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πŸ”— Everything Bubble

πŸ”— United States/U.S. Government πŸ”— United States πŸ”— Finance & Investment πŸ”— Economics πŸ”— Numismatics

The everything bubble refers to the correlated impact of monetary easing by the Federal Reserve (and followed by the ECB and the BOJ), on asset prices in most asset classes, namely equities, housing, bonds, many commodities, and even exotic assets such as cryptocurrencies and SPACs. The term is related to the Fed put, being the tools of direct and indirect quantative easing that the Fed used to execute the monetary easing, and to modern monetary theory, which advocates use of such tools, even in non-crisis periods, to create economic growth through asset price inflation. The term first came in use during the chair of Janet Yellen, but it is most associated with the subsequent chair of Jerome Powell, and the 2020–2021 period of the coronavirus pandemic.

The everything bubble was not only notable for the simultaneous extremes in valuations recorded in a wide range of asset classes and the high level of speculation in the market, but also that this was achieved in a period of recession, high unemployment, trade wars, and political turmoil – leading to a realization that it was uniquely a central bank creation, with concerns on the independence and integrity of market pricing, and on the Fed's impact on wealth inequality.

Bloomberg attributed Powell's maintenance of monetary stimulus into 2021 (the final year of his first term as Fed chair), in spite of warnings of unprecedented levels of market risk and speculation, to his fear of repeating the crash in Q4 2018 when he started quantitative tightening; thus extending the bubble.

High up on his [President Biden] list, and sooner rather than later, will be dealing with the consequences of the biggest financial bubble in U.S. history. Why the biggest? Because it encompasses not just stocks but pretty much every other financial asset too. And for that, you may thank the Federal Reserve.

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πŸ”— Fart Proudly – An Essay by Benjamin Franklin

"Fart Proudly" (also called "A Letter to a Royal Academy about farting", and "To the Royal Academy of Farting") is the popular name of an essay about flatulence written by Benjamin Franklin c.Β 1781 while he was living abroad as United States Ambassador to France. It is an example of flatulence humor.

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πŸ”— Operation Ivy Bells

πŸ”— Mass surveillance πŸ”— Espionage πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Military history/North American military history πŸ”— Military history/United States military history πŸ”— Military history/Maritime warfare πŸ”— Cold War

Operation Ivy Bells was a joint United States Navy, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and National Security Agency (NSA) mission whose objective was to place wire taps on Soviet underwater communication lines during the Cold War.

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πŸ”— Sprouts is a pencil-and-paper game with interesting mathematical properties

πŸ”— Game theory

Sprouts is a paper-and-pencil game that can be enjoyed simply by both adults and children. Yet it also can be analyzed for its significant mathematical properties. It was invented by mathematicians John Horton Conway and Michael S. Paterson at Cambridge University in the early 1960s. Setup is even simpler than the popular Dots and Boxes game, but game-play develops much more artistically and organically.

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πŸ”— Psychology of music preference

πŸ”— Psychology

The psychology of music preference refers to the psychological factors behind peoples' different music preferences. Music is heard by people daily in many parts of the world, and affects people in various ways from emotion regulation to cognitive development, along with providing a means for self-expression. Music training has been shown to help improve intellectual development and ability, though no connection has been found as to how it affects emotion regulation. Numerous studies have been conducted to show that individual personality can have an effect on music preference, mostly using personality, though a recent meta-analysis has shown that personality in itself explains little variance in music preferences. These studies are not limited to American culture, as they have been conducted with significant results in countries all over the world, including Japan, Germany, and Spain.

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πŸ”— Posttraumatic Embitterment Disorder

πŸ”— Medicine πŸ”— Psychology

Posttraumatic Embitterment Disorder (PTED) is defined as a pathological reaction to a negative life event, which those affected experienced as a grave insult, humiliation, betrayal, or injustice. Prevalent emotions of PTED are embitterment, anger, fury, and hatred, especially against the triggering stressor, often accompanied by fantasies of revenge. The disorder commences immediately and without time delay at the moment of the triggering event. If left untreated, the prognosis of PTED presents as rather unfavorable, since patients find themselves trapped in a vicious circle of strong negative emotions constantly intensifying one another and eventually leading into a self-destructive downward spiral. People affected by PTED are more likely to put fantasies of revenge into action, making them a serious threat to the stressor.

The concept of PTED as a distinct clinical disorder has been first described by the German psychiatrist and psychologist Michael Linden in 2003, who remains its most involved researcher. Even though it has been backed up by empirical research in the past years, it remains disputed as to whether embitterment should be included among psychological disorders. Therefore, PTED currently does not hold its own category in the ICD-10 but is categorized under F43.8 β€œOther reactions to severe stress”. It cannot be categorized as an adjustment disorder under F43.2, since β€œordinary” adjustment disorders normally subside within six months, while PTED is much more likely to become chronical and last for much longer. A condition similar to PTED has already been described by Emil Kraepelin as early as 1915 by the name querulous paranoia as a form of traumatic neuroses, explicitly demarcating it from personality disorders.

