An Insight

Whoever wants to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times.

— Niccolò Machiavelli | The Prince ⚔️ (@NiccoloDaily) October 13, 2024

 

I see wonderful things

An erupting Volcán de Fuego surrounded by a sea of clouds in Guatemala.pic.twitter.com/j7Xh7IxdZ7

— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) October 20, 2024

 

Offbeat Humor

I’ll take a flanged mace (and a bec de Corbin because it sounds cool). pic.twitter.com/tzRy7MR5t4

— Judianna (@Judianna) October 14, 2024

 

The first, I believe, is compulsory, the second optional.

From The Complete Saki.  Page 10.

“The mystery is what they find to talk about in the country.”

“There are two subjects of conversation in the country: Servants, and Can fowls be made to pay? The first, I believe, is compulsory, the second optional.”

Data Talks

The US economy has an insane ability to reinvent itself again and again. Source: https://t.co/jMoM7PuGvi pic.twitter.com/KHqJKiLYqg

— Simon Kuestenmacher (@simongerman600) October 16, 2024

 

Abide with me by Clare Allan

Abide with me by Clare Allan

Click to enlarge.

History

Gianni Berengo Gardin - Venise, 1955 pic.twitter.com/4Md3oGVeZc

— CameraLab (@cameralab21) October 19, 2024

 

An Insight

The public sector vs the private sector: pic.twitter.com/JpAEsU5sNq

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) October 13, 2024

 

I see wonderful things

"It is a great gift to be able to bear loneliness and to derive pleasure from it."
Bernard Shaw
🌜📖🌛
Good night pic.twitter.com/nTWEFON4zF

— Cursive Entelechia (@Pergament_F) November 1, 2024

 

Offbeat Humor

 

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Data Talks

Canada being 1/3rd foreign-born is pretty remarkable.

U.S. by contrast is about 1/7th. https://t.co/ki3iswFkUd

— Charles Fain Lehman (@CharlesFLehman) October 15, 2024

 

She must have been rather a problem at Christmas-time; nothing short of a blank cheque would have fitted the situation.

From The Complete Saki.  Page 10.

And then, of course, there are liqueur glasses, and crystallized fruits, and tapestry curtains, and heaps of other necessaries of life that make really sensible presents—not to speak of luxuries, such as having one’s bills paid, or getting something quite sweet in the way of jewellery. Unlike the alleged Good Woman of the Bible, I'm not above rubies. When found, by the way, she must have been rather a problem at Christmas-time; nothing short of a blank cheque would have fitted the situation. Perhaps it’s as well that she’s died out.

Ginkgo Tree, 1965 by Shiro Kasamatsu (Japanese, 1898 - 1991)

Ginkgo Tree, 1965 by Shiro Kasamatsu (Japanese, 1898 - 1991) 

Click to enlarge.

The road are actually in reasonably good shape

A very good effort to quantify road quality in the US from How Good Are American Roads? by Brian Potter.  

There is periodically Mandarin Class panics about the state of American Infrastructure.  The source of the panic frequently varies.  Sometimes it is bridges, sometimes the rail system, sometimes roads, sometimes maritime ports, sometimes airports.  And always, the panic has one solution spend more money.

Cheap, safe and reliable transportation is indeed a critical foundation for all modern economies.  But whenever you go looking for the empirical basis for any particular panic, it rarely is built on much more than anecdotes.  Which is no basis for allocating scarce capital on long term assets.

Fortunately, at the local and tactical level, engineers tend to be more level headed and do a better job of tending to the quality of the nation's infrastructure with the most critical elements usually receiving the most attention.

Whenever this does not happen, it is almost always where a taxing jurisdiction (City, County or State) has been unduly profligate (usually on pensions) and have foregone necessary maintenance or capital upgrades.  That is, of course, a governance issue more than an engineering one.

Potter finds it challenging to gather comparable consistent data (international being more obscure than within the US) to establish a clear and uniform picture but his findings are interesting.  

One facet of infrastructure that doesn’t get all that much attention is roads, despite the fact that they’re crucial transportation infrastructure, and probably the infrastructure that Americans interact with most directly and consistently. The US has the largest road network in the world, about 4.3 million miles of road, and Americans drive much more than residents in most other countries. Good-quality roads are important for a functioning economy, and rough roads inflict costs in the form of reduced vehicle speeds.

The US is about 4% of the global population, has 10% of the global roads, 25% of the global rail system, 28% of air travel/freight,  and is about 26% of the global economy.  The US also has a far greater riverine system and associated river transport than virtually any other country.  Altogether the US has an immense, intricate, and multi-layered transport network allowing an unusual degree of mode shifting (changing between forms of transport) compared to most other countries.

As a single example, Russia has very little national highway system and is primarily dependent on rail for most transport and haulage.

So what did Potter find?

How good is American road infrastructure? How does it compare with roads built in other countries?

Overall, the quality of US interstates is very high, while the quality of roads in major cities is quite poor. And while there’s some anecdotal evidence that US roads are worse than European roads, I wasn’t able to find much international road quality data to compare. The limited data I found points to the US not being a huge outlier in road quality. But more data is needed to compare accurately.

