BRFR Cake Stop 'breaking news' miscellany

[First Aspect]

I did think PP was inferring that the amount of debt carried by a company is immaterial to how it acts, in a post about how that company will change as a result. But if it was a very very narrow point about it's value then jolly good, you are quite right about the corriis effect.

Good point about emotees, btw. One of the first levers PE ever pulls is to drive down the wage bill. Aerospace is heavily unionised so this could get spicy.

 

[briantrumpet]

Re Arday, the Good Law Project has picked the wrong angle. Sure, a lot of the pile-on was driven by a racist (Nathan Cofnas) targeting a black academic (there are white ones too who deserve equal – or more – scrutiny), but it seems pretty certain that Arday was appointed despite false claims and questionable credentials (which Cambridge also failed to scrutinise, so are culpable), and that he's not the figurehead he made out to be.

RE Nathan Cofnas: https://emeraldbook.org/news/aug-0626-2/

The investigation was initiated by Nathan Cofnas—a researcher who was fired from Cambridge for writing that Black people would be underrepresented under meritocracy and who has openly described himself as a "race realist." His history of provocative writing about race and intelligence led many to view his campaign against Arday as a racially motivated attack on a high-profile Black scholar who championed diversity.

While the factual evidence Cofnas uncovered—the plagiarized sentences, the fabricated data, the false CV claims—is undeniable, the selective and obsessive nature of the scrutiny raises uncomfortable questions. Arday's defenders, including thousands of academics and several British MPs, have argued that a white professor with similar errors would not have faced the same relentless campaign. The academic establishment, eager to protect its reputation, ultimately abandoned Arday, leaving many to wonder whether the system was more interested in punishing a Black success story than in pursuing truth.

 

[Psamathe]

(Unrelated to any previous discussions)
I was "disappointed" (actually stronger) listening to a BBC Health Check podcast (podcast that discusses worldwide health policy). The program reported that in the US there is now a company allowing/encouraging betting on the outcome of drug clinical trials.

Wrong at so many levels for so many reasons:

1. World gone mad about betting.
2. Significant risk of impacting the outcome from the trial through the placebo/nocebo effect where participants become aware of the betting odds. ie trial participants become convinced it will work or convinced it won't because of offered odds.
3. Encourage trial participants to drop out of trial eg where the betting is that the trial won't work.
4. etc.

The episode discusses a range of different health policy issues and this is just one report BBC Health Check Episode.

 

[Ian H]

(Unrelated to any previous discussions)
I was "disappointed" (actually stronger) listening to a BBC Health Check podcast (podcast that discusses worldwide health policy). The program reported that in the US there is now a company allowing/encouraging betting on the outcome of drug clinical trials.

Wrong at so many levels for so many reasons:

1. World gone mad about betting.
2. Significant risk of impacting the outcome from the trial through the placebo/nocebo effect where participants become aware of the betting odds. ie trial participants become convinced it will work or convinced it won't because of offered odds.
3. Encourage trial participants to drop out of trial eg where the betting is that the trial won't work.
4. etc.

The episode discusses a range of different health policy issues and this is just one report BBC Health Check Episode.

I presume you're referring to Polymarket. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymarket

 

[Psamathe]

(Unrelated to any previous discussions)
I was "disappointed" (actually stronger) listening to a BBC Health Check podcast (podcast that discusses worldwide health policy). The program reported that in the US there is now a company allowing/encouraging betting on the outcome of drug clinical trials.
...

I presume you're referring to Polymarket. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymarket

No. It's a different company called "Kalshi". The have rules supposedly to safeguard but those are more to prevent "insider trading" (eg employment verification to make sure those carrying out the trials are not betting on the trial.

It's actually both the result of clinical trials but also FDA decisions about the drug after the trial.

 

[BoldonLad]

No. It's a different company called "Kalshi". The have rules supposedly to safeguard but those are more to prevent "insider trading" (eg employment verification to make sure those carrying out the trials are not betting on the trial.

It's actually both the result of clinical trials but also FDA decisions about the drug after the trial.

Some people will bet on anything 😊

 

[Ian H]

No. It's a different company called "Kalshi". The have rules supposedly to safeguard but those are more to prevent "insider trading" (eg employment verification to make sure those carrying out the trials are not betting on the trial.

It's actually both the result of clinical trials but also FDA decisions about the drug after the trial.

Ah yes. It's bandit country.

 

[briantrumpet]

So sad that this bookshop is closing. Anyone fancy suggesting anywhere where it might get an appropriate welcome and clientele?

 

[AndyRM]

Weird selection of fiction to use as examples on the gallery of the website...

Perhaps used ironically?

 

[briantrumpet]

Weird selection of fiction to use as examples on the gallery of the website...

View attachment 16698

Perhaps used ironically?

You're assuming that the owner

a) can read

b) understands how to interpret text

 

[AndyRM]

You're assuming that the owner

a) can read

b) understands how to interpret text

Fair point, well made.

Or maybe they hosted monthly book burnings of woke literature and this is a guideline of what to bring?

I've read a fair bit of right wing/conservative stuff in my time, but I can't imagine devoting an entire bookshop to it. Isn't the whole point of reading to contemplate and learn?

 

[All uphill]

The secret is to save, then buy outright. It requires patience though. Only loan I've had since I was 22 was my mortgage.
I know that you know this, and that the vast majority will dismiss it.

So sad that this bookshop is closing. Anyone fancy suggesting anywhere where it might get an appropriate welcome and clientele?

View attachment 16697

Palestine?

 

[briantrumpet]

Isn't the whole point of reading to contemplate and learn?

That's 'woke' in a nutshell. You've got so much to, er, not learn.

 

[briantrumpet]

Your periodic reminder that international food markets might not be as good a source of food in the future as the post-WW2-experience might suggest. The market can only supply what happens to grow.

 

[C R]

We're spending a few days with my sister near Madrid. Yesterday afternoon a wildfire started nearby, caused by a car fire. The fire service worked through the night and by this morning it was declared under control.

We decided to spend the day in Madrid, and as we were about to sit for a coffee mid afternoon after sightseeing, my sister got a message saying that her neighbourhood was being evacuated because a change in wind direction reignighted the fire and the smoke was very bad.

We are spending the night enjoying the hospitality of a couple friends of my sister, hoping that we will be allowed in tomorrow to collect our suitcases and the hire car.

But climate change is a hoax.