History

A 3000; year old 'Trousers', discovered in Chinese grave :

A team of researchers working in the ancient Yanghai graveyard in China's Tarim Basin has uncovered what appears to be the earliest example of trouser wearing. The research team has published a paper in the journal… pic.twitter.com/4vnVsAvauH

— Archaeo - Histories (@archeohistories) November 3, 2023

 

Type E and Type B errors

 I like this model.  From Who needs Bureaucracy? by Arnold Kling.  The subheading is All of us.  

The opposite of bureaucracy is an organization in which individuals are empowered to make decisions without asking for permission or consulting a rule book. They can use their skills and know-how to solve the customer’s problem or embark on a new project.

Empowerment sounds so much better than bureaucracy. And yet bureaucracy survives. In a competitive environment, particularly in business, we should stop and ask ourselves whether bureaucracy serves a useful function.

When an organization suffers from an error, it will often adopt a rule that is intended to prevent the recurrence of such an error. I like to say that such rules are the pearls that grow in response to the irritation caused by errors.

I think that bureaucracy survives because it prevents certain types of errors. Call these Type E errors, meaning the type of errors that might be made by empowered individuals. The errors that bureaucracy itself makes can be called Type B errors. The utility of bureaucracy depends on the relative cost of Type E errors and Type B errors.

If anyone working in a hospital were empowered to administer medication, then a patient might be killed by someone who is not qualified to administer medication. That would be a Type E error. On the other hand, perhaps a patient could die because a qualified doctor or nurse is not around to administer life-saving medication that a less-qualified hospital worker might have provided. That would be a Type B error. I imagine that Type E errors are more of a problem than type B errors, so that a hospital is better run with bureaucratic rules than as a free-for-all where anyone can administer medication.

In economics, it is a truism that 

If marginal cost of production and the marginal revenue of production are equal, your business has reached its optimal production level. When marginal cost is equal to marginal revenue, efficiency has reached its peak, and you've maximized profits.

This is of course, a dynamic system driven by shifting production costs and market demand, all coordinated via price signals.  Production costs are dynamic and shifting as is customer demand.  Often, in non-transparent fashion.  Management and leadership have to make frequent consequential decisions arising from indigenous and exogenous changes which are always tipping marginal cost and marginal revenue out of alignment with one another.  

Kling's model has an implied similar rule.  

If the marginal net profit of Type E errors is equal to the marginal net profit of Type B errors, strategic effectiveness has been achieved and profits maximized.

As with marginal costs and marginal revenues, there is a tension in the balance between the marginal net profit arising from Type E errors and Type B errors.  Exogenous and indigenous shocks are always kicking them out of alignment.  

The challenge is different though.  Adjusting commercial decisions and fashions of production is hard enough.

Type E and Type B errors though are not about shifting the volume of inputs or modifying the means of production.  Type E and Type B errors are the product of Social Norms, Institutions, Corporate Cultural Norms, and embedded incentive structures.  All can be changed but not easily and not quickly.  Managing the balance between Type E errors and Type B errors is much harder work and not frequently recognized as a distinct model.

You can never read the same book twice and you should always have plenty to choose from

From Nobody finishes reading my books by Paul Bloom.  The subheading is, Or anyone else's either.  

As of a decade or so ago, when electronic readers became more common, we began to get some insight into people's reading habits.  How much they read of a book, how far in they stop, are there structure or topical issues that lead to abandonment, etc.  

Bloom's article is an entertaining update and his commenters worth reading.  

Several years ago, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax wrote a critical review of my book Just Babies. One of the things that bothered me was that Wax plainly hadn’t read the whole book. She got to the chapter on sex and stopped, with two chapters left to go.

But then I checked, and I realized that the positive reviewers also didn’t seem to make it to the end. Their reviews focused on the first chapters; at best, they skimmed the rest. Actually, by making it to chapter 5 and reading it closely, Wax was unusually persistent.

It’s not just me. The philosopher Martha Nussbaum once complained that reviewers of her book Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions focused on the preliminary outline of her theory in the first chapter and ignored all the nuances and qualifications in the many chapters that followed. They apparently didn’t read most of her book.

This bothered me. I’m a fan of Nussbaum and feel she deserves better. Actually, I own this book of hers and read it with pleasure. Well, not the whole book. Just the first chapter. Have you seen how big it is?

Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (Hardcover) | eBay

How often do people make it to the end of books? The mathematician Jordan Ellenberg did some number crunching, looking at the passages marked by Amazon Kindle readers and estimating what percentage of them finished. This percentage is what he calls the Hawking Index, named after Stephen Hawking’s notoriously unread book A Brief History of Time. Here is the Hawking Index for some popular books:

Click to enlarge.

A lot of good considerations in the article.  My perspective is twofold - there are many books which have 100 pages of content mashed into three hundred pages of words.  It is one thing to be a miner for ideas and data and persevere when you know there is more ore in the seam.  It is quite another to blindly dig when all you are encountering is dross.  

Focusing on favorite authors increases the probability of ore in the seam but it is not an always reliable heuristic.

I would like to be better at searching for and compiling the 25 page article versions which inspire a book length treatment.  The article would be more likely to be read than the book if the article is 80-100% content whereas the book is only 20-30% content.  But I am not good at that yet.

And I do love finding, perhaps one out of twenty, those non-fiction books in which there is a new idea, a new fact, or better interpretation of an already known fact on virtually every page.  Woof, those are good books.

Recognizing that a good personal library ought to be a compilation of both books and articles is one principle that I acknowledge (without yet being good at.)

The second is that just as we never step in the same river twice (Heraclitus), no book is stable.  A book is the product of the physical object and its interaction with the reader.  Different editions lend themselves to a greater or lesser degree to intense and persistent reading or not.  And the reader himself, at any given moment, is more or less inclined to read a particular book, on a particular topic, by a particular author, in a particular fashion, to a greater or lesser degree.  