[snip]

With non-interstates, we see more variation. Broadly, highly rural states tend to have higher quality roads than more urbanized states, though there’s a decent amount of variation. California, which is reasonably rural, nevertheless comes in third from the bottom. Interestingly, I expected cold places to have lower road quality in general due to things like freeze-thaw cycles and the impact of road salting, but there doesn’t seem to be much correlation. Plenty of cold places (North Dakota, Wyoming, Minnesota) have good-quality roads, while plenty of warm places (Louisiana, New Mexico, California) have poor-quality roads.

[snip]

While urban roads are poor in general, there’s a large amount of variation. Cities like Atlanta and Minneapolis have less than 10% of their roads are poor quality or worse, while more than 60% of the roads in San Francisco and Los Angeles are poor. But in general, most major cities aren’t doing great: in 13 of the 19 largest US cities, more than 1/3rd of the roads are poor quality. And here again we see that cold climate doesn’t seem to have much impact on road quality, with cold places like Minneapolis and New York near the top, while warm cities like Los Angeles, San Diego and Dallas are near the bottom.

I was astonished to see Atlanta rated so highly.  I travel all over the US and am moderately familiar with road quality in most regions.  I would have placed Atlanta much more in the middle, though the rating may be based on SMSA rather the City proper.

As Potter notes, weather conditions are not strongly correlated with road quality which is interesting. 

He doesn't draw attention to it, but road quality is also clearly correlated with policy.  The ten worst performing states, no matter which measures are being used, are almost always Blue States, even where they have large and strong economies (ex.  New York and California).  Only Louisiana as a generally Red State shows up in the shame category.

My suspicion is that this perhaps a function two different issues.  Blue states often like White Elephant type transportation projects (urban trams, high speed rail, etc.) which consume an immense amount of both Capex and Opex without generating the revenues for maintenance of the system.  Further, most of these states have reasonably shaky state budgets with especially high pension burdens which consume so much of the budget that infrastructure needs end up getting postponed.  

Anyway, an interesting effort on the part of Potter.

History

On this Oxfordshire Day, enjoy these beautiful 19th-century @UniofOxford views captured by JMW Turner.

Turner knew Oxford extremely well and, from childhood, made numerous drawings of the streets and colleges and the picturesque views surrounding the city.

🖼 Christ Church… pic.twitter.com/HRiHvkd1Pf

— Ashmolean Museum (@AshmoleanMuseum) October 19, 2024

 

An Insight

Note how many media outlets repeat that this event was full of "undecided Latino voters" -- simply repeating Univision's corporate press release -- when it turns out the event actually full of avowed Kamala-supporting voters who were recruited through a "fan" casting company! https://t.co/eO8f1EpIoP pic.twitter.com/7fjhVUVMgw

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) October 12, 2024

 

I see wonderful things

So very British. A roadside picnic with cups and saucers and even a teapot. You can tell this couple is on holiday as formal shoes have been replaced with socks and sandals. pic.twitter.com/mxIctoux9D

— Bobbie (@bo66ie29) October 19, 2024

 

Offbeat Humor

 

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Data Talks

Brazil: 5 areas of equal population pic.twitter.com/U1GsrWwBlf

— Amazing Maps (@amazingmap) October 14, 2024

 

People may say what they like about the decay of Christianity; the religious system that produced green Chartreuse can never really die.

From The Complete Saki.  Page 9.

Personally, I can’t see where the difficulty in choosing suitable presents lies. No boy who had brought himself up properly could fail to appreciate one of those decorative bottles of liqueurs that are so reverently staged in Morel’s window—and it wouldn't in the least matter if one did get duplicates. And there would always be the supreme moment of dreadful uncertainty whether it was créme de menthe or Chartreuse—like the expectant thrill on seeing your partner's hand turned up at bridge. People may say what they like about the decay of Christianity; the religious system that produced green Chartreuse can never really die.

 House in August by Christopher Pratt (Canadian, 1935-2022)

Click to enlarge.

The Enlightenment sought to submit traditional verities to a liberated, analytic human reason.

From How the Enlightenment Ends by Henry A. Kissinger.  The subheading is Philosophically, intellectually—in every way—human society is unprepared for the rise of artificial intelligence.

This is from seemingly long ago 2018.

Heretofore, the technological advance that most altered the course of modern history was the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, which allowed the search for empirical knowledge to supplant liturgical doctrine, and the Age of Reason to gradually supersede the Age of Religion. Individual insight and scientific knowledge replaced faith as the principal criterion of human consciousness. Information was stored and systematized in expanding libraries. The Age of Reason originated the thoughts and actions that shaped the contemporary world order.

But that order is now in upheaval amid a new, even more sweeping technological revolution whose consequences we have failed to fully reckon with, and whose culmination may be a world relying on machines powered by data and algorithms and ungoverned by ethical or philosophical norms.

The internet age in which we already live prefigures some of the questions and issues that AI will only make more acute. The Enlightenment sought to submit traditional verities to a liberated, analytic human reason. The internet’s purpose is to ratify knowledge through the accumulation and manipulation of ever expanding data. Human cognition loses its personal character. Individuals turn into data, and data become regnant.

Users of the internet emphasize retrieving and manipulating information over contextualizing or conceptualizing its meaning. They rarely interrogate history or philosophy; as a rule, they demand information relevant to their immediate practical needs. In the process, search-engine algorithms acquire the capacity to predict the preferences of individual clients, enabling the algorithms to personalize results and make them available to other parties for political or commercial purposes. Truth becomes relative. Information threatens to overwhelm wisdom.

