🚨 @naval @balajis and @shl live on Clubhouse right now🚨

.@naval: I can't imagine working on anything besides crypto. Crypto was the biggest changemaker and biggest wealth maker of 2020.

.@balajis: Crypto is a civilization technology

.@naval: Property rights is one of the hardest problems. That's why we need nation state. Nation states do property rights. #BTC is solving this. #BTC is solving the hardest problem. If we can solve the BTC problem, we can solve everything else (decentralized media, file storage)

.@naval: I think the next big thing we're going to see is decentralize social networks. All the centralized social networks just created the 2008-2009 moment, it's going to change everything.

Actually reading through the Ofqual/DfE consultation rather than what has been said about it by others. It's not making me feel any better.

But, but, but...! This is such an unreasonable question!

Just hold the **** exams, for God's sake!

This passage makes zero sense to me. It's like a Boris announcement on the importance of following guidance. NEA is important, but only if the kids have all done it. It's the only evidence you can use in Art, but it's ok if it's not very good. Oh, and you can just make it up.

Oh, and if all else fails, just make it up using whatever stuff you can find to justify what you want to give.

Over the past 15 days I have not only been running my company as normal but I have been faced with largest threat to its future since it began in 1992. This is #Brexit & here is my thread on just how bad things are getting. 1/26

Six months ago my business started to prepare for Brexit. We obtained the following licences and accreditations JUST to maintain the status quo. EORI number, RORO badge for Chief, GBRC number, GBWK number, we already had ARWS and DAN accounts. 2/26

All of this took nearly five months a lot of form filling but on the 9th December this was all in place. So I would say whilst we knew Brexit would be a car crash we did not know it was going to be a multiple pile up in the fog with fatalities. 3/26

On January 4th I returned to work being wise enough to have stockpiled just enough so that if we had a bumpy ride in January we would have enough stock to last until February. 4/26

I should add this took a considerable amount of cash flow and management to do this during a lockdown/ pandemic combined with Xmas sales. But we managed. 5/26

COINTELPRO was a real program used by the US Gov. It was a series of covert and illegal projects conducted by the FBI aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic American political organizations.
It is no conspiracy theory. Look it up.

Just read @MarinaHyde's recent piece. The list of fuck ups is endless, I can't honestly begin to say how sad my own country and government have made me. From the covid deaths, bungled exams and lack of ppe (remember that?) To brexit and fishing rights. My colleague voted for ...

...brexit 'for the fisherman', I would how they feel about it now? An ex-colleague of mine, life long Labour voter, said she wouldn't vote for Corbyn "because he is scruffy" and said, of the early Corona stages, "at least Corby's not in power". I wonder if she still thinks that?.

I bet he wouldn't have spaffed £22Bn up the wall of a failed test and trace system. It has become more and more clear that this regime is only interested in turning a profit. From the failed track and trace system through free school meals to the contracts for cunts, where Tories

give their mates contracts even though they have literally no experience of procuring the goods required, like Hancock's pal getting the test tube contract, which, by the way, were useless, splitting at the bottom when you tried to seal them so that they spilled their contents.

They then have their mouthpieces like Julia H-B and Toby Young. Young's father must be spinning so fast in his grave he could become part of Elon Musk's Boring Company. They spit contempt at desperate researchers and doctors who are trying to save lives. So now we have a higher..

16 January 2021 #MAGAanalysis #Overturn

The Man Who Met Himself

First, I have to again thank @BernadetteMay for the delightful and foretelling new banner photo I stole from her. It is truly profound and hopefully prophetic.

The UK misreporting data. A thread for Scots:

I remember working on a particular project. I'm a Business Analyst.

We were to produce reporting data to the executive on various statistics relating to the Banks contact centre.

1/14

UK Gov COVID Stats 👇
https://t.co/1pXGapctNH

How does this relate to the COVID stats you ask. Stick with it.

The bank call abandon rate was around 40%. So 40% of customer calls did not get answered on the customers first attempt to make contact.

So the bank employed agency staff to handle inbound calls.

2/14

The result was that call abandonment dropped to around 5%.

Fabulous said everyone until I pointed out the obvious.

The agency staff, with little experience of that bank and its products, were simply taking customer details and putting them in a call back queue.

3/14

A call bank queue that the banks' full-time staff would have to outbound call.

This meant that 35% of customers who called still did not have their enquiry dealt with and 5% who still didn't have their call answered at all.

So 'technically' STILL a 40% abandon rate.

4/14

Now the UK Gov have a COVID 19 vaccination strategy that claims to have vaccinated 3.2 million people of the 65 million people in the UK.

In fact, a two-step process means that these people will not be 'fully vaccinated' until they have a second injection.

