valarauko (u/valarauko)

valarauko commented on Ancient-DNA study identifies originators of Indo-European language family hms.harvard.edu/news/anci... · Posted by u/jimmytucson

FlyingSnake · 7 months ago

While I don’t mind if they’re related, the evidence is rather thin. Interestingly, chariots and royal burials were also found in Sinauli, India which provide an interesting alternative to this theory.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/radiocarbon/article/...

valarauko · 7 months ago

Its heavily contested if these were chariots. If anything, I would suggest that the consensus scholarly opinion is that these were ox drawn carts, not chariots.

- no horse remains or equestrian objects have been found, anywhere in India for this time period

- solid wooden wheels (shown in the reconstruction) are too heavy for horses to draw, for which spoked wheels were developed in the Steppe

- the shape of the yoke that would be tied to the animals is straight, the way ox carts have, like Harrapan ox carts. By contrast, yokes for horses are curved, to match the animal's posture.

valarauko commented on Uncut Currency usmint.gov/paper-currency... · Posted by u/nxobject

kube-system · 8 months ago

Platforms like RentCafe are highly configurable to support local laws, because the nature of landlord/tenant law is that it is highly variable by state.

Going though that same effort is a waste of time and implementation budget for something like selling novelty bills.

valarauko · 8 months ago

Fair enough - in which case the Mint just needs to pad the sale price a bit to cover interchange fees, and make a little extra on top, and shipping can be extra. 10% on top of the face value should be more than enough, and would have the side effect of sapping any would be manufactured spend. Yet the prices on the Mint are way above that - it looks like more than 50%. Sure, if the novelty or collector market values it at that premium, great. What I struggle to understand is that this is primarily to combat manufactured spend. I still don't see why manufactured spend is a problem for the Mint to solve, rather than the credit card companies.

valarauko commented on Uncut Currency usmint.gov/paper-currency... · Posted by u/nxobject

kube-system · 8 months ago

> The usual way to eliminate manufactured spend would be to add a credit card specific transaction fee that cancels out the spend points.

Before 2013, this likely would have violated their credit card processing agreement.

And also, it would be illegal in some states.

valarauko · 8 months ago

That seems ... odd. I can pay my apartment rent with a debit card with a fixed transaction fee (eg, $999.99 and up to $1,999.99 the service fee is $4.95), while covering it with a credit card has a different fee structure of a flat 2.95%. This is with Rent Cafe in NYC, and from what I can tell, it's a very widespread platform across the country. The 2.95% fee specific to credit cards will wipe out the points earned for a credit card under almost all circumstances.

valarauko commented on Uncut Currency usmint.gov/paper-currency... · Posted by u/nxobject

scintill76 · 8 months ago

I believe in some cases there was no premium at all, not even shipping, so widespread manufactured spending was losing the Mint much more money than they were prepared for when they started the program.

valarauko · 8 months ago

I don't follow. Why would Manufactured Spend specifically cost the Mint money? It's not great for the credit card company, sure, but why the Mint? If the Mint was previously eating the interchange fees & shipping, ok, but that's not a manufactured spend specific issue.

valarauko commented on Uncut Currency usmint.gov/paper-currency... · Posted by u/nxobject

rybosworld · 8 months ago

It's not free for the Mint. Also, credit card companies aggressively shut down manufactured spending when they notice it.

valarauko · 8 months ago

> credit card companies aggressively shut down manufactured spending when they notice it.

I'm familiar with the concept of manufactured spend, and why credit card companies would try to clamp down on it. What I don't get is why the US Mint would care one way or the other for the concerns of credit card companies. The usual way to eliminate manufactured spend would be to add a credit card specific transaction fee that cancels out the spend points. By the Mint increasing the base price for everybody, this affects even people who might be paying with a debit card, or an ACH transaction (not sure if they're options, just positing).

valarauko commented on Uncut Currency usmint.gov/paper-currency... · Posted by u/nxobject

rybosworld · 8 months ago

There was a time when the mint would sell coins and bills at face value. The problem is, people started using that for manufactured spending to rack up credit card points. They added a premium to prevent this.

valarauko · 8 months ago

That seems reasonable, but why would the US Mint care about manufactured spend for credit card companies?

valarauko commented on DNA from Pompeii Victims Reveals Surprising Relationships Amidst the Chaos gizmodo.com/dna-from-pomp... · Posted by u/rntn

__rito__ · 10 months ago

This is my question as well. How do they know that these DNA samples are not of the people who prepared and/or maintained the casts?

valarauko · 10 months ago

There are a couple of ways to rule out modern contamination.

Ancient DNA has certain characteristic damage that changes the sequence slightly, and you can use that to filter out any DNA that doesn't have that signature. Plus, you can maintain DNA profiles of all people involved in handling to ensure it's not modern contamination from the field workers or lab techs.

valarauko commented on The Long Road to End Tuberculosis asimov.press/p/end-tb... · Posted by u/tintinnabula

dyauspitr · 10 months ago

Yeah but the US has very low levels of latent TB in the population at only 4%. Compared that to places like Brazil where 40% of the population has latent TB. It’s not the climate because in Russia 80% of the population has latent TB.

valarauko · 10 months ago

Yes, and it's a self-perpetuating cycle. If so few people have latent TB, fewer people develop active TB that will go on to infect others. As other comments have mentioned, poverty and its resultant poor health is the biggest correlation for developing active TB. I wonder if most of the Russian latent infections happened during the Soviet/Post Soviet collapse era, with newer latent infections falling off as quality of life improved over time?

valarauko commented on The Long Road to End Tuberculosis asimov.press/p/end-tb... · Posted by u/tintinnabula

dyauspitr · 10 months ago

That’s still not an explanation. Kids in the US spend a lot of time with other kids at daycare and school. It’s a transmittable bacterial disease. Why aren’t people in the US getting it more? Are you saying you have to be mal/undernourished to get it?

valarauko · 10 months ago

The majority of healthy people develop a latent infection, and won't manifest symptoms in their lifetimes. The bacteria are encapsulated into nodules by the immune system, which weaken if the immune system weakens. The bacteria escape and active symptomatic infection occurs.

valarauko commented on Have Swiss scientists made a chocolate breakthrough? bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c... · Posted by u/cmsefton

pohl · a year ago

> ...the rest of the cocoa fruit – the size of a pumpkin...

Is this accurate? I had no idea.

valarauko · a year ago

More like a papaya fruit.

u/valarauko

KarmaCake day1051March 18, 2019View Original