Interesting Links for 10-3-2011

[andrewducker]

• A rant on fuel prices (not in the direction you might expect).
  (tags: fuel prices uk)
• 11-Year-Old Girl Horrifically Gang-Raped; New York Times Article Blames the Victim
  (tags: news rape society usa)
• The Financial Times says we should call the City's bluff on financial companies moving abroad...
  (tags: finance uk)
• Illinois abolishes the death penalty
  (tags: crime us death_penalty)
• Apparently (written) swearing in public is illegal in the UK...
  (tags: law uk swearing)
• Making a functional thermal lance - out of bacon!
  (tags: bacon science physics fire technology awesome)
• The Happiest Man in America
  (tags: happiness usa)
• The Map Of Science Fiction.
  (tags: scifi visualization)
• Think Geek will sell you little rocks to chill and put in drinks to keep them cool. In case you can't find your own rocks.
  (tags: drink wtf)
• Pirated Copy of ‘The Hurt Locker’ Aired on National TV
  (tags: movies piracy copyright belarus)
• Man found guilty for selling The Anarchist's Cookbook on CD.
  (tags: terrorism freespeech uk)
• Pro-trains does not equal anti-car.
  (tags: transport trains cars)
• What happened to Pinboard in the 48 hours after Delicious "died".
  (tags: delicious architecture pinboard scalability performance database infrastructure mysql webdev)
• What is your favourite intellectual joke?
  (tags: jokes funny computer physics chemistry intellectual geeky)
• Hillary Clinton: “Viewership Of Al Jazeera Is Going Up In The United States Because It’s Real News”
  (tags: AlJazeera news usa HilaryClinton)
• Not supporting emotional two-year-olds is bad for their development - and worse for boys.
  (tags: parenting children emotion gender)
• Pension changes to hit some high earners
  (tags: pensions uk government)
• Rationalist Hamlet
  (tags: hamlet parody rationality funny)

Comments

[matgb]

Harassment, alarm or distress - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The offence is created by section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986:

"(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he:

(a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or
(b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting,

within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby."

This offence has the following statutory defences:

(a) The defendant had no reason to believe that there was any person within hearing or sight who was likely to be alarmed or distressed by his action.
(b) The defendant was in a dwelling and had no reason to believe that his behaviour would be seen or heard by any person outside any dwelling.
(c) The conduct was reasonable.

Bloody hell, that's not good. I think I have a few illegal t-shirts.

Exept "threatening, abusive or insulting". The presence of the word "fucked" isn't what makes the sign insulting to City fans, and removing the vowel doesn't change that--it's still abusive and insulting to a City fan regardless.

However, I'm pretty sure right to free expression should override that. Interesting. Can't be arsed to dig into it now, might be worth poking some policy people in this area if I get a chance though.

[andrewducker]

Yup. You'd better keep that Cannibal Corpse t-shirt for your bedroom. With the curtains closed.

It's not good, is it?

[matgb]

Well, I was thinking more my Sisters and RATM Ts, but...

I am 100% certain that anyone taking it to court can get away with it under HRA. I'm also fairly sure most people will, as these people did, just buckle under.

Something Must Be Done. But I'm too lazy to be the someone that does it (see also: getting the census religious question fixed, could, and should, have done it, back in 2006 when I had the chance, ah well)

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

> Illinois abolishes the death penalty

Drat. I could have gone to the conference in Chicago with a clear conscience... (on that front at least!)

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

The rant on fuel prices -- yes, well put.

It annoys me that the SNP is currently making a song and dance about 'fair' fuel prices. They've probably lost my vote, assuming they had it.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

I would take issue with the point about lower housing costs. Certainly around here (Cheshire/Shropshire) house prices in rural areas are significantly higher than in towns.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Around here (Cambs) moving somewhere with useless public transport could halve your housing costs (for similar accommodation - for instance a 3-bed detached house with parking and garden would set you back in excess of 400,000 in the city but could be had for less than 200,000 if one were willing to move somewhere where a car would be necessary).

There is the "this is a pretty house in a tiny village" effect that makes some rural property very desirable too, and I think it's mostly small towns (few services, but also not "pretty") that have the lowest prices.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

It may be a north/south thing, or more likely related to the desirability of the city in question. Cambridge is I believe quite a desirable place to live, the same is not really true of most large towns in the North West. A typical 2-bed semi in Crewe or Stoke will cost you 70k. Move just a few miles outside, into a smaller village, and the same type of property will start around £160k.

