In a new clinical trial with 145 subjects, subjects were given drinks sweetened with aspartame, glucose, fructose, or high-fructose corn syrup for two weeks.

Some results
HFCS group:
17% higher LDL-C
15% higher apoB
11% higher

Subjects were given beverages to drink three times per day, containing:

Aspartame, control
Glucose, 25% daily energy requirements
Fructose, 17.5%
Fructose, 25%
High-fructose corn syrup, 17.5%
HFCS, 25%
Sucrose, 25%

Patients were told to refrain from drinking any other sugar-sweetened beverages.

Riboflavin was added to the drinks as a biomarker for adherence and tested in the urine.

Urinary riboflavin was low at the beginning, rose throughout the study, and did not rise differently between participants in each group over the course of the study, indicating that the biomarker worked and adherence was similar between groups.

The trial was double-blinded and on an outpatient basis.

Subjects were not randomized but groups were matched for sex, BMI, and concentrations of fasting triglyceride (TG), cholesterol, HDL-C, and insulin at baseline.

“Energy needed a digital revolution – and we are it”

Greg Jackson, boss of Octopus Energy, says the sector was ripe for an Amazon or Uber-style disruptor, but that his version will also boost the UK’s green revolution


Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus Energy, wears the unassuming combination of jeans and trainers one might expect from the founder of a wildly successful startup

There’s also a vast open-plan central London office, easy camaraderie with staff, lots of plants

He has the enthusiasm and world-changing idealism too

With all these markers of a tech unicorn – a deal last month with Tokyo Gas valued it at $2bn (£1.5bn) – it’s easy to forget that Octopus is an energy company

Jackson, 49, says the distinction is increasingly irrelevant

Octopus is a new breed of energy supplier, built on cutting-edge technology and unencumbered by the creaking billing systems and fossil-fuel plants that plague the UK’s “big six”

Set up just five years ago, it has been free to view the energy market as a tech startup would: ripe for disruption

Will be a v ugly week, but impt to remember, short of the House flipping red by Friday, there's no remaining power mechanism in the U.S. capable of preventing Biden taking the presidency on Jan 20.

Everything else is just show. A shitshow, to be sure, but a show nonetheless.

Let's walk through the various shitshows that might happen, to various levels of insanity, and why they all still end up with Biden as POTUS on Jan 20.

First it's now certain you'll get objections at the EC with senators + reps. But it needs a majority in both H & S to sustain the objection, and the House is blue, so no dice.

Can they fillibuster the EC to force it to never decide? No, but for complicated reasons.

ECA gives a max two hours of debate per objection, and that caps out at 5 days (ugh).

A suitably devious R senator might go for broke and try to use a Senate rule to bypass that cap, passed by majority vote in the Senate, with the sole purpose of filibustering the EC itself. Which won't happen, and isn't close.

But it did? Guess what, Biden is *still* president.

In 2010 when Chris Bosh announced he would sign with the Miami Heat, I speculated that this meant Lebron would ultimately also sign with Miami so I called the ticket office the same day and bought a pair of season tickets.

How can the wine industry shift its message and approach to reach Millennials, given shifting generational values?

If you want to reach a diverse audience, you have to hire a team that looks like it. "The good part of this is you have a consumer that wants your product. If you don't have people who are of that community, you're not going to sell to them." @SVBWine

When a person of color comes into your TR, they want to know they're going to be treated with respect. "Its Civility 101. It's not really very complicated." Devin Joshua @DJVino

Younger consumers are making the most effort to reduce alcohol consumption.

From Nielsen, top reasons for cutting back on wine center on health. "How do we [address] that in the wine business? We're still talking about long days and cool nights on back labels." Need to take this head on and address calories, e.g. Calories matter to consumers. @SVBWine

QBI deduction optimization is a great end of year planning technique For high income SMB owners.

When used correctly, optimizing has saved my clients tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

If you are already on it then good for you.

If not - thread incoming👇🏻

The QBI or Qualified Business Income deduction was a part of the TCJA from 2017.

When congress lowered the corp tax rate to 21% they decided to throw a bone to small businesses by offering a 20% deduction on qualified income.

These include Schedule C and pass through entities.

This allows anyone conducting trade or business out of a pass through entity to take a 20% deduction on their income. Great right?

However there are a few limitations including a phase out for high income earners.

The phase begins at 326k for married and 163k for single/HOH.

If your taxable income is above that threshold you are allowed to deduct the lesser of:

1. 20% of QBI
Or
2a. 1/2 W-2 wages (or)
2b. 1/4 W-2 wages + 2.5% unadjusted property basis (RE pros look here).

This means there is a wage limitation to your QBI deduction.

