At some point I felt these articles were worth saving. I’m curious how many you have seen elsewhere?
“Kongō Gumi was founded in 578 and operated for more than 1,400 years as an independent business before becoming a subsidiary of Takamatsu Kensetsu in 2006. It continues to operate today, specializing in the construction, maintenance and repair of Buddhist temples, using traditional tools and techniques passed down from its founder.”
Are we at an all time high of unprofitable growth stocks?
There’s a financial product for just about everything including hedging corporate tax rate risk: “By tracking the highest marginal tax rate imposed in each year by the United States federal government on the taxable income of corporations, investors will be able to better hedge U.S. equity market exposure. For the first time, corporations, liquidity providers, institutions, hedge funds and equity investors will have a powerful risk management tool to hedge against future corporate tax rate volatility.” Finally.
Quebec needs its own emoji because other allegedly autonomous regions, like Scotland, have little flag emoji’s. If only they cared enough to vote for their own independence, they could have their emoji and more!
“Self-reported mate preferences suggest intelligence is valued across cultures, consistent with the idea that human intelligence evolved as a sexually selected trait. […] Measured intelligence did not predict increased mate appeal in either study, whereas perceived intelligence and funniness did. More intelligent people were perceived as more intelligent, but not as funnier.” This is probably bullshit social pseudoscience but fun nonetheless.
Fun dashboard of public market SaaS company metrics:
The war on definitions continues as the FAA changes the definition of astronaut (technically “Commercial Space Astronaut Wings”) to exclude Bezos and Branson. The FAA issued this addendum on the day of Bezos’ launch so it’s hard to interpret this as anything but bureaucratic pettiness.
The most important study on policing that no one is talking about probably because the abstract buries the lede. For background, formal complaints against the police will lead to one of three outcomes: sustained (guilty), exonerated (not guilty), or not sustained (inconclusive). When body cameras were introduced, the share of “not sustained” complaints went from 49% → 17%, “sustained” from 15% → 33%, and “exonerated” from 3% → 25%. Body cameras introduce more definitive outcomes in complaints and therefore accountability for both the police and the populace. Huge policy implications.
For all the hype, the GI Bill hasn’t done much to increase earnings outcomes for vets: “the introduction of the PGIB [Post 9/11 GI Bill] raised college enrollment by 0.17 years and B.A. completion by 1.2 percentage points (on a base of 9 percent). But, the PGIB reduced average annual earnings nine years after separation from the Army by $900 (on a base of $32,000)”. Sad.
The skill gap that is cyber security professionals:
Related: a ransomware payments dashboard and data repository.
“This paper examines the persuasiveness of delivery in start-up pitches. Using machine learning (ML) algorithms to process full pitch videos, we quantify persuasion in visual, vocal, and verbal dimensions. Positive (i.e., passionate, warm) pitches increase funding probability. Yet conditional on funding, high-positivity startups underperform.” Maybe an arbitrage for VC’s.
Important revision to the most comprehensive Long COVID study by Office of National Statistics in the UK. Basically, they made a data labeling error for participants at the tail end of the study period and have subsequently revised their findings: “Experimental estimates of the prevalence of symptoms that remain 12-weeks after coronavirus (COVID-19) infection[…] range from 3.0% based on tracking specific symptoms, to 11.7% based on self-classification of long COVID”. Very much a good news story.
Rather than use off-the-shelf models, San Francisco has engaged in a years-long process to design [trash] cans that'll cost thousands of dollars apiece. And it's not nearly done. Yea, I think that just about explains it but it’s a good read nonetheless.
Fun tidbit of tennis history. Jimmy Connors routed Vitas Gerulaitis 16 times in a row until the 1980 US Open in NYC when Vitas upset Connors. Vitas quipped, “Let that be a lesson to you all. Nobody beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row!" Pure class.
There’s high variance in the European norms of working age children living with their parents:
Good primer on geothermal energy. This is another topic that’s only recently getting the attention it deserves. Probably because natural gas prices have gone through the roof and Europeans might be burning wood to stay warm this winter.