Links - August 2022

Published Aug 2022

Joan Miró, Hirondelle Amour, 1933–34

Here are some interesting links I found in August:

1. Quality of RNG significantly affects results of Monte Carlo simulations.
2. Understanding Jane Street.
3. Taleb's essay on Christianity.
   Consider that in Semitic languages, din means law, which in Arabic translates into religion: the older and youngest Abrahamic religions were just law (one, local; the other, universal). But in Christian Aramaic, it is the word nomous from the Greek nomos that refers to law, separate from religion. For Jesus separated both domains with the “render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar”; some additional work came later by Augustine to formalize how one deals with the temporal, the other with the spiritual, the afterlife, etc. This brought a natural boundary between State and Church.
   Ironically, modernists fall for what I have called the opiate of the middle classes, that is social science and stock market speculation. They refuse religion on rational grounds, then fall for economic forecasters, stock market analysts, and psychologists. We know that economic forecasts work no better than astrology; stock market analysts are more pompous but much less elegant than the bishop, and psychology papers do not replicate meaning their results do not hold.
4. Putin's approval ratings (from a Russian state-run pollster).
   
5. Rapamycin is used for immunosuppression in organ transplant patients and trials are underway to test its efficacy in treating ALS, Crohn’s disease, and metastatic and advanced cancers.
   Cells need nutrients to stay alive. This is where the protein mTOR springs into action, like a traffic policeman coordinating the metabolic decisions in a cell. When it receives messages from other proteins about there being enough nutrients—sugars, fatty acids, amino acids, for instance—in the cell, it gives the cell the green signal to divide and proliferate. When nutrients are lacking, it flashes the red light, ordering the cell to stop making merry.
   This process is great for healthy cells but can have a disastrous effect on cancer cells that grow rapidly. Here is where rapamycin comes to the rescue. It latches on to mTOR and tricks the cell into believing that there aren’t enough nutrients to grow.
6. AMD has surpassed Intel in market capitalization.
7. Gender discrimination in hiring.
   The countries included vary in a number of key institutional, economic, and cultural dimensions, yet we found no sign of discrimination against women. This cross-national finding constitutes an important and robust piece of evidence.
   Second, we found discrimination against men in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK, and no discrimination against men in Norway and the United States.
8. Notes on the Balkans
   [On Macedonia] According to multiple Bulgarians I talked to, Serbia has been running a long-standing propaganda campaign in Macedonia to convince the Macedonians that they are, in fact, Macedonians, with some sort of vague nonsensical connection to Alexander the Great. In reality, Macedonians are just Bulgarians with a slightly different accent, but they’ve been brainwashed by textbooks and school curricula and tv shows, or something.
   [On Ceaușescu] In 1981, he announced that Romania would pay off its entire national debt. It did so in 1989, becoming literally the only modern state to ever do so ... Ceaușescu accomplished this by dramatically curbing consumption throughout the entire socialist economy, pulling Romania into a dramatic sustained economic crisis complete with the worst basic good shortages seen outside war-time behind the Iron Curtain
9. HS2 costs £100Bn.
10. How Labour lost the Indian vote.
11. On how housing shortages affect everything.
12. The mineral conflict is here.
    An analysis by the energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie found that if EVs accounted for two-thirds of new car purchases by 2030, it would require dozens of new mines that are the size of the world’s largest in each key category. These mines are not currently being planned. And per the IEA, it takes an average of 16 years from initial discovery to open a mine.
13. Toxoplasma-infected subjects are more attractive than non-infected ones.
    We found that infected men had lower facial fluctuating asymmetry whereas infected women had lower body mass, lower body mass index, a tendency for lower facial fluctuating asymmetry, higher self-perceived attractiveness, and a higher number of sexual partners than non-infected ones. Then, we found that infected men and women were rated as more attractive and healthier than non-infected ones.
14. Course sea spray can reduce lightning by up to 90%.
15. Skin exposure to UVB light induces skin-brain-gonad axis & sexual behavior.
    UVB triggers a skin-brain-gonadal axis through skin p53 activation. In humans, solar exposure enhances romantic passion in both genders and aggressiveness in men, as seen in analysis of individual questionaries, and positively correlates with testosterone level.
16. Under-policing in America.
    
17. Ugandan asians dominate economy after exile.
    Despite making up less than 1% of the population, they are estimated to contribute up to 65% of Uganda's tax revenues
18. Epigentic 'clocks' predict animals' true biological age.
    But telomeres did not pan out as an aging clock. The correlation of telomere length with age and mortality is weak in humans and nonexistent in some other species. “Telomere [length] does not actually track age. It just tracks cell proliferation,” said Ken Raj, a principal investigator at Altos Labs.
19. Everyone is moving to the metropole.
    The U.S. of 2050 will have a median age of 41. It will be decisively younger than China and other East Asian states and will edge out Iran, Turkey, Russia, Mexico, and even Brazil. The so-called BRICS countries built a coalition on marketing themselves as part of a young, rising world. In the battle of youth, the U.S. will beat all except South Africa. Even more importantly, the U.S. will have large and growing numbers of young workers, many more than other states of roughly similar median age. 
20. Yao Yang's "rebuilding China's political philosophy".
21. There are 12 notes in-order to accomodate the fourths & fifths between 2 octaves.
    
22. Why was there no Roman industrial revolution?