Links - 3rd January 2020 (2)

Fed Up (Ep. 390) - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "DUBNER: can you describe what it’s like to be a central banker in a time when the president is so willing to publicly rebuke the central bank’s work?
DALY: Well, let me first say that we all live in a much more open world than we used to. That we’ve always had disharmony. There have been times when people think the Fed’s not doing something right or this group isn’t doing something right. Another government institution isn’t doing something right. The thing that’s different now — and I would say it’s globally different — is that things are just more accessible. Twitter has made all the debates that used to be behind closed doors, and we’d learn about them long after people had departed their positions, have made them live... I’m not a historian, but I am a casual student of history. And when I go back and read periods of history, things look as contentious and debatable, it’s just very public now... there is something to the idea that people get nervous when expansions last a long time. We have this whole group of literature that says expansions don’t die of old age, and yet everybody thinks they do. So there’s just general nervousness that when you hit your 10-year mark, the longest expansion in history, the natural human tendency is to think it can’t last forever. Then you look at it in the data. And there’s been a lot of uncertainty. There’s trade uncertainty, there is Brexit uncertainty, there’s geopolitical uncertainty, there’s just the general financial volatility that comes from just markets trying to figure things out, that creates uncertainty.So this just creates a level of angst that makes people even more cautious than they would be if they were simply just thinking the expansion would run out of gas because it’s old. So, all those factors are ones that create mood issues, and the big question that I’ve been wrestling with the last nine months is, what’s going to win, the data or the mood? If you look at the data, the data are good. Apart from business investment, there really isn’t any weak indicator in the U.S. economy."

What can Silicon Valley learn from tinned food? - "Napoleon may or may not have said: "An army marches on its stomach," but he was clearly keen to broaden his soldiers' provisions from smoked and salted meat.Appert's laboratory was an early example of a common phenomenon - military needs spurring innovations that transform the economy.From GPS to Apple's iPhone to Arpanet, which became the internet, Silicon Valley is built on technologies first funded by the US Department of Defense... another Frenchman, Philippe de Girard, started applying the techniques to containers made of tin, not glass. But when he wanted to commercialise his idea, he decided to sail across the English Channel.Why? Too much French bureaucracy, according to Norman Cowell, former lecturer in food science at Reading University.He argues Britain's financial system of the time was entrepreneurial, with plenty of venture capitalists prepared to take risks."
Better not tell the libertarians that the government was instrumental in Silicon Valley's success

Are cigarettes responsible for modern marketing methods? - "in China, in the half-century after Chairman Mao took power, per-capita cigarette sales went up roughly ten-fold. The China National Tobacco Corporation is the country's most profitable company, and it sells 98% of cigarettes. State-owned, it contributes up to a tenth of government revenues.Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that China has been late to restrict cigarette advertising.As recently as 2005, adverts assured that "Smoking removes your troubles and worries". One brand warned that "Quitting smoking would bring you misery, shortening your life". That brand's name? Longlife... just 10% of smokers in China are aware that brands labelled "light" and "low tar" are no less harmful to your health than other cigarettes."

Belfry | Definition of Belfry by Merriam-Webster - "Surprisingly, belfry does not come from bell, and early belfries did not contain bells at all. Belfry comes from berfrey, a medieval term for a wooden tower used in sieges. The structure could be rolled up to a fortification wall so that warriors hidden inside could storm the battlements. Over time, the term was applied to other types of shelters and towers, many of which had bells in them. Through association, people began spelling berfrey as bellfrey, then as belfrey and later belfry. On a more metaphorical note, someone who has "bats in the belfry" is crazy or eccentric. This phrase is responsible for the use of bats for "crazy" ("Are you completely bats?") and the occasional use of belfry for "head" ("He's not quite right in the belfry")."