Books, readers and the reading experience are not static.  There are authors and poets whom I greatly enjoy reading now whom I had no interest in reading forty years ago.  There are some books I prefer based on season, or mood, or my intellectual ruminations, or reading environment, or some other context.

Given that your own personal reading proclivities are always in flux, all you can do is to be well stocked for all your possible reading needs.  I have close to 15,000 books and I am trying to winnow that number down but it is a less than fruitful endeavor.  Almost all books I have bothered to find and purchase are candidates for reading at some unknown time.  There are a few which were definite errors in the acquisition process and I celebrate the few opportunities to demonstrate a false discipline of getting rid of a book.  The reality is that the overwhelming percentage of books remain on the shelves to be read.

Whether I ever get to them or not is a different matter.  It is nice to have them all to hand when the need arises but, as Hippocrates observed:

Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult. The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and externals cooperate.

All easier said than done.  Having the books, the ideas, the facts within reach is the important first step.  Not all books will be read but all of them might be read if the time is long enough, the crisis less fleeting, the decision more measured.  I revel in all of those bound companions upon the selves, regardless of the probability of them ever being read.  The possibility of the need or desire for better acquantence is always there.  

An Insight

I followed Mish back before, and during, the bubble before this one, but after the other one. And now we have another one! https://t.co/K9cF9SAoug

— Rudy Havenstein, Senior Markets Commentator. (@RudyHavenstein) October 5, 2023

 

I see wonderful things

Anchovies are a gregarious species in every vital phase that forms very numerous and huge shoals, like this one

[📹 Delaney Trowbridge / seataceans]pic.twitter.com/DmsMorJGMr

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 2, 2023

 

Europe is a bunch of states in a trenchcoat pretending to be a foreign policy superpower

A worthwhile update on the status of foreign policy and defense issues in Europe.  The EU and Europe have been grossly dependent on the US on both issues for many decades.  The coordination of interests and obligations has been difficult and has barely worked.  But just barely.  In particular, Europe's willingness not bare a comparable financial burden and especially the willingness of its largest and most prosperous countries to maintain any sort of operation defense capacity has been de minimus.  

Not all countries and not all the time.  And it is certainly true that the US, driven by domestic politics, has been less than consistent in its foreign policy goals.  To the point of fecklessness.  

But given the crisis in the Balkans in the 1990s, the invasion of Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Europe has been oddly uncoordinated and passive.  Again with some exceptions.  Indeed, among the smaller nations, there have been herculean efforts and generosity to support Ukraine.  But we need Britain, Germany, Italy, France and the other larger economies to carry their weight and work more closely with one another and with the US to ensure that Ukraine has all that it needs to bring the war to a quicker and better conclusion.  

From Europe is Whistling Past the Graveyard on Defense by Emma Ashford.  The subheading is Why aren't European policymakers hedging more aggressively against the vagaries of U.S. domestic politics?  While it is a useful update, I was most taken with this language.

The attempt to build a coherent, centralized Europe-wide defense tends to fail because of a unique set of pathologies almost entirely encapsulated by Henry Kissinger's famous remark about Europe. Even as it has become far clearer who to call with regard to monetary policy, migration, or trade, there’s still no obvious answer on defense and foreign policy.

The European Union is, to put it bluntly, a bunch of states in a trenchcoat pretending to be a foreign policy superpower. 

Offbeat Humor

pic.twitter.com/vBo35soNeT

— Idiots In Cars (@Idiots1nCars) July 12, 2023

 

Data Talks

The migrant situation in Lampedusa has been in the news lately. If you're like me, you probably just want to know the scale of what's happening.

Thanks to @realChrisBrunet we have the numbers!

Here are the total numbers of migrants that Italy has taken in so far:
And the places… pic.twitter.com/Et3f7JrdUj

— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) October 5, 2023

 

Jenness House, Truro, 1934 by Edward Hopper

Jenness House, Truro, 1934 by Edward Hopper 

Click to enlarge.

History

Ethiopian & Italian armies fight at the Battle of Adwa (1896 AD). pic.twitter.com/QxWjdu1dvw

— Varangian Chronicler (@Varangian_Tagma) October 3, 2023

 

An Insight

The biggest victims of the crime increase are the impoverished. Their car jacking which caused them to lose their job doesn't make the news. Poor can't afford private security.
Inherited wealth progressives focus on wealth signalling has really hurt the poor.

— Emre (@emre_mayo) October 3, 2023

 

A terse summing up

Esther McVey? 'Common sense' minister? Her profound inability to distinguish fact from fiction aside, she has the political and intellectual acumen of a scone. In a sock.

— Richard Littler (@richard_littler) November 13, 2023

 

Post-Bongo polls

I can't explain it to myself but I love this headline.

Gabon elections: Junta plans post-Bongo polls for 2025 https://t.co/7uutHtBHaz

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) November 13, 2023

 

I see wonderful things

The main staircase from 1904 of the Jugendstil district court Mitte building in Berlin, Germany. Designed by German architect Otto Schmalz.

📸 Uwe Gaasch pic.twitter.com/ka9niAEl2U

— ArtNouveauDeco (@NouveauDeco) October 2, 2023

 

Offbeat Humor

pic.twitter.com/nQhiyI4gyD

— Idiots In Cars (@Idiots1nCars) June 7, 2023

 

Data Talks

The DC AG has fought to reduce sentencing guidelines in the name of equity, and dropped/reduced charges in 40% of juvenile cases.

Carjackings are on pace to be up 100% over 2022, which was a record high.

65% of carjackings are done by juveniles.

— John LeFevre (@JohnLeFevre) October 3, 2023

 

Dear Departed, 1946 by Marvin Cone (American, 1891-1965)

Dear Departed, 1946 by Marvin Cone (American, 1891-1965) 

Click to enlarge.

