IT WON’T BE EASY, YOU’LL THINK IT STRANGE:

If Javier Milei is successful, the world will talk about the Argentinean miracle”: An Interview with Marcelo Duclos (José Papparelli, November 26, 2024, European Conservative)

I would say that the most important thing is something that at first glance nobody notices and yet is key for the economy: the fall in the so-called “country risk” index. That is, the decrease in the indicator that measures the probability that a nation will default on its financial obligations, such as the payment of its external debt. This also means that the economic measures begin the capitalisation of the Argentine economy. However, the average worker does not yet perceive this. The important thing is that this macroeconomic consolidation will inevitably put an end to the fiscal deficit at the national level, with an historic adjustment in unnecessary spending and without resorting to printing banknotes to end the deficit and inflation. This represents another momentous change whose central objective is the promotion of economic development and the strengthening of the competitiveness of various economic sectors. In other words, in the macroeconomy, there is a fundamental correction of issues that today seem intangible, but that will be reflected in the daily lives of Argentines in a very short time.

Is there something that the citizens can perceive today in concrete terms?

Of course, inflation control. We have to take into account the government’s very important monetary correction that put an end to the state’s sources of financing through monetary issuance. We must remember that we had a president, Alberto Fernández, who said that inflation was caused by “demons.” The question of uncontrolled price increases is key, and I can say that, in Argentina, the problem of inflation is now history. Logically, the question of updating tariffs and services has meant that people have had to realise that things are worth what they are worth, and that has its consequences.

Now, when almost every day goes by with purchases not increasing in price, the moment of truth has arrived and, finally, reality ends up imposing itself. Another example is the overnight solution of the rent crisis, with the repeal of the law that fixed the market price—paradoxically, the opposite of what Sánchez and the communists did in Spain! This is also tangible for Argentines.

GIVE THE PARADIGM, GET THE MATH:

Mathematicians Just Debunked the ‘Bunkbed Conjecture’ (Joseph Howlett, Nov. 24th, 2024, Wired)

Unexpectedly, three mathematicians have now shown that a well-known hypothesis in probability theory called the bunkbed conjecture falls into this category. The conjecture—which is about the different ways you can navigate the mathematical mazes called graphs when they’re stacked on top of each other like bunk beds—seemed natural, even self-evident. “Anything our brain tells us suggests the conjecture should be true,” said Maria Chudnovsky, a graph theorist at Princeton University who was not involved in the new work.

But they were wrong. Last month, a trio of mathematicians announced a counterexample, disproving the conjecture. The result offers fresh guidance on how to approach related problems in physics about properties of solid materials. But it also taps into deeper questions about how mathematics works. A lot of mathematical effort is spent trying to prove conjectures true. It’s lonelier to try to pull them apart. The team behind the new work failed many times before they finally found their counterexample. Their story suggests that mathematicians may need to question their assumptions more often.

THE BEST SPORTS STORY IN THE WORLD:

Sudan, football and the ‘worst humanitarian crisis on earth’ (Adam Leventhal, Nov 24, 2024, The Athletic)

Football pitches around Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, and in the neighbouring city of Omdurman have been used as burial grounds for the dead rather than games. The 19-month conflict has caused what is, according to the United Nations, “the worst humanitarian crisis on earth”.

“The numbers are so large that you can’t even get your head around the scale of human suffering,” the United States’ special envoy for Sudan, Tom Perriello, told reporters this week. “The numbers are astronomical…(and) the death toll is probably more than anything that’s been estimated.”

People from Sudan have found themselves fighting for peace but also for attention, as conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine dominate headlines.

Sudan’s football team have been forced into a nomadic existence, playing “home” games in South Sudan (which became its own nation in 2011), Mauritania, Saudi Arabia and Libya. But they have achieved remarkable results: Sudan have qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) starting in Morocco in December 2025 and are top of their group competing to reach the World Cup, a tournament they have never played in before, in the United States, Canada and Mexico in 2026.

CLASSICIST:

Requiem for a Punster: Leonard Slatkin Pays Tribute to P.D.Q. Bach (and Peter Schickele) (Chris King, November 22, 2024. Common Reader)

Leonard Slatkin: Peter Schickele was a composer, first and foremost. He played the bassoon and the piano as well. He had written, among other things, the music for a show back in the early sixties called O Calcutta that was a little bit like Hair, and these other sort of hippie-inspired things where it was very short, momentary flash of full nudity onstage, very shocking back in the early sixties. He wrote the music for a film called Silent Running with Bruce Dern, which was about the impact of pollution on the environment and outer space. He was part of a group called The Open Window, that combined classical music with pop genres of the time.

The success of that concert at Town Hall really put him on the map. He would appear on The Today Show; he would be on late-night chat shows. This invention of the last and least of J.S. Bach’s children was giving a kind of comedic bent to the stuffy world of classical music. Even if you didn’t know anything about classical music, you could come to these concerts and you would be rolling on the floor, because all of the references he would make to different music. At the same time he would invent instruments, all these things that were crazy. But it was very funny, and it really caught on—the public really embraced it.

