Interesting Links for 24-8-2011

[andrewducker]

• This Is Why Men Die Before Women
  (tags: funny photos men)
• Finally, an explanation for the price that Google paid for Motorola
  (tags: google patents software novell microsoft business)
• John Major wanted two-party alliance to take on Rupert Murdoch.
  (tags: media RupertMurdoch politics uk)
• Liberal prognosticatos more accurate than conservatives. Lawyers wrongest of all.
  (tags: TheFuture predictions politics economics)
• Why is Dutch drug use so low?
  (tags: netherlands drugs law usa)
• Zombie Engagement Photos. So awesome.
  (tags: zombies engagement relationships photos)
• What it's like to play online games as a grownup - I don't entirely agree. But I am amused.
  (tags: funny games webcomics gaming mmorpg)
• Facebook improves privacy options
  (tags: facebook privacy)

Comments

Among the changes, items posted online will each have their own sharing settings determining who ca

[matgb]

BBC headline: Facebook changes privacy options
Tagline: Among the changes, items posted online will each have their own sharing settings determining who can see

Reality: Facebook announces UI tweaks to make existing controls easier to find and useI've been using them for ages.

The only thing that's 'new' is the return to pre-approving tags of stuff like photos, which they removed because it annoyed people to have to constantly approve stuff.

Improved UI is good, because lots of people didn't know the options were there, but the granular controls FB has currently are actually pretty good-my games posts regularly go to "everyone except the mother in law" as she always makes a snarky "waste of time" comment.

Meh, improved UI is good, BBC reporter is obviously ignorant of subject, ah well.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

"What it's like to play online games as a grownup - I don't entirely agree. But I am amused."

You only disagree cos you've never been cave-diving, right? :)

[andrewducker]

Naaah. I've done wreck-diving, deep-diving and night-diving, but never been in a cave. Always looked a bit scary :->

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

"This Is Why Men Die Before Women"

Would you be happy posting this if it was a series of pictures illustrating how women did something stereotypically sexist or how Mexicans were all lazy, for example? I'm kind of surprised that you'd post something like this.

The online gaming thing is pretty funny, even though I'm not a fan of jetskiing, cave diving, microbrews or freaky sex.

[andrewducker]

I found it amusing, so I posted it. If I'd felt insulted by it, I wouldn't have posted it. I didn't particularly analyse it, and I've not seen anyone feel offended by it so far.

So far as I understand, men _do_ tend to have riskier behaviour than women, so I'd feel on reasonably solid ground defending it if someone told me that it was an unfair characterisation of men.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't feel personally insulted by a joke about, for example, Italians being swarthy lecherous pizza-eating, gesticulating womanisers (is that the stereotype, I presume it still is?), and I doubt that many of my friends would find it offensive, but I still wouldn't tell the joke.

That said, I do deliberately tell jokes at the expense of middle class white people.

[andrewducker]

Well, there ya go.

I believe the stereotype about Italians nowadays is down to their inability to run a non-corrupt government. As with Greeks and their inability to pay taxes.

I intermittently post links about genetic and hormonal bases for behaviour, too.

[andrewducker]

Oh, and I posted it because I was amused by the pictures. The headline I can take or leave. It wasn't really the point of it, it just added a small amount of extra amusement for me.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

The pictures -are- funny. The headline is what I didn't like.

It's the difference between showing a picture of an upside down car and having the same picture but with a caption suggesting that the driver was female and/or blonde.

[andrewducker]

I can see that. But then it depends - are blondes _actually_ more likely to crash their cars and be found upside down in them? Because from my understanding, that would be teenage boys.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I thought it was teenage & early twentysomething men and also doctors. The doctor thing may be an urban legend, since I have never particularly investigated the veracity.

The only doctor I've ever been friends with did like driving very fast, but he was probably not a typical doctor.

[andrewducker]

I know a doctor who likes driving fast. But he drives a Volvo, so it's probably pretty safe. :->

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily for whoever he hits ;-)

[andrewducker]

(hence the smiley)

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I assumed the smiley was referencing that it was ironic that a supposedly dangerously driving doctor was in a Volvo.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I didn't really understand the thing with people taking staged photos/videos of engagement/wedding events like that where it seemed more for the viewer than the happy couple... then I remembered that some people I work with, when bored at the weekend, will just watch their wedding video over and over.

I suppose having only been a guest at engagement parties and weddings, I just don't think of them in that way.

[andrewducker]

It's not something I'd choose to do at the time, either. I mean, I'm planning awesome things for the wedding, but I'm not building in extra special events. It's a _wedding_, they're pretty weddingy all by themselves.

(Although if Julie could arrive on horseback, with me being lowered from a helicopter, that would be pretty damned awesome.)

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Lower a horse from the helicopter.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: from what I've read about him, John Major was a good Prime Minister.

[andrewducker]

I certainly wouldn't blame him for the Conservatives losing that election - and from what I remember his heart was in the right place.