When those that want to govern wish to do so extrajudicially.

Many of our issues today seem products of the earlier Obama Administration.  To the point that some critics refer to this as Obama's third term with Biden cast as a puppet under the control of all the old Obama retreads in the current administration.  Maybe.

Regardless of that argument, I do keep recalling some words spoken by Michelle Obama right at the beginning, perhaps during the run up to Obama's election.  She was a clarion call for the central planner and coercive governance.  It was alarming then and is alarming now as we witness an administration more and more willing to curtail civil rights and imprison those with whom they disagree.  Less and less committed to freedom of speech and more antagonistic to equality before the law.

Something I read today made passing reference to Michelle's speech and I finally went out to find it.  From “Barack Will Never Allow You to Go Back to Your Lives as Usual.” by Jim Geraghty.

Last night I appeared on Hugh’s show, and his producer Duane mentioned a Michelle Obama speech at UCLA. Captain Ed talked about this a bit, but I hadn’t seen anyone transcribe the part of the speech where it gets a little… unnerving. It starts at about 8:41 in the audio.

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

I’m sorry, nowhere in the Constitution does it authorize the President of the United States to demand anyone shed their cynicism. And I’m all for people pushing themselves to be better, but I don’t think the President demanding it is the way to go about it.

And what if we kind of like our lives as usual? What about Americans’ freedom to be uninvolved and uninformed?

The links to the original Michelle Obama speech are in the article.  

History

3 Oct 1952: #Tea rations in #Britain, implemented as a result of World War II, are lifted 12 years after they were imposed. They were first imposed in July 1940 and set at an impressive ~three cups a day. #WWII #WW2 #OTD #teatime #history #ad https://t.co/6Z8zT6ZDJy pic.twitter.com/IpLnk5Nb1e

— Today In History (@URDailyHistory) October 3, 2023

 

IYI in the senate

I clicked through simply from curiosity.  This must be a misrepresentation!  What is the real deal?  From Elizabeth Warren Wants the Government To Investigate America's 'Sandwich Shop Monopoly' by Christin Britschgi.  The subheading is The owner of Jimmy John's and Arby's has bought Subway, and a Massachusetts senator has concerns.

As it turns out, no, this is an accurate headline reflecting the real situation.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) thinks the government should investigate America's alleged "sandwich shop monopoly."

"We don't need another private equity deal that could lead to higher food prices for consumers," Warren tweeted Sunday. She was responding to a Politico piece reporting that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is probing the private equity firm Roark Capital's $10 billion acquisition of Subway.

Roark already owns the sandwich-serving chains Arby's, Jimmy Johns, McAlister's Deli, and Schlotzky's. Warren said that adding Subway to that list could create a "sandwich shop monopoly."

There is an outpouring of commentary providing both economic theory and economic historical research demonstrating the incredible witlessness of being a US senator with an anti-market obsession.  The direct responses to her tweet are entertaining.  The importance of taking a stand against Big Sandwich is roundly ridiculed. 

Reminds me of Nassim Nicholas Taleb in Skin in the Game.  

You can be an intellectual yet still be an idiot. 'Educated philistines' have been wrong on everything from Stalinism to Iraq to low-carb diets.

 Later he simplified it to the more succinct category - IYI, Intellectual, yet idiot.  

Demonstrating an otherwise impossible unawareness

I am seeing more and more of this and I do not know whether it is a frequency illusion or random chance or symptomatic of something deeper.  

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona:

"I think it was President Reagan who said, 'We're from the government. We're here to help!'"

Here's the actual quote:

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help." pic.twitter.com/Hgxpt2Xdoh

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) November 27, 2023

Someone with, presumably, a solid education in a position of power or influence revealing deep unawareness of context, misinterpretation of facts or simply obliviousness.  Miguel Cardona (PhD from Connecticut University) would have been thirteen at the close of Ronald Reagan's administration. Right on the cusp of being reasonable that he should actually remember some of that history and dismissing it as him just being a kid.  Regardless, his entire career has been in government and education.  You sure would have thought he knew the full context of Reagan's quote.

Maybe his testimony was written by a young staffer who did not know better and he didn't have a chance to check the transcript before he testified.  Or maybe he just verbally fumbled.

All seemingly unlikely explanations but at least somewhat plausible.

A few weeks ago I saw something similar in an interview with Bill Maher.  It was some reasonably fundamental reality which seemed improbable and unlikely to him but is widely know to everyone else.  I don't remember the topic but an analogy would have been had he claimed that the defund the police movement had not affected policing.  It is widely known and understood by most people and ardently and ideologically denied by a few.

There were at least a couple of other instances in the past month.

Smart people professing or accidentally revealing that they are completely unaware of something which is widely known by everyone else.  

It feels like a real phenomenon but perhaps it is only an illusion.  I'll have to pay attention and see how often it occurs.

An Insight

The academic and media establishment’s abandonment of the serious task of inspiring men doesn’t bode well for the left’s political prospects.

Progressives used to think about Ancient Rome, every day. https://t.co/0eKBFepioK

— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) October 3, 2023

 

I see wonderful things

A glacial pool that looks like a portal to another realm

📹John Dertingpic.twitter.com/b66ApO103m

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) September 29, 2023

 

Offbeat Humor

A title published 20 years ago by a writer of profound obscurity, originally written in a language of which there remain fewer than 10,000 speakers, overwritten to the point of madness, and addressing a particular - yet somehow entirely "universal" - problem of "the other ". https://t.co/n6GK7egiI2

— Caitlin Flanagan (@CaitlinPacific) October 1, 2023

 

Data Talks

Absolutely bonkers stat https://t.co/Pp5tRCBWBk

— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) October 3, 2023

 

Winter at the Painter’s House, 1942 by Sven Erixson (Swedish,1899-1970)

Winter at the Painter’s House, 1942 by Sven Erixson (Swedish,1899-1970)

Click to enlarge.