15189A Cosi fan tutte - detailed analysis - "They have contracted a sort of mock marriage with the wrong fiance. Or have they? Any great work of art, and maybe this is a defintion of a great work of art, is open to a variety of interpretations. So, for the sake of clarity, we are telling this story straight, as it is traditionally performed in the opera house. But the whole business of who knows what and when they know it - how much Despina knows and when, whether - and we shall return to this point later - the women should return to their original fiances or the new ones, how much the women are brainless pawns of a clever Don Alfonso and how much they drive the action - these are all questions wide open to interpretation by stage directors and fine singing actors"

Girls, what was the most obvious hint you dropped, and the guy just didn't get it? : AskReddit - "I asked a guy on a festival to come take a shower with me. He didn't get it. He just repeated there was only one free shower and I was like "well they are big I'm sure it's fine" and he just looked confused and told me I could go first."
"Invited him over to "watch a movie" eventually laying my legs across his lap and hard flirting but after 4 movies I had to finally make the move... 4 in one night! After I had told him previously that I'm giving him the green light. He said he was scared of creeping me out lol"
"I have a hard time asking girls out these days, in person, because I really dont want to make them uncomfortable. Last time I did I made the mistake of wearing my work shirt... she tried to get me fired... was at a sports bar type set up...To clarify, I didn't ask her out. I asked for her phone number. After talking to her for like 30 minutes... "hey, um let me know if I'm overstepping here, but I enjoyed talking to you and was wondering if I could have your number." Is exactly what I said. She said no, I said okay, and left the situation. Next thing I know my boss has a private meeting with me..."
"What do you expect in an age where women can revoke consent 30 years later, and men are convicted in the court of public opinion without a trial. Piss her off the morning after, and you could be looking at expulsion from your university, so its not too surprising that guys are going to want your consent and a liability waiver notarized in front of a district court judge."
"I realized recently that I'm scared to initiate friendships with women because of the few select women that have misconstrued platonic friendly gestures as making a move and used it as an excuse to belittle me."
"I've been invited over to my crush's house, where she made her sister go outside, changed in front of me into shorts and a tee, asked me to lay down with her, and put on a movie.I left early because I felt like a burden and a creep."
"And for girls who think their hints are obvious when they do this exact thing, we guys know that girls mainly do this with the friends way deep in the friend zone or they think the friend is gay. So no. It isn’t an obvious hint to us."
"Unfortunately, and I say this as someone who has been described fairly regularly as not at all creepy and has never crossed a line or been at risk of such a thing, the use of the term "creepy" as a descriptor of men by women is far more correlated with physical appearance than any other single characteristic, at least as I've seen it. People describe fedora-wearing fatsos as creepy without interacting with them beyond looking at them: people refuse to describe Ted Bundy as creepy despite there being irrefutable evidence of him raping and murdering numerous women."
"One girl gave me the green light, so when she came over , I started flirting with her and making moves. She leaves and then texts me that I made her uncomfortable by coming on to her.I didn't see her for 2 more years when she finally came over again, I was on my best behavior. we hadn't even talked about anything sexual. So o made a point to give her space and whatnot.This bitch texts me upset I didn't make moves."
"We were discussing costumes and I sent a picture of me in my bunnysuit and said I'd need help out of it . His response was telling me he hoped my roommate was home or that would suck .I had to tell him I was implying I'd like HIM to take it off me and it took him a minute to catch up"
"A girl came to my house once and spent the night. Around the time for bed, she told me she doesnt sleep with a top on or panties. I told her thats okay I'll sleep on the couch so she can be comfy.She called me from downstairs later that night and told me she couldnt sleep and she was cold. I figured "well obviously! Youre naked!" So i gave her another blanket and went back downstairs."
"I had a girl invite me round her house once just to show me her posters. They were all of Harley Davidson motorbikes, and she said she's never ridden a Harley before... Awkward silence and after a few other sort bits of small talk I decided to be on my way.2 years later I'm sitting on the bus and realise what she meant... Harley. Ridden a Harley... My name is Harley."
"My buddy in college was stressing over when to make the move to kiss a girl he liked. While we encouraged him to not wait for the perfect moment and just go for it, he admitted he should have tried to kiss her when they were in the shower."