5/14

Dravidian Movement’s contribution to Education in TN: Reality check

Population : 1961 in Crores

Andhra Pradesh : 3.6
Bihar : 3.5
Gujarat : 2.1
Karnataka : 2.4
Kerala : 1.7
Maharashtra : 4.0
Tamil Nadu : 3.4
Uttar Pradesh : 7.0
West Bengal : 3.5

India : 43.9 Crores

Literacy Rate : 1961

Andhra Pradesh : 21.2%
Bihar : 22%
Gujarat : 31.5%
Karnataka : 30%
Kerala : 55%
Maharashtra : 35%
Tamil Nadu : 36.4%
Uttar Pradesh : 20.9%
West Bengal : 34.5%

India : 28.3%

Population : 2011 in Crores

Andhra Pradesh : 8.5
Bihar : 10.4
Gujarat : 6
Karnataka : 6.1
Kerala : 3.3
Maharashtra : 11.2
Tamil Nadu : 7.2
Uttar Pradesh : 20
West Bengal : 9.1

India : 121 Crores

Literacy Rate : 2011

Andhra Pradesh : 67%
Bihar : 61.8%
Gujarat : 78%
Karnataka : 75.4%
Kerala : 94%
Maharashtra : 82%
Tamil Nadu : 80%
Uttar Pradesh : 67.7%
West Bengal : 76.3%

India : 73%

Growth in Population : Between 2011 & 1961

Andhra Pradesh : 136%
Bihar : 197%
Gujarat : 186%
Karnataka : 154%
Kerala : 48%
Maharashtra : 180%
Tamil Nadu : 112%
Uttar Pradesh : 186%
West Bengal : 160%

India : 176%

#Global #ETF Weekly (thread): 15 Jan 2021

- 2020 worst perf #sector making comeback in 2021 $IXC

- This is helping #oil producing countries with #Nigeria, #UAE & #Russia in top5 #Country ETF YTD performers in USD $NGE $UAE $ERUS

- Few countries moving in red this week

2/8

#Global #Value #stocks still making short-term recovery, with $IWVL #ETF still looking very strong relatively over the short-term. Over 3yr period it is however still lagging quite substantially.

This should be interesting for this months #OrbisvsSP500 unofficial challenge

3/8

This one is worrying, but then again, it's been for some time. #Global #Tech #stocks relative to #MSCI All Country World Index is definitely creating some concern. Be very careful.

$IXN vs $ACWI

4/8

Know this one might create some controversy, therefore disclaimer 1st. I'm also not positive on #US #Bonds over longer-term. But be careful over short-term as $TLT #ETF relative to $SPY indicate oversold (bonds) &/or overbought (equities) & could see profit taking. #stimulus

5/8

This 👆🏼 could be positive for #Gold. Comparing $GLD (gold price) #ETF with $GDX (#Goldminers), one can see that miners getting close to gold ($/oz). Relative not cheap yet & can still see further weakness. Will do separate tech tweet on GDX later. In short wait for $32.20.

Long thread here... from Keith, on tree guards:

I really don’t want to spread 120,000 plastic tree guards across the side of our lovely hill, the hill where I grew up and now farm, on the eastern edge of the Black Mountains. So, I’ve taken a good look at the pros,... 1/25

the cons and the alternatives, to try and decide rationally, which is the best approach for our plant on the Bryn Arw.

It has become the accepted norm in the UK that to plant a tree, you need to put your sapling in the ground and then wrap a plastic tree guard around it.

This is simply ‘how it’s done’ now. This practice uses a huge amount of plastic; worse still, it disperses plastic extremely efficiently around the countryside. In some rural places, un-retrieved tree guards are by far the biggest source of plastic pollution.

And yet the first commercial plastic tree guards only came on the market 38 years ago. There are many perfectly healthy woodlands and trees that are older than this, and which became established without plastic – which begs the question: do we really need guards?

Plastic tree guards have several uses, some of which did revolutionise tree planting when they first came out. In particular, they:
•protect your saplings from things that want to eat them;
•provide a microclimate, which enhances tree growth, according to the manufacturers;

The title is Tandav. The eternal dance of Shiva. That, first, should be the point of your obsession with offensia (no word like that) series dedicated to OTT crap load. Appropriation of 'Tandav' - the word itself should be the precursor to any examination of the so called content

When the classical arts and the folk forms, especially the dance forms, involve the depiction of Shiva's Tandav, there is a separate, exclusive, special treatment to the movement, approach, sound, music, and vision. Many approach it as a sacred episode in performance.

