Yeah, that's what I went to -- I didn't realize that was a standard term for it. Mine was arranged through the BMWCCA, for some reason; few of the people attending had BMWs. (Although they mostly had much sportier cars than my 2012 Honda Civic; I think I might have been the only attendee with front-wheel drive.) They "required membership", perhaps for liability reasons, but were selling it as a package deal with the class. Unfortunately, that specific outfit seems to run them very rarely these days, and their online scheduling interface is crap, or I would recommend an upcoming one.
You can take classes, which are done in large open flat areas where skidding or spinning your car won't harm anything. I have taken the very beginning level myself, just to improve my driving skills, with no intention of ever racing. They had you do it in your own car, no specific prerequisites (other than being a legal driver, and an adult or appropriately supervised by one), maximum 25 mph (which turns out to be more than enough to start getting a feel for traction.) The next class, which I didn't take, involved more safety equipment and higher speeds.
You totally start to get a feel for when your car is losing traction, after very little practice. (This helpfully taught me that, in a scary prior incident on a mountain road, my car had been starting to lose traction, and something about how and why. This kind of knowledge is why I took the class.)
Although, for safety's sake, I (who am not the article author, and not a race driver, but have a lot of opinions anyway...) actually go out of my way NOT to fly straight through a fresh green at full speed. In fact, my approximate goal is to avoid going through a very fresh green any faster than someone starting from a dead stop. Because that's the amount of time that an aggressive red-light runner in the crossing direction believes they have to "safely" get through. (And they're in the wrong, and I absolutely have the right of way, and I don't want "he absolutely had the right of way" on my tombstone.)
You can see in the description that this is an oxygen concentrator -- it pulls oxygen from the room air. It's the same type of device Ruby discusses in the post. I assume they call it a "generator" in the headline because people don't know what a "concentrator" is.
There is such a thing as a "chemical oxygen generator", like they typically use for the emergency oxygen masks on airplanes. Those are quite hazardous, because in addition to oxygen, they produce immense amounts of heat, easily enough to start fires. (They also "generate" the oxygen from a solid "fuel" material, which makes them one-time-use emergency devices only.)
When I was at Google, I conducted a technical interview of an engineering candidate who wore a suit exactly once in my time there. I found it confusing and sus, but actually he was very good, and he did get the job. I guess he just didn't get the memo. (And he was clearly a person who enjoyed dressing up, atypically for an engineer; he wasn't just doing it for the sake of interviewing.)
What persentage of people around you, do you think are trying to signal anything with their outfit?
This seems... close to unanswerable? I think it depends enormously on what you mean by "trying to signal anything". I think there are reasonable definitions for which the answer is very high. (I was going to say "close to 100%", but then considered that this is untrue of e.g. small children, who may be both incapable of desiring to socially signal things yet, and also not choosing their own clothing. Although in that case, their parents may be trying to signal something instead.) Anybody who is aware that clothing signals things, and is choosing between multiple items of clothing, is very likely (although not certain!) to be putting some consideration, however little, into what their clothes are saying.
After she recovered she told me she was trying to push her legs down and stand up, but they wouldn't go down.
I see an electrical cord going into that fountain (I assume for the pump), and I would like to point out a hidden danger which might or might not have played a role here. Faulty electrical wiring in water (such as a pool or a fountain) can cause current to flow through the body of a person in the water, leading to muscle contraction / paralysis. If the leakage current is large enough, it can directly kill; but even if it's fairly small, the resulting paralysis can cause drowning, due to the inability to right oneself or exit the water.
The reason I'm not sure this was the cause here, is that you didn't describe any sensation of shock when reaching into the water. However, it's possible that you were wearing well-insulated shoes, or that you just didn't notice the sensation because of adrenaline.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_shock_drowning it's apparently most common with malfunctioning electrical systems on boats/piers; but it does occasionally happen in fountains or pools. It can result in a very tragic problem that also sometimes happens with confined space / toxic atmosphere rescues; the would-be rescuers (not perceiving the danger) end up as additional victims.
Because of this, I tend to be very careful about entering pools / hot tubs whose maintenance status is not known to me. (Anything electrical that's in/near water, if installed to modern code, will have a GFCI, which will trip instantly in case of leakage current.) Obviously this does not help someone who slips in by accident. I am also very nervous about any sort of electrical device that is used in water (such as the fountain pump in the picture.) If it's got 120V going into the water, the hazard is obvious; but even if the immersed cord is low-voltage, it's still likely to be one malfunction (of the power brick) away from electrifying the water to 120V, if the brick is not plugged into a GFCI. And if the fountain / the brick was obtained from Amazon, it's likely not made to American electrical safety standards.
I would describe myself as an expert-level debugger (which you sound like also), and all of this is describing experiences I have also had.
Ultrapersonal Healthcare appears to have forgotten to pay Squarespace to renew their website, which doesn't seem like a great sign.
Someone mentioned "mass hysteria" above. I think there are cases where, surrounded by a certain culture or context, people feel positive-tribal-emotions about going insane. If that's true, it seems perhaps quite helpful -- to some particular people, in some particular context -- for a Big Tribal Leader (or a friend!) to say, "I strongly recommend not going insane! To the extent that this seems interpretable as a choice, I strongly recommend choosing the other thing!"