But what if the DJ convinces his audience to invest in a much larger and more expensive night club at an extraordinary premium. Then it might make sense to buy the original night club just to protect the DJ’s scheme.
My math is that Musk’s twitter activity very reasonably increased Tesla’s market cap by more than 5% which is what he is offering to pay.
Going back to Trump I think that he going quiet after losing was not an effect of him being banned from Twitter as much as it was about the post defeat depression, mixed with fear of retribution for Jan. 6th now that he was out of office and also a part of him wanting to be Presidential and not critique his successor.
There are no rules in Twitter that prevent Musk from engaging in Pumps&Dumps so he'd have to do something Trump-esque to be banned. Spending 40B to secure the capability of inciting violence and unlike Trump avoid getting banned seems way out of whack. Besides inciting violence doesn't pump a stock.
I mean, 90% of large cap investors have underperformed the sp500. It's not about optimal returns, it's about diversification and portfolio risk. The Saudi's want some of their money in things that aren't correlated with oil, and pretty much everything in the physical word is. Technology is one of the few things that may even be inversely correlated.
That's assuming that the Saudis are being rational with their money. Given that they are currently trying to build a city that's a straight line[0], and a "shape based" floating octagon city[1], that assumption might not be correct. It's entirely likely that the real answer has less to do with Softbank's performance and their need to diversify, and more to do with MBS liking Masayoshi Son.
The line one actually looks brilliant. It has the appeal of letting any new growth easily happen and keep transport options simple. Though most likely there will be uneven development even on this design.
It's genuinely the dumbest city design I have ever seen, and it makes transport an absolute nightmare assuming you're interacting with real technology and not magic.
Cities are generally round for a good reason. You put the important stuff in the middle and your average transit trip remains as low as possible. Straight lines do the opposite, as you guarantee that each new resident is in literally the worst possible position for transit possible, and you over tax the center’s transit in order to move people to the ends of the line.
Oh, and consider the cost for things like sewage and water. They’re a bit component of a city’s cost, and here they’re laid out as inefficiently as possible.
May be. But think not about the utilization or optimization for a moment and focus on the maintainability and buildability aspects. Something that looks this regular probably be both built and maintained through pure automation. I mean self driving is super simple in this layout (as they mention their transport is automated). Compare the same to the ever expanding cities that quickly run out of central space and end up having a premium center and poor suburbs.
Obviously line is not the only thing that can provide these benefits. How about a large square or circle with the center purely reserved for green space. Anything beats the shitty cities we have today where people stay outside because they cant afford the rent and have to travel towards the center for work.
I think you can decompose a calculus course into three key components; principle/concepts, proofs, and procedurally solvable math problems.
All three have value but clearly the math problem aspect of it has depreciated in value due to calculators, wolfram alpha, etc yet it tends to remain the focus of many math curriculums. Calculus by its nature is more computationally intensive, meaning that it has experienced the greatest decline. If you really think about it, that curriculum was designed for an era when we called human "computers". There is probably opportunity to make calculus a more broadly valuable class by deemphasizing the mechanics and focusing on the principles and proofs.
What calculus class did you take? I don't think that there are many calculus classes where computation is a significant part. Rather you learn how to work with and translate equations, but there is little about methods for manually calculating integrals or derivatives by hand with different approximation methods etc. Basically nobody learns that properly today. And the tiny part of the course is the part where you learn and get intuition for the "Area under curve" concept, which is extremely important for basically everything.
I think it could be Nobel Prize worthy. Protein’s structure often determines its effect as a catalyst. So to map the DNA to the 2nd order outcomes seems like it could be the missing ingredient to controlling the properties of cells.
Personally I’m hoping that someone smarter than me figures out how to displace existing catalysts like platinum and palladium. Seems like it could be a pretty penny and some positive environmental impact to boot.
Protein catalysts almost always contain an inorganic atom. We will be able to make more efficient catalysts with better understanding of protein structure but the need for metals won't necessarily go away.
The protein catalysts can utilize more common metal ions instead of the rarer metals. Placing an iron atom in the right protein structure will affect the reaction probabilities.
It seems to me that there are two ways to learn well. One is to have a carefully curated curriculum and the other is to have enough experience to parse the world by yourself. In humans we might describe these as knowledge/education and wisdom. I see data preparation as improved knowledge transfer and more training data as the path to wisdom.
Wisdom is usually heavily discounted by smart young people so I expect engineers will double down on better data prep than better data acquisition. Also which looks better on a resume?
I’d say that the first premise is objectively false. I think it’s much simpler. The volatility of asset has correlated narratives of hope and fear in the mind of the asset holder. These in turn produce a dopamine response, akin to mechanisms of a gambling addiction
I used to work on DNA dyes. Typically when you see a 6 carbon ring with a chain of carbons attached, there is high probability of that molecule interfering with DNA replication.
Basically the mechanism works because the hexagon ring slides between the base pairs and this leads to a lowest energy state due to a phenomenon call pi orbital stacking resulting in the molecule getting stuck there. The carbon chain is mostly valuable in the sense that it distances the rest of molecule from interfering with the stacking process.
