Interesting Links for 28-01-2016

• Lib Dems propose Scottish income tax rise to fund education
  • education tax Scotland libdem
• The DWP is forcing a rape victim to pay the Bedroom Tax on her police-installed panic room
  • rape housing welfare OhForFucksSake
• What Happened to Jane Mayer When She Wrote About the Koch Brothers
  • conspiracy reporting money politics viaSwampers
• Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person
  • privilege race class money politics inters
• Twenty-five-point drop in IQ caused by lack of gene copy
  • intelligence genes
• Star Wars. Ordered by colour.
  • starwars colour
• If most cats gave hugs like this one, I'd be a cat person
  • cats video
• Scientists open the ‘black box’ of schizophrenia with dramatic genetic discovery
  • schizophrenia mentalhealth genes
• EU pledges crack down on corporate tax avoidance
  • tax Europe

Interesting Links for 29-01-2016

• Apparently I'm worth $18/year to Facebook. How about you? (I'd pay that to get rid of ads.)
  • Facebook money advertising
• The McCullough Effect - visual hallucinations that can last for months, from staring at a pattern.
  • hallucinations vision brain
• Having a Male Co-Twin Improves Mental Rotation Performance in Females (Probably testosterone)
  • gender testosterone babies
• Can brain-parasites influence human culture?
  • ToxoplasmaGondii parasites brain cats society
• The Case For Rey Palpatine
  • starwars writing
• What if all of the people in Star Wars are...insects
  • insects starwars viaTheFerrett
• In Celebration of Old-School LiveJournal
  • LiveJournal community
• Y Combinator are funding research into Basic Income
  • research GuaranteedIncome
• LEGO Debuts Its First Minifig in a Wheelchair
  • Lego disabilities
• Driverless vehicles are coming to London in July
  • automation cars transport UK
• Heterosexual couple lose civil partnership court challenge
  • relationships law UK
• Do violent videogames cause aggressive behaviour? (New research)
  • violence games
• How do people with Dark Triad personality traits fare at speed dating?
  • relationships dating narcissism psychopath psychology personality

They made a movie just for me!

I went to see The Big Short with Jo, and Adam, and Snarl.

And it was a movie about a real-life financial crisis, that occasionally breaks the fourth wall, with comedians doing a great job of acting, actors also being amazing with the acting, some very nice editing*, and great writing.

I went with a couple of friends who also work in the financial industry, and there was lots of giggling at various bits. I recommend that you do likewise.

I remembered, afterwards, that during the run-up to the 2008 crash I'd been exchanging lots of emails with a friend who worked at a different financial institution basically consisting of "How on earth do they think that this can keep going up? Surely this is a classic bubble? The people at the top must know, but not want to say anything." - and then discovering that actually everyone senior was either ignorant or massively over-trusting of the system. The movie shows how easy it is for people to keep on deluding themselves, so long as they are doing well out of it. And how hard it is for people to believe really obvious things, if the facts make them uncomfortable.

Anyway, funny, depressing, full of useful explanations, and definitely worth seeing. (Although it will lose nothing from seeing it on the small screen.)


*Also a couple of moments where the editing was oddly bad. There were at least two scenes where someone was speaking at the end of it and clearly got cut off.