cake_days/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>Fishing or Sex?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Four married guys go fishing. After an hour, the following conversation took place.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The first guy says:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“You have no idea what I had to do to be able to come out fishing this weekend. I had to promise my wife that I will paint every room in the house next weekend.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The second guy says:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“That’s nothing; I had to promise my wife that I will build her a new deck for the pool.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The third guy says:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“Man, you both have it easy! I had to promise my wife that I will remodel the kitchen for her.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
They continue to fish when realized that the fourth guy has not said a word.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
So, they asked him:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“What you had to do to be able to come fishing? What’s the deal?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The fourth guy says:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
"Nothing. I just set my alarm for 5:30 am. When it went off, I shut off my alarm, gave the wife a nudge, and said, ‘Fishing or Sex’ and she said,
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
‘Don’t forget to wear a sweater.’
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/joke_channel"> /u/joke_channel </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xkwz55/fishing_or_sex/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xkwz55/fishing_or_sex/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>The only cow in a small town in Poland stopped giving milk…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The people did some research and found that they could buy a cow from Moscow for 2,000 rubles, or one from Minsk for 1,000 rubles. Being frugal, they bought the cow from Minsk. The cow was wonderful.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
It produced lots of milk all the time, and the people were amazed and very happy. They decided to acquire a bull to mate with the cow and produce more cows like it. Then they would never have to worry about the milk supply again. They bought a bull and put it in the pasture with their beloved cow. However, whenever the bull came close to the cow, the cow would move away. No matter what approach the bull tried, the cow would move away from the bull and he could not succeed in his quest.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The people were very upset and decided to ask their wise rabbi, what to do.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
They told the rabbi what was happening. “Whenever the bull approaches our cow, she moves away. If he approaches from the back, she moves forward. When he approaches her from the front, she backs off. An approach from the side and she just walks away to the other side.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The rabbi thought about this for a minute and asked, “Did you buy this cow from Minsk?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The people were dumbfounded, since they had never mentioned where they had gotten the cow.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“You are truly a wise rabbi,” they said. “How did you know we got the cow from Minsk?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The rabbi answered sadly, “My wife is from Minsk.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/aimlesscruzr"> /u/aimlesscruzr </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xk9g1t/the_only_cow_in_a_small_town_in_poland_stopped/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xk9g1t/the_only_cow_in_a_small_town_in_poland_stopped/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>Guy and a Girl on a first date.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Guy: “So, what kind of movies do you like?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Girl: “I like movies where I need a tissue.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Guy: “Oh my god! Me too!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Buddy2269"> /u/Buddy2269 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xkickp/guy_and_a_girl_on_a_first_date/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xkickp/guy_and_a_girl_on_a_first_date/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>What has 4 legs and 1 arm?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
A happy pitbull
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Mobile_Object4539"> /u/Mobile_Object4539 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xko34q/what_has_4_legs_and_1_arm/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/xko34q/what_has_4_legs_and_1_arm/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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