When I came to St. Louis in 1968, we had this idea to do a concert at the Zoo, and we commissioned Peter to write a piece which was called A Zoo Called Earth, and at the end of the piece there was a march where many animals came out. The piece has become almost a staple of children’s concerts these days. It was also one of the first classical music pieces to deal with the environment because it had to do with an alien who comes to visit and thinks, well, if you’ll take better care of your planet, maybe we will come back and visit again.

I commissioned a symphony from Peter which we premiered in Washington. Then I would conduct for P.D.Q. Bach concerts that Peter would do around the country and many of them here. Peter would usually arrive late for the concerts, and he might come in swinging on a rope from the balcony, Tarzan-style, and then crawl his way to the stage. With this most disheveled-looking manner you could possibly imagine, he would then proceed just to totally entertain the audience.

He also had a fantastic radio show called The Schickele Mix, which, in a way, was an inspiration for me when I started doing The Slatkin Shuffle. It is based on the idea that you don’t need to categorize music. You just need to find ways to juxtapose it in both ways that work and ways that don’t. And Peter was really good at that as well.

So, this marvelous person, terrific composer, we decided, since he passed, to do a concert to honor him.

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS QUALITY:

Even People Who Hate AI Art Appear to Actually Prefer AI Art in a Blind Test (frank Landmore, 11/23/24, Futurism)

To the untrained eye, it seems that AI-generated images are more than just passable; in some cases, they seem to match up to the old masters themselves.

That at least appears to be the findings of a recent blind test conducted by the blog Astral Star Codex, which found that the readers who took part incorrectly distinguished between AI images and human art 40 percent of the time.

But perhaps the most striking takeaway was that overall, the participants slightly preferred the AI creations to human ones, with six of the top ten most-liked images being AI-generated, and the top two slots going to the AI paintings.

This preference was even the case among participants who identified as having a profound distaste for AI illustrations — perhaps demonstrating the unnerving capabilities of the technology.

SO MUCH DONE, SO MUCH YET TO DO:

Is the US national debt a risk to investments? (Brian Levitt, 7/03/24, Invesco)

The US is a very wealthy country. For example, the total US household net worth is over $150 trillion, which is close to five times the size of the nation’s debt.5 From that lens, the debt level may not seem as troubling. It may be one reason to explain why the nation is generally viewed by markets as a good creditor.

With $34 trillion in liabilities and $200+ trillion in assets, the US federal government has far more assets than many realize.1 Rather than measuring debt as a percentage of GDP, which is primarily an income measure, measuring debt against total assets paints a far more solvent picture. If all the US government land, buildings, and natural resources were combined, the country would likely have more than $200 trillion in assets. While not all are liquid, they certainly paint the US as a much better creditor than many would believe.

Given that Treasuries are one of the safest and most liquid assets in the world, it’s unlikely investors will lose their appetite for US debt. The federal government owns 20% of US debt, making it the largest single holder.2 Since this debt is just money the government owes itself, however, it has no effect on overall government finances. More than 40% of US debt is owned by US savers, pensions, mutual funds, and financial institutions, who hold Treasuries for safety, yield, policy requirements, or regulatory reasons.2 While it’s true that more than 20% of US debt is held abroad, it’s not heavily concentrated in one country. The largest foreign investors include Japan and the UK, where yields are historically lower than they are in the US. 2

The debt, like the Border, is only an aesthetic matter, not an economic one. But the aesthetics make people believe government isn’t functioning well. Some showy but trivial “fixes” would be worthwhile in that context.

GIVEN THAT THEIR iDENTITARIANISM IS THE DISEASE…:

America Needs a Conservative Party: To defend the free world, free enterprise, and free thought (Robert Zubrin, Nov 22, 2024, The Cosmopolitan Globalist)

Trump is fine with baseball and apple pie. But his prescription for group identity—nativism—while more traditional, is equally toxic. As Friedrich Hayek explained in his seminal work The Road to Serfdom, there is no contradiction between nationalism and socialism. On the contrary, invoking the tribal instinct is the key to arouse the passion necessary to realize the full collectivist agenda.

While it has been assigned the designation “right-wing,” nativism is not a conservative orientation. It is not conservative, because it is anti-free enterprise, anti-Judeo-Christian, opposed to America’s founding proposition, and opposed to the traditions that built America. So it is not conservative at all. On the contrary, it is a form of radical tribal collectivism.

This is the deepest problem. Collectivization of property is very bad. Collectivization of minds is even worse. It is worse because it requires the abandonment of individual reason and conscience, the very essence of what makes us human. Conservatives viscerally opposed to what the Democrats have to offer are being told they need to board the Trump train and leave their minds behind on the station platform.

