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jajag

888 karma · joined February 20, 2017

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jajag··on The Book of Kells, now digitized and available online
> Religion is often used to segregate humans into opposing tribes

You can say that about absolutely any belief, whether religious or not

jajag··on Apple must pay 13B euros in back taxes, EU's top court rules
> This is will force a political crisis

no it won't

> as the government is complaining it has no money to build houses

no it isn't

jajag··on Higher ultraviolet light exposure is associated with lower mortality
That's an overly simplistic approach.
jajag··on Higher ultraviolet light exposure is associated with lower mortality
The paper addresses this briefly, and suggests additional mechanisms to do with UV effects on different skin layers (e.g. NO mediated vasodilatation) may be involved.
jajag··on State of emergency declared as Ukraine launches raid into Russia
> Seizing the plant and rigging it to explode as a quid pro quo demand for Russia to leave the Zaporizhia NPP

I honestly don't see that happening. There's a diplomatic game being played around Russia's nuclear threats, I don't see Ukraine being so dumb as to undermine that.

jajag··on State of emergency declared as Ukraine launches raid into Russia
For what it's worth:

https://x.com/Heroiam_Slava/status/1821274958879977633

https://x.com/Tendar/status/1821222650191982674

https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1821219526668898710

https://x.com/Danspiun/status/1821218979811119558

Yes I agree, this has to be a limited Ukrainian operation, but the short term impact is still considerable. What the long term goal is, who knows.

jajag··on State of emergency declared as Ukraine launches raid into Russia
> Ukrainians always insisted what they are fighting to protect the homeland.

Just what do you think they're doing if not that?

jajag··on State of emergency declared as Ukraine launches raid into Russia
It's quite a bit more than that. I've seen reports of 40-50 surrendering in just one location alone - smaller numbers in multiple reports from other locations.
jajag··on Scientists uncover the ancient origins of baobab trees
The Kimberly rock drawings are some of the oldest in Australia, and an intrinsic part of Aboriginal culture in the region which they are found. Assigning their origin to a non-aboriginal source was considered disrespectful by some.
jajag··on Scientists uncover the ancient origins of baobab trees
The Nature article is here https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07447-4

Somebody (I don't remember who) suggested that Australian Boabab trees were potential evidence of the direct population of Australia from Africa by a pre-Aboriginal people, based on the idea that the fruit of the Boabab tree would be an excellent food source for a long cross-ocean crossing, as well as supposed "African" characteristics in the Kimberley petrographs found in the same area as the trees. The theory is fringe-science at best (and I believe slightly offensive to Aboriginals) but I've been curious about the origin of the trees since coming across the theory. I skimmed through the paper but didn't see any estimate for a date for the genetic diversion of the Australian Boababs.

jajag··on The Ridgeway: The 5k-year-old pathway that's Britain's oldest road
I'd highly recommend the book "The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot" by Robert Macfarlane in which the writer describes walking the Ridgeway and other walks in the UK and other places. His description of walking the Broomway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Broomway) is particularly enthralling.
jajag··on NPM and NodeJS should do more to make ES Modules easy to use
> But I do believe they got the syntax wrong - should have been "from fs import { readFile }" so that auto-complete works.

Personally, I prefer the "import x from y" format because it makes it easier to visually scan where an import is coming from; fair point about auto-complete though.

jajag··on British Nuclear Warning System
In a similar vein, I recently came across Peter Laurie's Beneath the City Streets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneath_the_City_Streets) in a second hand bookshop. Despite belonging to a very different time, it's still a very interesting read.
jajag··on With EU backing, North African nations aggressively push back migrants to desert
https://archive.ph/1tEgl
jajag··on Doubts grow about the biosignature approach to alien-hunting
Assembly theory might eventually provide some useful tools in this area

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_theory

jajag··on Beyond headlines of transmitted Alzheimer's, scientists see case for prions
It already has with the BSE crisis, and I'm not sure if we 100% understand how close to a much greater crises we came. I remember there was period in the UK back in the nineties where there was the grim prospect of hundreds of thousands of cases - thankfully it never came close to that. And there are European countries where I still can't donate blood, because I lived in the UK during the outbreak.
jajag··on Tests for consciousness in humans and beyond
I think you're confusing intelligence with consciousness
jajag··on Ring of galaxies challenges thinking on cosmos
Earlier post about this with link to the university's press release: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38960728
jajag··on Amazon sold me a drive and it came with data
A link to the actual post: https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/181241a/amazon_sol...
jajag··on Chaos in Spain after payment card network crash
> people who still don't believe that decentralized blockchain networks are the future of payments

Imagine if the network was working but at 7 global transactions per second and each purchase took 10 mins for the payment to clear.

Fact of the matter is that even with yesterday's outage, the Spanish payment card network still delivers excellent reliability and performance.

jajag··on Show HN: Rental data supplied by tenants in Ireland, searchable by all
In Ireland's case, both apply - there's an inability to build and there's defacto rent caps. Plus until very recently, an eviction ban.
jajag··on Two men die in Ironman Cork competition in Ireland
Here's an RTE News article on the tragedy. You can see from the photo that yes, it was pretty rough still: https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/0820/1400656-cork-ironman/
jajag··on Speed isn’t everything, and slowness may in fact be more beneficial (2017)
Festina lente
jajag··on The past is not true
> "the past is never finished"

Very well said.

jajag··on In Europe, the bird will fly by our EU rules
European commissioners aren't elected in any sense of the word, they're appointed by national governments. Even if the US president is elected via an electoral college, the outcome of that vote is very much driven by the popular vote - it's in absolutely no way comparable to the way commissioners are put in office.
jajag··on Potential fabrication in research threatens the amyloid theory of Alzheimer’s
> Ashe declined via email to be interviewed or to answer written questions posed by Science ... But she wrote, “I still have faith in Aβ*56,”

Richard Dawkins won't be impressed.

jajag··on Electric fields, not individual neurons, may hold information in memory: study
This aligns somewhat with Johnjoe McFadden's ideas about the role of the brain's electromagnetic field: https://aeon.co/essays/does-consciousness-come-from-the-brai...
jajag··on Autistic people challenge preconceived ideas about rationality
^^^ this
jajag··on Behind Irish outpouring of relief for Navajo
> No, most of the landlords were of British descent.

So landlords of British descent can't be considered Irish? Even if their families had been present in Ireland for several centuries?

> To say they could do nothing because

Excuse me, where did I say they couldn't do anything? I was only trying to put some context on the original comment, but it seems people are more interested in being outraged.

jajag··on Behind Irish outpouring of relief for Navajo
It was an attempt to explain the economic structure that would allow food to be exported from a country during a famine, not necessarily to rationalize and certainly not to excuse. The fact of the matter is that these kind of economic structures were not unique to Ireland of the time, nor would they have been absent in Ireland under a native non-colonial government.
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