Interesting Links for 4-8-2011

[andrewducker]

• An Investment Manager's View on the Top 1%
  (tags: politics economics finance ecology money)
• San Francisco takes on anti-abortion 'crisis pregnancy centers'
  (tags: abortion sanfrancisco usa)
• Royal Mail wants to be able to leave post next door. I'd _really_ want an opt-out. I trust my current neighbour, but my previous one was vile...
  (tags: royalmail uk)
• Culture is Anti-Rivalrous
  (tags: culture intellectual_property)
• Security expert's daughter was wired to fake bomb.
  (tags: extortion australia crime security)
• What are the odds of Batman?
  (tags: batman statistics comics)
• Ten supportive things I’m glad somebody said to me (well, not me, but you know what I mean)
  (tags: depression health emotion)
• Google claims 'bogus patent' conspiracy against Android. God, I hate software patents.
  (tags: patent intellectual_property OhForFucksSake google android microsoft apple)
• On the reaction to the new African/Mexican Spider-Man
  (tags: spiderman comics)
• Woman goes into labour at the start of her bar exam, finishes (in possibly record time), and gives birth two hours later
  (tags: pregnancy childbirth law)
• "Real Name" policies: They just don't work.
  (tags: naming pseudonymity googleplus dreamwidth)
• On washing vaginas. The last paragraph is awesome.
  (tags: vagina health)
• A comparison of different social networking sites. (Which illustrates why I'll be keeping my livejournal very nicely)
  (tags: socialnetworking livejournal twitter facebook googleplus blogs)
• Scientists identify what makes us feel lethargic when we're sick, how to treat it.
  Of course, if being lethargic means we get better faster, then we should do that. More science needed!
• The person you want to be does not matter
  (tags: advice life)
• More on the awesome Matt Damon defending teachers - complete with the speech he gave.
  (tags: MattDamon teachers)
• Latest nightly build of Firefox copes better than Chrome when you have a shitload of tabs open
  (tags: firefox chrome)
• Vilnius mayor crushes car parked in cycle lane
  (tags: car cycle lithuania)

Comments

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

I can't get this link to work:

"The person you want to be does not matter"

[andrewducker]

Yeah. Site seems to have died.

[andrewducker]

There's a cached version if you go to:
http://www.readability.com/read?url=http://swizec.com/blog/the-man-you-want-to-be-does-not-matter/swizec/2071
and switch to readability view.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Royal Mail wants to be able to leave post next door. I'd _really_ want an opt-out.

I'd go further: I'd prefer it to be opt-in. Leave it with a designated trusted neighbour, or forget it.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

I'd prefer it if they just opened the sorting office longer. Ours is 12miles away, opens at 9am and closes at 4pm, meaning we can only pick up parcels on Saturday mornings. If it were open until say 7pm it would make life much easier.

[andrewducker]

How very frustrating. Ours is thankfully open until later than that, but it's one of the major sorting offices in Edinburgh.

It's Citylink that's the major pain for me - our nearest depot is in Livingstone!

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

Same here. All the courier company depots around here are in Stoke, which is about 30 miles away.

[mair_in_grenderich]

Similar - my nearest from Southampton was 9 miles, and a fair way from the nearest train station, and it was /still/ easier to hike out there and back than to try and get them to actually deliver to me when I was in. I stopped ordering from websites which use citylink.

[innerbrat]

When I lived in London, ours closed at 12.

I'm confused though - don't the Royal Mail already leave things at neighbours? I know Ive picked things up from neighbours before.

[andrewducker]

They do. But they're not supposed to.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Ours is just round the corner, and open till 7 or 8 three nights a week; as a result I prioritise internet businesses that use RM. I'd still be happy for them to leave non-special delivery post with my neighbour.

[dreema.livejournal.com]

ditto, one neighbour we get on fine with. The other i wouldnt even piss on if they were on fire.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

My great-grandmother is supposed to have given birth and gone back to work in the same day. I'm glad the tradition hasn't died.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

I'm confused - our postman has been leaving stuff with our neighbour ever since we moved in [1] - is he not allowed to?

[1] Which really annoys me, as I don't know my neighbours and don't want to inconvenience them, and Have A Porch he could leave it in, but doesn't actually cause any problems, as our neighbours seem nice and don't appear to want to steal lots of sci-fi from Amazon.

[andrewducker]

I don't believe they're supposed to, no.

[spacelem.livejournal.com]

Our postie delivered a package on Monday to our neighbour upstairs... while I was in the flat! Unfortunately I was in the middle of getting changed when the "you were out..." note came through our letterbox, and couldn't reach the person to ask them why they didn't knock.

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

I hate when they do that. I'm sure they sit in their van, filling out the "sorry you were out!" forms, and only deliver them, so they don't have to carry packages around.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

No they are not supposed to. They are not allowed to leave it in a porch either - they are supposed to only deliver to a secure letterbox.

However, some posties do leave mail in porches, with neighbours etc., but can be disciplined if there is a complaint. I am very grateful for my postie leaving parcels in our porch because a) we live in a pretty much crime-free area and b) we can only get to the sorting office on Saturday mornings but it seems very much to depend on the individual postie. Living in a small rural village, most people actually know the posties as it's a small enough place that they still stop to have a chat. I imagine the situation is very different in a large town/city.

[naath.livejournal.com]

our postie often leaves things in the bin cupboard, which is great. But once a valuable item was left IN THE BIN which was rather crappy (even though the bin was empty at the time)

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

the "person you want to be" article isn't displaying, what was the jist of that?

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

ah there's the comment, nvm

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

I reposted it

http://eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com/1343161.html

[dalglir.livejournal.com]

The Odds of Batman made me laugh out loud. Brother-in-law is married to a Mexican and Dalglij got a Mexican Spiderman toy that utters loads of Mexican Spiderman phrases. Mexican Spideynsounds like Masked Wrestler (Nacho Libre style). It's awesome. So is Matt Damon.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

The investment manager's article it spot on. I personally can't quite decide if the US is an oligarchy or just a plutocracy - but I consider they are only obvious options given the evidence.

Not too different over here...