Fal's recent activity

  1. Comment on South Korea's birthrate, the world's lowest, rises again amid signs of easing demographic crisis in ~society

    Fal
    Link

    South Korea's birthrate rose for a second straight year in 2025, government data showed on Wednesday, in a further sign that a country facing a demographic crisis for nearly a decade may be starting to turn a corner.

    South Korea's total fertility rate, the average number of babies a woman is expected to have during her reproductive life, stood at 0.80 in 2025, up from 0.75 in 2024, according to preliminary data from the Ministry of Data and Statistics.

    1 vote

  3. Comment on Rob Jetten becomes Netherlands' youngest ever PM in ~society

    Fal
    Link

    Rob Jetten has become the youngest and first openly gay prime minister of the Netherlands after his minority government was sworn in.

    The 38-year-old claimed victory in October's election with his Democrats 66 party (D66) narrowly beating anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders in a nail-biting election.

    Jetten formed a centre-right minority government with the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the Christian Democratic Alliance (CDA).

    It is a minority cabinet, meaning every major reform in the coalition deal - from an extra €19bn (£16.6bn) for defence to painful cuts in healthcare and benefits - will have to be negotiated vote by vote in the Netherlands' two parliamentary houses.

    The coalition also wants fewer asylum seekers, with refugees having to apply for asylum outside Europe, not after they arrive.

    Asylum migration has been a particularly sensitive issue in Dutch politics, contributing to the downfall of the country's last two coalition governments.

    5 votes

  5. Comment on Tell me about your favourite web-based logic puzzles! in ~games

    Fal
    Link
    Big fan of flagdoku Quite honestly this seems like a good place to drop the Northernlion dles thread

    Big fan of flagdoku

    Quite honestly this seems like a good place to drop the Northernlion dles thread

    1 vote

  6. Comment on A Japanese toilet maker and seasoning giant are unlikely winners of the AI boom in ~tech

    Fal
    Link
    Personally, would recommend Ajinomoto MSG.

    Toilet maker Toto, famous for its high-tech bidets and heated seats, has drawn investor attention. The company makes electrostatic chucks, which are critical components used in the production of NAND memory chips.

    It's not just Toto. Japanese food giant Ajinomoto, better known for its umami seasonings and soup bases, has become an unlikely AI infrastructure play. The company produces an insulating material used in advanced semiconductor packaging.

    Personally, would recommend Ajinomoto MSG.

    9 votes

  8. Comment on Final piece of Sagrada Familia’s central tower put in place in ~design

    Fal
    Link

    The final piece of the central tower of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia has been laid in place, bringing the church to its maximum final height 144 years after work began.

    After several days when it has been too windy to work, the upper section of the 17 metre-high four-sided steel and glass cross was winched into position at 11am on Friday, completing the tower dedicated to Jesus Christ. At 172.5 metres, the Sagrada Familia, to which the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí devoted the later part of his life, is Barcelona’s tallest building and the world’s tallest church.

    A ceremony to mark the completion of the tower – the tallest of 18 conceived by Gaudí – is due to take place on the centenary of Gaudí’s death in 1926 on 10 June, 16 years after the church was consecrated by Pope Benedict XVI.

    9 votes

  10. 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!

    2 votes

  11. 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

    2 votes

  12. 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

    6 votes

  14. 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

  15. 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

  16. Comment on Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news in ~news

  18. 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

  20. 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