Never heard RenTec described that way, the only information that seems to be out there is that they use much simpler algorithmic techniques than people imagine, mainly just linear regression. Whatever unique insight they have, it's more likely to be based on pure mathematics than cutting edge algorithms theory. Also, they were not the first quant fund.

The whole "you can't use the past to predict the future" thing goes both ways. It's pretty poor form to give unwarranted investment advice based on ignoring one of the few steadfast principles in finance.

Wasn't Tolkien a lifelong, devout Catholic, who himself inspired Lewis's conversion to Christianity? I don't think it was a gulf between them.

Tolkien famously rejected the Vatican II reformations, and continued to respond to the priest in mass in Latin, rather than the vernacular.

Thanks, yes: Tolkein was quite a catholic (a bit oddly, given his upbringing -- perhaps due to his deep conservatism?). I had not known he had converted Lewis! That might explain Lewis' desire to write his explicitly catholic books.

That being said, apart from one letter in which he talked about christian influence, Tolkein was enamored, and his philological work concentrated on, Northern European pre-christian languages and cultures. Remember the Inklings recited the Sagas in old Icelandic at his encouragement. There are no popes, even by metaphor, in Middle Earth; no transubstantiation nor rebirth. In fact the destruction of the ring restores nothing.

It was in the intent and structure of their work that there was a gulf. I certainly didn't intend to imply that they were in any way personally estranged (though Carpenter wrote that T was a miffed at Lewis' success with his much less complex books).

Lewis's fiction (the Narnia books, Hideous strength etc) may not have risen to the level of "propaganda" in its modern sense, but they were explicitly intended to be at least "persuasive writing". I don't see Tolkein's as that at all.

Tolkien's work shows influences of both the sagas and his own Catholicism. Often, they began with the North European influences and reconceived them in his own world-view. Most prominently, the story of Turin Turambar is inspired by the Finnish Kalevala, but became very different over decades of rewrites. Due to his son's lifetime of effort, we have an extraordinary wealth of information on the evolution of his work.

The universe containing Arda is very different from ours, but Tolkien used it to work out his philosophy of what humans mean in the universe. The Elves are bound to the world, but Men have the "gift of death" and get to go beyond it. The analogy to Heaven is too facile; what's really being explored is the problem of evil, suffering, and the fear of death. It's all an explicitly pre-Christian world, before the sacrifice of Christ and salvation, which allows him to dispense with the trappings of Christianity to look at the real nature of humans (as viewed through the eyes of a people who don't have that gift of death).

All of that is much, much more subtle than Lewis's simple allegories. (Tolkien famously wrote that he "cordially detested" allegories, though he indulged in them once in a while as well.) Reading Tolkien's influences deeply requires a Middle Ages mind-set, both medieval Catholic and pagan views.

None of that is necessary to enjoy, appreciate, and even study his books. But we have the luxury of being able to read the works as they developed, and that gives us an almost unique insight into the multiple worlds that influenced them.

Unlikely, given the insane growth of Bitcoin. If you invested a million dollars equally across a thousand schemes ($1000 each), with one of those being Bitcoin at $1, and then everything but Bitcoin failed, you'd be up almost 19 million dollars.

Same principle as a lot of VC, if you invest in fifty failed startups and one Facebook, you win.

Is WhatsApp a profitable business on its own? What happens if they are forced to spin out and then go bankrupt?

How much is $120B relative to the total assets held in the UK by Morgan Stanley? The number of jobs which have been moved out of London seems relatively small (7500 across the entire financial sector, single companies in London employee more than that).

7500 was October, not it's more than 8000. That would make it about 3-4% of "high finance" positions* so far moved out of the UK into the EU. That's not an exodus yet, but it's not nothing either.

Then again, a lot of the transitions aren't finished yet either, and a lot of it is dependent on the final Deal or No Deal. It also takes time to do the groundwork if you want to move, like create the legal infrastructure and entities and the associated due diligence, rent office space, hire or relocate people, and so on.

So, it's too early yet to conclude anything in either direction, in my opinion.

