Interesting Links for 10-2-2011

[andrewducker]

• One of the reasons why kids from poorer areas don't get into Oxford/Cambridge
  (tags: education academia class society uk)
• Extra testosterone reduces your empathy
  (tags: testosterone empathy psychology)
• What makes fructose fattening? Some answers found in the brain
  (tags: fructose diet health brains mri)
• Iron-deficiency is not something you get just for being a lady. 86% of women with anemia have undiagnosed gastrointestinal bleeding...
  (tags: gender health women biology)
• Saudi Arabia's oil reserves may be overstated by up to 40%
  (tags: oil wikileaks energy economics world saudiarabia)
• Spotify Is The Second Largest Source Of Revenue In Europe For Labels.
  (tags: music spotify europe)
• Aggression (bullying) increases as kids gain status.
  (tags: aggression bullying children relationships)
• the vicious middle - on status and bullying.
  (tags: status bullying children homophobia lgbt sexism)
• Russia Abolishes Winter Time. Will be on permanent Daylight Saving's Time as of March 27th
  (tags: time russia)

Comments

[spacelem.livejournal.com]

"And I'm not talking about unhappy cows or other animals who don't understand the time change and don't understand that the milkmaid is going to milk them at a different time."


Do the milkmaids just refuse to get up if the clock is showing the wrong time or something? Surely farmers need to do work when the animals need it, not because of what the clock reads. Is it really that much of a hardship to go to work at 8am-4pm during the summer instead of going to work from 9am-5pm but redefining the time? You're getting up an hour earlier either way!

Some politicians have cited changing our clocks so they match European working hours. How about we take this a step further and have a single universal time across the entire planet (like the Swatch time or something). 12 oclock happens when the sun is directly over some particular point in the planet, and everyone takes that as their reference, getting up at a time that suits them. Simple, non-confusing, cost effective. It just happens that only people who live at the reference point work from 9am-5pm (and puts people who write clock changing software out of work).

The whole concept of changing your clocks strikes me as the worst possible solution. Plus it makes sundials wrong.

[andrewducker]

This only works if your office, school, etc. are all incredibly flexible, so that your schedule can fit in with all of them. We're lucky where I work, because flexitime means we can start work between 7:30 and 10am. But in offices where there isn't such flexibility, having the school change to start an hour earlier, without the office doing likewise means that you're fucked.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Then you'd be swapping cultural shift instead of clock shift -- you'd go abroad and find that 8pm means breakfast. There's some of that already, say, with evening mealtimes in different countries.
But let the technology take the strain, eh?

[andrewducker]

Absolutely. Those people that need to worry about international coordination (a small percentage) can use UTC. The rest of us can continue to use the times we've been used to all our lives.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Well I wish they did -- as I may have remarked to you in person, am FED UP with bloody Americans who in an international context expect to be able to gives times as EST or fuckwhat. Yes -- those of us who need to talk to people in foreign climes can just use UTC and everyone knows their offset from it.