Interesting Links for 14-10-2011

[andrewducker]

• Britain's answer to obesity "People should eat less."
  (tags:obesity politics uk )
• All Work and No Play: Why Your Kids Are More Anxious, Depressed
  (tags:anxiety depresion play children )
• Is everything you know about alcohol wrong?
  (tags:alcohol mood behaviour uk politics )
• The Island of the Immortals by Ursula K. Le Guin
  For some reason I had _no_ idea that she was still producing short stories.
  (tags:short_story leguin scifi )
• The Windows 8 Task Manager looks like a big improvement.
  (tags:Windows software )
• Android OS has a built in Blackberry emulator!
  (tags:android blackberry funny MobilePhones )
• Can science and religion truly be compatible?
  (tags:religion science knowledge evidence )
• Why we need better sex education
  (tags:sex education children uk )
• An open letter to that 53% guy
  (tags:society usa money liberal )

Comments

[redbird]

The Le Guin story is a reprint from a few years ago; it's in her book Changing Planes. (I followed the link hoping for something new, by which I mean new to me.)

That doesn't mean she isn't still writing short stories, of course.

[drplokta]

That Le Guin story does not constitute evidence that she's still producing short stories, because it's a reprint from 1998.

[andrewducker]

Aaah, thank you.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

In re the LeGuin story: I suspect that the tremendous number of "you really wouldn't like not dying stories" are actually a matter of sour grapes.

For a rare exception, see Rebecca Ore's _Centuries Ago, and Very Fast_. The main character is gay, innately able to time travel, and unaging. I don't remember whether he has unusual powers of regeneration. In any case, what's unusual about him is that he likes living, and puts together a good if somewhat weird extended life for himself.

[andrewducker]

Yup, descended from the original Tithonus myth.

I enjoyed the story, but I don't agree with it :->

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I've hit a limit with some of LeGuin-- I think it was the first story in _Changing Planes_ which was just too preachy for me. Sweet prose and vivid images (the ancient people turning into diamonds was pretty good) just aren't enough.

I did like _Annals of the Western Shore_ trilogy, though.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite stories of how much it would suck to be immortal is actually from an old Superman comic from the 70s or so. The immortal in question was made so through a fluke, and was on the planet Krypton. When it exploded. Leaving him in outer space. That thing gave me nightmares for a week.

Oh, LeGuin. You are one of my favorite writers for good reason.

[andlosers.livejournal.com]

Re: the food thing - that does make some sense, really. But also, people need to actually have meaningful education about nutrition, which doesn't seem to be happening, and there needs to be some institutional honesty about the effects of some of the ingredients that go into processed food, a genuine look at the cost of raw ingredients, and more of a push to teach people to cook for themselves.

The effect is worse over here, by the way, where it's an order of magnitude cheaper to eat out than cook.

[andrewducker]

Teaching people how to cook more would be good.

I'd like to know how many people don't know about nutrition in processed food. I doubt many people don't know how bad it is - but I'm happy to be proven wrong.

[naath.livejournal.com]

I find it hard to get good information about *to what extent* any given processed food is/is not bad. And I consider myself to be rather better educated than most Brits (at least on paper).

And frankly, whilst I think it's probably the case that preparing everything from scratch would be somewhat healthier that is not going to happen on a daily basis. So what I want is reliable information about the things that are actually reasonably within my tolerances of effort/money.

I think it is entirely unreasonable to expect busy people to put in huge amounts of effort to prepare food, or even to research food. And better labelling would definately be an enormous improvement.

[andrewducker]

Oh, I agree. I think that a standardised traffic lights system, and equivalent "grams of sugar per 100g/biscuit/spoonful of jam" which were the same on all food items would be great.

Most of the processed food I buy nowadays has that on it, but it's not universal yet.

[naath.livejournal.com]

The traffic light thing really helps - so long as the standard it is using for comparison is actually useful. Much better than just a raw number.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

53% guy...

I worked a 60-70 hour week for a while. couple of years, maybe. I also didn't have a proper holiday for some 8 years.

it wasn't until i lost that job i realised how ill i was - like, beyond physically exhausted and mentally barely even there.


funny, I was fiercely proud of my work ethic at the time. Now, theres no way in Hell i'd work more than 50 hours, and I'd need a bloody good reason to do that much

religion "vs" science

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

I have a personal hypothesis about a lot of "religious" monologue and conversation which has simplified things for me tremendously:
Just because people are using the same words, or even sentences, doesn't mean they mean the same thing. (Yes, it applies to a lot more than religion.)
St. Francis "loved God" and preached to the birds and the bunnies.
St. Dominic "loved God" and founded the Inquisition.
If they didn't mean the same thing, despite using the same statements, the bizarre contradictions melt away.

In the case at hand, it's merely one of many variations of mistaking emotionalism for religion. If "religion" satisfies someone's emotional need for simple certainty, then science is a genuine threat. Furthermore, secular education is a real threat too. If their children learn rationality, they will be lost to them.
If you want to discuss whether using the word "religion" for a variety of emotional configurations, that's a different conversation . . .

This razor also dissolves the problems of perceiving/modeling people who confuse personal issues with sexuality with religion (or politics).

Re: religion "vs" science

[andrewducker]

Yeah, religion is used to justify what people already wanted a huge amount of the time. With a complete lack of evidence for what God actually wants, people just assume that God wants what they do.

Makes this very handy for them.

re: 53%

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Have you seen this one? http://i.imgur.com/kamRX.jpg

Re: 53%

[andrewducker]

I hadn't, but thanks, it's awesome.