Take a look at ethidium bromide or pretty much any other intercalating dna stain and you’ll see similar characteristics. It’s also extremely carcinogenic.
It’s analogous to getting some cloth stuck in your zipper. Sometimes you can zip and unzip easily enough but sometimes it’ll get stuck. My understanding is that really DNA replication issues tend to be the root cause of some, possibly many cancers but really that’s outside my expertise.
So I would say that it is internally consistent with my limited knowledge of biochemistry that aspartame is carcinogenic.
I would strongly caveat this with saying that these structures occur in pretty high frequency across many forms of plant and animal life. Chemists in my lab used to joke about how potatoes contain 17 or so know carcinogenic compounds so why buy organic. My point is, if you go looking for correlations with cancer in many forms of food, you will find them.
I think for most people, aspartame is not likely to be major risk factor unless you are consuming it in extreme quantities and otherwise live a very healthy life.
The biochemist I raised and who is sitting next to me drinking beers I paid for so that he would not drink all my expensive whiskey says that ethidium bromide doesn't even pass the Ames test except with liver homogenates, and its actual carcinogenicity is unproven. Your body produces similar carbon rings --- phenylalanines --- constantly. You can't simply derive carcinogencity axiomatically.
(I'm butchering this and mostly just having fun with it.)
Edit
He is correcting me and saying that at the moment he is technically working as a veterinary immunologist. But the point about 6-carbon thingies stands.
> The biochemist I raised and who is sitting next to me drinking beers I paid for so that he would not drink all my expensive whiskey
Ah, the joys of having young-adult offspring! I was recently surprised and delighted when the high-school history teacher that I raised brought home a bottle of the not-expensive whisky that we drink (Famous Grouse) to replace the bottle that magically empties so much faster since he started coming over for dinner now and then. He hasn't brought whiskey yet (Jameson's Port Cask) because we don't drink that up as quickly ....
If that hypothesis were true, it would implicate not just phenylalanine, but dopamine, epinephrine, diphenhydramine, ibuprofen, paracetamol, limonene, vanillin, cinnamaldehyde, and literally thousands of other different molecules, natural and synthetic, we constantly interact with. Heck, most polyphenols have pi-conjugation, and those are widely thought to have antioxidant and anticancer effects. Oh and I completely forgot about the indole moiety (tryptophan).
Intercalation is way more complicated than just some flat pi-bonded moieties. If that's all it took, we'd see everyone getting cancer like...rats...oooohhhh, I wonder...
Maybe rodents (especially Sprague rats) are way more vulnerable to intercalation? That would explain why so many things cause cancer - weak recovery mechanisms for DNA replication errors. I need to look into this further.
Anyway... the pattern I see across known intercalators is large, multi-ring (3 or more) fused flat structures. Like PAHs.
It’s not really a comprehensive interpretation of intercalation but I think a geometric interpretation can help some non-chemists understand how intercalating molecules bind to dna.
From the purely geometric model, some of the molecules you proposed have pretty large functional groups adjacent to rings which I think may make the intercalation process less efficient. That being said, if you took those molecules and gave massive doses to rats, some may comeback as carcinogenic.
I think that your multi-ring point is fair. The multi ring structure to me suggests that the more the pi orbitals are able to delocalize their electrons the higher the binding efficiency. I have tested 1-2 molecules where non-fused rings showed some affinity but not near the potency of fused ring structures. I would also say two rings with a carbon-carbon link seem to be potent binding as well. I presume that it’s also related to delocalizing pi orbitals and extra degrees of freedom in the intercalation process but I suppose that’s just speculative.
> some of the molecules you proposed have pretty large functional groups adjacent to rings
And many more do not.
> if you took those molecules and gave massive doses to rats, some may comeback as carcinogenic.
Luckily we don't have to guess. For example, look at the hundreds of terpenoids that saturate traditional diets, many of which and are widely believed to prevent cancer. If you have any actual evidence, put it up.
> The multi ring structure to me suggests...
All this is interesting, but it has exactly nothing to do with in vivo carcinogenicity. You don't have to look far to see this is true. Healthy diets are chock full of polyphenols that exhibit significant DNA binding affinity, but lack evidence of carcinogenicity. And it's not for lack of looking.
You appear to have some specialized knowledge, but when you try to extrapolate it to a wider field where you're out of your depth, these hand-waving guesses can easily turn into fearmongering.
I want to apologize, I definitely don’t intend to fear monger and most definitely not want to imply that I have expertise. Roughly my level of understanding is mostly that of a low level undergrad and you should treat my naiveness as such.
I recognize that what I’m engaging in is entirely wild speculation based on limited experience and data, likely very error prone and that really I’m just having fun without considering how it may impact other readers.
I understand that for many this an important issue of health and research. I did not intend to detract from these more legitimate forms of discussion.
> I think a geometric interpretation can help some non-chemists understand how intercalating molecules bind to dna.
