Interesting Links for 02-03-2023

[andrewducker]

1. Steel was already being used in Europe 2,900 years ago

(tags:prehistory archeology materials europe )

2. Terry Pratchett on the fantasy genre

(tags:fantasy terrypratchett writing )

3. Fearful of dating app scams, men in Brazil are taking measures women and the LGBTQ+ community have used for years.

(tags:dating brazil crime men )

4. Presidents with Mullets is the kind of thing AI was made for

(tags:ai USA president viaDanielDWilliam )

5. Early-life stress can disrupt maturation of brain's reward circuits, promoting disorders (in mice)

(tags:stress brain reward psychology mentalhealth mice )

6. How to tie beautiful bows

(tags:craft beautiful video )

7. Weirdly it can still be really hard to find shop space, even when the high street is dying

(tags:shops UK rental )

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

#7 Commercial Property is a weird business.

[andrewducker]

But sometimes you get a hot tap out of it.

[danieldwilliam]

Made out of finest steel.

[mtbc]

It's odd indeed. Don't landlords have to pay ongoing taxes just for having this vacant space? (Just like individuals typically pay council tax on their second homes - sometimes even higher if it's long-term vacant?)

[danieldwilliam]

Sometimes, sometimes not - depends on the jurisdiction.

What it took me a couple of conversations with commercial property people to understand is that the payoffs are often very long-dated. for example people buy a property in a certain street in the hope that they can later buy the properties either side and that the street will become popular and they they can sell the parcels of land as a block to someone to build a new high-rise. They're not necessarily hugely interested in the rents.

[andrewducker]

That makes a lot of sense.
And certainly does indicate that we should be charging higher council tax charges for empty high-street properties, to make it harder to do that kind of thing long-term.

[channelpenguin]

YUP

[danieldwilliam]

#1 For me the interesting follow up question is whether the Iberian metal-workers could *reliably* product tempered steel.

I'm not suggesting this is what happened - I don't know enough - but I can imagine a metal working knowing that they can make a really really good metal tool some of the time and that metal tool being so useful because of the importance of the carving on the stellae that it was worth trying a dozen times until you got the really good tool but the metal workernot being able to reproduce the forge conditions that made the steel tool reliably.

[andrewducker]

I very-much doubt it, from the description. It sounds like they lucked into it occasionally.

[channelpenguin]

that's science IF you keep an eye on details that might tell you WHY certain times worked and some didn't.... and experiment Can take a while...

5

[channelpenguin]

but the "fix" they found only works on MALE mice...

Re: 5

[andrewducker]

I hear that females don't get stressed, so that's all fine.

Re: 5

[bugshaw]

Females can just eat more cake.

Re: 5

[channelpenguin]

That seems legit. Or ice cream.