Simple example. Married S-Corp owner makes 300k after he pays employees - what is his deduction? 60k

Ex2. Married S-Corp owner makes 500k after he pays employees 100k total wages - what is his deduction? 50k.

The owner cannot take the 20%, but is limited to 1/2 of wages paid.

Time for #PapersThatMakeYouGoHmmm! A weekly summary of new ML papers from arXiv that make me think one or more of:

1. That looks useful!
2. That's an interesting approach!
3. A business could be built around this!
4. How did they do that?!

How can I choose an explainer? An Application-grounded Evaluation of Post-hoc

Validating Label Consistency in NER Data

A two-stage data association approach for 3D Multi-object

Neural Networks, Artificial Intelligence and the Computational

Ray Kroc died in 1984. That year, McDonald's made $9.5 billion in revenue.

Personal net worth? $600 million, about $1.5 billion today.

Kroc grew McDonald's into a brand everyone in the world recognizes, and he started with just one question...

Time for a thread! 👇👇👇

In 1954, Ray was a milkshake salesman. Business wasn't exactly booming.

One day, he called his secretary from the road. To his surprise, someone had ordered six five-milkshake mixers.

Who needed to mix 30 milkshakes at a time?

Ray thought: "What if that's wrong?"

He called the restaurant. The owner was terse.

"What? Six mixers? Yes, that's us. Actually, make it eight! Gotta go!"

Now, Ray was even more confused.

Once again, he thought: "What if that's wrong?"

He decided to drive to the place himself. After a 26-hour drive, he got to San Bernardino.

What he saw was a long queue and people standing around in the parking lot, munching on their burgers.

When he got the front window, Ray ordered a burger, a Coke, and fries.

The cashier returned the food right with his change.

Ray said: "No no, that's wrong! I just ordered!"

And the cashier said: "Yeah, and now, you're food is here."

Last night, @gisellegeneral requested a list of inexpensive or free businesses and resources for candidates who are looking to keep moving their campaigns forward, even if money is tight right now.

Below is a SUPER THREAD! #yegcc

Graphic design: Canva for social media and Venngage for infographics. Both have free versions with some limitations.

Social media management: Hootsuite is most popular, and at $30/month for the entry level version, not too pricey. Buffer is also reasonable ($15/month) and Later is free, but we don't have as much experience with these two platforms, so let us know how they are if you use them!

Website: We use Wix for our website, which is easy to use and offers domain options as well. Wordpress is also a good option.

Both of these offer free or low cost options, but you may want to upgrade your package once the campaign gets into swing to get better site analytics!

Databases: Lots of campaigns rely on Excel or Google sheets. Both will merge with your web platform easily. Excel and Google are more work to update but can be more flexible than your NationBuilders.

Whatever you choose, good data security is a must!

- They passed NAFTA over all our objections, bipartisan
- They were caught in corruption, including foreign influence peddling. No one was prosecuted
- They sold out manufacturing and retail sales to China, devastating our middle-class
- 9/11, Patriot Act, Iraq, Afghanistan

"Making money is bad, unless I do it and then it's fine" -The beating heart of left-wing populism

The real lesson that should be learned early on in life:

No one actually cares about "big money", "big tech", "corporations", or "Wall Street".

They want YOU to be dumb enough to, so they can take YOUR money.

Populism is holding a treat in front of a dog as you give it a shot while it's enamored.

Look at the "populists"

Ted Cruz: Harvard Law grad
Briahna Joy Gray: Harvard Law grad
Chapo Trap House: makes >$120,000 a year
Josh Hawley: owns two homes in different states, Yale grad
Bernie Sanders: owns 3 homes
Tucker Carlson: trust fund TV dinner fortune heir

Walker Bragman: lives in a mansion in The Hamptons, parents are rich
Meagan Day: heiress to multimillion dollar fortune, lives in a mansion, parents are rich
Donald Trump: archetypal rich obnoxious New Yorker

Statement by KASUPDA on the demolition of Asher Lounge

On Thursday, 31st December 2020, the Kaduna State Urban Development and Planning Authority (KASUPDA) took action to remove the building housing Asher Lounge.

Since this enforcement action, much of the commentary on the matter has centred on the inaccurate statement from KASUPDA’s Twitter account.

While regretting the inaccuracy of the handler of our social media account, there is no reservation about the steps taken pursuant to enforce the laws and regulations of Kaduna State on a property that was in violation of its provisions.

Since 26th March 2020, the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Partial Lockdown Order, 2020 have been in force in Kaduna State.

Although some of the regulations were significantly relaxed in June 2020, they were tightened again in December 2020 in response to a second wave of Covid-19 infections.

