Live data from Hacker News

The cognitive costs of air pollution

patrickcollison.com

281–290 of 300 posts

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#282

Reading his bullet points, I am not sure why the correlation between daily stock market returns and air quality supports the argument that air pollution reduces IQ.

One hypothesis is that part of the short-term stock movements is causing about publicly visible stupid acts, causing either physical or PR disasters of various sizes. That would imply some correlation, but a relatively small one.

Many if not most trading decisions are not executed from a NYC office. The exchange servers aren’t in NYC either, but like that matters.

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#283

This really bothers me. I live in a VERY polluted place, and unfortunately moving away won't be an option for me for at least half a decade. What can I do to minimise the health effects of such an atmosphere? I'm planning on getting an indoor air filter for my home.

Do you live in Beijing? We got an expensive swedish air purifier but it still sucked hard (noisy, made the air smell very stale). You might be able to mitigate some of the effects, but not all of them. And if young kids are involved (or you are expecting), screw the career, move.

Did you get an IQAir? I bought the GCmultiGas and I get the kind of stale air, I think it is just hyper sanitized or something. That filter cleared up my sinus issues in like two days.

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#284
post #249
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sensor is also available from Adafruit: https://www.adafruit.com/product/3686 I got it hooked up to a RaspberryPi that exposes sensor readings in Prometheus format.

Do you have a PurpleAir II to compare against? I suspect that there will be some extra calibration or signal processing some to make it more accurate that will be missing in the raw sensor. EDIT: The link we're discussing says this explicitly: "[...] These particle counts are processed by the sensor using a complex algorithm to calculate the PM1.0, PM2.5 & PM10 mass in ug/m3. [...] PurpleAir PA-II uses two identical…

That sensor available at Adafruit uses the same algorithm for calculating PM levels, it's literally the same chip. Maybe using 2 of them yields more accurate results though.

The specs for particulate matter are identical:

https://www2.purpleair.com/collections/air-quality-sensors/p...

https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/product-files/3686/plantower-p...

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#285
post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a slightly more capable one but the results are similarly motivating. Right now I'm more concerned with the particulate counts... if 27 is bad, does 120 worse and going outside into 700+ me dumberer? inside: https://www.uradmonitor.com/tools/dashboard-04/?open=8200009... outside: https://www.uradmonitor.com/tools/dashboard-04/?open=8200011... In the office at work is better: https://www.uradmonitor.com/tools/d…

From your indoor page, CO2 min is 375 ppm. How did you get that below the atmospheric value of ~410 ppm?

I have no real idea, especially because the outside unit is about 10m away and shows ~700ppm. I will try swapping them to see whether it's a calibration issue, but right now the outside unit is at work with me so I can open it up and take photos.,

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a slightly more capable one but the results are similarly motivating. Right now I'm more concerned with the particulate counts... if 27 is bad, does 120 worse and going outside into 700+ me dumberer? inside: https://www.uradmonitor.com/tools/dashboard-04/?open=8200009... outside: https://www.uradmonitor.com/tools/dashboard-04/?open=8200011... In the office at work is better: https://www.uradmonitor.com/tools/d…

What device did you use to capture all the data including radiation?

Click the "home" link on those pages to go to the uradmonitor home page.

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#287
post #284
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a PurpleAir II to compare against? I suspect that there will be some extra calibration or signal processing some to make it more accurate that will be missing in the raw sensor. EDIT: The link we're discussing says this explicitly: "[...] These particle counts are processed by the sensor using a complex algorithm to calculate the PM1.0, PM2.5 & PM10 mass in ug/m3. [...] PurpleAir PA-II uses two identical…

That sensor available at Adafruit uses the same algorithm for calculating PM levels, it's literally the same chip. Maybe using 2 of them yields more accurate results though. The specs for particulate matter are identical: https://www2.purpleair.com/collections/air-quality-sensors/p... https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/product-files/3686/plantower-p...

The Adafruit sensor is just the sensor, the PurpleAir II is two sensors plus extra logic that processes the readings to give extra accuracy.

You can't expect one sensor to give the same performance as two sensors plus correction logic. If it was that easy, PurpleAir could just put a case on a PMS sensor and be done with it.

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy a cheap PM detector (There are a few on Amazon using the Plantower sensor that are ~$50.) Buy any HEPA air filter for your home. Buy the best cabin air filter you can for your car (Bosch makes HEPA filters for some cars), and try to get your office to install something, or just buy one for your desk. The hard math of it is that no matter what you do, you aren't going to be able to reduce your exposure by more tha…

Is the Plantower sensor a very precise one? I'd like to buy an air monitor, but of course there's no way (at least for me) to know which ones are precise and which aren't.

If you care about accuracy, my understanding is that the Purpleair is your best choice. I don't care about absolute accuracy, although it seems to agree within 10% or so with nearby putpleairs.

The main reason for a monitor is just to make sure your filtration is working and sized appropriately. Take it outside, take a reading, take it inside, see if it's a lot lower. I don't see a need to spend a lot for this or install something that connects to my wifi and needs to be updated etc.

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#289
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Essentially all air filters filter nano particles. https://smartairfilters.com/en/blog/can-hepa-filters-capture...

That's specific to HEPA filters. Most air filters are not as capable as HEPA filters.

Read the rest of the article. The cheap furnace filter filters nanoparticles too, just not as well. Both larger and smaller particles are pretty easy to filter. It's the ones around 0.3um that are the toughest to filter.

Re: The cognitive costs of air pollution

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to set up something like this in my garden. Could I figure this out without speaking German?

Certainly. When using the flashing tool referenced here: https://luftdaten.info/en/construction-manual/ ...you simply select the English firmware `latest_en.bin`. Or one of the languages you prefer.

Thanks!
Post reply on HN