[kenberg]

A random question, perhaps suitable for the hijack thread:
Do I have it right that Louis Philippe I was the son of Louis Philippe II?

I am reading Queen of the Night, with many allusions to French history.

[PeterAlan]

 kenberg, on 2019-August-23, 14:47, said:

A random question, perhaps suitable for the hijack thread:
Do I have it right that Louis Philippe I was the son of Louis Philippe II?

I am reading Queen of the Night, with many allusions to French history.

Yes.

Wikipedia will tell you more about this than you want to know.

[kenberg]

 PeterAlan, on 2019-August-23, 16:44, said:

Yes.

Wikipedia will tell you more about this than you want to know.

I had looked at the Wik as well as other places so it seemed that yes, this is what happened but I didn't see, maybe my eyes just glossed over it, how the son could be the first and the father the second. The father was, when written in full, Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orleans. So we have that Duke stuff added on at the end. Is that it? Meaning that if the Duke bit had been passed on to the son then the son would have been Louis Philippe III, Duke of Orleans. but since they apparently lost the Duke part of it they therefore started the numbering all over at I? That's the only guess I could make but it seemed weird.


Incidentally, I recommend the book. It starts with a Parisian opera singer in 1872 but we flash back to find that she was born in Minnesota to a poor farm family. Maybe some things strain credulity, at least a little but I am getting a real kick out of it. There is a lot of stuff about 19th century France. I knew vaguely about the various Napoleons, the various Republics, the various revolutions etc but I might actually be getting at least some of it straight as I read on. The father being II and the son being I is a minor side issue but I just thought Huh?

[PeterAlan]

 kenberg, on 2019-August-23, 19:24, said:

I had looked at the Wik as well as other places so it seemed that yes, this is what happened but I didn't see, maybe my eyes just glossed over it, how the son could be the first and the father the second. The father was, when written in full, Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orleans. So we have that Duke stuff added on at the end. Is that it? Meaning that if the Duke bit had been passed on to the son then the son would have been Louis Philippe III, Duke of Orleans. but since they apparently lost the Duke part of it they therefore started the numbering all over at I? That's the only guess I could make but it seemed weird.

The Dukedom of Orléans (Wikipedia again) was a particular title derived from the immediate younger brother of the king, and the holders had ducal numbers I, II etc to distinguish those of the same name. Louis Philippe II's father was the first Louis Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, and on succession in 1793 his (Louis Philippe II's) son indeed became Louis Philippe III, Duke of Orléans. However, in 1830 he (the son) became King of the French, took the title of Louis Philippe I in that capacity, and ceased to be the Duke of Orléans. He abdicated in 1848, and died in exile in England in 1850.

[kenberg]

 PeterAlan, on 2019-August-23, 20:23, said:

The Dukedom of Orléans (Wikipedia again) was a particular title derived from the immediate younger brother of the king, and the holders had ducal numbers I, II etc to distinguish those of the same name. Louis Philippe II's father was the first Louis Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, and on succession in 1793 his (Louis Philippe II's) son indeed became Louis Philippe III, Duke of Orléans. However, in 1830 he (the son) became King of the French, took the title of Louis Philippe I in that capacity, and ceased to be the Duke of Orléans. He abdicated in 1848, and died in exile in England in 1850.

Thanks very much.

[y66]

Roger Federer Talks with David Remnick

[Winstonm]

Meanwhile, the 2yr-10yr treasury yields remain inverted. 8/28/19: consecutive day 2. Total day 3.

[Winstonm]

Another argument for national universal healthcare for the U.S. The Atlantic reports:

Quote

About 43 million Americans have unpaid medical debt dinging their credit, and half of all overdue debt on Americans’ credit reports is from medical expenses, according to a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau study from 2014. The debt typically comes from out-of-network doctors who people thought were in-network, hospital stays, or ambulance rides. About one in six Americans received a surprise out-of-network medical bill in 2017 after being treated in a hospital, even though they had insurance, according to Kaiser Health News.

[Winstonm]

The yield curve remains inverted, 2yr-10yr consecutive day 3, total days 4.

[Winstonm]

I have to admit that continually pissing on a power line requires some kind of faith - but that faith is misguided:

Quote

An evangelical leader claimed Sunday that mass shootings are caused by “driving God from the public square,” and specifically by teaching kids about evolution.

Curse you, Red Barron...er Charles Darwin!

[johnu]

Harry Potter books removed from St. Edward Catholic School

Quote

The seven-book series depicting the magical adventures of a young wizard and his friends was removed from the library because of their content, the Rev. Dan Reehil, a pastor at the Roman Catholic parish school, wrote in an email.

"These books present magic as both good and evil, which is not true, but in fact a clever deception. The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text," the email states.

Reehil goes on to say in the email that he consulted several exorcists in the U.S. and Rome who recommended removing the books.

Yikes

[Winstonm]

 johnu, on 2019-September-02, 16:46, said:

Harry Potter books removed from St. Edward Catholic School


Yikes

The Dark Ages never really ended, did they?

