Links for February 13, 2022

⛷ How Olympians Embraced Mental Health After Biles Showed the Way — NY Times

World-class athletes have to conduct their wellbeing just like everyone else. Biles has given more athletes space to share their challenges:

She gave voice to the feelings they have shared — the doubts, the worries, the pressures. In speaking openly about mental health, along with other star athletes like the tennis player Naomi Osaka, Biles gave tacit permission to be vulnerable. She reminded fans, friends and family that even the best athletes in the world have feelings and fears.

💰 A bold new experiment out of Florida: Guaranteed income for the formerly incarcerated — Vox

Florida is giving a group of formerly incarcerated people $7,600 each over the course of the year to see how it helps them reenter society.

Incarceration is expensive for the state, and it hurts people, families, and communities. In 2020, it cost taxpayers an average of over $35,000 to incarcerate someone in a federal facility; in Florida state prisons, the cost was about $28,000.

The toll of incarceration is considerable. The effects of prison don’t end when the incarcerated are released. Many employers are hesitant to hire formerly incarcerated people, who face homelessness at almost 10 times the average rate. People who are incarcerated are disproportionately low-income and Black, and they face additional fines and financial penalties after release, such as probation fees, lingering court fees, mandatory therapy, ankle monitoring, and drug testing. Inability to pay these can lead to reincarceration.

🏝 The Great Resignation has morphed into the Great Sabbatical — Fast Company

Mid-career sabbaticals are growing in popularity, which means a gap in your resume is starting to lose its stigma:

It turns out I wasn’t the only one. Somewhere, lost amidst shouty internet headlines about the Great Resignation and a growing anti-work movement—some workers who can afford it are quietly hitting pause. Instead of quitting one job to immediately embark on another, a growing number of American workers are choosing to take time off to do nothing at all—at least for a little while.

And more:

🌿 Conjuring Maine’s Clairvoyant Kush — New Yorker

A company in Portland has dispatched psychics across the state—where marijuana is legal but delivery isn’t—to find a wide selection of your lost weed and drop it off at your home.

🖼 This 365-Gigapixel Monster is the World's Largest Panorama — 500px

The statistics behind this photograph are staggering: 35 hours of shooting, 2 months of post-production, 14 Photoshop files, and a final image that would print out (at 300ppi) to the same size as a freaking football (soccer) field!

🐦 A Formerly Funny Tweet

As technology progresses, humorous (or "humorous") commentary can eventually just depict everyday life:

I love finding New Yorker cartoons so dated that the joke is lost entirely and the cartoons become just descriptions of people doing normal things. pic.twitter.com/5fYHmDkRMl

— max saltman (@maxsaltman) February 1, 2022