Interesting post about coal heating… https://www.facebook.com/groups/1673575419594464/permalink/2905236106428383/?sfnsn=mo
New York City’s Mail Chutes Are Lovely, Ingenious, and Almost Entirely Ignored – Atlas Obscura
IF YOU HAVE EVER WORKED in an old building, the chances are you will have at some point walked past a small mysterious brass box . Located about halfway up the wall, it is notable for a flat length of glass leading both into and out it, disappearing into the ceiling and the floor below. Often painted over, ignored and unused, they are a relic of the golden age of early skyscrapers called the Cutler mail chute.
The Cutler mail chutes flourished during the advent of the first multi-story buildings in the turn of the 20th century. The invention was fairly simple: the glass chutes would run internally the length of the building, with a mailing slot on each floor. Rather than having to make the trek downstairs to find the nearest mail box or post office, you would simply pop your letter into the chute from whichever floored you worked on, and gravity would swiftly carry your letter to a mailbox in the lobby, for daily collection from the postman. In an era when people were sending handfuls of letters each day, the convenience of the Cutler mail chute was a godsend.
NPR
Leaked documents obtained by the House Oversight and Reform Committee previously confirmed that as of late last month, the bureau identified what it has described as "processing anomalies" that affect more than 1 million records for the 2020 census.
But the number of potentially flawed records has now ballooned into the millions, according to a person familiar with census operations who was not authorized to speak for the bureau. The agency has unearthed major inconsistencies in the information it has gathered this year about residents of college dorms, prisons and other group living quarters — a category that, for the 2010 census, included around 8 million people.
This I am sure will feed conspiracy theories in any community unhappy 😒 and their census count. 👥
Mystery Surrounds $7 Billion Outflow From Vanguard S&P 500 Fund
A record outflow from one of Vanguard Group’s biggest exchange-traded funds is stirring speculation over who was behind it and why.
More than $7 billion was pulled from the $172 billion Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) on a single day this week, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, about 4% of the fund’s assets. But trading volumes were below the one-year average and there were no obvious outsized transactions, while the U.S. equity benchmark rose on the day -- making a mass exodus less appealing.