I don't know what crap load are you people objecting to in the name of offensia. It's your eye balls that gives us unwanted crap load like this series. Time and again. Time and again. Baar Baar. Bakwas. You outrage too much. You don't believe in the positive. Negative. Negative.

Who gives a dead fish to what an idiot fading actor churns out to keep his bank balance going. Shift to the fine. Encourage fine. Educate yourself to incline with the fine and positive. And dare you call the Indian performing arts "naach gaana". That's where Shiva's Tandav lives.

It's because of your distracted set of eye balls that people who don't want the crap or shun it, have to live with the crap in the narrative. The coward "critics" hide in their down feather quilts when it comes to content like this. Why? Sochna? Kyonki tum ho na business dene ko.

How to become a SUCCESSFUL academic: a guide 1/n

How do I know how to become a successful academic? I don't, but I have received plenty of advice. As a good academic, I will just summarize what I have learned from listening

1) Be the ultimate collaborator but also don't be

Say yes to as many collaborations as physically possible: co-produce papers, LEARN, co-write grants, DISCUSS, it is all about synergy. But also, collaborations slow you down, have your own ideas! Just say no to collaborations

2) Be the methods ninja but also don't be

Science is only as good as its weakest link: don't be satisfied by applying the default analyses in the field. But also, don't let perfect be the enemy of the good and don't confuse reviewers. Just apply the default analyses in the field

3) Be the superstar teacher but also don't be

Professor means teacher, it is LITERALLY in the name. Being a good professor means being a superstar teacher. But also, focus on the science and minimize the hours of teaching, don't try to become a superstar teacher

A coda to my tweets this week on #uranium contracting and the carry trade:

We care about how uranium has been bought and sold over the last decade - not just the sale price - because it informs us as to how a period of rapid price increase could develop over the next few years.

Reminder: the carry trade provides three main services.

1. Time shifting - matches supply today w/ demand tomorrow
2. Price formation - provides fixed forward prices in a market not always willing to provide them
3. Risk mitigation - decouples forward supply from mine operations

At some point in the forward price curve, newly mined supply (tied to inflation) is less expensive than financed spot supply (tied to spot price + interest).

At a constant financing rate, a spot price increase brings forward the time at which these two price curves intersect.

This is not controversial - at the locus of increased utility purchasing and decreased supply availability, uranium price goes up and the carry trade becomes less attractive. For lack of a better term, let’s call this a transition from a carry-driven to production-driven market.

A production-driven market might be:

...in contango, with a forward curve driven by mining cost inflation (input costs, depletion).

...in backwardation, with a supply squeeze in the short term but competitive sellers offering cheaper prices in the forward market.

I actually have sympathy for @BharatBiotech's scientists and the volunteers who took part in their clinical trials so far. They have been let down by bad science and poor regulatory processes. The company should never have submitted #Covaxin for regulatory approval w/o Ph 3 data

That mistake -the original sin, if you like- has led to a series of mis-steps, errors, cover-ups, linguistic contortions, and lack of clarity. The regulator shd have held the #Covaxin approval request and said, "we'll look at it when you have at least some preliminary ph 3 data"

Instead, they clubbed their approval of 3 separate products into one press release. That was Mistake No 3, driven I suspect by the desire to have a wholly Indian offering (Covishield though made in Pune was already labelled, don't forget as an #Angrez product.

But the regulators had this problem: How do you conjure of an efficacy number in the absence of ANY Ph 3 data? They could not and so they didn't. Instead they gave it a half-arsed approval, underwent a linguistic contortion to come up with "Clinical Trial Mode".

The trouble with #AliceInWonderland words and novel phraseology is this: people ask, as indeed they should, "But what does it mean?". Here's the difficulty: No one knows. Not the CEO of @BharatBiotech, not anyone in @MoHFW_India nor indeed anyone in @ICMRDELHI.

THREAD on the Ofqual consultation.

The exams situation is a fiasco on top of a debacle. Yes - loads of kids have missed out on schooling. That is bad. Yes - the provision across the system is the most unequal it has been in living memory. That is bad.

The solution proposed by the DfE and Ofqual is to get teachers to submit a grade that they think their students are “performing at”. Here there are a number of problems:

Problem 1: what does “performing at” a grade even mean? An exam grade is comparative - if someone has any particular grade all it tells you is where they are compared to their peers. There is NO SUCH THING as “grade 6 content” or “working at grade 6”.

This is as true in maths, where content is cumulative, as it is in something like English, where examination is much more subjective. If you ask teachers all across the country to grade, you will get substantial variability because objective criteria simply do not exist.

That’s not our fault, it’s not a training need, its not that we don’t know what we’re doing. It’s literally the way the system has been designed. You can’t train someone in a concept that does not exist.