qiqing (u/qiqing) - Readit News

qiqing commented on Will Xi Move on Taiwan? asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight... · Posted by u/RyanShook

dmurray · 4 years ago

> What are the examples of successful withdrawals?

Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Caribbean territories. Arguably Hong Kong.

You could also make a reasonable case for Egypt, Ghana, India/Pakistan... The withdrawal itself was peaceful and didn't leave the state in immediate civil war, even if it wasn't stable in the medium term.

qiqing · 4 years ago

The British Empire also left Afghanistan. And the US also left Japan and South Korea.

It depends on which data points you pick.

qiqing commented on Atlas robot does parkour blog.bostondynamics.com/a... · Posted by u/azhenley

jvanderbot · 5 years ago

This is awesome, but until someone solves the real-time sensing and modelling problem, it'll never fly in the real world. The use case is still warehouses.

Here's my logic / assumptions: How does the robot "know" (have sufficient model information to predict the response) that the board will hold it when it does a vault? It doesn't -- it is told to vault by placing one limb on top. As we've seen with self-driving cars, where the sensing is 99% of the problem, that's the barrier between a closed set and the real world.

Don't get me wrong. The fact that Atlas / Boston Dynamics is in a state where the sensing is _mostly_ what remains a problem is astounding.

qiqing · 5 years ago

Wouldn't it be great, though, if humans were no longer working warehouse jobs that strain their backs and their bladders?

qiqing commented on Evolution of the Dad knowablemagazine.org/arti... · Posted by u/RickJWagner

sudhirj · 5 years ago

The studies they're quoting support the thesis that fathers aren't strictly necessary for child survival, only the role they perform is. So from the child survival point of view, a culture or society that does not have doting fathers but enough community support to fill those roles is just as beneficial as one that has doting fathers. Either way works, from a child survival p.o.v.

There may be other factors that we as a society consider beneficial that we wish to promote, that need present and involved fathers, and that's fine. But that doesn't mean a non-involved father is bad for the survival of the child. We currently based societal mores on more than just survival, though, and that is a sign of progress.

qiqing · 5 years ago

When reading the article, I was surprised to not see the other studies mentioned alongside the strict survival results. In developed/industrialized countries, the number of years a child has an involved father predicts their future income, even after controlling for education level, total family income, etc. Of course, these are in environments where survival is not exactly a close call.

Edit to add: I don't know if the results were able to be replicated in non-WEIRD societies.

qiqing commented on Evolution of the Dad knowablemagazine.org/arti... · Posted by u/RickJWagner

jugg1es · 5 years ago

Decrease in testosterone in human males after birth is not news, but I've never seen anyone suggest that the cause could be decreased sexual activity as the mother heals. It is known that decreased sexual activity lowers testosterone in human males. I just had my third child 10 days ago so I'm right smack in the middle of this. I don't feel a drop in libido, but lack of sleep and the knowledge that there won't be sex for a while doesn't help. I'd like to see a study that actually proves a causal relationship here.

qiqing · 5 years ago

Fathers who are soldiers away on deployment who can only see their newborn over zoom also have the dip. But only if they've been closely tracking the pregnancy and birth. Apparently the dip is not observed in fathers who are deployed soldiers who are not involved/invested.

qiqing commented on Why are American workers becoming harder to find? economist.com/finance-and... · Posted by u/jaredwiener

qiqing · 5 years ago

Excerpt from the article:

Jobs in health care, recreation and hospitality report the highest level of job openings, relative to employment. Many of these involve plenty of person-to-person contact, making their workers especially vulnerable to infection (a study from California earlier this year found that cooks were most at risk from dying of covid-19). By contrast, in industries where maintaining social distancing or being outside is often easier, labour shortages are less of an issue. The number of job openings per employee in the construction industry is lower today than it was before the pandemic.

qiqing commented on China on Mars: Zhurong rover returns first pictures bbc.com/news/science-envi... · Posted by u/leemailll

dumb1224 · 5 years ago

There are a lot of posts indeed circulating on my Wechat timeline so it is quite well covered.

Out of interest what is 3rd grade level Chinese reading? I'm curious to know what kind of grading is that?

qiqing · 5 years ago

I'm literate enough to read the entertainment section of a newspaper, and get a perfect score on the SAT 2 Chinese language test in the US. Technically, I wouldn't really be considered literate for an adult though.

When I came to the US at 4.5 years old, my mom brought with us some textbooks, enough for kindergarten through 3rd grade. I'm mostly self taught with help from my mom.

I more or less speak like an adult, but if I'm asked to read anything more complex (e.g., bank documents, geopolitics news), I'm completely lost.

qiqing commented on China on Mars: Zhurong rover returns first pictures bbc.com/news/science-envi... · Posted by u/leemailll

giantrobot · 5 years ago

I don't think the technical data being hard to find is that surprising. China has a pattern of not talking about their space missions unless they go well. Since they control their press the party only ever gets good press. It's also worth noting that the CNSA is not a civilian agency like NASA or the ESA. It's a military agency and treats programs as if they're secret military projects.

qiqing · 5 years ago

Here's a video from Chinese TV in Feb before the landing that someone else posted in this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBhVaihkDvc

I realize it doesn't have English subtitles, so I'll summarize some highlights of what's in there:

* interviews with scientists and engineers working on the project

* trajectory of the spacecraft and lots of talk about the challenges of reducing velocity for landing

* historical overview and context for why Mars exploration is important for science

* what to expect in the future landing and when it'll happen

It's pretty similar to video programs that NASA produces. Not sure what information you're expecting that isn't out there, but I think you're attributing to secrecy what is more easily attributable to people not translating open public reports into English.

qiqing commented on China on Mars: Zhurong rover returns first pictures bbc.com/news/science-envi... · Posted by u/leemailll

spaetzleesser · 5 years ago

Does anybody know how these are reported in chinese media? NASA makes a huge effort to publish their stuff in the western world and you don't hear much about china. Is it the opposite from inside China?

qiqing · 5 years ago

My dad sends me articles about it on WeChat all the time, but I have difficulty reading it since my Chinese reading comprehension is barely at a 3rd grade level. They do make a big deal about it and it gets lots of coverage.

qiqing commented on Taking sex differences in personality seriously (2019) blogs.scientificamerican.... · Posted by u/Tomte

qiqing · 5 years ago

Excerpt from the article:

> These numbers dovetail with a number of studies showing a similar level of classification looking at whole brain data. By applying a multivariate analysis of the whole brain, researchers are now able to classify whether a brain is male or female with 77%-93% accuracy (see here, here, here, here, and here). In fact, some recent studies using the most sophisticated techniques have consistently found greater than 90% accuracy rates looking at whole brain data (see here, here, and here). While this level of prediction is definitely not perfect-- and by no means do those findings justify individual stereotyping or discrimination-- that's really high accuracy as far science goes [7].

What's really interesting to me is if it's feasible to conduct a large scale study on transgender people to see what their clustering is like, statistically, with respect to personality. And whether that changes before or after a medical treatment, such as taking hormones.

qiqing commented on U.S. military starts Afghanistan withdrawal axios.com/afghanistan-wit... · Posted by u/cwwc

xiphias2 · 5 years ago

China is using mainly economic tools (very aggressive ones) instead to take over the world. They want to get to EU through Hungary as the weakest point (estabilishing a university through a $1.5BN loan), and it seems like they are getting what they want.

qiqing · 5 years ago

Just checked the link at least three times, and I don't see how this is related to the article.

Are you reading the same article or did you post this by accident?