Inundated via social media with the opinions of multitudes, users are diverted from introspection; in truth many technophiles use the internet to avoid the solitude they dread. All of these pressures weaken the fortitude required to develop and sustain convictions that can be implemented only by traveling a lonely road, which is the essence of creativity.

The impact of internet technology on politics is particularly pronounced. The ability to target micro-groups has broken up the previous consensus on priorities by permitting a focus on specialized purposes or grievances. Political leaders, overwhelmed by niche pressures, are deprived of time to think or reflect on context, contracting the space available for them to develop vision.

The digital world’s emphasis on speed inhibits reflection; its incentive empowers the radical over the thoughtful; its values are shaped by subgroup consensus, not by introspection. For all its achievements, it runs the risk of turning on itself as its impositions overwhelm its conveniences.

Indeed.  Our current prosperity and well being are the product of a perhaps unique combination and fusion of Christian world view, Age of Enlightenment reasoning, Classical Liberalism (Hume, Smith, Ferguson, Mills, Kant), and the philosophy of Classical writers, especially the Stoics.  

It is easy to focus on the threats to our modern Age of Enlightenment Classical Liberalism as being merely the antagonism of Marxism, Maoism, Totalitarian States (China), Racism (Critical Race Theory), Social Justice Theory, etc.  All forms of authoritarian disempowerment and intellectual regressivism and revanchism.

And that is certainly tactically true.

But I wonder whether the current threats to the Age of Enlightenment Classical Liberal world is perhaps most threatened by the fact that we have not tended the roots of that world.  Christianity has succeeded in cultivating human universalism (we are all gods children), charity (I am my brother's keeper), mercy and redemption, etc. to such a degree that those central tenants of Christianity are now secular nostrums.  They are accepted without examination and cultivation.

Similarly, the Stoics (and on down to the Founding Fathers) set great store on moral self-improvement.  You cannot reliably improve the world but you can improve yourself. Happiness arises from self-mastery.  All the benefits of the Age of Enlightenment Classical Liberal world very much depend on the ongoing cultivation of strong agency.  It was once accepted de facto that self-improvement was a personal responsibility requiring cultivation.  But the very success of such behaviors created the prosperity that allowed the otherwise untenable believes of universal victimhood.

The Classical Liberal world view (rule of law, equality before the law, due process, natural rights, personal autonomy, etc.) married with its near sibling Age of Enlightenment empiricism and rationalism are embedded everywhere and drive prosperity and individual well-being.  But again, these beliefs and convictions are not natural.  They emerge from history and experience and have to be cultivated and passed on.  In all our prosperity and security, it is easy to lose sight of our dependence on these world views and how the hard work of cultivating the seed ground has to be done on a continuing basis.

To secure our happy future, we must return to the active cultivation of the values, beliefs and behaviors arising from Christianity, Stoicism, Age of Enlightenment rationalism/empiricism, and Classical Liberalism.  We have lapsed into the lazy condition of assuming that those beliefs and values are self-generating when the reality is that we can't simply and idly wait to receive them.  We have to cultivate them and build them as on everlasting project.  

What once were voting blocs are fragmenting into individuals with agency.

From Anatomy of Trump’s triumph by Ramesh Thakur.  A much more vigorously and empirically argued essay than most of the post-election analyses which are usually either rear-actions for advocacy interests (don't blame my group) or simplistic mono-causal explanations for a multi-causal outcome from a complex multi-system process.  

In an NBC exit poll, Trump won 57 per cent of white and 55 per cent of male voters, retaining his hold on these groups. In an AP exit poll, he won 20 per cent of the black vote, up from 8 in 2016 and 13 in 2020. Harris’s 80 per cent black vote is a ten-point drop from Joe Biden’s four years ago. In addition, he also won the support of 46 per cent of Latinos, 39 per cent of Asian-Americans, 54 per cent of ‘Other,’ 45 per cent of women, and 43 per cent of 18–to-29-year-olds. Hence the prospect of a major new realignment of American politics. There are important lessons in all this for centre-right parties across the West: authentic conservatism attracts more voters than it repels.

Trump’s success in creating a multi-ethnic winning coalition indicates that voting trends may be coalescing, with previously segmented cohorts normalising and starting to vote more as Americans and less as ethnics. Thus in an AP analysis, the economy and jobs rated as the top issues for voters overall, for blacks and Latinos, and for the youth. Phrases such as the Latino, black or Asian-American vote are increasingly meaningless. What once were voting blocs are fragmenting into individuals with agency. This can only be good for the long-term health of American democracy, contrary to the hysterical warnings of its imminent collapse should Trump win.

I will be glad to see the back of crude Marxist race identity as a basis for politics.

History

"Kaikilianos’ victory!"

