There are always two mathematical approaches to solve a problem: one stupid but reliable (brute force), one elegant but hard to double check immediately for risk-taking. Markov chains are both reliable and elegant.
Asides
There is this BS in this “disagreebleness” scale used by psychologists, unconditional of domain. Like most psych categorizations, BS. Many are socially gentle but intellectually rigorous & no-nonsense: others nasty in person but appear gentle in public . BS!
Is @AUB_Lebanon bowing to Saudi pressures? If shown to be true, I will be obligated to return my honorary doctorate.
Asymmetry: I got yours for free.
Highly doubtful. This is an ad hoc “sounds good” explanation. A- 1) Kashrut came with >500 other interdicts. 2) Local neighbors (Greeks, Canaanites, pre-Islamic Arabians) had no such interdict on pork. B- Interdicts serve as religious markers. I discuss in SITG. 3) THOSE WHO EAT TOGETHER BAND TOGETHER For instance since Muslims can eat Kosher food, why did they add another interdict: wine? To prevent socializing with Jews and Christians hence lower exposure to conversions.
Journalists are used to people being terrorized by them, particularly those “powerful yet slaves”; they feel entitled to viciously smear those they can smear. They aren’t used to someone defiant & crazy enought to hound them back one by one. One by one, doggedly.
1) I was on my own for 20 years 2) Traders need to make a PL or die.
4) I am standing ALONE against half of Fleet Street, with millions or readers, and a vicious mob-lynching mentality, ALONE against an army of journos, and f*** idiot call me a “bully”?
We are told in the US that if we Orthodox need to visit a church, to pick the Episcopelian-Church of Engl as they are Catholics without the filioque papality.
To me Protestantism resembles Islam in its obsessive focus on monotheistic purity and its distate for pomp, symbols, and ornaments. Catholics are more like brothers enemies.
