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"Grok" I was able to grok with Google and have since used it in a sentence as Miss Estes, my third-grade teacher said to do. For "MAMLM" I needed to tell Chat GPT I found it on your Substack for it to clarify that it was "Mid August Macroeconomics and Markets Lunch Meeting" :)

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Modern Advanced Machine-Learning Models

- glcbot

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I suspected something was afoot! :)

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Burn-Murdock: Why isn't an excise tax on digital advertising a super low deadweight loss source of revenue? And if graduated to be progressive in "engagement," maybe even live levitation gain?

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Don't fret about green subsidies, make them reciprocal. It's the same CO2 that is not going into the atmosphere.

Then agree on attaching them to outputs not investment.

Then make the attachment via a uniform value of CO2 not emitted.

Then generalize to subsidize the non-emission of CO2 by any and all activities.

And then give the subsidy in the form or a prorata-devolution of an excise tax on the first sale of CO2 producing fuel in proportion to the carbon content.

Of course, the environmentalists will complain that it would have been easier just the have started with a tax on the net CO2 emissions, but they just don't understand politics the way economists do.

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Mammals have a section of their brains optimized for facial recognition. There was an article in Science some time back that used fMRI to determine that humans have repurposed this part of the brain to recognize writing as well. Since reading that article, I have wondered if my ability to read upside down and mirror writing has anything to do with my problems recognizing faces.

A more recent article asked why there are so few multi-cellular prokaryotes. The answer revolved around the need for low energy prokaryotes to trim their genomes. Eukaryotes with their fiery mitochondria could afford to double or redouble their genomes which opened space for successful mutations. Biology is so much about repurposing old tools.

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"low enery prokaryotes" = anerobes? If so, there are plenty of aerobes, and our mitochondria are the result of ingestion of ones of these aerobic prokaryotes. So I am not convinced of that argument. In addition, eukaryotes have a DNA copy mechanism that is an order of magnitude less error prone than prokaryotes. This could influence genome size too.

The key to the sucess of the metazoa is the differentiation of cell types to allow teh formation of a body plan with distinct form and organs, rather than the equivalent of a bacterial biofilm or agglomeration of uniform unicellular organisms. Genome size certainly plays into that, although intercellular communication during development from the egg must play an important part in that differention.

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The article I read on this pointed out that the lack of multicellular prokaryotes offered insight on the origin of multicellular organisms. It argued that one possible reason there were no multicellular prokaryotes was that prokaryotes limit the size of their genome which in turn limits evolutionary opportunities. It's not even clear that this is true. It could be something else. No one has a good understanding of the mechanics of this limitation, but it most likely has something to do with the differences between the two types of cells. (It could just be historical contingency.)

My guess is that the limit has to do with simpler prokaryote structure which in turn limits the energy budget. The eukaryotic DNA copy mechanism requires more energy, and eukaryotes have more energy available. There's that whole business of having a nucleus. Stuff has to be moved in and out. It's something else to copy when reproducing. Still, it seems that the fuss and bother can be worthwhile in the long run.

P.S. Prokaryotes can be aerobic or anaerobic. In either case, they have smaller energy budgets than eukaryotes.

P.P.S. Cellular evolution can be surprisingly sensitive to energy limits. Some apparently neutral genetic mutations dominate because they use a cheaper amino acid.

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Geopolits ...."

Would someone please watch this so I don't have to.

My assumption is that unless they are a skilled actor with a good script using lots of relevant visual aids, if someone wanted to transmit an idea, they would just write it down.

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