[Winstonm]

I'm sorry, but the greatest economy in...probably ever....simply cannot do this. Fake news! Fake news!

Quote

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. factory activity unexpectedly contracted in August for the first time in three years as shrinking orders, production and hiring pushed a widely followed measure of manufacturing to its lowest level since January 2016.

The Institute for Supply Management’s purchasing managers index fell to 49.1 in August, weaker than all forecasts in a Bloomberg survey of economists, data released Tuesday showed. Figures below 50 signal the manufacturing economy is generally contracting.

my emphasis

[y66]

From A Nobel-Winning Economist Goes to Burning Man by Emily Badger at The Upshot at NYT:

Quote

BLACK ROCK CITY, Nev. — It was dusk on the opening night of Burning Man, and the makers and misfits were touching up their art projects and orgy dens. Subwoofers oontz-oontzed as topless cyclists draped in glowing LEDs pedaled through the desert. And Paul Romer, a reigning laureate of the Nobel Prize in economics, sat on a second-story porch at the center of it all, marveling at a subtlety of the street grid.

The roads narrowed as they approached small plazas around the impermanent city. How clever, he thought, this way of funneling pedestrians toward gathering places. And most Burners probably didn’t even notice — what with the art projects and orgy dens.

“It’s just like every other city,” Mr. Romer said. “Except in this other way, it’s like no city ever.” White-haired and 63, he was dressed in black gear he’d bought at R.E.I., figuring black was the thing to wear at Burning Man. It was the first time that Mr. Romer, the former chief economist of the World Bank, had attended the annual bacchanal.

A week earlier, there was hardly anything here, in the remote desert of northwest Nevada. Then tens of thousands of people had just shown up, many in the middle of the night. They had formed an instant city, with a road network, and a raucous street life, and a weird make-do architecture.

It was an alluring sight for an economist who has talked of building cities from nothing. And Burning Man has been more and more on Mr. Romer’s mind lately, as world politics have made him gloomier. He is ill at ease behaving like a traditional academic. He’s not particularly interested in publishing papers. He doesn’t want to give speeches cheerleading his field. But he believes winning the Nobel has expanded his possibilities. More people will listen to what he has to say, if he can just decide where he wants to direct our attention.

Maybe it’s here.

Mr. Romer came to the desert imagining himself as an objective outsider: de Tocqueville among the Burners. But Black Rock City started to rub off on him. One morning, a man who called himself Coyote, who was responsible for surveying the city’s streets, took Mr. Romer around. At the far edge of town, they found a roller coaster that looked likelier than most things at Burning Man to harm you. It was designed for one fool at a time, strapped into an oversized car seat that shot down one side of a 31-foot wooden U shape and up the other.

Mr. Romer, surprising himself, walked up to it.

“Should I do this?” he asked Coyote. “If you kill a Nobel Prize winner, it’s on you.”

Then he climbed the stairs to the top of a contraption that had been constructed just days before, in a city with no building codes. Heavy metal was blaring. Mr. Romer was trussed into place. A guy with “PEE HERE” painted on his back took his glasses. And then someone gave him a push.

Rest of story

[Winstonm]

I can't believe John Bolton was fired - who is going to play the part of David Crosby in the Christmas play?

[johnu]

Uber Says It Won’t Reclassify Drivers As Employees Despite New Law

Quote

After California lawmakers passed legislation on Wednesday seeking to reclassify many “gig economy” workers from independent contractors to employees ― with additional benefits and protections ― Uber said it still does not plan to consider its drivers full employees.

The ride-hailing company told reporters Wednesday that its drivers will not be reclassified as employees, even if Assembly Bill 5 is signed into law as widely expected. Tony West, Uber’s chief legal representative, said the drivers will still be considered independent contractors because “drivers’ work is outside the usual course of Uber’s business.”

Uber's Tony West has a world class, truly remarkable disregard for reality. He is in the wrong job. He should be White House Press Secretary or Chief of Staff for the Manchurian President.

[Winstonm]

File under Only the Best People, SCOTUS, and Impeachment:

Quote

A New York Times investigation into Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s time at Yale University has uncovered another allegation of sexual misconduct that was previously unreported. Max Stier, a Yale classmate of Kavanaugh in the 1980s, reportedly said he saw Kavanaugh with his pants down at a dorm party where his friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student. Stier notified senators and the FBI about the incident but it was not investigated, according to the Times, which cited two officials who have spoken to Stier about his account. Stier’s story echoes that of Deborah Ramirez, who came forward during Kavanaugh’s confirmation process alleging that he had pulled down his pants and thrust his penis at her during another party.

During his Senate testimony, Kavanaugh, who has denied the sexual misconduct allegations against him, said that if Ramirez’s story were true, it would have been “the talk of campus.” The Times cites several people who had indeed heard of the incident, with two classmates saying they had heard about it from fellow classmates just days after the party occurred. Any investigation into Ramirez’s account had strict limits set by the Republican-controlled Senate. Of the 25 individuals that could corroborate Ramirez’s story, and who were directly provided to the FBI by her legal team, none were interviewed.

my emphasis

[y66]

From Aishwarya Kumar at ESPN:

Quote

In 2017, Magnus Carlsen realized he had a problem. The reigning world No. 1 for four years felt his grasp on the title loosening. He was still winning most tournaments, but his matches were lasting longer, the victories seemingly less assured. He was beginning to wane in the last hour of games. He noticed younger players catching up to him.

