Tag: facebook

Asian Fair Discovery: The Uni-ball Pen and Its Surprising Study | May 18 2026, 18:13

We recently had an Asian fair here – Japanese, Chinese, Korean goods, and street food. We bought a pie and some kind of pen for 6 bucks from Japanese vendors, which they beautifully packaged and asked for a review on Instagram. The pen is just a pen. Compared at home with our existing gel pens – no difference. But I Googled it out of curiosity.

“These inks are not just good-looking — they can even help you learn better. A study conducted at Ritsumeikan University in Japan showed that students who reviewed material from notes written with a black Uni-ball One pen retained information better than those who read notes made with regular black ink.”

I wonder who conducts such ridiculous research and who orders it. No surprises at all. Mitsubishi Pencil (the manufacturer of Uni-Ball) goes to the university, finds Professor Masashi Hattori (服部雅史) from the psychology department at Ritsumeikan University, and he organizes a report about a ‘memory reproduction task’ conducted on high school students: it compared the memorization of handwritten text with pens of different ink density, resulting in the conclusion that text written with dense black ink from the sponsoring company was reproduced more accurately than with regular gel ink.

Some of the co-authors of the report were Mitsubishi Pencil employees. There was no peer-reviewed article, only a conference presentation at the 38th Congress of the Japanese Society of Psychonomics (日本基礎心理学会第38回大会) on December 1, 2019; the results were also presented at the 32nd International Congress of Psychology ICP 2020+.

So, that’s the story with this pen 🙂

Gender Dynamics at the Great Gatsby Musical | May 18 2026, 01:23

Watching the Broadway musical Great Gatsby. It’s striking that the proportion of girls flaunting dresses notably surpasses the proportion of guys chaperoning girls. Got me thinking why. The explanation seems simple. If a girl wants to go to a musical and doesn’t have a boyfriend, she’ll bring at least one girlfriend, better yet two. Whereas a guy would rather not go at all than show up with a buddy. Well, with certain exceptions.

Gender Dynamics at The Great Gatsby Musical | May 18 2026, 01:23

Watching the Broadway musical Great Gatsby. It’s striking that the proportion of girls parading in dresses significantly exceeds the proportion of guys escorting girls. It made me wonder why. The explanation seems simple. If a girl wants to go to a musical and she doesn’t have a boyfriend, she will bring at least one girl, better yet two. Whereas a guy is more likely not to go at all than to show up with a buddy. Well, with certain exceptions.

Comparing Work Cultures: From Conflict to Courtesy | May 15 2026, 15:12

I reminisce about working on various projects and in different companies up until 2016, comparing it with what I see from the USA (projects in the USA, Europe, and Asia), and I notice one interesting thing – there are no screaming matches during calls, no hysterical outbursts, no unhinged managers yelling at everyone around, and getting upset over every little thing. There are no overt conflicts. Of course, there are still covert games and politics, but if someone is unpleasant to someone else, they do it with a smile and politely (though, overall, not often).

In my past life,” this was a common occurrence that nobody really considered abnormal. Especially if the hysterics were over some genuinely important work issue, and the person was truly passionate about the results.

What I’m really interested in is – what has changed? There are four likely explanations, probably working in conjunction:

1) I moved to the USA

2) times are different

3) people are on meds

4) online etiquette is different.

There’s also an obvious fifth reason – “I have changed,” but it doesn’t quite fit here, because I’m not talking about conflicts involving me or with me, but about observing others’ interactions, which are unlikely to have changed. From my perspective, as I observe, interactions during meetings have become much kinder, but I can’t tell if times have really changed everywhere or if Russian companies are still the same, and I just don’t see it for obvious reasons. Or is it the nuances of online meetings, where yelling at a computer somehow feels odd? We’re talking about major serious companies, not a meeting at a city sports committee.

Fox Encounters: From Intrigue to Confrontation | May 15 2026, 01:05

Remember a few days ago I posted about a fox that was very intrigued by Yuka and stared at him for a long time? Today, another fox went on the offensive. She yelled at us, circled around behind us, and yelled some more from there.

Maybe she was wishing him a happy birthday.

Anticipating a Special Day: A Dog’s Birthday Tale | May 14 2026, 23:39

Nadya told the dog in the morning that we would be picking up the cat. He came to the kitchen a couple of times and just keeps looking at me incessantly. As if saying, go on, tell me already, I remember that today is a special day. Well, there I am working, and he went off to sleep. Woke up. Looks out the window. Decided to cheer him up 😉

His special day is tomorrow, his birthday.

