flave

This just isn’t true - I sort of wish it where.

> If they intend to purchase properties, it benefits them to depress pricing in the area

Yeah, that’s true of everyone but how would a bank/individual do that? By selling… But if they sell while they’re depressing prices, they lose money!

> Normal landlords don't have effectively infinite money with no forces bearing prices down

Neither do banks. They have quarterly earnings, tax bills, they need to buy more stock, cost of capital etc etc.

> It's a very nuanced and complex system in which these institutional investors have very outsized influence.

Just saying ‘it’s complex’ is trivially true. But, supply and demand isn’t some small factor in that calculation - it’s an iron law that exerts itself at all times.

If a bank wants to ‘manipulate prices’ then, without a monopoly, the only way to do that is to dump or buy. But if you buy up homes to ‘push up prices’ … then you end up with a bunch of homes which you paid more than their current value. Not a great business.

The person who has the real unfair advantage in the US happens to also be the most sympathetic person - the owner occupier.

Where’s good these days? I’m feeling my old Napster ways bubbling back up from the deep…

American/California confuses my tiny English brain

>be freedom-loving capitalist America >be freedom-loving state of California and electrical engineering centre of the world >the government tells utility companies exactly how much yield they can make >down to a tenth of a percent >don’t worry bro this is about protecting_customers >the yield is on infrastructure and is extremely non-cyclical and effectively backstopped by the state of California. It’s a 30y investment at a time when 30y t bills are at ~5% >sets the yield at 10.3%

What am I missing?

Actually pretty cool - I was about to comment “nice perpetual motion machine” but looked into a bit more and it’s much more interesting than that (well, a real perpetual motion machine would be interesting but…)

Thanks for posting. Pretty cool.

POSIWID (purpose of system is what it does)

In subjects where you never had to put your credibility where your mouth is - the data says whatever you’d like it to say.

Not to butcher Karl Popper early on Monday morning, but a very good guideline for whether a subject area is scientific is if the prediction it makes are falsifiable. If I propose a theory then I should be able to tell you which test result(s) would prove theory wrong.(I know there are critiques of Popper and falsifiability so I’m not presenting it as the be-all-and-end-all of scientific-ness, just a useful yard stick.)

Something very strange is going on in this case. Reading between the lines, there’s someone specific (forgive the cliche but, perchance, an ex wife) who either is being intentionally and subtly threatened, or feels that way.

The article is just missing some really obvious key points - what was written in the LinkedIn post? Whose house was in the image?

The headline is written for maximum clicks in the US advertising market. If an ex husband is posting pictures of his ex wife’s house and cryptic threatening messages on LinkedIn (not saying he was, but if he was) that’s a very different story from “man is arrested for photo with gun”.

On the other hand, the police in my beloved country (including the WYP) never cease in their hard work to make mistakes in some new unfathomable way. So it’s entirely possible that this story is just exactly what it seems on first inspection.

It’s so funny that they see the necessity for the train to transport people to work - just only one type of person…

I’m just saying that I draw the line somewhere with how upset someone is. Like, if someone read my comment and thought it was unfair then I agree with them. If someone read it and was deeply hurt by it - that’s really in their court not mine.

I’m not gonna delete it as it’s just going to make comments like yours confusing for people, but that was poor phrasing from me.

It gave the impression that this specific journalist knows nothing, which is unfair.

I was trying to be funny (always risky online) and intended to be speaking humorously about science journalism in generally. In hindsight, my phrasing doesn’t do that, and actually doesn’t communicate what I was saying very well.

I stand by my criticism of science journalism in general and my request that the article is just posted. But my wording was very rough, ultimately didn’t make the point I intended and yes might frustrate some people. If someone is extremely upset or hurt by my comment then, I think, at some stage that isn’t my fault and the Internet might not be right for that person.

Sure.

The headlines says that music “speeds recovery” but the paper specifically says that patients had similar recovery profiles.

The media article overall overstates the findings of the study. It’s a very specific study on a specific cohort and a specific surgery (minimally invasion) but the article implies strongly that music helps with all surgery.

Also the paper specifically doesn’t touch on medial outcomes from the music - that’s fine as science since it’s granular, but it’s a pretty big thing to miss in the article.

The article misses a bunch of further questions that need more research. How does the patient playing music affect the surgeon? Is it music in general or specific music that helps? Is the patient choosing the music relevant?

“Reshape how hospitals think about surgery”? Not really, hospitals already use music in surgery so it’s not going to “reshape” anything. Over dramatisation.

It’s also just very shallow. Makes no mention of existing science/practice for example. Didn’t speak to any other researchers.

Look, the article is fine-ish but it’s just a regurgitation of the paper with more dramatisation and no analysis. Just post the paper especially on HN.

I’m sure the individual writer is smart educated and thoughtful, but the system of science journalism (science communication is different but equally flawed) is so bent-out-of-shape as to be effectively worthless.

Like, take this exact article as a great example. I’m sure Mr Biswas is genuinely very intelligent and thoughtful and a great journalist but having him write a science article is unfair on him and on readers.

Doesn’t even have an undergraduate in a science subject, has never worked as a scientist, and his job is as a national correspondent.

Perhaps my wording prioritised humour over fairness - I’ll take the criticism on that. But I don’t think my core point was wrong. How can you “communicate” something you yourself don’t understand?

Finally, I want to stress again - it’s not his fault. The system is broken.

I worked in the City (Citie) of London and have off and on taken an interest in the history.

Much of the special status of London was granted before 1189, and it retains its special because of time immemorial concept and English common law.

I won’t bore you with all the details but there’s loads of weird stuff like a mayor that only lasts a year, companies get the vote based on number of employees, separate police for from the rest of London etc etc. That’s barely scratching the surface.

Can’t easily be changed because some of the “rights and liberties” predates written common law and are “senior”. Of course, when push comes to shove they find a way but that rarely happens.