Fal's recent activity

  1. Comment on This video is six minutes long! in ~tech

    Fal
    Link Parent
    Not quite sure, honestly. When I try to recreate how I did it now, it just links to the homepage of Youtube. Weird!

    Not quite sure, honestly. When I try to recreate how I did it now, it just links to the homepage of Youtube. Weird!

    1 vote
  2. Comment on This video is six minutes long! in ~tech

    Fal
    Link
    Offtopic: When I fucked up removing the tracking bit from the URL, accidentally linked to this weird video: https://youtu.be/9xp1XWmJ_Wo?si=WkT841PkZ6_ZARew

    Offtopic: When I fucked up removing the tracking bit from the URL, accidentally linked to this weird video:
    https://youtu.be/9xp1XWmJ_Wo?si=WkT841PkZ6_ZARew

    1 vote
  3. Comment on This video is six minutes long! in ~tech

    Fal
    Link
    A neat little demonstration on a weird use for the multiple audio tracks feature on Youtube, along with a discussion of how use of this trick could impact the recommendation algorithm. Live long...

    A neat little demonstration on a weird use for the multiple audio tracks feature on Youtube, along with a discussion of how use of this trick could impact the recommendation algorithm.

    Live long and prosper

    4 votes
  4. Comment on Drinking two-three cups of coffee a day tied to lower dementia risk in ~health.mental

    Fal
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    No problem, gotta use my academic access while I still have it :p If anyone else is curious about any part of this paper, let me know and I'll look into it. The recency of this paper means that it...
    • Exemplary

    No problem, gotta use my academic access while I still have it :p

    If anyone else is curious about any part of this paper, let me know and I'll look into it. The recency of this paper means that it will unfortunately not be available on open-access programs like Sci-Hub or Anna's Archive for a while.

    For those curious about why these are the controls chosen, such as why 'Neighborhood socioeconomic status index' is used instead of more direct metrics such as race or income (which would help more directly address methodology concerns like @alden's), it seems that the authors are pulling their data from two surveys. As such, they probably didn't get to choose which questions were asked in those surveys. Since all of the participants are doctors, dentists, nurses, vets, etc., those factors may have also been viewed as less relevant to the study since the effects are measured within one population; that is to say, measuring the outcomes of coffee-drinking doctors vs. non-coffee drinking doctors. It's also possible that the authors just felt that the socioeconomic index was good enough to account for race/income. Unfortunately, the controls don't get too much focus in the methods section of the paper, so if you're curious I would email the authors.

    Update:
    I did some digging on the Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status Index (nSES). The nSES is comprised of two main categories of factors: neighborhood affluence and neighborhood disadvantage. All versions of the nSES include income in some form, with the exact values adjusted over time. Past versions of the nSES index have included proportion of people identifying as Non-Hispanic Black in the neighborhood disadvantage category. It is worth noting that the most recent iteration of the nSES does not. The reasoning for this according to the project:

    Neighborhood Disadvantage has evolved considerably since 2000. In previous decades, disadvantage was measured by a concentration of unemployed residents, female headed families, and people identifying as Non-Hispanic Black race (in addition to measures of poverty). However, these characteristics have had progressively weaker associations with neighborhood disadvantage over time. This evolution suggests that the key drivers of neighborhood disadvantage are now exclusively economical rather than related to markers of social position. As such, the makeup of our neighborhood disadvantage measure has changed.

    Our 2016-2020 dataset has been updated to reflect the concentrated economic disadvantage represented by a high proportion of people living in poverty, receiving public assistance income, and with low family incomes (<$40,000).

    (Via the NaNDA website @ UMichigan)

    7 votes
  5. Comment on Drinking two-three cups of coffee a day tied to lower dementia risk in ~health.mental

    Fal
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I pulled up the study, and the listed control variables are: Age Marital Status Neighborhood socioeconomic status index Education Level Spouse's Education Level Profession Current Smoker Duration...

    I pulled up the study, and the listed control variables are:

    • Age
    • Marital Status
    • Neighborhood socioeconomic status index
    • Education Level
    • Spouse's Education Level
    • Profession
    • Current Smoker
    • Duration of physical activity per week
    • Body mass index
    • Total energy intake per day in kCal
    • Red meat intake
    • Alternative Healthy Eating Index

    Edit: Missed a few:

    • Medical History
      • Hypercholesterolemia
      • Hypertension
      • Family history of dementia
      • Diabetes
    • Medication/Vitamin Use
      • Multivitamins
      • Postmenopausal hormone
      • Aspirin
      • Antidepressant
    28 votes
  6. Comment on Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news in ~news

  7. Comment on The ten best and ten worst US foreign policy decisions in ~humanities.history

    Fal
    Link
    I’m not usually one for listicles, but this one is interesting enough that I think it could lead to some good discussion on here, especially given the academics who made the listings. Are there...

    I’m not usually one for listicles, but this one is interesting enough that I think it could lead to some good discussion on here, especially given the academics who made the listings. Are there any good decisions you think should’ve made the list? Bad decisions?

    I would like to acknowledge that discussions of international relations are and have always been politically and emotionally charged, especially regarding the United States, and especially now. Past posts on the topic have occasionally been locked or seen multiple bans. I ask commenters to please assume the best intent from your fellow Tildilians.