Raster to Draw.io Diagram Converter Tool | May 14 2026, 17:16

Today, in the morning, I created a program that converts a raster diagram in png/jpg format into an editable Draw.io diagram. It identifies objects – rectangles, circles, ellipses, triangles, and keeps them in their places. Then, it recognizes connections between them and links these blocks in drawio, allowing me to move them around as I wish. It also recognizes labels. It turns out pretty well. Other examples are in the comments.

The Overmedication of American Children: A Deep Dive into Prescription Trends | May 13 2026, 19:29

Today I dug up something interesting about kids and pills.

Local doctors are somewhat surprised that I’m not on any medication. Recently, an acquaintance of a doctor said in passing that he has lots of young patients who regularly take 12–14 pills a day. I started researching — and my eyes nearly popped out.

I found that according to CDC data, nearly one in five children under 12 years old are on prescription drugs. In the 12–19 age cohort, it’s every third one. Moreover, the rate among boys up to 12 years old is one and a half times higher than among girls, which is largely explained by early ADHD diagnoses. If we’re talking about long-term use (3 months or more continuously), a fifth of all children and teenagers are involved. It is reported that ADHD was diagnosed in 11.4% of children, about 7 million people, approximately every ninth child in the country. Of those with an active diagnosis, 53.6% are taking stimulants (Adderall, Ritalin, Concerta, and equivalents). In terms of the entire child population, this means about 6% of American children are constantly on psychostimulants. Besides ADHD, there are antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, and antipsychotics. 9.3% of all children ages 5–17 have taken some kind of “mental health” medication. Among teenagers 12–17 years old — 10.7%.

This is probably the most interesting thing I’ve found. The variability between states is threefold. In Louisiana, ADHD is diagnosed in nearly every fifth child, in California – three times less often. In Louisiana 80.2% of the diagnosed children were immediately put on medication, in California – 66.7%. The southern cluster (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina) consistently shows the highest figures.

Even more interesting is the breakdown by urbanization. In large metropolises, 7.1% of children take psychotropic drugs, in small towns — 8.5%, in rural areas — 12.1%. Yet, the proportion of those receiving psychotherapy is the same everywhere — about 11–13%. Why is that? Because rural areas disastrously lack psychologists and behavioral specialists, and the pill becomes the only alternative.

There’s a separate phenomenon — polypharmacy. This is the simultaneous use of 2+ drugs for over a month. Growth from 1.8% in the early 2000s to 3.3% today. About 300,000 American children regularly take three or more classes of psychotropic substances at the same time. And for children with complex chronic conditions (Children with Medical Complexity), the situation is completely off: 52.7% take 5+ medications daily, and 19.5% take more than 10 medications per day. Thus, the stories about 12–14 pills a day. Reports say that approximately every 12th child in the USA, taking multiple drugs concurrently, risks serious drug interaction. For teenage girls on combination therapy, this risk reaches 20%.

Reading why this has happened.

It turns out that here the child’s psyche is increasingly perceived as neurochemistry that needs to be corrected with a pill, rather than as a result of sleep, stress, family environment, and a heap of other factors. Or at least the parents understand that since the rest is not fixed, the pills are an easy way out. Deprescribing (planned drug withdrawal) is hardly practiced — it’s easier to prescribe than to take off.

Secondly, rates for commercial insurance visits to a psychotherapist are on average 22% lower than for a visit to a somatic specialist. As a result, 18.2% of psychologists operate outside insurance networks (compared to 1.7% of somatic specialists). Our family pays an average of $1507 a year for psychotherapy on top of the insurance. But the pill is covered by the formulary, and the prescription copay is minimal. What choice will a tired family make? Why we are unable to raise children without mental health issues is another big topic.

Well, and another interesting point. According to our laws, an official ADHD diagnosis requires the school to provide the child with “Sec 504”: double time on tests, reduced homework, a separate quiet room for exams, allowed breaks during lessons. In the race for college admission, many parents from affluent layers consciously go for a diagnosis — it’s a legal way to give a child an advantage. And here’s the delicate part: Sec 504 specifically forbids the school from considering the effect of “mitigating measures,” which the law counts as medication. Meaning, even if the child on medication is fully functional and excels in studies — their privileges are maintained. There is simply no incentive for the family to decrease the dosage or get off the drug. The system is set up to keep the child on medication until graduation.