Ask HN: What did you find out or explore today?

> Must generate quite an upside for them if it is indeed a strategy.

This is the same Airtel that auto opened payments bank accounts without customer consent or knowledge while getting a sim card. They even got cash deposited into those accounts from the govt direct benefit schemes while keeping their customers in the dark.

I'm sure its completely "accidental" and they'll have more of these glitches and mistakes in the future.

Indeed. I think that’s an astute assessment. I listen to a massive variety of perspectives, and as a NATO member I think what they have to say is worth hearing at least. Thanks for your comment — appreciate it.

I've been exploring kefir. I'm looking at finding some live grains to boost the store bought variety here (10-20 varieties) up to 50-60 varieties or so, like the kefir in Eastern Europe / Russia. The store bought stuff in my country (UK) is more like a diluted, gimmicky thing. However, I believe the strains of bacteria they do include are some of the more influential ones. I think it would just be interesting to expand the scope a bit.

This came from reading about the gut microbiome, which was spun off from reading a book about Ultra Processed Foods (Ultra-Processed People). I've been trying to remove UPF foods from my daily consumption, trying to lower the ratio of them I eat (the average is supposedly 60% for adults in my country), since the academic link between UPF and dementia is quite strong now. It's quite shocking to see just how much of a typical supermarket/food store is UPF, and where many of the emulsifiers and preservatives come from.

Interesting. What hardware do you use to measure this?

I have a Netatmo home device that measures PPM and have been observing the trend lines throughout the day. At some points my flat gets up to about 1400, which the device says is bad, and sometimes it goes down as low as 500. I've noticed a pattern but can't quite connect that pattern to my activity or the surroundings. It starts going up around 4pm, which could be homewards-bound vehicles, but it seems to trend even on weekends when there is lower traffic. Maybe I start breathing differently at these times. I'm quite interested in getting to the bottom of it. Unfortunately I'm west facing so plant use is quite limited.

What is the atmospheric ambient CO2 level? Is that variable based on location?

I've learnt a few things:

- I had my sensor on my work desk which meant the CO2 pooled, and was increased dramatically by my breathing almost directly onto it. Moved the sensor at least 1.5m

- I had the sensor quite low down, where CO2 pools (being heavier), so moved the sensor to eye level

- CO2 seemed to increase when cooking (same room), so while cooking I open the windows and let the warmth flow out of the building

I had some eye strain and think it is because my eye muscles are overused. A doctor told me the muscles in the eye are flat, like tapes, and that I would not feel a muscle ache. I noticed the strain when I focus on different points quickly. I started to pay attention to how I move my eyes and realized I read a lot of text while scrolling, for example reading X posts on mobile while scanning the text at the same time.

Yesterday I was reminded of “Rapid Serial Visual Presentation” for speed reading, where the words are presented so you do not have to move your eyes. I am currently trying it out with a Chrome extension called SwiftRead. I set the text size so it fits into my fovea area. I used a fovea detector website I saw on HN a while ago: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/4dsXzM (make the pattern full screen, then you can see the size of your fovea).

I also learned that I can reduce some of the strain by moving my head more toward the things I am looking at on the screen.