[*] Hard to tell what is the true number of "high finance" employees in the UK. Given there are roughly 180K finance and insurance employees in the City of London, and most of the "high finance" is concentrated there, I'd guestimate 200-250K such "high finance" employees in the UK total, but I could be massively wrong. There are numbers putting the full time financial and insurance employees in the UK at 1.1M employees, but that includes bank tellers dealing with people wanting to buy a house and agents selling life insurance, etc.

My wife's department (at an unnamed major investment bank in London) just gave up on trying to hire for a position in Frankfurt. They'd been trying to fill it all year. They're now going to hire for it in their UK branch office (not London). By having the role in the UK will breach the EU regulations for the role in question - I don't know what their medium-long-term plans are though. It's a shit situation when you literally "can't find the staff".

could you elaborate? I would have guessed that especially in finance hiring in major cities is just a matter of compensation.

I think in every statement like "we can't find employees" there is an implicit "at the amount of money we want to pay".

Are German bankers paid that much more than British bankers then?

I have no idea - perhaps there is a shortage of bankers in Germany because of banks moving there?

I mean that can attract people from all over Europe to take these positions. It's likely a question of money.

And Frankfurt is not as attractive a place to live as London or Paris.

As a French guy still living in France, I don't find Paris to be attractive at all.

It is a dirty city, housing is expensive and generally in a poor state, and there a lot of security issues and social unrest: burglaries, violent protests (almost every week), periodic riots in some suburbs and terrorist attacks. To the point that more and more in the media, you hear about an upcoming civil war. Add that all the famous France's plagues: strikes, bureaucracy, very high income taxes for people earning more than 2000/m Euros and more recently communities living more and more separately.

There is no social unrest in Germany, Frankfurt is much safer and Germany more reliable.

Frankfurt is a lovely place to live... I was surprised how cheap it was (compared to nyc and such). While not a world class city like NYC/London, it has a lot to offer, and it is on par with cities like Boston/Seatle/SF/W.DC/Lyon/Zurich etc...

It is a solid 'upper middle' tier city, where everything is clean and neat.

And you can be in the center of of Amsterdam, Berlin, or Paris within 4 hours by train.

This. And from what I’ve heard this is often less about the banker asked to relocate themselves but their families. London is just far more attractive as a place for foreigners to relocate to than Frankfurt is.

It’s one of the downsides of Germany’s less centralized economy. While not the same status as London, Munich or Berlin would likely be more attractive destinations for their families.

Ha!? Paris is attractive only for a handful of ultra-rich or if you are a two days tourist (and even then). On the other hand, I found Frankfurt to be quite affordable and calm.

What daily attractions does Paris have? Sure there is the Louvre but I didn't visit that as a tourist (no way I'm standing on these lines); so I don't think I'll be seeing it everyday to work.

I dunno, I would trade london for just one more meal at konamon or muku ;)

Getting reservations at Muku was never easy but always worth it

If everyone suddenly has great need of them while demand for British bankers collapses, then yes.

I'm guessing that at least some financial institutions have been moving (part of) their London operations to mainland Europe, thereby creating a shortage of available workers there. That will probably self-correct over time, but it doesn't help the situation right now.

They were hiring for a low-rank employee that would take training and instructions from London.

Does their Wikipedia article [0] help to answer this question? It has numbers for 2020 in the table near the top. I would assume these number refer to the situation worldwide?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Stanley

It seems to have become quite bad with people too. I think it's been overloaded and has too many things to consider now. I tried to get it to guess George VI, and despite telling it he was dead for over 20 years it asked me if he had over 100,000 subscribers or had 'collaborated with Shawn Mendes', this was within the first 15 questions.

It used to almost always know at 20 questions, not it feels like it goes to at least 25 even when it knows the answer

I've noticed a shift in the last decade or so from self deprecating to self loathing. People seem loath to admit that we are one of the richest, most privileged, most developed countries in the world.

I think a large part of that is because it doesn't tally with how the vast majority of people in the UK experience life.

I split time between a major world city and a small (10k population) town. Both have many independent businesses. Where do you live that this is not the case?

Could any of those businesses get larger sitting where they are now? Or could they have grown into something bigger at a mall like venue?

Why not just engage in this conversation in good faith? It's very unbecoming to act as if you're a neutral party who can't understand tech jargon, then drop a dense paragraph about TCP/UDP to back up your point.