Journalism and class

From The McDonald's theory of why everyone thinks the economy sucks by Nate Silver.  The subheading is Americans are spending as much of their paychecks as ever on fast food — and everything else.

The mainstream media has been working hard to advance the message of a booming Bidenonomics economy where inflation is in the rear view mirror and everyone doesn't understand just how well they are doing.  The MSM is hot on the idea that there is a lot of misinformation that it is their duty as administration apparatchiks to correct.  

Silver, in his usual data-based fashion explores the issue.

I eat fast food.

Not often, but also not rarely. Maybe once or twice a month in a late-night munchies context. Maybe another couple times when I’m at an airport or something. And I don’t just eat at the highbrow “fast casual” restaurants like Shake Shack, although I like them. I am also well-acquainted with the Taco Bell menu.

I wonder how often Jeff Stein and Taylor Lorenz — the authors of a recent Washington Post story on customer perceptions about the economy — eat from chains like McDonald’s and Taco Bell. I’m guessing it’s not very much.2 Because despite their attempt to frame consumer perceptions about high fast-food prices as “misinformation”, it’s in fact a category where there’s been a big increase in how much consumers are spending, and one that tells us a lot about why Americans are unhappy with the economy overall.

Here’s their story. An Idaho man posted a TikTok video of a McDonald’s order of a burger, fries and a Sprite that cost $16.10. What Stein and Lorenz want you to believe3 is that people are being misled by videos like these. The man ordered a “novelty item”, they say — a limited edition smoky double quarter pounder BLT (sounds yummy). But a Big Mac is much cheaper, they say:

The average Big Mac nationally as of this summer cost $5.58, up from $4.89 — or roughly 70 cents — before Biden took office, according to an index maintained by the Economist. That’s up more than 10 percent, but it’s not $16.

This is a weird and somewhat non-sequitur framing. For one thing, there actually has been quite a bit of inflation in Big Macs. According to the data they cite, Big Mac prices increased by 14 percent over the wo-and-a-half year period from December 2020 through June 2023. That’s not that bad compared to other goods and services; the overall consumer price index (CPI) increased by 16 percent over the same period. But, it’s still pretty high, and Big Mac prices had been fairly steady for years before 2020.

Also, since Stein and Lorenz are accusing consumers of falling for a cherry-picked data point — the Idaho man’s order — it’s worth noting that prices in the broader category of food away from home have grown faster than inflation overall, increasing by 18 percent over that window. It shouldn’t be hard to understand why people are unhappy about that.

That’s not the most important point, though. Instead, it’s something a little more subtle: people aren’t just paying more, they’re spending more. Put another way, they’re not just paying more for the same basket of goods — how the government defines inflation — they’re also putting more and more expensive goods in their basket.

It is a worthwhile read because it is both nuanced and consequential.  

He does not focus on the other implication which is that much of the misreporting from the mainstream media might not be primarily due to ideological fervor or ignorance (though those traits are probably contributive.)  

There has been, in the past three decades, more and more of a class divergence between the remaining journalists and the American public.  Journalists increasingly tend to be from privileged backgrounds, have elite university educations, live in big cities, cobble together reasonably high incomes, hobnob with the well endowed and the well-placed.  As Silver hints, Lorenz and Stein are not of the same class of those experiencing the type of inflation which most Americans experience.  In some ways this a rehash of the kerfuffle in 2017 when it became apparent how foreign pick-up trucks were to journalists despite pick-up trucks being the largest category of vehicle sales in America.  

We need more class diversity in our newsrooms and there are plenty of candidates whose positions might be more usefully filled by people with different class markers (and more numerate.)

Civil rights require the rule of law but universities are terrified of enforcing the law

From Where Free Speech Ends and Lawbreaking Begins by Ilya Shapiro.  The subheading is The First Amendment does not give carte blanche to intimidation and harassment, writes Ilya Shapiro.

When I first read the headline, I almost skipped the article because it sounded like some pro-censorship mainstream media piece wanting to censor speech of which it did not approve.  But then I saw it was by Shapiro who is an ardent free speech advocate and so I read it.  His article is basically a refresher as to what is covered by free speech and what constitutes a crime.  Everyone ought to read it as a good philosophical refresher (or introduction for some) as well as a practical guideline as to how to uphold free speech and how to protect it by enforcing the law when people go beyond the bounds of free speech.  

Much of the repugnance of the pro-Hamas demonstrations is not just their message but that the universities and municipalities are tolerating unlawful behavior which infringes the free speech of others.  The solution is to enforce the law.  

Pro-Palestinian groups have harassed and even assaulted Jewish students; protesters have interrupted courses and taken over buildings; Ivy League professors have called Hamas’s attack “exhilarating” and “awesome”; students have torn down posters of missing Israeli children; others have chanted—and even projected onto university buildings—slogans, like “from the river to the sea,” “globalize the intifada,” and “glory to our martyrs.”

In response to such activities, universities have suspended or banned student groups like Students for Justice in Palestine. Alumni have pulled their donations and publicly stated that they won’t hire students who signed letters blaming Israel for the massacre. Republican lawmakers have suggested revoking the student visas of those participating in anti-Israel protests.

This obviously sets up the challenge.  We want maximal support of free speech within the law which requires extreme patience with noxious speech.  There is always a temptation to encroach on free speech when it is noxious speech.  Tempting as it might be, that should always be avoided.

Instead, the focus should be, as Shapiro highlights, on policing where free speech shifts into illegal behavior and violence.

Much of what we’ve witnessed on campuses over the past few weeks is not, in fact, speech, but conduct designed specifically to harass, intimidate, and terrorize Jews. Other examples involve disruptive speech that can properly be regulated by school rules. Opposing or taking action against such behavior in no way violates the core constitutional principle that the government can’t punish you for expressing your beliefs.