    4 votes
  8. Comment on Economic ideas and policy implementation: Evidence from Malthusian training in British Indian bureaucracy in ~humanities.history

    Fal
    Link Parent
    Wonder no further, they call out Malthus by name in the very Wikipedia page you cited!

    Wonder no further, they call out Malthus by name in the very Wikipedia page you cited!

    Trevelyan was a student of the economist Thomas Malthus while at Haileybury. His rigid adherence to Malthusian population theory during the Irish famine is often attributed to this formative tutelage.

    8 votes
  9. Comment on Economic ideas and policy implementation: Evidence from Malthusian training in British Indian bureaucracy in ~humanities.history

    Fal
    Link Parent
    Good shout, hopefully it’s fixed now. The line breaks in academic papers always annoys me when I quote them lol

    Good shout, hopefully it’s fixed now. The line breaks in academic papers always annoys me when I quote them lol

    4 votes
  10. Comment on Economic ideas and policy implementation: Evidence from Malthusian training in British Indian bureaucracy in ~humanities.history

    Fal
    (edited )
    Link
    Wild finding in a recent econ/history paper: British bureaucrats trained by Thomas Malthus provided less aid during droughts in India than those trained by one of his critics. Thomas Malthus...

    Wild finding in a recent econ/history paper: British bureaucrats trained by Thomas Malthus provided less aid during droughts in India than those trained by one of his critics. Thomas Malthus famously theorized the 'Malthusian Trap', which posits (among other things) that famine and social unrest were a natural correction for overpopulation.

    Abstract:

    Public officials often fail to implement government policy as directed, yet the role of economic ideas in shaping these implementation choices is poorly understood. This paper provides causal evidence that exposure to economic ideas can durably influence bureaucrat behavior. I study British colonial bureaucrats in India, exploiting a natural experiment created by the abrupt death of Thomas Malthus in 1834, replacing his economics instruction at a bureaucrat training college for that of a contemporary critic, Richard Jones. Whereas Malthus regarded economic distress as a natural mechanism for restoring equilibrium by reducing population growth, Jones disagreed with this view. Linking rainfall shocks to district-level fiscal responses, I show that officials trained by Malthus delivered less relief during droughts, providing 0.10-0.25 SD less aid across all major measures compared with officials taught by Jones. The results reveal that exposure to abstract economic ideas can shape real-world policy implementation for decades.

    5 votes
  11. Comment on I'm back in ~talk

    Fal
    Link Parent
    I seek only to shock and confuse :p (oh god it’s been SIX years since I’ve found this place)

    I seek only to shock and confuse :p (oh god it’s been SIX years since I’ve found this place)

    1 vote
  12. Comment on I'm back in ~talk

    Fal
    Link Parent
    I started using Reddit at a fairly young age and had been on it for a while, and was somewhat disillusioned with the shift in culture on there over time, so I wanted to see if there were any...

    I started using Reddit at a fairly young age and had been on it for a while, and was somewhat disillusioned with the shift in culture on there over time, so I wanted to see if there were any alternatives. I found Tildes through r/redditalternatives, and it was one of the few options that was both active enough and not some weird right-wing site. I lurked for a month or so and was really impressed with the effort I saw people put in their comments and posts (I believed I specifically mentioned @kfwyre when emailing to get my account). I've been active on here ever since, its helped me cut down on my usage of Reddit and social media generally, and I'm really happy to be part of the Tilderese community.

    4 votes
  13. Comment on I'm back in ~talk

    Fal
    Link Parent
    Hey, at least that ‘account created in 2019’ line on your account gives you more street cred with us newcomers :p

    Hey, at least that ‘account created in 2019’ line on your account gives you more street cred with us newcomers :p

    1 vote
  14. Comment on I'm back in ~talk

    Fal
    Link Parent
    The Reddit API stuff was in 2023, so I'm guessing you had made a Tildes account way back in 2019 and then only rejoined a few years ago when that stuff went down. Wikipedia: Reddit API controversy

    The Reddit API stuff was in 2023, so I'm guessing you had made a Tildes account way back in 2019 and then only rejoined a few years ago when that stuff went down.

    Wikipedia: Reddit API controversy

    5 votes
  15. Comment on China to ban hidden door handles on cars starting 2027 in ~transport

    Fal
    Link Parent
    Off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure at least BYD and SAIC's EVs have hidden door handles, and I wouldn't be surprised if other Chinese EV manufacturers have them as well.

    Many Chinese EVs also have the retractable door handles, because tesla is cool.

    Off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure at least BYD and SAIC's EVs have hidden door handles, and I wouldn't be surprised if other Chinese EV manufacturers have them as well.

    5 votes
  16. Comment on China to ban hidden door handles on cars starting 2027 in ~transport

    Fal
    Link

    China will ban hidden door handles on cars, commonly used on Tesla’s electric vehicles and many other EV models, starting next year.

    All car doors must include a mechanical release function for handles, except for the tailgate, according to details released by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Monday.

    Officials said the policy aims to address safety concerns after fatal EV accidents where electronic doors reportedly failed to operate and trapped passengers inside vehicles.

    29 votes