This statue base is inscribed with a commemoration of a champion wrestler called Kaikilianos, who won a wrestling competition organized every five years by a local notable named Flavianus in the Hellenistic city of Anemurium. pic.twitter.com/yZnJb2XNFO

— Stone Age Herbalist (@Paracelsus1092) October 19, 2024

 

An Insight

The irony of the person who is in charge of the country’s finances {Rachel Reeves} claiming £1,225 on taxpayer funded expenses to pay someone else to help file her tax return…https://t.co/5RKHEMmZUf

— James Melville 🚜 (@JamesMelville) October 13, 2024

 

I see wonderful things

The many varieties of tomatoes

📹 Jose Ponce pic.twitter.com/VuYKH3sgdg

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) October 20, 2024

 

Offbeat Humor

Can't believe @elonmusk parks his rocket better than I park my car. Bloody show-off.

— Mark Collard (@profmarkcollard) October 13, 2024

 

The prevalent ideas on the subject are not creditable to a civilized community.

From The Complete Saki.  Page 8.

There ought (he continued) to be technical education classes on the science of present-giving. No one seems to have the faintest notion of what any one else wants, and the prevalent ideas on the subject are not creditable to a civilized community.

Data Talks

Half of US immigrants fall into the leftmost (net negative) bucket. Seems like it would be really easy to just… not take those ones but still take the others. pic.twitter.com/OWmLifx9NT

— Hunter Ash (@ArtemisConsort) October 13, 2024

 

Orchids, 1982 by Robert Mapplethorpe

Orchids, 1982 by Robert Mapplethorpe

Click to enlarge.

Most of what the federal government does is subsidize consumption.

I have for years said that the primary objective of any government is to ensure long term productivity growth.  Everything else desirable follows from real porductivity growth.  No productivity growth and all you get is unpleasant decline.

From Cutting Entitlements by Douglas Holtz-Eakin.  Saying basically the same thing in a different way.

Most of what the federal government does is subsidize consumption. The federal budget is just a big machine that takes money from saving and investment and transforms it into consumption. And the only way economies grow successfully is to defer consumption, save and invest for the future. So, it is stacked to make things perform worse. I want to stack it the other way.

History

Facial reconstruction of an Early Neolithic Farmer from Agiorgitika, Peloponnese. pic.twitter.com/vscs4jSDII

— Ancestral Whispers (@Sulkalmakh) October 18, 2024

 

An Insight

One of the most cited and esteemed Alzheimer's and Parkinson's researchers, Eliezer Masliah, has turned out to be a fraud.

He headed the National Institute of Aging's neuroscience division and might have set back the field by years or even decades. pic.twitter.com/wzsMkHsq5u

— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) October 11, 2024

 

I see wonderful things

EXTREMELY RARE PIEBALD MOOSE SPOTTED IN MAN'S BACKYARD IN NORWAY pic.twitter.com/PNaFqYGKUs

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) October 20, 2024

 

Offbeat Humor

“Hey SpaceX, whatcha up to?”

“Oh just catching giant rockets out of the air with a FREAKING TOWER”

“Oh cool, how bout you, NASA?”

“We’re….studying how racist the air is….” https://t.co/UeJV8njSp4

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) October 13, 2024

 

Data Talks

In a large genomic database of over 6500 people from Central and South America, 23% had Sephardic Jewish ancestry exceeding 5%. (averaged 7.3% in those people). https://t.co/syNzcPjjqb

— LiorLefineder (@lefineder) October 13, 2024

 

What did the Caspian Sea?

From The Complete Saki, page 8.  

At that particular moment the croquet players finished their game, which had been going on without a symptom of finality during the whole afternoon. Why, I ask, should it have stopped precisely when a counter-attraction was so necessary? Every one seemed to drift towards the area of disturbance, of which the chairs of the Archdeacon’s wife and Reginald formed the storm-centre. Conversation flagged, and there settled upon the company that expectant hush that precedes the dawn—when your neighbours don't happen to keep poultry.

“What did the Caspian Sea?” asked Reginald, with appalling suddenness.

There were symptoms of a stampede. The Archdeacon’s wife looked at me. Kipling or some one has described somewhere the look a foundered camel gives when the caravan moves on and leaves it to its fate. The peptonized reproach in the good lady's eyes brought the passage vividly to my mind. 

 

What is that trigger, “What did the Caspian Sea?”  Clearly some sort of an allusion which would have been clear to an intelligent reader circa 1900-4.  

Researching the question, it seems that there are three possible interpretations.  One is that it is an allusion to a mutoscope, certainly an inappropriate subject in the vicinity of the Archdeacon's wife.  I recall the titillating "What did the butler see?" formulation from my youth in England in the 1960s but I remember no historical context such as Wikipedia provides.  It was merely a received implication that the butler saw something salacious.

What the Butler Saw is a mutoscope reel and an early example of erotic films dating from the early 1900s. It depicted a scene of a woman partially undressing in her bedroom, as if some voyeuristic "butler" were watching her through a keyhole. The film was seen by depositing a coin in a freestanding viewing machine, which then freed a hand-crank on the side which was turned by the viewer. Social standards are subject to change, and by the 1950s this and similar films were considered harmless when compared to contemporary erotica.

The title of this feature became widely used in Britain as a generic term for devices and films of this type. The phrase had entered British popular culture after the 1886 divorce case of Lord Colin Campbell and Gertrude Elizabeth Blood. The trial hinged on whether their butler could have seen Lady Colin in flagrante with Captain Shaw of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, through the keyhole of their dining room at 79 Cadogan Place, London.

The second interpretation is that “What did the Caspian Sea?” is merely word play as in the innocent Delaware song in 1959 by Perry Como.