Shaprio then goes through several categories such as the distinction between speech and conduct; speech versus disruption; professorial free speech versus creating hostile educational environments; the rights of foreign nationals versus those of nationals; university acceptance of illegal protest behavior despite its abrogation of Title VI Civil Rights responsibilities, etc.  

It is worth reading the whole article as a refresher, for all the links, and because all the philosophical issues are tied to real incidents at universities over the past month.  

History

Ancient Phoenician Glassware (450 BC), found on Rhodes, Greece.

National Archaeological Museum, Athens#archaeohistories pic.twitter.com/mzO7DT3QKC

— Archaeo - Histories (@archeohistories) September 28, 2023

 

An Insight

2 years later and I can finally talk about this ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/o6jFqMzY05

— Trevor Bauer (トレバー・バウアー) (@BauerOutage) October 2, 2023

 

I see wonderful things

The rift valley is located in Pinglu, Shanxi on the Loess Plateau, a highland area in north-central China covering some 400,000 square km. It was formed due to movements within the earth's crust and its about 10 km longpic.twitter.com/kErrV2bkt2

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 29, 2023

 

Offbeat Humor

pic.twitter.com/HzVo4qRWTV

— Idiots In Cars (@Idiots1nCars) June 30, 2023

 

Data Talks

Motor vehicles per 1,000 people:

🇬🇮 Gibraltar: 1,444
🇸🇲 San Marino: 1,300
🇱🇮 Liechtenstein: 1,193
🇦🇩 Andorra: 1,050
🇲🇨 Monaco: 910
🇳🇿 New Zealand: 884
🇺🇸 USA: 831
🇨🇦 Canada: 790
🇫🇮 Finland: 790
🇲🇹 Malta: 786
🇱🇺 Luxembourg: 784
🇦🇺 Australia: 782
🇮🇹 Italy: 755
🇪🇪 Estonia: 720
🇵🇱…

— World of Statistics (@stats_feed) October 2, 2023

 

Two Puritans, 1945 by Edward Hopper

Two Puritans, 1945 by Edward Hopper

Click to enlarge.

The unseen doers transcend the chatterers

A serendipitous sequence of recollections which build to an observation.

I saw a brief mention of Malcolm McLean, the North Carolinian who revolutionized transportation, shipping, and global trade beginning in the 1960s with his introduction of containerized shipping. 

Malcolm Purcell McLean (November 14, 1913 – May 25, 2001) was an American businessman who invented the modern intermodal shipping container, which revolutionized transport and international trade in the second half of the twentieth century. Containerization led to a significant reduction in the cost of freight transportation by eliminating the need for repeated handling of individual pieces of cargo, and also improved reliability, reduced cargo theft, and cut inventory costs by shortening transit time. Containerization is a major driver of globalization.

McLean personally, corporately, and the industry collectively spent billions over four decades radically upgrading the physical nature and attributes of the logistics industry.  In addition to reduced breakage, reduced pilferage, more efficient use of scarce cargo hold space, dramatically reduced dockage labor costs and time, containerization effectively cut shipping costs by 95%.  Without the efficiency, security, effectiveness, and cheapness of containerization, global trade today would be a shadow of itself.  The world would be dramatically poorer.

Seeing the piece about McLean made me think of Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution.  

Norman Ernest Borlaug (/ˈbɔːrlɔːɡ/; March 25, 1914 – September 12, 2009) was an American agronomist who led initiatives worldwide that contributed to the extensive increases in agricultural production termed the Green Revolution. Borlaug was awarded multiple honors for his work, including the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.

Borlaug received his B.S. in forestry in 1937 and PhD in plant pathology and genetics from the University of Minnesota in 1942. He took up an agricultural research position with CIMMYT in Mexico, where he developed semi-dwarf, high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties. During the mid-20th century, Borlaug led the introduction of these high-yielding varieties combined with modern agricultural production techniques to Mexico, Pakistan, and India. As a result, Mexico became a net exporter of wheat by 1963. Between 1965 and 1970, wheat yields nearly doubled in Pakistan and India, greatly improving the food security in those nations.

Borlaug was often called "the father of the Green Revolution", and is credited with saving over a billion people worldwide from starvation.

From the 1960's onwards, Borlaug's research and ideas not only substantially reduced the number of people dying from starvation they also materially increased agricultural productivity.  

Borlaug helped innovate food production and McLean made it cheap to ship everything, including food, wherever things are needed and wanted.  

And hardly anyone knows their names.  They had a huge impact on the world's built environment, on the world's commerce and prosperity, and they had a huge impact on the world's well-being in terms of both morbidity and mortality.  And all behind the scenes.

And today I am seeing articles such as Microsoft Infrastructure - AI & CPU Custom Silicon Maia 100, Athena, Cobalt 100 by Dylan Patel and Myron Xie and Links for 2023-11-20 by Alexander Kruel.  They are reporting on a series on planned investments by Microsoft over the next few years.  From Patel and Xie:

Microsoft is currently conducting the largest infrastructure buildout that humanity has ever seen. While that may seem like hyperbole, look at the annual spend of mega projects such as nationwide rail networks, dams, or even space programs such as the Apollo moon landings, and they all pale in comparison to the >$50 billion annual spend on datacenters Microsoft has penned in for 2024 and beyond. This infrastructure buildout is aimed squarely at accelerating the path to AGI and bringing the intelligence of generative AI to every facet of life from productivity applications to leisure.

Whether AGI pans out and with it Microsoft's gamble, we have much the same going on as with Borlaug and McLean.  A multi-decadal transformation of infrastructure and production to the betterment of everyone but largely unseen, unnoted and unremarked.  

