CharonY

The issue of wildly conflating different terms and concepts remains a problem. For example: This suggest that any multidimensional data set somehow qualifies as crypto, which is absurd and ignores whole areas of maths that deal with it without any relationship to it. In fact, I haven't seen in this thread any concise and uniformly applied definition of crypto in the first place. An no, in biology we don't apply magic algorithm that somehow explains what is going on. Biology is largely reliant on experimental data.

@Ken Fabian hope you feel better, mate. Nothing more to add but to wish you the best for your recovery.

I think you have nicely summarized the main challenges I have read about.

A bit of an issue is that the difficulties of implementing a wealth tax is that in practice they tended to have issues, and I am not sure whether there has been enough work and suggestions to address those. From what I have read there is possibility that inheritance and corporate tax might be ultimately a better way for redistribution, but I have not read in-depth about that to really have an informed opinion. That being said, I the public discussion is even more superficial than that and really is more about ideology than mechanism.

I think this is very true, and is causing some of the misunderstandings on this site. I think for folks who have not been on both side of the pond, the difference in context is sometimes difficult to assess. And even in the European context, there are differences. In Germany, for example folks wouldn't call social demoractic policies socialist, but instead the term "social" is used. I.e. the difference between mixed economy (which is the reality also in the US) and systemic changes toward collective ownership is clearly delineated, whereas in US rhetoric they are almost fully mixed in common parlance.

I actually agree that cross-comparisons across different systems have limited validity. But it was direct response that his policies do not look centre-right on that scale.

I agree with the overall post and I think in the US the radicalization is more toward the right flank, though society (as in most nowadays) is strongly polarized as a whole. Using the German scale, I would say that he is more aligned with the centre-left (in some cases more left) social democrats. It is mostly in the details, as for example even the right in Germany would not be in favour of getting rid of the public health system. However, the precise model in terms of cost-sharing universality etc. differ. Based on what Sanders said, it looks more like the Solidarity-based universal system that Die Linke proposes, rather than the SPD (centre-left). On social issues there is certainly more alignment towards the centre-left, though there are local differences, e.g. when it comes to immigration. Generally there is more alignment with the progressive elements, as conservative politics in Europe can be very conservative socially.

Like every night.

We might be talking about slightly different things. I assume, that your understanding of the the happenings there are also second-hand (and I apologize if I am misunderstood). I.e. you have found evidence of whatever nature and take those as facts. That, for the younger generation has been broken to some degree, by being bombarded by a deluge of (mis)information that makes even own experiences to appear unreal. Second, you are right that talking about it it in an abstract sense (e.g., classroom) is likely insufficient. When our class visited the concentration camp in Oświęcim (Auschwitz), the stacks of human hair and teeth were visceral reminder, but the talk with the volunteer survivor was quite a bit of a stark contrast, as he didn't dwell so much on the horrors. This contrast grounded the reality of the horrors in a way that I have trouble articulating, but my bigger takeaway is that needs to be a human connection for that knowledge to survive and that trauma is not the only (or even best way). Secondarily, I will also say that I think that connection and the feel what is real, is being taken away from the next generation and I don't think it is about coddling as such (though it adds to a certain self-centered perspective that feels to be more common now, or at least expressed more openly, especially post-pandemic). But I think that there is something else going that the older generation does not really understand or appreciate with regard to how younger folks think. I will stop here, as I keep polluting threads with these thoughts as I have to deal with that situation or a regular basis.

I don't think that visceral exposure is strictly necessary, or in many cases, helpful. Direct exposure can and does traumatize and folks with PTSD will not necessarily be able to draw rational lessons from those experiences. Quite a few break from these experiences (think drug use). In fact, living with them can share trauma in an immensely unhelpful way as the current behaviour will dominate about the reason of said behaviour (think drug use). Instead, you can learn from folks who went through those experiences and have found a way to cope. I found that talking directly to a person, who shares their experiences to you connects you with them via empathy and respect. When talking to survivors, what I found most impactful wasn't really the horrors (there was little talk about that), but more the day-to-day survival and what they experienced, especially the little good things that happened in the context of their respective, horrible situation. That, in my mind, made it tangible to me. Of course, these intergenerational exchanges will be soon impossible for certain events and that is a big loss. But I don't think that the "coddling" is really what breaks this connection. There are a lot of challenges, but I found the tech-bro associated (and sometimes rationalist associated) claim that "empathy is the enemy" being one of the biggest one. Instead of building empathy with the victims of, say, the holocaust, it is all about rationalizing it. That, rationalization, however, is also not done in a deep way (e.g. exploring the morality of it) but instead in a lazy superficial way that wipes off everything that is not related to oneself. This kind of self-centeredness that is celebrated by successful folks (and influencers) is the real danger. Even if you traumatize them, I don't think for a minute it will make them better people. They will more likely just be traumatized abusers. But I agree on the overall loss of lessons argument. I have immense respect for holocaust survivors who have spoken against authoritarianism and for folks like the people in Gaza. Instead of being acting on fear they stood up to their principles, despite also having been in immensely vulnerable positions. That takes immense strength and fortitude and I just don't think that this is a direct lesson that many will be able to learn through trauma. But I do think that more people should listen to them.