Delaware

by Perry Como

Oh what did Del-a-ware boy, what did Delaware

What did Del-a-ware boy, what did Delaware

She wore a brand New Jersey,

She wore a brand New Jersey,

She wore a brand New Jersey,

That's what she did wear

One, two, three, four

Oh, why did Cali-fon-ia

Why did Cali-fon

Why did Cali-fon-ia

Was she all alone

She called to say Ha-wa-ya

She called to say Ha-wa-ya

She called to say Ha-wa-ya

That's why she did call

Uno, due, tre, quattro

Oh what did Missi sip boy

What did Missi sip

What did Missi sip boy

Through her pretty lips

She sipped a Minne sota

She sipped a Minne sota

She sipped a Minne sota

That's what she did sip

Un deux trois quatre

Where has Oregon, boy

Where has Oregon

If you wan Al-ask-a

Al-ask-a where she's gone

She went to pay her Texas

She went to pay her Texas

She went to pay her Texas

That's where she has gone

Eins zwei drei vier

Oh how did Wis-con-sin boy

She stole a New-brass-key

Too bad that Arkan saw, boy

And so did Tenne-see

It made poor Flori-di, boy

It made poor Flori-di, you see

She died in Miss-our-I, boy

She died in Miss-our-I

Oh what did Del-a-ware boy, what did Delaware

What did Del-a-ware boy, what did Delaware

Other elaborations of some antiquity include:

How do you make a Maltese cross? (Stick a finger in his eye.)

How do you make a Swiss roll? (Push him down a mountain.)

Other innocent permutations might be:

What did the Caspian See?  He saw the Persian Golf.

What did the Caspian See?  He saw the Queue Wait.

 What did the Caspian See?  He saw the Arabian Dessert.

What did the Caspian See?  He saw the Kazakh Stand.  

 

But if so, it is hard to understand the social consternation.  Seems like there is more going on here than innocent word play.

se16teddy has an erudite suggestion based on Kazakhstan.  The third interpretation might be:

What did the Caspian see?

She saw the Kazakh's stand.

Extract from the definition of stand (noun 1) in the OED:

5d. = erection (n. 4). slang. 

 

1867 Rosa Fielding in S. Marcus Other Victorians (1966) v. 227 He had a tremendous cock-stand, and felt that if it was not allayed pretty quickly that he must burst. 

 

1868 tr. Martial Index Expuratorius 88 Maevius who while sleeping only gets A piss-proud stand that melts away on waking. 

 

1903 J. S. Farmer & W. E. Henley Slang VI. 346/1 Stand,‥(venery).—1. An erectio penis.

All possible.  Relying on Occam's Razor, I'd have to go with "What did the Caspian Sea?" functioning as a call on the lewdness of "What did the butler see?"

There are other rabbits that could be chased in this brief passage.  The look of peptonized reproach?  Invoking perhaps the discomfort of bad digestion.  

Kipling's reference (or someone's) to "the look a foundered camel gives when the caravan moves on and leaves it to its fate"?  I can't find that in Kipling or elsewhere.  But it is an evocative image.  

Bias of flipped coins

Hmmm.  The claim from Nate Silver is that flipping a coin is not truly random and that a flipped coin will land heads up 50.5% of the time.  Specifically, from A random number generator determined the “favorite" in our forecast by Nate Silver.  

From the model’s standpoint, though, the race is literally closer than a coin flip: empirically, heads wins 50.5 percent of the time, more than Harris’s 50.015 percent.

The fundamental claim seems quite plausible.  Are all coins equally weighted along the front to back axis?  Is there a bias in terms of whether people initiate the flip with heads or tails up?  Does the technique of flipping affect the outcome?  All plausible questions.

If it were true that a coin favors Heads by 50.5% of the time, I would have thought that to be common knowledge.  Since I have never seen that claim before, it makes me curious.  What is the empirical reality?  

Nate Silver is a pretty careful writer, so I am surprised at what I find.  It seems he is accidentally mischaracterizing the research.  

As far as I can tell, the research is answering a slightly different question than that which Silver asks.

Silver is asking something along the lines of:

Given a real coin, what percentage of the time will it land Heads?  And the answer according to him is 50.5%

The research seems to be:

For any coin that is tossed vigorously and high, and caught in midair (rather than bouncing on the ground), what is the probability that it will land with the same face as it was launched?  The answer is that there is a 50.8% chance that such a coin will be caught with the same face showing as launched.  

That is a reasonably distinct difference.  Maybe Silver has better sources that answer his question but his links go to research that is answering the second question.  

The original research back in 2007 was Dynamical Bias in the Coin Toss done by Persi Diaconis, Susan Holmes and Richard Montgomery and then further reported in The Fifty-One Percent Solution.   Further research, Flipped coins found not to be as fair as thought by Bob Yirka, backed the original Diaconis findings.  Further reporting in Scientists Destroy Illusion That Coin Toss Flips Are 50–50 by Shi En Kim.  

The original research used a mechanical flipping device while the 2023 research used humans.  Different methodologies, similar results.

Whatever the currency, if you can see the face and call that before it being flipped, you will be correct 51 percent of the time.  

Which is interesting knowledge but with limited utility.  