Absolutely, geometry of electric fields is the primary factor in biochemical interactions. "The electron is where its at" as my o-chem teacher always said.
But that's exactly why aspartame is totally different than intercalators like EthBr, doxorubicin, and PAHs. That phenyl moeity has a rotational degree of freedom, and the whole peptide backbone is floppy. EthBr has a Ph but it's stabilized in-plane by the tri-ring. Intercalators typically have 300-500 daltons worth in a "planar greasy brick" regime, with very little in the way of bulky or floppy steric groups. On paper, aspartame looks pretty flat, but you gotta think about thermal molecules in solution.
E: just noticed this
> I would also say two rings with a carbon-carbon link seem to be potent binding as well.
Oh yeah, like biphenylyl, -Ph-Ph? So that's actually much more planar than a single Ph. The conjugation (any time you see carbon chains with alternating double bonds) of the pi-orbitals stabilizes the rings in-plane. Also it's rather unnatural, there's not a lot of reactions which forge a sigma bond between two aromatics like that.
If it's fully unsaturated, 1,4-oxazinane. If it's 2 double bonds, 1,4-oxazine, or more commonly oxazinone if it's part of a larger fused structure (eg nile red). If you fully aromatize it, it becomes oxazinium. That's a weird one, probably unstable. I think there are some peroxo species with a 1,4-oxazin-1-ium but it's a bit wacky.
The meta (1,3) oxazinium is more stable, but it still needs 3 big electron-withdrawing groups to stabilize it in the case of 2,4,6-Triphenyl-1,3-oxazine-1-ium.
Thank you. I was looking at a vermicide that had what looked like a complicated nitrogen cage, empty, with a pair of those hanging off, and I realized I had no idea what to call them.
> Take a look at ethidium bromide or pretty much any other intercalating dna stain and you’ll see similar characteristics. It’s also extremely carcinogenic.
This is a myth. This is actually a good example of a plausible biological effect that doesn't apply to living organisms:
My interpretation is that is why it’s so brilliant.
It’s incredibly simple for the end user conceptually but encapsulates optimizing processing across a distributed file system, fault tolerance, shuffling key value pairs, job stage planning, handling intermediates ect.
Hadoop a big data framework that reduces the level of competence required to write data pipelines because it was able to hide a massive amount of complexity behind the map reduce abstraction.
Id even argue that hive, snowflake, and other sql data warehouses have taken this idea further, where most sql primitives can be implemented as map reduce derivatives. With this next level of abstraction, dbas and non-engineers are witting map reduce computations.
I think my point is that abstractions like map reduce have had a democratizing effect on who can implement high scale data processing and their value is that they took something incredibly complex and made it simple.
I agree with this. As soon as the MapReduce paper came out, people were criticizing it for a lack of novelty, claiming that so-and-so has been using these same techniques for years. And of course those critics are still around saying the same things. But I think there's a reason we keep going back to these techniques, and I think it's because they repeatedly prove to be practical and effective.
I do think there is some real signal in this article in addition to the survivorship bias.
1) Noting that the stock market was boring I think is real indicator of the mass psychology of that time. There is definitely a inverse correlation between enthusiasm for markets and future returns.
2) Noting the returns of standard Oil is a reasonable take. There was a massive expansion of combustion engine production in the preceding two decades and inferring that this would be correlated with increased demand for oil based products is not hot take. Also it doesn’t take a genius to understand a oil is better business that automobiles, recurring revenue and all.
3) Tax rates have historically influenced valuations.
4) I’m not sure how to extrapolate the the German currency situation but I think looking at the relative attractiveness global markets makes sense.
How well a sector as a whole does is practically irrelevant for what return on investment a investor gets by investing in said sector.
A sector can shrink from 63% of the total market to less than 1% and outperform the market over the time that happened. See the US railway sector from 1900 to 2020:
I think the example of the railroad is biased by the exact same phenomenon. From 1900, In the next 10 years you would see the mass production of automobiles and the invention of the airplane. Basically it’s the story of disruption told from the perspective of the disrupted technology.
In the 1920’s standard oil subsidiaries were still an effective monopoly for petroleum in the us market. Therefore a reasonable proxy for the future profitability of the entire industry in that market assuming that their ruthless anticompetitive behavior allowed them retain their market dominance. Additionally they were profiting off the same disruption in transportation that you are citing, which as we are both acknowledging was massive.
The book Titan is awesome context for this. Wonderful read.
Unlike the technology such as railroads, natural resource commodities and vertically integrated supply chains tend to not be disrupted as easily (very unfortunate for us).
I’m not saying that it couldn’t have gone wrong, but clearly an asymmetrical risk reward at 3-5 PE. So in general you are right, but I think if you find a company that has a great business model, is a monopoly, and is disrupting a massive market, at reasonable price, you have a recipe for outlier returns.
My math is that Musk’s twitter activity very reasonably increased Tesla’s market cap by more than 5% which is what he is offering to pay.