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πŸ”— TIL there are 82 named techniques (β€œkimarite”) for winning a sumo match

πŸ”— Lists πŸ”— Martial arts πŸ”— Sumo

Kimarite (ζ±ΊγΎγ‚Šζ‰‹, "Deciding technique") are winning techniques in a sumo bout. For each bout in a Grand Sumo tournament (or honbasho), a sumo referee, or gyōji, will decide and announce the type of kimarite used by the winner. It is possible (although rare) for the judges to modify this decision later. Records of the kimarite are kept and statistical information on the preferred techniques of different wrestlers can be deduced easily. For example, a pie chart of the kimarite used by each sekitori in the past year can be found on the Japan Sumo Association webpage.

Since 2001, the Japan Sumo Association recognizes 82 types of kimarite (and 5 winning non-techniques), but only about a dozen are used regularly. For example, yorikiri, oshidashi and hatakikomi are frequent methods used to win bouts. In addition to kimarite, a bout can end in a disqualification if either wrestler makes a foul (禁手, kinjite), such as striking with a closed fist.

The following is a full list of kimarite. Literal translations of the Japanese are also given.

πŸ”— The Calutron Girls

πŸ”— United States πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Military history/North American military history πŸ”— Military history/United States military history πŸ”— United States/Military history - U.S. military history πŸ”— Military history/Military science, technology, and theory πŸ”— Physics πŸ”— Women's History πŸ”— History of Science πŸ”— Tennessee πŸ”— Military history/World War II πŸ”— Physics/History πŸ”— Science

The Calutron Girls were a group of young women, mostly high school graduates who joined the World War II efforts in Oak Ridge, Tennessee in 1945.

Although they were not allowed to know at the time, they were monitoring dials and watching meters for a calutron, a mass spectrometer that separates uranium isotopes. The enriched uranium was used to make the first atomic bomb.

Calutron Girls were trained and employed at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Wartime labor shortages forced the Tennessee Eastman Corporation to hire women to work at the Y-12 plant.

According to Gladys Owens, one of the few Calutron Girls, a manager at the facility once told them: "We can train you how to do what is needed, but cannot tell you what you are doing. I can only tell you that if our enemies beat us to it, God have mercy on us!"

πŸ”— OSCAR 1

πŸ”— Spaceflight

OSCAR I (aka OSCAR 1) is the first amateur radio satellite launched by Project OSCAR into low Earth orbit. OSCAR I was launched December 12, 1961, by a Thor-DM21 Agena B launcher from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Lompoc, California. The satellite, a rectangular box (30 x 25 x 12Β cm) weighing 10Β kg., was launched as a secondary payload (ballast) for Corona 9029, also known as Discoverer 36, the eighth and final launch of a KH-3 satellite.

The satellite had a battery-powered 140Β mW transmitter operating in the 2-meter band (144.983Β MHz), employed a monopole transmitting antenna 60Β cm long extended from the center of the convex surface, but had no attitude control system. Like Sputnik 1, Oscar 1 carried only a simple beacon. For three weeks it transmitted its Morse Code message "HI". To this day, many organizations identify their Morse-transmitting satellites with "HI", which also indicates laughter in amateur telegraphy.

OSCAR I lasted 22 days ceasing operation on January 3, 1962, and re-entered January 31, 1962.

The uniqueness of the OSCAR-1 spacecraft was not only that it was built by amateurs, only about four years after the launch of Sputnik-1, but that it was the world's first piggyback satellite and the world's first private non-government spacecraft.

Immediately following the launch of OSCAR-1, United States vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, honored it with a congratulatory telegram to the group sponsoring this momentous event in the history of Amateur Radio. It read: β€œFor me this project is symbolic of the type of freedom for which this country stands β€” freedom of enterprise and freedom of participation on the part of individuals throughout the world.”

The original backup of OSCAR-1 has been restored and is fully operational, running off AC power. As of 2011 it is on display at ARRL HQ in Newington, Connecticut and continues to broadcast "HI" in Morse Code at 145Β MHz.

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πŸ”— The art of not being governed

πŸ”— History πŸ”— Books πŸ”— Socialism πŸ”— Anarchism

The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia is a book-length anthropological and historical study of the Zomia highlands of Southeast Asia written by James C. Scott published in 2009. Zomia, as defined by Scott, includes all the lands at elevations above 300 meters stretching from the Central Highlands of Vietnam to Northeastern India. That encompasses parts of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar, as well as four provinces of China. Zomia's 100 million residents are minority peoples "of truly bewildering ethnic and linguistic variety", he writes. Among them are the Akha, Hmong, Karen, Lahu, Mien, and Wa peoples.

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