For day-to-day decisions, coin tosses are as good as random because a 1 percent bias isn't perceptible with just a few coin flips, says statistician Amelia McNamara of the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, who wasn't involved in the new research. Still, the study's conclusions should dispel any lingering doubt regarding the coin flip's slender bias. “This is great empirical evidence backing that up,” she says.

There is a bias with flipped coins and it is 51% towards the top surface when flipped.  However, given that the face is often not visible, that the coin is not always caught in the air, and other minor factors, the actual bias will fluctuate unpredictably and therefore the flipped coin is functionally random.  The bias is less than the operational noise in the process.

Konjikido in Snow, Hiraizumi, 1957 by Kawase Hasui

Konjikido in Snow, Hiraizumi, 1957 by Kawase Hasui

Click to enlarge.

Semper aliquid novi Africam adferre"

From Africa's New King Solomon by Brad Pearce.  The subheading is Equatorial Guinea's Outrageous Sex Tapes Affair.   As Pliny the Elder observed two thousand years ago, "Semper aliquid novi Africam adferre" (Always something new out of Africa.)  

A legend has been born in Central Africa. The story started when the head of the tiny Spanish-speaking nation of Equatorial Guinea’s anti-corruption office, Baltasar Ebang Engonga, known as Bello for his good looks, was himself recently arrested for corruption. That itself would have been routine enough on the continent, but upon searching the office the agents found around four hundred CDs containing videos of Baltasar having sex with seemingly every prominent woman in the country- including the wife of the Police Chief, the wife of the Attorney General, the President’s younger sister, and the wives of around 20 cabinet members. Some are calling him Africa’s King Solomon. The videos soon began to be uploaded to the internet one at a time by an unknown party, and if the information is accurate, must have been clearly labeled because it seems as if he recorded himself having sex with almost every woman he has met, and many of them are not famous. The videos are with women of all types, in every position, and in every imaginable location, including government offices, outdoors, public bathrooms, hotels, private bedrooms, and the hospital.

History

Another cool version of this statistic I heard recently was that in the early 1970s the UK still produced the most nuclear energy annually — in absolute terms, not per capita. https://t.co/hnxXBqJTJR

— Ben Southwood (@bswud) October 18, 2024

 

An Insight

It’s hilarious how we are subjected to media-driven witch hunts for “foreign assets” and closet fascists in the heartland, while our best and brightest repeatedly sell out to China and only random conservative outlets seem to care.

— Lafayette Lee (@Partisan_O) October 10, 2024

 

I see wonderful things

360° view from the top of Mount Everest

[📹 Ben M Jones]pic.twitter.com/AZKuhdH90q

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 19, 2024

 

Offbeat Humor

 

Click to enlarge.

Data Talks

A striking map of Italy's history: uncovering the devastating impact of Mafia violence on civilian lives from 1861 to 2014. pic.twitter.com/JS6oe2PZUt

— Xavi Ruiz (@xruiztru) October 13, 2024

 

The Blue Grotto, Capri, circa 1835 by Heinrich Jakob Fried

The Blue Grotto, Capri, circa 1835 by Heinrich Jakob Fried

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The dreamy, far-away look that a volcano might wear just after it had desolated entire villages

 From The Complete Saki.  

I found every one talking nervously and feverishly of the weather and the war in South Africa, except Reginald, who was reclining in a comfortable chair with the dreamy, far-away look that a volcano might wear just after it had desolated entire villages. The Archdeacon’s wife was buttoning up her gloves with a concentrated deliberation that was fearful to behold. 

History

It's always crazy to me that the vast majority of Prussia, the founding father of modern Germany, is no longer part of Germany pic.twitter.com/RjLe3OOBzB

— François Valentin (@Valen10Francois) October 17, 2024

 

An Insight

Pro-Tip: Communists and Islamists are never freedom fighters.

— Mark Changizi (@MarkChangizi) October 10, 2024

 

I see wonderful things

Looking at the world through a microscope 🧵

1. Terrifying photo of an ant's face pic.twitter.com/vOBA4UxMnU

— James Lucas (@JamesLucasIT) October 15, 2024

 

Offbeat Humor

This would improve many pitch decks and corporate memos, too. https://t.co/s3Uw0M3Tjf

— Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) October 10, 2024

 

Data Talks

India, home to an array of cobras, kraits, and vipers, has the world's highest number of snakebite deaths.

Thankfully, those deaths are rapidly falling due to widening access to health facilities and antivenom.

Explore the data: https://t.co/ykIaSxiaKZ pic.twitter.com/npIcTTGCnK

— Human Progress (@HumanProgress) October 12, 2024

 

Bridge at Old Lyme by Chlde Hassam (American, 1859-1935)

Bridge at Old Lyme by Chlde Hassam (American, 1859-1935)

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Reginald in his wildest lapses into veracity never admits to being more than twenty-two.

 From The Complete Saki.  

At the same moment I became aware that old Colonel Mendoza was essaying to tell his classic story of how he introduced golf into India, and that Reginald was in dangerous proximity.  There are occasions when Reginald is caviare to the Colonel.