Why Did Trump Win? - "Donald Trump’s wholly unexpected triumph in 2016 is the main explanandum of a vast political science literature that has emerged in the three years since. Economic explanations predominated at the beginning. Since then, a different diagnosis has come to the fore that traces support for Trump to White racial prejudice. This diagnosis has achieved a nearly hegemonic position among political scientists and Democratic elites more generally... Once we start looking at electoral college-weighted, county-level correlates of the Trump swing—Trump’s vote share less Romney’s vote share—a very different pattern emerges. The three strongest predictors of the Trump swing are college graduation rate, population growth rate, and growth in deaths due to drug overdoses in 2003-2017... Trump strongholds are places that are bleeding people. College-educated people are known to be much more mobile than people without a college degree. This suggests that the pattern we see in college graduation rates is due to college-graduates leaving, or not returning, to these places... But the most striking correlate of the Trump swing is growth in deaths due to drug overdose. The fixed-effect of this variable is a remarkable +3.4%. That’s higher than the fixed-effect of college graduation rate, population growth rate, and net migration rate. Indeed, in a three-factor model, growth in deaths due to overdose emerges as the strongest predictor of the Trump swing... Without controlling for other factors, median income is negatively correlated with the Trump swing (fixed-effect = -2.6%). The interpretation of these correlations is straightforward: Counties that swung to Trump are poorer than those that did not... These results should disabuse us of the notion that Trump’s election had little to do with people getting left behind—I drop the quotation marks on purpose. Trump is in the White House because large parts of the country are in serious trouble. People can see the decline of their communities with their own eyes. What is pissing them off is that coastal elites keep ignoring their trauma and focus their attention on creating a more inclusive country. But what does this have to do with racism? More pointedly: Why does the breakdown of elite-mass relations, now manifest in the Trump insurgency, exhibit the symptoms that it does? Why do people in Trump country, whose trauma is real enough, blame immigrants and minorities? Part of the answer is that people in Trump country regard Boasian antiracism as the hegemonic ideology of coastal elites—as indeed it is. Of course, they don’t call it that; they call it political correctness instead. Resentment of coastal elites, although driven by all-too-real decline of situated communities, is thus expressed as a wholesale rejection of the hated elites’ self-congratulatory worldview... In effect, Trump is a message from Flyover Country for elites. Are American elites listening? Democrats in particular need to pay attention. It is Democrats who repaired elite-mass relations through the 20th century and thereby re-stabilized the system. They must do it again. In order to do so, they must abandon the idea that racism is the key to 2016. It is not. Widespread despair is the key to 2016."

The Simple Secret of Trump's Supreme Political Confidence: Old-Fashioned Fan Mail - "When politicians are deliberating over joining a presidential race, it is common for them to boast that a diverse array of Americans is encouraging them to run. While there is often truth to this claim, the appeals usually come from staff, close friends and loyal donors who have offered regular support over the years.Cohen’s binders of letters, the outpouring of promises and pleas, were perhaps unprecedented in modern times"

Firefly: pictures, information, classification and more - "The females of certain unusual insect-eating North American fireflies are known to mimic the flashes of other, nonpredatory females. When an unsuspecting male alights nearby, the predatory female reduces the intensity of her flashes to more closely resemble the weaker signals of the nonpredatory female until her prey is within reach"

What termites can teach architects - "Architects will be able to physically replicate the processes by which organisms build habitats or biological membranes, to control the flow of heat, moisture or any other component of ‘comfort’... How does the mound dissipate air through its network of holes? As the sun moves through the sky during the day, the air in the thinner chimneys on the outer edges of the mound heat up quickly, while the air in the mound’s big, central chimney stays relatively cool. Hot air rises up through the outer chimneys and cool air in the central chimney sinks, circulating air continuously—injecting oxygen and flushing out carbon dioxide. At night, the flow reverses as the outer chimney air cools down quicker than the inner chimney air. Mimicking termites’ strategies, architects and engineers can drastically improve energy efficiency in buildings. Take Mick Pearce, a Zimbabwean architect who designed the award-winning Eastgate Center in Harare, Zimbabwe. Similar to termite mounds, the concrete outer walls of Eastgate are porous. As wind blows through the tunnels on a hot day, the concrete sucks up the heat, cooling the wind before it whooshes into the shopping center. Fans flush the heat out of the concrete at night so it will be ready to store more heat the next day. Following termites’ lead, Pearce cut energy use down to about 10 percent of a normal building that size."

Video: Cartwheeling spider inspires robot for Mars - "A recently described spider called Cebrennus rechenbergi can avoid predators by tumbling to safety, an ability that inspired its discoverer to develop a robot with a similar talent... A bionics expert, he set about building a robot that could mimic the flicflac. He says such a machine would be ideal for navigating the harsh surface conditions of Mars, although it will have to have greater stamina than the spider. If the flicflac cartwheels more than four or five times a day Mr Rechenberg says it can die of exhaustion."