China and South Korea, the three No's

Seoul is believed to have agreed to conditions known as the "three No's" - no deployment of additional Thaad batteries, no joining a US-led missile defence network and no trilateral security alliance with US and Japan - as the price to improve ties. The reported concessions drew criticism that South Korea had compromised too much and should stop kowtowing to China.

http://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/south-korean-leaders-visiting-china-to-rebuild-trust-seeks-ways-to-resolve-nuclear

After the initial deployment of Thaad, China imposed an informal ban on tourism to South Korea and limited operations of certain Korean companies working in China. The tourism boycott resulted in $9B loss. Xi is now calling the shots in the region.

Also related, Felix Zulauf says that China trade is the major economic growth factor for Europe. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2017-11-21/felix-zulauf-discusses-the-evolution-of-markets

Quote of the Day

In short, if an engineer-sociologist is to be proved right he or she has to create a new market; success is measured by the amount of profit gained. This, in all its simplicity and toughness, is the test of truth.

--upd--

Sociologists, when they develop, as Bourdieu and Touraine did, analyses that are opposed to each other point for point, can coexist without problems, just as in those preparadigmatic situations so well described by Kuhn (1970). For engineer-sociologists this sort of , ambiguous situation did not make any sense. Either the VEL would find a market and eliminate competing techniques, or it would become a fiction without a future, thus leaving the road free for the traditional automobile. Both the VEL and the traditional motorcar could not be developed at the same time for the same purpose.

--- Michel Callon.
Bijker, Wiebe E., et al. The Social Construction of Technological Systems : New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, MIT Press, 2012.

Note the difference between being right vs knowing the truth, i.e. constructing a topos is a physical activity.

TIL: Cut to the chase

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/cut-to-the-chase.html

That figurative use, that is, the generalized 'get to the point' meaning emerged in the 1940s. The Winnipeg Free Press, March 1944 ran an article about screen writing that included this:

Miss [Helen] Deutsch has another motto, which had to do with the writing of cinematic drama. It also is on the wall where she cant miss seeing it, and it says: "When in doubt, cut to the chase."

Tradeoff of the day

As a war machine in the relatively sheltered waters of the Mediterranean the galley was a great success. As a cargo carrying vessel, however, it had its drawbacks. Its carrying capacity was extremely limited. The features that made it a good war ship—it was slim and low and could carry a large crew that might repel boarders—were an impediment to the carriage of cargo (Lane 1973, p. 122; Denoix 1966, p. 142). Furthermore, the endurance of the galley was restricted by the size of its crew. It could not pass far from the sight of land and the possibility of water and provisions.

....

Accordingly, it is a paradigmatic case of the fundamental problem faced by system builders: how to juxtapose and relate heterogeneous elements together such that they stay in place and are not dissociated by other actors in the environment in the course of the inevitable struggles—whether these are social or physical or some mix of the two.

-- ibid



Three types of technological innovation were important.

-- The first of these took the form of a revolution in the design of the sailing ship in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. ... a mixed-rigged seagoing vessel ( figure 2 ) that had much greater endurance and seaworthiness than its predecessors, one that was able to convert winds from many directions into forward motion. There were no rowers, so manpower was reduced, and it was thus possible to carry sufficient stores to undertake a considerable passage without foraging.

-- The second was the fact that the magnetic compass became generally available in Christian Europe in the late twelfth century. ... it allowed a reasonably consistent heading to be sailed in the absence of clear skies. Combined with dead reckoning and a portolano chart, 9 the magnetic compass took some of the guesswork out of long-distance navigation, and in particular it meant that the sailor did not need to hug the coast to have some idea of his location.

-- It was the invention of this circle, called the volta by the Portuguese, that marks the decisive third step. Ships were no longer forced to stay close to the coast. Cape Bojador, the classic point of no return, was no longer the obstacle it had previously been. The masters could sail beyond it and expect to be able to return.

The volta can thus be seen as a geographical expression of a struggle between heterogeneous bits and pieces assembled by the Portuguese system builders and their adversaries, that is, the winds, the currents, and the capes.

--
System builders seek to create a network of heterogeneous but mutually sustaining elements. They seek to dissociate hostile forces and to associate them with their enterprise by transforming them.
====

It looks like a battle of free monoids composed of different elements. Juxtaposition, i.e. the idea of the opposing system, makes a big difference here.

Чем политические болельщики хуже спортивных болельщиков?

Тем, что спортивные болельщики иногда занимаются спортом. Кроме того, в большом профессиональном спорте, они участвуют в fantasy leagues. Т.е. (по Канеману) спортивные болельщики больше знают, потому что больше делают.

More on the Portuguese

The general idea was that if the altura, or height above the horizon, of the sun or a star (normally the Pole Star) could be determined and compared with the known altura of the port of destination, then the ship could sail north or south until it reached that latitude, and then sail, as appropriate, east or west in the certainty of finding its point of destination. The measurement of the altura was possible with the use of either the quadrant or the astrolabe.



Both devices were standard university instruments of astronomy and astrology that carried a great deal of information that was both unnecessary to the calculation of latitude and simply incomprehensible to the layman. On the back of the astrolabe there was, however, an alidade, which was a rule on a swivel with two pinhole sights. The observer held the instrument upright by a swivel suspension ring, peered along the alidade, and measured the altura of the star by reading off the position of the alidade on a scale marked on the rim ( figure 3 ). The quadrant was an instrument with similar functions.



But instruments, inscriptions, and stars were not enough. Part of the association of elements to convert stars into latitudes lay in the practices of the mariners, and it was this element that was the most prone to distortion. It was difficult, although not ultimately impossible, to create a new social group necessary for closure: the astronomical navigator.

- John Law, ibid

The navigator embodied a (cyclical?) monoid, i.e. he could start applying technology arrows (device-based mappings) from any object in the graph: Stars -> Latitude -> Port -> Course -> Stars.

(no subject)

Three elements must be emphasized regarding the emergence of this technological paradigm. There was both an exemplary process (Witt’s method for making chrysoidine) and an exemplary product (Roussin’s dyes with their valuable technical qualities); both were combined in a cultural matrix through Hofmann’s revelations, which also supported the expectations necessary for working within the technological paradigm.

-- Henk van den Belt and Arie Rip, ibid.

Process - P; Product - R, Cultural Matrix - PxR.