Delicious LiveJournal Links for 9-14-2010

[andrewducker]

• My Body Is Mine - pretty much a basic tenet of my beliefs
  (tags: liberty feminism)
• Gamers make faster decisions than nongamers, just as accurately
  (tags: education gaming psychology research)
• HDCP master key allegedly posted - anyone got any confirmation/denial?
  (tags: hcdp security cryptography bluray)
• Expert calls for sensible drug laws, as usual nothing will happen, and the story will just go away.
  (tags: drugs cannabis law uk)
• World’s Most Cramped Airline Seat to Launch Next Week
  (tags: airplanes wtf)
• Ian Paisley coming to Edinburgh to protest the Pope's visit to Scotland.
  (tags: pope catholicism edinburgh scotland uk)
• Lib Dems force Treasury to defend welfare cuts plan - and about bloody time too.
  (tags: libdem politics uk)
• Tropes are the Building Blocks of Television
  (tags: tv tropes media writing)
• An anti-vaccination story I can solidly get behind
  (tags: vaccination medicine homeopathy video)
• Amazon sells board games by inch and ounce
  (tags: amazon wtf)

Comments

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

AH MUS STRONGLY PROTEST AT THE LIBELLOUS TAGS YOU HAV ATTACHED TO MY GOOD NAME!

POPE!

CATHOLICISM!

HAVE YE NO SHAME MAN.





Sorry couldn't resist.

[luckylove.livejournal.com]

Sinner!

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

LOL

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

That Amazon story mystifies me. I've looked up those items on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com and the price is just displayed as a money amount - no reference to weight or size. I can't find any preference setting under my account options to display prices in relation to weight. (Most products do have a weight listed, for computing postage rates). And searching Amazon's help didn't get me anywhere. Am I missing something or is El Reg pulling our legs?

[andrewducker]

Possibly something that got fixed after El Reg publicised it?

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Likewise.

I do remember steer many years ago noticed that Tesco was selling pocket calculators and was helpfully displaying the cost per kg for comparison purposes. (And I verified this in person - I think he got a photo too.)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

It does seem strange. Amazon sold things that are not sold by the ounce long before they sold anything that was. (Do they sell ANYTHING that is measured in weight or length? And do they use ounces when they do?)

But on the other hand, I don't really care, it's mildly funny if it happened, but it's bound to happen sooner or later when someone's "per ounce" code gets into the wrong category.

Ironically, many of us do the same thing in real life: we weigh a big boardgame box in our hands and think "that's not much for 50GB" or "that's a lot for 50GBP". Which partly makes sense, because even if what really makes a game is how much dedicated design and playtesting it got, we like to see a game that's tactilely rich with high production values. But partly doesn't, because a bigger box doesn't necessarily mean better stuff (or even more stuff).

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

According to Francis Spufford's excellent Red Plenty, a problem of the Soviet Union's command economy - one of many that scuppered the efforts to computerise it that form the subject of the book - was that the notional value of industrial machinery was calculated from its weight. As such, if a factory produced a more efficient, lighter machine to the same pre-set production quota, its payment was cut because it had produced less weight of goods!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Agh! Here we have the problems with metrics. They can certainly indicate _something_ but, unsurprisingly, need to applied along WITH common sense, not instead of it.

(On the other hand, Stalin is notoriously resistant to Hanlon's razor)

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

If you upload products to sell on Amazon, you have to supply a load of information, including the product weight and dimensions of the box. I would guess someone screwed up the website code and the wrong field was displayed for a while.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I suppose it's entirely possible, especially if it was for instance some test code that got used by accident. It just seemed less likely for amazon than a website which habitually DID work with fungible products. For instance, would there be a different gross and net weight for shipping and for calculating cost per pound, and would everyone have to enter both? I suppose if I cared I could ask amazon, but it doesn't really matter.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Some boardgames companies (cough Fantasy Flight Games cough) are fairly happy to use the number of pieces/counters in the box as a selling point for games. I bought a game years ago (not from them) that had a big sticker on the front of the box declaring "Over 200 counters!"

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Doh. I mean, if the extras are put there to make the game better, then it is a good sign, but now if you can artificially inflate it.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ironically, vaccines are probably the one medicine which you DO make by taking a little bit of the original harm and then diluting it beyond the point where the original material would remain in the sample[1].

[1] Assuming the pathogen is bred in a test tube.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Protest at, about, or against. It's the Americans who skip the preposition! ;)

Though I may be at the protest on Thursday morning.

> My skin is mine, to pierce or tattoo or scar or burn or pearl or implant or otherwise alter as I choose

I can't fault this but I find it pretty gross.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Protest at, about, or against. It's the Americans who skip the preposition! ;)

*rolls eyes* This coming from someone whose country uses slogans like "Every little helps"? Little was an adjective rather than a noun, last time I checked!

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Oh yes I hate that too. I've yet to understand what it means.

(Also, Tesco is not a country. Yet.)

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

You sure? *gryn* But anyhow, that sort of thing is done everywhere out here, it's maddening...going to hospital instead of to the hospital, and such. Yechh.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Going to hospital is different. It's like going to school. Hmm. Or would I say 'into hospital'? Aargh you've got me confused now!

[andrewducker]

I'd say that the two are subtly different. "Going to hospital" is a general term, which could actually refer to all sorts of places of treatment. "Going to the hospital" would be used when you have a specific one in mind - you're referring to a building, not an idea, if you see what mean.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Yay, I win! Except I think we both lose. Curse you, English language!

[andrewducker]

It's absolutely your perogative to find things gross, so long as you don't stop other people from doing them for that reason :->

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the seat is at all comfy. For instance, if there's some sort of harness that supports your torso comfortably, standing up might not be more tiring than sitting down! That could actually be better than sitting down in an increasingly cramped space and pretending you're sitting comfortably.

Whereas, if you need to support your whole weight on your legs to stop the seatbelt cutting you in half, it's obviously awful.

[anef.livejournal.com]

You know, much as I loathe Ian Paisley and all he stands for, in this case he has a point. And I never thought I would find myself saying or writing that.

[andrewducker]

I think that the form of the protest (in a building in the same city, without disrupting the crowds there to see his Papalness, is pretty adult too.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

A visit to TVT&I will teach you three things: (1) originality is dead, (2) no one misses it, and (3) you’ve just blown six hours.

4] tv tropes contributors LOVE anime. They really, really, really love it.