…our Identitarianism is not the cure.

THERE BE DRAGONS:

In the Heart of the Bear (Richard Farr, 11/21/24, 3Quarks)

Here, for me anyway, was a strange and arresting new experience of wilderness. I’d started out in full Delusional Romantic mode — a Paddler in a Sea of Fog, full of myself for appreciating my own insignificance in these almost limitless spaces. But in all this vastness there was a kind of claustrophobia to be found. You camp on one of the beaches and the sand is pleasantly soft underfoot. Maybe the sun has come out too and is applying a little warmth and UV to your damp malodorous gear. You look around, breathe deeply, and… you can’t visit the land. Beyond the sand, behind the tent, there’s an almost impenetrable green wall.

Almost: rarely, very rarely, there are short rough paths into the forest that previous visitors have created. One of these, three hundred yards long perhaps, connects two beaches across an isthmus. Trying to follow it makes me feel like a creature out of Tolkein: I have to clamber over branches larger than ordinary trees; I fall into pools of mud; I’m not sure I’m still going the right way; I find myself in mossy deeps where strange fungi loom out of the dark and whisper at me. Then, off to one side, I glimpse that especially eye-popping red cedar.

Wanting to get closer, I leave the path through a rat’s nest of salal and climb onto a trunk that has fallen in the right direction. An elevated highway! But the wood is slick and I manage only a couple of dozen small nervous steps before I see that a drop is opening up on either side: five feet, ten, fifteen, into a shadowy chaos of bark, loam, and leafy understory. I have the sensation that there is no forest floor, that the abyss of dying plant matter might go down forever. Ahead of me, across the trunk, the way is blocked by another trunk and its attendant wreckage. I prod, hesitate, back out and try a second route. Then a third, during which I’m attacked by killer brambles and twist an ankle during my escape. No ‘exploring in the forest’ here. The density is like nothing I’ve ever encountered. There’s no way through.

Robert Falcon Scott was right: “It is good to know that there remain wild corners of this dreadfully civilised world.” But after getting back to our narrow beach and failing to find any other paths, I thought: I don’t belong here. This place belongs to the trees, which are lending it to the bears and the wolves. The forest is saying: ‘Now that you’ve seen this, and appreciated what it really is, don’t come back.’

Later, I wondered if that was just a different kind of Romanticism.

NOT JUST SHOWER CURTAIN RINGS?:

New 3D Bioprinter Could Build Replicas of Human Organs, Offering a Boost for Drug Discovery (Margherita Bassi, November 19, 2024, Smithsonian)

Currently, scientists have only limited ways to create tissue for testing pharmaceutical therapies, such as using lab-grown samples or by relying on traditional 3D bioprinting, per Popular Science’s Andrew Paul. However, cultivating organs in a lab is complex and expensive—and printing them is currently slow and prone to errors, such as positioning cells incorrectly.

“Incorrect cell positioning is a big reason most 3D bioprinters fail to produce structures that accurately represent human tissue,” David Collins, head of the Collins BioMicrosystems Laboratory at the University of Melbourne and a co-author of the study, says in a statement.

“But with our new approach,” Collins and two other researchers write in an article for Pursuit, “not only can we position cells with precision, we can also fabricate at a scale of single cells.”

THAT WAS EASY:

Techno-optimism: clean and free energy (jan Bosch, 18 November 2024, Bits & Chips)

First, renewable energy. Sometime in recent years, we crossed the point where solar energy became the cheapest form of energy. Cheaper than oil, gas and any other non-renewable energy source. This is quite incredible as it means that research has been driving down the cost per watt incredibly fast. In fact, the price of solar panels measured in watts per dollar follows Moore’s Law, meaning that the cost of solar energy is halved every 18 months.

We also have wind power, tidal power and several other forms of renewable energy. The cost per watt for all of them is dropping rapidly as well. Although humans naturally think linearly instead of exponentially, the cost of these renewable sources of energy is dropping exponentially toward zero due to technological innovation and economies of scale.

The main challenge is of course energy storage. Progress in battery technology is rapid but slower than for generation. But also here, the rapid electrification of vehicles is driving economies of scale that are driving down the cost of storage as well. Already now, battery systems are becoming available for stationary purposes that often have had a previous life as part of a vehicle. This allows for high cost-effectiveness as the economic life of batteries is extended significantly.

This brings us to the second main development in energy: nuclear is on the way back. New generations of nuclear reactors are available that are truly safe, much smaller and much more cost-effective than the traditional reactors. According to the research I’ve seen, nuclear actually has the lowest environmental impact of all energy sources, including solar and wind, and the lowest number of attributable deaths. Using nuclear to fill the gaps in energy generation by renewables and to address the storage challenges will be critical if we want to stop using fossil fuels.

Kind of amusing that MAGA think they can make everyone spend more on energy in perpetuity just because that hate Greens.