Interesting Links for 31-8-2011

[andrewducker]

• George Osborne and Vince Cable at war over bank reform
  (tags: banking conservatives libdem uk)
• Conservative MPs come out against Nadine Dorries’ plans for abortion providers
  (tags: abortion conservatives law uk politics)
• How one woman became the face of the crash.
  (tags: photos germany finance media reporting)
• Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ as a children’s book
  (tags: DavidBowie children book comic)
• Students vs Prisoners - a comparison of Michigan spending priorities
  (tags: spending usa prison school children money government)
• Apple ejects Financial Times app from iTunes - FT moves to HTML5
  (tags: newspapers media apple html5)
• Flickr introduces geofences for privacy. Very nice bit of functionality.
  (tags: flickr privacy tagging mapping)
• The Joyce Project - a Hypermedia companion to James Joyce's Ulysses
  (tags: JamesJoyce hypertext internet)
• Breakthrough in hydrogen fuel cells: Chemists develop way to safely store, extract hydrogen
  (tags: hydrogen power fuel)
• Studies question effectiveness of sex offender laws
  (tags: sex abuse crime law usa)
• Alternate History Postcards
  (tags: art postcard history scifi)
• The internet movie firearms database. Wow. Detailed!
  (tags: guns movies database internet weapons firearms wiki)
• World’s 7 billionth person about to be born
  (tags: population)
• Who is the UK's favourite Harry Potter character? Neville Was Robbed!
  (tags: harrypotter)
• In economics, who are the parasites?
  (tags: economics society)
• Short jail terms not the answer to stop reoffending
  (tags: crime punishment prison recidivism scotland)
• Lens Wind Turbines Magnify Power
  (tags: wind power technology TheFuture)
• Two new methods of disposing of bodies. Which to choose?
  (tags: death)

Comments

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Flickr has a lot of nice features that fit into the wider social networking world, but unfortunately Facebook host their own photos, and Google has Picasa... and one extra click is seemingly enough to make people give up in disgust that it's not all simple and integrated :-(

[errolwi.livejournal.com]

Re IMFDB: There is also http://impdb.org/index.php?title=The_Internet_Movie_Plane_Database

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Robert Anton Wilson remarked that criminals & congressmen get the best benefits.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Duh on the sex offender registry thing. Obviously if a 21 year old dude gets labeled a sex offender for life when he gets caught with his 16 year old girlfriend and can't get a decent job because every business he applies to Googles his name and it pops up as a registered sex offender and he can't get decent housing because landlords in "good" areas won't rent to him so he ends up unemployed and living in the ghetto surrounded by criminals what the fuck else is he supposed to do to eat except commit crimes?

And, it's not preventive at all because 21 year olds and 16 year olds have been falling in love with each other since the dawn of time and young people in love don't give a shit about the law.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

In re hydrogen storage: Boron is somewhat rare and expensive, so we'll see how this plays out. I can hope that if the principle is sound, people will find ways to use less boron and/or substitute other elements.

[andrewducker]

I feel sure that if the usage goes up enough to push prices up further then the markets will provide more people willing to mine/refine it.

[skington.livejournal.com]

"Offenders jailed for three months or less are twice as likely to commit further crime within a year than those sentenced to longer terms, according to the latest figures."

Are we actually comparing like for like, though? Or do the figures merely say "people who get sent to prison for petty crimes are more likely to commit more petty crimes than murderers or drunk drivers are to murder or drunk drive again"?

[andrewducker]

Difficult one. I don't know!