🧵While we in Fintech are Hoping for Challenger/Neo Banking Licences from RBI. Let's understand more about Small Finance Bank and from their success, try to see if a balance between Profitability (for business) and Financial Inclusion (for RBI) can be made for future usecase?👇

Since Independence, Financial Inclusion has been a top policy agenda for the central govt and hence for the RBI also, Post 90s, the accent was more on demand-led private initiatives through self-help groups, followed by the Grameen Bank model of microfinance in India.

Then, in 2015, the RBI granted licenses to two differentiated banks (SFB and Payments Banks) for pushing the financial inclusion. PB had been a mystery category, with no clear business model to operate. SFB was to cater to the diverse needs of the low-income group.

The two KEY expectation was:
1. Priority Sector Lending (75% of their total lending) and 2. Branches for Unbanked (SFB were required to have 25% of their branches in rural unbanked centres (population shall be less than 10,000)

Most (8/10) of the SFBs were previously microfinance institutions (MFIs) with a few notable exceptions, such as the Capital Small Finance Bank which was a local area bank. So, achieving the above TWO pointers was not a thought ask for them.

Tarik Bateh, a senior director with JLL Capital Markets, is giving a presentation about his thoughts on Lot J. He said there are 4 major and fundamental red flags about the project, but they can all be fixed with "basic and standard" business and governance practices.

First red flag: Due diligence. He said the developers need to provide more information about the project.
"You could not get a mortgage on your house with the information that has been provided about Lot J," he said.

2. He said the developers need to invest their money into the project before the city does, as this is standard practice in the real estate industry.
"This ensures skin in the game," he said.

Bateh said the developers are fully capable of getting a construction loan from a bank, not the city.

Bateh's third point is that no city money should go towards the project until it's completed. City should instead provide a lump sum payment at the completion of the project that the developers do not need to pay.

Delighted to be asked by @uklandestates to delve into their archive for their 30th anniversary. They now have a portfolio of 28 estates across the region, but the Team Valley was not just their first, it’s actually the oldest industrial estate in Europe

Team Valley was born because the North East didn’t rebound from worldwide recession like the South did. Although firms like Armstrongs dabbled with car-manufacture in the early 20s, the NE stuck all its eggs in the heavy industry basket: coal, ships and guns.

But demand for coal and armaments had cratered. In 1936, men even marched from Jarrow to London to highlight their desperation at mass unemployment. In Jarrow, it reached 80 per cent. In nearby Gateshead it was 57 per cent.

Such was the state of the region’s economy that in 1934 the National Government decided to site Europe’s first industrial estate in the Team Valley to create “facilities required by industrialists engaged in starting fresh enterprises” (of the type that were booming in the South)

The excellent @Englands_NE tells us that the River Team begins as a collection of streams near Tanfield in NW Durham – a name which originally meant ‘Team Field’. Team is an ancient name, meaning ‘dark river’ with the same root as the name of the Thames.

1/ #Anghami HQ relocating to Abu Dhabi
Thread time >

8 years ago when @EddyMaroun and me launched @anghami , we wanted to build a business that would hopefully get some traction & show that 🇱🇧 can build a tech startup in a competitive field such as music.

2/ Why? Because it just didn't exist in this part of the world! We needed music 🎶 and so did plenty of arabs who had to pirate for the lack of a legal service.

3/ Building music service is no simple feat, especially when it has to be available on every device, be local, contain a 57 Million songs legal library , be fast, be different ⚡️.

4/ It becomes even harder when you have to build a payment network from 36 telcos across the region - and amass over 80 million users.
What's the hardest part in building all this?

5/ The talent!
The people who spend endless hours working to build the vision and constantly churn fix after fix to make it sparkle.
That talent came mostly from Lebanon, 90% of the team hailed from my country 🇱🇧. And made us absolutely proud!

We recently hosted a workshop where our portfolio founders had an opportunity to spend time refining their brands with @jbosborne and Marni Kane (https://t.co/chIjEnevR6) from legendary creative firm @redantler. Here are some of the insights we gleaned from the session:

1/🧵

👶 Showcase your flying baby!

“Branding is an exercise in prioritization” was the most common piece of feedback shared with our portfolio. The Red Antler team fashioned a great heuristic to aid in this process – “If your baby can fly, lead with that!”

2/20

The point is to focus on what you do better than anyone else.

The one thing that your customers would *love* about your product.

In short, a single differentiated message is better than half a dozen banal brand promises.

3/20

“Focus” sounds like incredibly simple advice, but it’s easy for founders (or VCs) to get attached to the many benefits they want to highlight and not focus on the single problem they are solving for customers. Ruthlessly simplify your story until it resonates with buyers.
4/20

😃 You sell to customers, not companies

B2B and B2C sales shouldn’t be all that different – at the end of the day, you are still selling to a human who is moved by aesthetics and branding. (Sadly, they likely just have lower expectations in their professional context.)

5/20