It feels like 95% of our daily discourse is sheer propaganda and noise, or ill-considered opinions about dubious or irrelevant things and only 5% has to do with anything important.  In contrast, the things that have made 95% of the difference in modern lives are almost undiscussed at all.  

History

The Inca Quipu, sometimes spelled “khipu,” was a unique and sophisticated system of record-keeping and communication used by the Inca civilization in pre-Columbian South America. It consisted of intricately knotted cords made from llama or alpaca wool, with various colors and… pic.twitter.com/BkWHKmo7tI

— Archaeo - Histories (@archeohistories) September 28, 2023

 

An Insight

The obsession with claiming that everyone who criticizes US foreign policy -- or the US Security State -- is a Russian agent or a Kremlin apologist is at least as widespread, intense and deranged as it was at the height of McCarthyism. This time it's led by liberals and neocons.

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 2, 2023

 

I see wonderful things

That landing 👌🏼 A sugar glider is a small, omnivorous, arboreal, and nocturnal gliding possum. The common name refers to its predilection for sugary foods such as sap and nectar and its ability to glide through the air, much like a flying squirrel. pic.twitter.com/RySN6IoClC

— H0W_THlNGS_W0RK (@HowThingsWork_) September 28, 2023

 

Offbeat Humor

“My client Commander Biden asks that you respect his privacy at this time.” — Meatball Jones, Esq., Pit Bull https://t.co/JMQffneV22 pic.twitter.com/LRwostYW2n

— The Onion (@TheOnion) October 5, 2023

 

Data Talks

Analysts can determine economic growth based on satellite data. Looking at such data shows that democracies generally report their numbers accurately while dictatorships don't.

Per capita GDP in dictatorships might be *half* of official numbers. https://t.co/Artfza4J6h pic.twitter.com/IZep5J1NiW

— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) October 2, 2023

 

The Caravan Park, 2007 by Jeffrey Smart (Australian, 1921-2013)

The Caravan Park, 2007 by Jeffrey Smart (Australian, 1921-2013) 

Click to enlarge.

Well, ain't that the truth

From East Coker by T.S. Eliot.

Trying to use words, and every attempt

Is a wholy new start, and a different kind of failure

Because one has only learnt to get the better of words

For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which

One is no longer disposed to say it.

History

What happened when the musket was introduced to the Māori and some of them discovered their pacifist island neighbours?

My latest writing, about the near annihilation of the Moriori people and its aftermath. https://t.co/P8E9GHZg5Z

— Stone Age Herbalist (@Paracelsus1092) September 28, 2023

 

An Insight

They're actually saying they didn’t force you to mask, lock down & shutter your businesses, choose between taking an experimental drug or losing your job. You're crazy if you think they did. You're lying. You're exaggerating & overreacting @Attorney_Cox https://t.co/EYJIGgzf8v

— Brownstone Institute (@brownstoneinst) October 3, 2023

 

I see wonderful things

In Florida, a driver lost consciousness and other drivers on the road stepped in to help. This moment was caught on camera 🎥🚗 pic.twitter.com/ANsq6QQP3Z

— Wow Videos (@ViralXfun) September 28, 2023

 

Offbeat Humor

As DEI initiatives make it harder for white and Asian men in tech, I have a feeling that we’ll see a lot more white+Asian “trans women” and “non-binaries” that will be placed above “cis women” on the oppressed stack. Anyone who questions them will be called a transphobic bigot. https://t.co/vfQ5hgyuiI

— Yang (@SheluyangPeng) October 3, 2023

 

Data Talks

Slightly less than a third of violent crime in 1655-1755 Bologna was committed using sticks and stones. Presumably, the victim's bones were broken. pic.twitter.com/1OCWkevhI9

— LiorLefineder (@lefineder) September 22, 2023

 

Data Talks

There aren't as many criminals as you may think. It's just a few people that do a whole lot of crime. https://t.co/YZFJVycNrS

— Peter Moskos (@PeterMoskos) October 2, 2023

 

View from a Window, 1909 by Spencer Gore

View from a Window, 1909 by Spencer Gore

Click to enlarge.

The end is where we start from

I visited an Indian Hindu temple today, spending several  hours there with an Indian friend who spent the time explaining the intricacies and attributes of the temple and the ceremonies.  At one point we sat before a central area before images of Indian sacred figures.  At the close of the ceremony, you walk multiple times around the central chamber, as an act representing the centrality of religion and the sacred to one's life.  As we walked, Eliot's words were called unbidden to mind from Little Gidding by T.S. Eliot.

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from.

Then, later in the poem,

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

History

Heading back to Bury St. Edmund's in a couple of weeks and I'll be visiting these 'hobbit houses' again. I had to blink twice when I first saw them. Infilled into the remains of the west front of the Abbey of St. Edmund. #throwbackthursday pic.twitter.com/uPdsSxGyzw

— Andy Marshall 📸 (@fotofacade) September 28, 2023

 

An Insight

There aren't as many criminals as you may think. It's just a few people that do a whole lot of crime. https://t.co/YZFJVycNrS

— Peter Moskos (@PeterMoskos) October 2, 2023

 

I see wonderful things

Beautiful bioluminescence of the microscopic organism known as sea sparkles (Noctiluca scintillans).pic.twitter.com/JqP4b9cgl6

— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) September 28, 2023

 

Offbeat Humor

https://t.co/wiVCPzJnyw pic.twitter.com/DwioWWyI2J

— Varad Mehta (@varadmehta) October 2, 2023

 

Data Talks

"The average tempo of a hit song has been getting slower since 2000, but slow dancing has almost disappeared.

The slow tune is no longer dreamy music for couples, but sad, lonely music for the isolated and depressed."@tedgioiahttps://t.co/cL2KBDHgp7

— Dain Fitzgerald (@DainFitzgerald) September 10, 2023

 

Réflexion bleue dans la fontaine du Pradet, 1917 by Henri Lebasque (1865-1937)

Réflexion bleue dans la fontaine du Pradet, 1917 by Henri Lebasque (1865-1937)

Click to enlarge.