[chuma.livejournal.com]

This ignores the issues with travelling to and from your place of work where trains are ever more expensive than going by car and other such public transport is not available, as well as the fact that some places in the country are vastly more expensive than in towns and cities. Also the cost of haulage is affected and thus cost of everything that needs to be shipped gaining in price for everyone, not just car owners.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Hello me again...


> Young children, especially boys, may need their parents' help working through angry or fearful emotions. If you punish toddlers for their anger and frustration or act as if their fears are silly or shameful, they may internalize those negative emotions, and that may lead to behavior problems as they get older,"

I have a deep-seated notion that things that annoy or upset me or just matter to me emotionally are in some way silly or shameful or worthless. The other week when Caractacus was upset about moving the bed, it mattered a huge deal to me that I took her reaction seriously and treated it as something that was important to her -- no matter how trivial it could also seem to me with my adult's perspective.

[andrewducker]

Yes, you seem to be doing a very good job of that (from your postings, anyway. I assume you just don't post about the beatings).

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Thanks :D

(The beatings ceased, as morale improved.)

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Bloody NYT and its login...

[andrewducker]

I forget it has one, I've been using it so long...

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Think Geek will sell you little rocks to chill and put in drinks to keep them cool. In case you can't find your own rocks.

I can actually see the point in this since any old rock isn't going to cut it - some will transfer flavour or have crevices that breed germs (or capture moisture and freeze it, defeating the point).

Also, it gave me the awesome idea for what I can do with my incomplete Kenyan soap stone chess set that I never use, so that's awesome.

(Not that I would ever chill whiskey.)

[andrewducker]

I assume that your chess set is creviceless :->

And having tiny freezing chess pieces in your drink is definitely awesome.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

It's more or less identical to this one:

http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/africabydesignimports_2132_5962630

Except that it's in black and blue, and way more faded. So reasonably creviceless.

[andrewducker]

Pretty!

[pete stevens (from livejournal.com)]

I wish they'd tax heating fuel at the same rate as transport fuel. CO2 from heating diesel isn't less polluting than car diesel so we should tax them both at the same rate. Obviously this results in a factor of three increase in the cost of heating (oil fired), 50% or so for gas etc, 200% for coal or thereabouts but it might accelerate the cutting fuel usage by insulating houses plan.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

My favourite so far is this one:

A:"Knock knock."
B:"Who's there?"
A:"Interrupting coefficient of friction."
B:"Interrupting coeffici-"
A:"μ!!!!!"

Because it doesn't really work either spoken or written.

[andrewducker]

Well, it's a physics version of one of my old favourits:
A:"Knock knock."
B:"Who's there?"
A:"The Interrupting Cow"
B:"The Interrupting co-"
A:"Mooooo!!!!!"

Which works very well spoken :->

[marrog.livejournal.com]

*Grin* I tell that joke almost every time we're telling jokes - hence the basis of that one's appeal.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Two cats on a sloping roof, which falls off first?
The one with the smaller mew.

[andrewducker]

That's awesome! Thanks!

[snarlish.livejournal.com]

dammit, i'm going to wake up at three in the morning tomorrow laughing manicly over this. thanks a lot.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I'm torn on the fuel prices thing. I'm an environmental scientist and think it is fair enough that my household, for which a car is a luxury not an essential, pays through the nose for a finite and environmentally damaging resource. But on the other hand, I do not want to live in a country where only rich people can afford to live outside cities.

And I also agree with other commenters that city property is not necessarily more expensive than country housing. For a start you can't always compare like with like - my city property is a small tenement flat with no garden, if I could buy a property in the countryside around here for the money I paid for this place, it would not have central heating or double glazing (which I have here) and would probably need extensive renovation.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

People Like News That Isn't Wall-To-Wall Bullshit shocker!

yes, indeed. American News actually isn't. And people have noticed. Well done, colonial friends :D

[I totally mean that. Well done. It isn't cynicism]

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

The Map of Science Fiction is interesting. Not being able to spell 'Elric' is a bit crap though...

[andrewducker]

And some of the decisions are very odd.

I'd rather people were making these than not though :->

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely!

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

OK, he may be clever enough to make a thermal lance out of pig, but he isn't clever enough to tell the difference between bacon and prosciutto. No, prosciutto is not "posh bacon". Fry bacon and eat it as part of a full English breakfast. Eat prosciutto with a little mozzarella and maybe some balsamic vinegar.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

That post about the gang rape neglects to mention that every single one of the alleged rapists is black and the victim isn't. I would have thought that was relevant...