Stanford study finds walking improves creativity (2014)

Re:Stanford study finds walking improves creativity (2014) by akgerber on Monday June 15, 2015 @11:26AM (#9719917)

Novosibirsk in January has an average low temperature of -21C/-6F: https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Novosibirsk Winnipeg is about the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg#Climate In fact, 'Temperatures do occasionally drop below −40.0 °C (−40 °F) but this has become quite rare in the last few decades and has in fact not occurred since February 2007.'

Which suggests that -40 with windchill is a relatively uncommon condition.

A half-hour walk in 20F weather is perfectly comfortable with decent clothing (an insulated jacket, wool socks, long johns under one's pants, a scarf), and that's about as cold as it gets in most of the inhabited world.

On the other hand, a walk in California can be pretty uncomfortable due to the beating sun & high-speed traffic situation in many areas.

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Re:Stanford study finds walking improves creativity (2014) by dang on Monday June 15, 2015 @01:17PM (#9720678)

> Which suggests that -40 with windchill is a relatively uncommon condition

-40 is uncommon, but "-40 with windchill" can mean something different. In Canada it's common to report the temperature along with a lower number that takes wind chill into account. Thus a weather reporter might say, "-25 (Celsius), -40 with wind chill", meaning it's windy enough that if you go out walking it'll feel like -40 and the creativity won't exactly flow.

This became standard about a generation ago. I believe they started doing it to alert people to the risk of frostbite. But every time I hear it I can't help thinking that previous generations of Canadians would look down their possibly frostbitten noses at us for weakness.

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