So it was that Carlsen visited the Olympic training center in Oslo, Norway, with his father, Henrik, seeking advice from performance specialists. Their suggestion was deceptively simple: "You need to cut back on the orange juice you drink during tournaments."

Carlsen had relied on a mix of half orange juice, half water for an energy boost since he was a child. But now, in his late 20s, his body was no longer breaking down the sugar as quickly, leading to sugar crashes. The nutritionists suggested that he instead drink a mixture of chocolate milk and plain milk, which contained far lower levels of sugar but would also supplement his body with calcium, potassium and protein.

"It kept his blood sugar at a reasonable level without too big a variation, and he felt less tired during key moments in tournaments that followed the change," Henrik said.

But that was merely the beginning of Carlsen's makeover: Since then he has trained his body for chess, down to the very last detail. Before tournaments, he works out for hours -- running on the treadmill, perfecting asanas on his yoga mat, playing soccer with his friends. Before the world championship last year, he went skiing every day and tweeted that it strengthened his legs and his willpower to get to the finish line. He hired a personal chef, Magnus Forssell, who travels with him to ensure he's eating the right combination of proteins, carbs and calcium. (Says Forssell: "Before tournaments, you need a lot of energy, so I am trying to trick him to eat some pasta so he gets some reserve energy.")

These days, during tournaments, Carlsen focuses on relaxing and conserving energy instead of training. Caruana spends at least three hours before a match prepping his moves, but Carlsen does only 15 to 30 minutes of prep. His reasoning: Last-minute preparations are an unnecessary use of energy.

"When you allow your body to relax more during a tournament, it means that it will ask for more food, it means you can eat normally, you're not stressed, so your appetite is normal -- that's what happens with Magnus," Carlsen's father says.

There's more: Carlsen chews gum during games to try to increase brain function without losing energy; he taps his legs rhythmically to keep his brain and body alert between moves.

He has even managed to optimize ... sitting. That's right. Carlsen claims that many chess players crane their necks too far forward, which can lead to a 30 percent loss of lung capacity, according to studies in the Journal of Physical Therapy Science. And, according to Keith Overland, former president of the American Chiropractic Association, leaning 30 degrees forward increases stress on the neck by nearly 60 pounds, which in turn requires the back and neck muscles to work harder, ultimately resulting in headaches, irregular breathing and reduced oxygen to the brain.

"A chess player can develop chronic neck and upper back pain, as well as sore shoulders and backaches," says Overland, who has worked with the New York Mets and the U.S. Olympic Training Center. "This is particularly concerning considering how much energy they are exerting on playing a competitive game of chess at the highest level."

Not Carlsen. The Norwegian rests his lower back against the chair so it retains a natural curve, his knees slightly apart at the edge of the seat, feet firmly on the ground, and leans forward at about a 75-degree angle. In this position, which he arrived at through reading studies and trial and error, he's not too far forward to lose alertness and not too far back to use extra energy.

"A lot of times you see Magnus winning games in the fifth hour of play," says Ashley, who has commentated on most of Carlsen's games in the past decade. "He looks like he's just starting out while his opponents are burning out."

Since he became a world champion in 2013, Carlsen has even practiced a strategy familiar to fans of Kawhi Leonard or LeBron James: load management. Although the average elite player will play 12 to 14 events a year to maintain his ranking and earn money, Carlsen has typically reduced his schedule to six to eight tournaments, taking months off to recuperate after each one.

"Even if he doesn't lose substantial weight like his peers, Magnus understood early on that his nervous system is stressed after every tournament and takes weeks at a time regaining that balance," Henrik says. "He understands his body well enough to know when he's achieved equilibrium before he goes out to play for another title."

[y66]

Who is Karl Friston?

Edit: The woman who decapitated her neighbor because she was convinced he had become an evil, human-sized crow is a warning of what can happen when people outsource responsibility for updating their mental models to Fox news and trolls in the wc.

[Chas_P]

 Winstonm, on 2019-September-15, 09:12, said:

A New York Times investigation into Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s time at Yale University has uncovered another allegation of sexual misconduct that was previously unreported. Max Stier, a Yale classmate of Kavanaugh in the 1980s, reportedly said he saw Kavanaugh with his pants down at a dorm party where his friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student.

Like every other complaint against the teenaged Kavanaugh, it was a matter of “my cousin Ernie’s brother’s girlfriend heard from her college roommate that three people whose names she cannot remember told her best friend that someone who might have been Brett Kavanaugh was rumored to have exposed himself at a drunken white-privilege party at Yale 35 or maybe 36 years ago.”

Just more hilarity from the looney left and The New York Slimes.