“When I was at Poona in ’76—”

“My dear Colonel,” purred Reginald, “fancy admitting such a thing! Such a give-away for one’s age! I wouldn't admit being on this planet in ’76.” (Reginald in his wildest lapses into veracity never admits to being more than twenty-two. )

History

When the Nazis took Zante Island, they demanded a list of the Jews on the island. Bishop Chrysostomos said the Jews were under his protection, and he gave the Nazis a list with only his name on it. The Greeks then hid the island's 275 Jews, and not one of them was ever captured. pic.twitter.com/0vSmesPyOD

— Dr. David Wood (@Acts17David) October 15, 2024

 

An Insight

The lowest hanging fruits aren't always the best place to start. pic.twitter.com/UcKDfetUAn

— David Manheim is Exploring Cooperation (@davidmanheim) October 10, 2024

 

I see wonderful things

The level of customer service in Japan.pic.twitter.com/OWCgmOtG29

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 15, 2024

 

After almost 2000 years, Christianity finally succeeded, and Christendom began fading away.

From Why political success leads to failure by Scott Sumner.  

It seems to me that for its first 1800 years, Christendom mostly ignored the teachings of Jesus. Europe had a basically aristocratic culture, where the elite were especially respected if they engaged in warfare, and the poor were treated like dirt. That doesn’t seem very Christian!

In the 19th century, the West began to have a greater empathy for those at the bottom. Slavery was abolished. Democracy began to spread. Socialist ideas like income redistribution were adopted. Remember “Turn the other cheek”? In 1804, Hamilton was killed in a duel. By the late 1800s, dueling had been banned. Gradually over time, warfare became viewed less favorably.

In an earlier post, I discussed the prose of Herman Melville. In several novels, he made passionate arguments that society wasn’t truly Christian, as it had not truly absorbed the teachings of Jesus (which he viewed as profoundly important.) In White-Jacket, Melville made a strong argument against corporal punishment on US Navy ships. In Pierre, he portrays a character that sacrifices so much to help a poor woman that he is treated as if he is insane and is expelled from polite society.

Today, Melville has won his battles. Corporal punishment has been banned. Pierre would no longer be kicked out of polite society for his extraordinary act of generosity. We have finally become a Christian culture. (Judeo-Christian is perhaps more accurate.)

But Christianity in an institutional sense seems to be declining in the West. It’s as if the public is saying “We thank the Church for preserving the teachings of Jesus for 1800 years, but we don’t need you any longer. We have made these ideas a part of our secular philosophy, our social science, our politics, our culture. You’ve done your job, now please go away.”

Of course people like G.K. Chesterton and Ross Douthat would say that this won’t work, and perhaps they are right. I’m totally unqualified to predict the future course of society (even in a world where AI was not about to shake things up.) I’m just reporting what I’ve seen happen so far. After almost 2000 years, Christianity finally succeeded, and Christendom began fading away.

Offbeat Humor

 

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Data Talks

Wow someone who knows how to answer a climate change question without sounding retarded. https://t.co/3pmZJUurCt

— Long Monkeypox (@podiatristdon) October 10, 2024

 

Benoit's Cove: Sheds in Winter, 1998 by Christopher Pratt

Benoit's Cove: Sheds in Winter, 1998 by Christopher Pratt

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They're as bad as tailors, who invariably remember what you owe them for a suit long after you've ceased to wear it.

From The Complete Saki.  

Reginald shut his eyes. “There will be the exhaustingly up-to-date young women who will ask me if I have seen San Toy; a less progressive grade who will yearn to hear about the Diamond Jubilee —the historic event, not the horse. With a little encouragement, they will inquire if I saw the Allies march into Paris. Why are women so fond of raking up the past? They're as bad as tailors, who invariably remember what you owe them for a suit long after you've ceased to wear it.”

The Complete Saki

For years, I have been aware of H.H. Munro, known as Saki.  An English Edwardian author known for his witty short stories.  Plenty of authors whom I read and admire reference or quote him.  

Yet, for whatever reasons, I have never read him.  Its sort of like Oscar Wilde's plays.  I am pretty certain that I will eventually read them and enjoy them but there are always other things to read first.

For some years I have had the Penguin The Complete Saki floating around on my shelves and in my stacks.  After I moved downstairs for my feet and leg surgeries, The Complete Saki was one of the books that brought down, anticipating the mobility constraints of three sequential surgeries might nudge Saki out of the stacks and into the reading queue.  

And indeed, last night, I pulled out The Complete Saki and read a couple of the stories.  And another this morning.  And probably more to follow.  

Light, witty, full of bon mots and acid insight.  Probably more of a dip-into collection rather than a read-right-through book, but we'll see. 

From the introduction.

Hector Hugh Munro was born in 1870 in Burma, the son of a senior official in the Burma police. He was brought up in Devonshire and went to school in Exmouth and at Bedford Grammar School; later his father retired and took over his education by travelling with him widely in Europe. He joined the Burma police, but resigned because of ill health after a year’s service. He began his writing career with political sketches for the Westminster Gazette and then worked as a foreign correspondent for the Morning Post in the Balkans, Russia and Paris. During this time he brought out his first collection of short stories, Reginald (1904). This was followed by Reginald in Russia (1910), The Chronicles of Clovis (1911), The Unbearable Bassington (1912) and Beasts and Superbeasts (1914). In 1914 he published When William Came, a pro-war fantasy of England under German occupation; his ‘patriotic’ sketches from the Western Front were collected as The Square Egg (1924). He enlisted as a private in 1914, refused a commission, went to France and was killed in 1916 at Beaumont Hamel. His pseudonym ‘Saki’ is taken from the last stanza of The Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam.