History

A golden ram and a stone lion, found in a tomb at the archaeological site of Gonur Depe (2400-1600 BC) in Turkmenistan.

The finger in the background shows how small these figures are, demonstrating the extraordinary skill of the craftsmen.#drthehistories pic.twitter.com/K4W3x2CUQp

— Dr. M.F. Khan (@Dr_TheHistories) September 28, 2023

 

An Insight

It's obvious that NYC's sewer system needs to be upgraded significantly to handle heavy rain as seen in 1882, 1903, 2007, 2011, 2021, and now September 29, 2023.

However, according to the NYC Chief Climate Officer, that is too expensive.

"We can't rebuild every sewer. It…

— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) September 30, 2023

 

Thanksgiving by the numbers

Ignoring the earlier (1607) Jamestown, Virginia settlement which was an entirely different dynamic, the English settlement of North America beginning with the Mayflower at Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620 has always been noted as markedly different from other European incursions and settlements on the North American continent.  Elsewhere conquest and commerce were the driving force and the participants were largely or exclusively male.  Women came later; families much later; civilized settlements of families last of all.  

The Pilgrim, and later Puritan, settlements in New England were religious certainly, but were also the migration of families permanently into new lands.  Whole families arrived together at the very beginning, sometimes representing a significant proportion of the towns and counties they left behind.  Indeed, the British Crown was stuck with a dilemma.

On the one hand, the throne was strident to the point of brutality in their repression of religious non-conformers, those who did not adhere with great consistency to the teachings of the Church of England.  The Crown also did not want, indeed could not afford, a loss of population at a time of many monarchical rivalries in Europe.  The English monarchy did not want Puritans but also did not want them to leave.

And the government made it difficult for the Pilgrims to leave through imposition of taxes and regulations and port controls.  

Family-based emigration meant that the emigrants were non-representative and distinct.  They were wealthier, better educated, more literate, more skilled and more varied in their skills than any other comparable European settlement group of the time.  In addition to their experience as a religious movement, many of them already had experience living in a foreign land and experience with community self-governance.  

Or at least that is the stereotype.  Is it the reality?  Were families more prevalent?  Its always worth checking the numbers.

Apparently so.  There were 102 Pilgrims on the Mayflower.  69 of them were traveling in families.  And that is probably an undercount.  We know who traveled in family units with shared family names but some number of the single men were almost certainly relatives but with different names (a nephew of a sister for example).  

The first year of settlement, as is widely known, was brutal, landing on an unfamiliar and unanticipated shore much farther north than intended, much later in the year than planned and with much less time to prepare for what turned out to be a hard winter.  Of the 102 Pilgrims who landed, only 51 survived into the new year to celebrate the first Thanksgiving in the fall of 1621.

The winnowing was especially heavy among the adult women.  As best I can calculate, of the 102 Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock in November 1620, 51 remained alive to celebrate that first Thanksgiving in 1621.

Of the 102 Pilgrims who arrived:

54 were adult men, 29 of whom died that first winter.  They had a death rate of 54%.

21 were adult women, 13 of whom died that first winter.  They had a death rate of 62%.

28 were children, 7 of whom died that first winter.  They had a death rate of 25%.

69 of the 102 passengers traveled as members of 23 families, constituting 67% of the passengers.  32 of the 69 died that first winter, with a death rate of 46%.

Of the 18 married women, 13 died (72%) that first winter, only 5 survived.  Among the survivors was my 10th great-grandmother, Mary Brewster.   

12 of the fifteen married women who had children with them on the voyage died, a death rate of 80%.  

9 of the fifteen men who children accompanying them on the voyage died, a death rate of 60%. 

 

Those numbers are horrific.  However, the 25% death rate among children is striking for how low it is in comparison to the total.  It is even more striking because three of the seven child deaths were three very young siblings (the More children) who were traveling without their parents on the ocean journey.  In other words, the survival rate (84%) of children actually in families was dramatically higher than for everyone else.

While the death rate among women is distinctly higher than for men, it is, in the scheme of things, not especially surprising given the realities of the time.  A good portion of women were already pregnant when they boarded the Mayflower, (indeed, Oceanus was born at sea and two or three more soon after arrival).  The stress of the journey in combination with food shortages, little shelter, harsh environment, and poor communal hygiene would have made pregnant women especially vulnerable.  

Of the 23 families, 5 came through with no one dying.  In five instances, everyone died.  In six families, both parents died leaving five orphaned children between the ages of 12 and 18.  

Mayflower: Voyage, Community, War by Nathaniel Philbrick is an especially good account of the voyage and the first fews years of survival on these far distant shores from anything those Pilgrims had ever known or experienced.  

For all the trials and tragedies of those first years, it is striking to read the biographies of the survivors.  Time and again you have some later dying at 50, 60, 70 years of age and with five, ten and fifteen children.  Dark tribulations preceded dramatic outcomes.  

I write this in memory of my mother Virginia Latting Bayless who passed away this Spring.  She was a keen genealogist all her years.  In the past decade, I took on more of the research for her and, as in this case, the sort of analysis which sheds light on realities which are sometimes hard to comprehend.  We would have had a good conversation about all the details and what they meant.  I do and will miss those calls with her.  