Cue "speak softly love" which then increasingly morphs into the motif from Lara's theme. Darn, I guess I am now dual racist (culturalist..?)

And wasn't the sale only approved under certain provisions, such as maintaining employee levels and then the CEO was stating in a live interview that buying Stelco was actually a defensive acquisition, i.e. to protect US steel production?

I only now realized that for some reason I missed the passage where they estimated the cost to be about 1-2 billion and it seems that those will likely come from federal subsidies/grants. What is still not quite clear to me from the article if that would actually meet demand as a lot of them are still imported, despite tariffs.

I am not sure what that would help with. A pattern in a sequence can be described mathematically, but that description does not carry the same meaning. "Dog" is a simple 3-letter sequence, and we can encode it in various ways. And you could do the same thing with full sentences, and develop for example pattern matching and see that "dog" might frequently pair up with "walk". But that does not solve the problem to figure out what "dog" is.

Obviously, my knowledge in computing is too limited to really comment on how the framework would apply, though I am interested in exploring that. I think a big challenge in biology is that even if the code is straightforward inasmuch that we have a very simple sequence from DNA to protein (something that unfortunately baffles OP). But then when it comes to the functionality we have got that one protein in an extremely complex context with thousands of other proteins and biomolecules, that change dynamically in a constant basis. We mostly understand all the bits in the cell but not their dynamic interactions and the results that happen on varying timescales (some within ms, others hours or longer). A likely flawed analogy is like having a list of all possible instructions in a program, but they are formed and changed dynamically so that the outcome often remains indeterminate. Potentially the issue is either the use of "crypto" in a non-standard sense. Or alternatively they might think of it as code as they not clear on both of the concepts they want to connect somehow. I.e. plain language appears cryptic if you don't know the language.

It provides some details in the article: I don't know how expensive it would be to change the process, but clearly Butler Works didn't consider it essential for its business. Plus them being the sole provider likely also has to do with it (based on free market principles and all that).

You could argue that he has been a Shakespearean actor in (almost) any of his roles.

Are there others? That is also the series that made me decide to marry my wife. We are both sad now.

How does that compare to livestock?

I want that for my lab. And also for meetings.

You are giving too much credit to an administration that got surprised by the fact that after an attack Iran did what years of analysis predicted they would be doing. It is like saying that Hegseth's focus on testosterone is a way to mislead the public into believing he is a total idiot.

I am not exactly sure why it was that unexpected. To be fair most data is on microgravity rather than zero gravity, but while we do see some changes they tend to be more impactful on higher organizational levels (e.g., biofilm) rather than, say genome organization. There are some metabolic changes, but the effect size was not particularly dramatic and my suspicion was that it was heavily driven by the experimental setup (e.g. gas exchange) and related issues.

Well, this then makes the whole discussion meaningless, you know that right? Because effectively you refuse to understand what is real and instead make up something that for some reasons makes sense to you. Unfortunately this also means that the only person for which the discussion makes sense is yourself.

I think there are multiple layers to this question. The first is that PHP is maintained by a non-profit. I.e. it is not really something that they sell. The next layer would be folks using PHP. There, the issue I think is that if you implement something in any language, you really have no control over the product itself. You may be liable to apply patches as they are released but that is a fair bit different. Then there is the general issue of liability for software flaws. I think in most jurisdiction currently, there is a big gap in regulating liability regarding software flaws and tech in general. From what I understand, current licenses basically state that they sell the software as-is and if something goes wrong down the line, it ain't their problem. The only way to deal with it is basically switching vendors. There is now legislation in Europe and elsewhere underway that try to implement mandatory security measures and guidelines regarding how vulnerabilities need to be managed. A big issue is that historically there has been a huge knowledge gap between legislators and tech companies, resulting a fragmented wild west in terms of what tech is able and allowed to do. And rather obviously, the dangers have shifted massively from when applying software involved using tapes and floppies to a system now which is increasingly cloud-based and connected to everything but legislation is clearly severely lagging behind.

As @TheVat mentioned they are depictions of apkallu and they often have these rosette bracelets. In some older papers about the Nimrud tombs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queens%27_tombs_at_Nimrud) rossettes were associated with royalty and divinity and were also found at items associated with the king and in there was also a relief with an apkallu with inscriptions just beneath a rosette mentioning protective spirits or something to that effect and there was also speculations regarding a possible connection to the goddess Ishtar, as a variation to the more common eight-pointed star.