March 14, 2010

March 14, 2010 by yorksranter 6 comments

Premature evaluation – The Spirit Level

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s The Spirit Level is a vigorous polemic for social democracy, something we’re probably in need of as the neo-liberals recover from the 2008 experience. Unlike most such, this one is based on data – specifically, a whole battery of socioeconomic indicators that turn out to be strongly correlated with income…

March 14, 2010 by yorksranter 0 comments

cooking with John von Neumann

A thought; it’s surprising how much you can learn about computer science from cooking, and cooking from computer science. The von Neumann architecture – when you’re cooking, there is a central processing unit, which is the top of the stove, there is mass storage, which is the fridge and the cupboard, there is a user…

The Headache at the End of the Costco Gold Rush - WSJ
Costco won’t buy back the bars or accept returns. Gold changes hands through online and storefront dealers that charge fees or only buy at discounts to market prices. Online retailers, refineries and local shops in New York City told The Wall Street Journal that they would typically offer between 1% and 5% less than the […]
Callum Chalmers 🔶🇺🇦 on X: "@FADCLDN @duncanrobinson I could see the Tories being wiped out in Wales again but I'm certain there will be Tory MPs in Scotland after the next election due to the SNP collapse." / Twitter
To what extent did Tories (in the broader sense, not just in the party) go hard on Englishness to oppose New Labour’s English devolution plans, to claim Howard was robbed in 2005, to argue “English laws for English votes” etc? And now they’re trapped
Chef Bites Back: Giles Coren - The Fence
And this is the thing. You can win an argument, but it doesn’t mean you’re not a prick. Of course you’ve been there: slashing away with your tongue, like Jon Snow putting his sword through White Walkers, reducing the room to a pile of body parts. Then at the end of your rant you realise […]
The invisible seafaring industry that keeps the internet afloat
very good
Here’s why the Spitfire was the David Bowie of World War II fighter aircraft | Hush-Kit
Excellent
7592573 - 2024.04.03.587909v1.full.pdf
These experiments suggest that lithium, similarly to cold shock, delays forgetting by reducing DAG. These results are intriguing also in light of lithium’s being the first line of treatment for Bipolar Disorder for more than 70 years...worms that were treated overnight with lithium display distinct behavior (Supplementary Figure 5A,B) and in particular elevation in angular […]
UK Diplomacy and National Survival in the Global Turmoil of 2024 | Royal United Services Institute
amazingly the hyphen having CMG managed to come up with something less FCO-y than the original. that said I'm not sure what the opposite of generalists would do better about "managing the urgent transition to net zero without unduly disadvantaging the domestic economy, or identifying the dangers of AI in (for example) the use of […]
[2402.01908] Large language models cannot replace human participants because they cannot portray identity groups
more to the point, jargon here or there, that would be an incredibly stupid thing to do because, well, they're not people
New York nixes 3 offshore wind projects, notes GE Vernova move to abandon 18-MW turbine | Utility Dive
“When we talked about vessel supply imbalance – if people are investing in vessels and they can only be used for two years because they're not big enough for the next turbine, then they need to reinvest,” Hardy said. “And same thing with foundations, same thing with cranes, same thing with lots of things. We've […]
Claims that smart motorways tech leaves drivers at risk - BBC News
is it...is it...a smart-stupid quart-in-a-pint-pot idea reliant on crappy government IT? thank god we were spared both the ID cards and David Miliband's horrific carbon credit score ration card