History

But I think as we reflect on historic religiosity we have to take great care to understand the weird ways religion changes over time.

Revolutionary-era Americans were less churched than modern Americans but likelier to be vaguely Christian.

— Lyman Stone 石來民 🦬🦬🦬 (@lymanstoneky) October 17, 2024

 

An Insight

Easy https://t.co/xjFnh7ooks pic.twitter.com/ZyPgoCKoUY

— Infinite Books (@InfiniteB88ks) October 9, 2024

 

I see wonderful things

Hummingbird mum meets her new babies
pic.twitter.com/t4j0KSgDpb

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) October 15, 2024

 

Offbeat Humor

to whoever made a map labeling every county in Kentucky in the Geʽez script so they could put it on an Amharic Wikipedia page that has almost no other content, i want you to know that your efforts are not in vain. in 1,000 years, this page will still be getting 5 views per week pic.twitter.com/Ma76F5VAfX

— ben “reschultzed.com” schultz (@reschultzed) October 10, 2024

 

Data Talks

Summary from the discussion, paper, and a note on agency:

“According to this literature, victimhood is strongly dissociated from agency, and therefore decreases individuals' belief that they can deal with difficulties in their interpersonal relations.” pic.twitter.com/ATDJmSJ8Uw

— Alexander (@datepsych) October 10, 2024

 

A family, 1890 by Albert Besnard (France, 1849-1934)

A family, 1890 by Albert Besnard (France, 1849-1934)

Click to enlarge.

History

The British Empire was, in some ways, a force for good.

In many places it occupied it:

-raised the standard of living
-developed infrastructure
-promoted education

It also single-handedly ended slavery for much of the world…🧵(thread) pic.twitter.com/54oNhogV4I

— ThinkingWest (@thinkingwest) October 15, 2024

 

An Insight

How many times has a news organization edited Kamala to sound coherent? If CBS hadn't sent out that trailer, we would never have heard her real answer.

— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) October 10, 2024

 

I see wonderful things

Surfing swan

[📹 Jonathan Vázquez]pic.twitter.com/o9oGn0zjzp

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 15, 2024

 

Offbeat Humor

Mainers do this even if mother, father and child were all born in ME but it's suspected the child was conceived while away. Non-Mainers are called "flatlanders" and this is referred to as "flat biscuits" (in the oven)

— Dillon H (@7b8xppczn5) October 10, 2024

 

Data Talks

What is “their fair share”?

The rich already pay most of the taxes. pic.twitter.com/mGWYdBKMmC

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) October 10, 2024

 

Self-Portrait, 1895 by Kazimierz Pochwalski (Poland, 1855-1940)

Self-Portrait, 1895 by Kazimierz Pochwalski (Poland, 1855-1940)

Click to enlarge.

History

Baddesley Clinton, one of England's finest moated manor houses.

Painted in 1898 vs now. pic.twitter.com/zE5D2MV4oD

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 15, 2024

 

An Insight

I think about this all the time:

Those who disobeyed survived. pic.twitter.com/ertqovTTnH

— 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗠𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 (@txsalth2o) October 7, 2024

 

I see wonderful things

I keep re-watching this and can't believe my eyes... This is f*cking insane!

Congratulations @SpaceX, @elonmusk 🚀 pic.twitter.com/OKnO9tYmMf

— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) October 13, 2024

 

Offbeat Humor

“Does she still stand, sir?”

“Aye, she stands. As she has always stood” pic.twitter.com/hHE1AoKx4r

— Voödoo 6 von Inyanga (@6Voodoo) October 10, 2024

 

Data Talks

Socialists are really a strange species, they are so detached from reality that they repeat the same mistakes over and over again. pic.twitter.com/JFLaf9iWJb

— Michael A. Arouet (@MichaelAArouet) October 9, 2024

 

The Night World by Carson Ellis

The Night World by Carson Ellis

Click to enlarge.

History

Europe had a Dark Age, and it was incredibly dark. pic.twitter.com/jMHgMRWvRR

— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) October 13, 2024

 

An Insight

It's really difficult to attribute a lot of M/F differences to "sexism," rather than genetics or culture.

I.e., it is TRUE women do at least 1.5x as much housework as men in marriages....but they do 2-3x as much as single men while single.

At least one fair read of those… https://t.co/7it2hJ8SZw

— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) October 10, 2024

 

I see wonderful things

Sama is a Sufi ceremony performed as part of the meditation and prayer practice dhikr. It includes singing, playing instruments and dancing.

This is a particularly evocative and fiery version of the Sama dance.pic.twitter.com/HgXdYMJSkS

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 13, 2024

 

Offbeat Humor

Something tells me CBS is getting ready to lose the originals in a non-credible way. https://t.co/s0Ymdtmcae

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) October 10, 2024

 

Data Talks

You can see Mao on this chart if you’re wondering how bad he was. https://t.co/8275AtWN3D

— Patrick Hedger (@pat_hedger) October 7, 2024

 

Workshop In the Countryside, 1941 by Tamara de Lempicka (Polish, 1898-1980)

Workshop In the Countryside, 1941 by Tamara de Lempicka (Polish, 1898-1980)

Click to enlarge.