I see wonderful things

A Spanish version of “in a while, crocodile” is me las piro, vampiro. It means “I’m outta here, vampire”

* read on for lots more rhyming farewells from around the world (a thread)…

— Adam Sharp (@AdamCSharp) September 28, 2023

 

Offbeat Humor

Response to @DouthatNYT on Two-Parent Familieshttps://t.co/FQbiq8gkPj pic.twitter.com/3zt71TzNZs

— Matt Bruenig (@MattBruenig) September 30, 2023

 

Data Talks

The transition from horse power to cars also took time. So many horses were used to create goods and food and to get them to market. I waited for technology to improve and am going to use it to replace old technology. It’s getting closer to the tipping point, only a few more yrs. pic.twitter.com/sMDq1PNXGW

— BarbaraGirouard, Stranger in a Stranger Land 🌻 (@BarbaraGirouard) November 7, 2022

 

City, 2023 by Jeremy Miranda (USA)

City, 2023 by Jeremy Miranda (USA)

Click to enlarge.

History

The small village of Pietragalla; in Italy, is characterized by Palmenti park: a complex of "caves". These cellars-caves dug into the rock dating back to 18th and 19th Centuries CE, and were once used for production of wine. Still used today for the conservation of wine. These… pic.twitter.com/2jzSqlqB6j

— Archaeo - Histories (@archeohistories) October 31, 2023

 

An Insight

As seen from battle deaths:https://t.co/GliJQfINkp

— LiorLefineder (@lefineder) September 23, 2023

 

I see wonderful things

Fingal's Cave is a sea cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa, in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland Scotland, known for its natural acoustics

It is formed entirely from hexagonally jointed basalt columns within a Paleocene lava flow

📹Verginia Hristova /verginia pic.twitter.com/B4RJoeWgyC

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) September 28, 2023

 

Offbeat Humor

the forest spirit pic.twitter.com/6TeiHfJYF5

— Dont Show Your Cat (@DontShowYourCat) September 30, 2023

 

Data Talks

Fentanyl and suicide have overtaken traffic accidents, heart disease, and cancer as the top killers of 18-44-year-olds. https://t.co/xgfjaXFZlg

— Julia Pollak (@juliaonjobs) September 28, 2023

 

Moonlit Night in the Village by Artist Sergey Dorofeev

Moonlit Night in the Village by Artist Sergey Dorofeev

Click to enlarge.

History

Amethyst intaglio warship, Roman, 1st century AD, from Bertolami Fine Arts. pic.twitter.com/mSNEc92XD4

— Ghost of Hellas (@ghostofhellas) September 28, 2023

 

An Insight

The CCP has been such a drag on the economic development of China that Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan are, in order of GDP per capita, #1, #10, #12 respectively compared to China at #73 (out of 192).https://t.co/0tcK3smJhw

— LorenzoFromOz (@LorenzoFrom) October 11, 2023

 

I see wonderful things

On this day 197 years ago the world's first ever public railway was opened in northern England.

And a whole new form of architecture was born: the train station.

So, to celebrate, here are some of the world's greatest train stations... pic.twitter.com/rvxqgO54PG

— The Cultural Tutor (@culturaltutor) September 27, 2023

 

Offbeat Humor

REPORTER: “Do you support Trump’s call to shut down the government?”

REP. BURCHETT (R-TN): “I do not support you wearing black socks with short pants.” pic.twitter.com/aTU9xsZAwp

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) September 27, 2023

 

Either write things worth reading, Or do things worth the writing.

From Poor Richard's Almanack, 1738 by Benjamin Franklin.

If you would not be forgotten

As soon as you are dead and rotten,

Either write things worth reading,

Or do things worth the writing.

Data Talks

New study:

• CO2 "only affects a small range of long-wave re-radiation from the surface of the Earth."

• "CO2 is not the cause of climate change."

• Solar cycles suggest the next glaciation has begun (2020).

• CO2 is "fundamental" to life on Earth.https://t.co/ASRYSL8O8l pic.twitter.com/h0Fwolqq5f

— Kenneth Richard (@Kenneth72712993) September 28, 2023

 

A Square in Girona, 2023 by Aldo Balding (British, b.1960)

A Square in Girona, 2023 by Aldo Balding (British, b.1960) 

Click to enlarge.

The very purpose of the First Amendment is to foreclose public authority from assuming a guardianship of the public mind through regulating the press, speech and religion.

In the past, I have come across some of the words of Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson.  

From his decision in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette regarding compelled speech:

As governmental pressure toward unity becomes greater, so strife becomes more bitter as to whose unity it shall be…Ultimate futility of such attempts to compel coherence is the lesson of every such effort from the Roman drive to stamp out Christianity as a disturber of its pagan unity, the Inquisition, as a means to religious and dynastic unity, the Siberian exiles as a means to Russian unity, down to the fast failing efforts of our present totalitarian enemies. Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.

Justice Antonin Scalia, no mean stylist himself, described Jackson as "the best legal stylist of the 20th century."  

I stumble across these items this morning and start rooting around for more information about the words and works of Jackson.  Of course, Wikiquote is a good starting point.  For a man who was United States Solicitor General, United States Attorney General, and an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, as well as the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, it was worth paying attention to his opinions.

In this wretched moment when the administration is so eager to eviscerate the First Amendment and has been so ardent in pursuing technology companies to become an arm of the federal government to restrict speech and has sought so enthusiastically to create new agencies tasked with policing speech and more specifically tasked with determining what is true enough for citizens to be allowed to hear, these words from Jackson are a balm.

The very purpose of the First Amendment is to foreclose public authority from assuming a guardianship of the public mind through regulating the press, speech and religion. In this field, every person must be his own watchman for truth, because the forefathers did not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us.

Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516 (1945) p. 323 U. S. 545

History

Lion Tower (600 BC) located at archaeological site of Delos, located near Mykonos in Cyclades in Aegean Sea, Greece.

Island of Delos is considered to be birthplace of god Apollo and his sister Artemis, an important religious center in ancient Greece, first full lion was… pic.twitter.com/urG31dNKoS

— Archaeo - Histories (@archeohistories) September 28, 2023

 

An Insight

The Era of Policy-Based Evidence-Making - https://t.co/7GAWgZ4F42

— Charles Bayless (@CharlesBayless) September 30, 2023