Interesting Links for 3-11-2011

[andrewducker]

• Israel rushes settlement growth in retaliation on Palestinian membership of Unesco
  (tags: israel politics palestine )
• Gay couples allowed to host civil ceremonies in churches in England and Wales
  (tags: marriage religion uk england wales law lgbt )
• Forty years on the Daily Mail is still bitter about decimalisation
  (tags: dailymail money wtf )
• Agincourt, Hasting, WWII and other great British myths
  (tags: history UK culture uk )
• Trance stare led researchers to discover a genuine hypnotic state
  (tags: hypnosis )
• Aging slowed in mice. Best result I've seen in longevity research.
  (tags: aging cell health longevity )
• By ape standards, humans are completely insane.
  (tags: humans ape psychology society empathy )
• This Is Probably the Weirdest, Goofiest Video NASA Ever Made
  (tags: NASA astronauts video )
• Being bullied? Just act less gay, advise teachers
  (tags: lgbt bullying schools uk EpicFail )
• Legalizing medical marijuana does not increase use among youth
  (tags: legalisation drugs medicine marijuana )
• NASA studying ways to make tractor beams a reality
  (tags: NASA physics science )
• Autistic people superior in multiple areas: Scientists must stop emphasizing autistics' shortcomings, expert urges (Another paper I'd love to read)
  (tags: autism psychology normocentrism )
• New platform to give you access to your movies on every device is, unsurprisingly, more frustrating than torrenting.
  (tags: movies drm technology EpicFail )
• Amazon Prime’s new killer app: Kindle books by subscription. (very limited though)
  (tags: kindle amazon books rent )
• From March 2012 all Mac Apps installed from the App Store will be sandboxed. No more plugins...
  (tags: apple mac software )

Comments

[andrewducker]

As a follow-up to the Ultraviolet DRM story:
As the moment, if I download an episode of something I can watch it on my PC, on my TV, on my laptop, or on my phone. I don't have to faff around with annoying software, and I don't have to get any boxes off of shelves to watch anything. I just pick up the remote for the PS3 (or run my choice of TV-watching software on the PC/laptop) and it works.

This is what the media companies have to compete with - if they can't make it easy to use as, say, Spotify, then I'm not going to switch to their system.

(Virgin now have a tie-up deal with Spotify, and at some point over the next few weeks I should have Spotify on the TV, which I am rather looking forward to. The only thing that would make me happier is if they had a DLNA-compliant Spotify server I could run.)

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

It's like when you post about licencing or copyright issues and someone says "but there's legal reasons that" or "it's because in country X you have to". It just doesn't matter any more. If those are given as reasons, then the company/industry as a whole is simply not trying to compete in today's world.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

Kindle library is US amazon only :( which is extremely limiting. I'd been considering whether to renew my Prime membership as I'm not ordering books now. That option MAY have made me keep it.

[andrewducker]

Oh, that's a shame. Still waiting for a proper rental system to turn up.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Is there a kindle feature where you can loan a book to someone else's kindle? I'm sure I read about it but wasn't sure if it was US-only or just something to be put in somewhere down the line?

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

I think they withdrew it! Sure I read some where it was available for Kindle 1s.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

You can lend some books out - once, for a period of two weeks - if the publishers have agreed to allow it. Most don't.

(When I self-publish, I turn off the DRM altogether, but still enable this feature too in case it makes it easier for someone).

[skington.livejournal.com]

The really hilarious part of the Daily Mail's rant about decimalisation, is that the old currency system of pounds shillings and pence was also borrowed from the French. L/s/d? Stands for "livres/sous/deniers" - and that's the reason why the pound symbol is a stylised L.

[andrewducker]

That's even funnier! Thanks.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Also, they seem unable to count the sides on a 50p, claiming it to be hexagonal.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Some of the comments below the article are very, very funny.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

My favourite part is the digression in the middle about how using non-stupid currency is just like abolishing HANGING and just means everything's gone to crap.

[cosmolinguist]

Andrew's already cackling that he's "superior in multiple areas." Ah, domestic bliss :)

[andrewducker]

Is one of those ways "the washing up"? :->

[cosmolinguist]

I think I might start leaving signs that say "Superior in multiple areas?" around untidy areas of the house :)

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

University journal subscriptions are a great thing - I can email you the Nature article on autistic people if you like. Which email address do you want me to use?

[andrewducker]

andrew@ducker.org.uk works for me. And thanks!

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Done, not a problem :)

[andrewducker]

Many thanks, I'll take a look tonight!

[0olong.livejournal.com]

Wait, isn't it just available for anyone to download anyway? Seems to be working from here!
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v479/n7371/full/479033a.html

[spacelem.livejournal.com]

I like old money and imperial measurements... as a strange quirk of history, and something that I really only want to encounter in a game of D&D (and maybe not even there...).

Yes, crowns and farthings, ounces and stone, (and that funny pound thing that Americans use), yards and miles sound nice, but they're completely impractical to use, and totally inconsistent with each other, making it difficult to switch between scales for no good reason.

Heck, let's not forget that even the same unit doesn't always mean the same thing: which weighs more, a pound of gold or a pound of feathers. Did you say they're the same? Wrong! Did you say a pound of gold is heavier? Wrong! Does this strange, fondly remembered, but highly inconsistent measuring system help us when trying to do science, or buy groceries? Hell no! it confuses us and leads space ships blowing up when NASA play at being engineers. Also, we eat too much meat, so half a kg of mince is probably healthier for you than a pound anyway. Do those extra 68 ml of beer in a pint (an extra 14%) really make all the difference? I'm off to walk my lunch off a speed of 10,752 furlongs per fortnight.

We think we liked them, because that's what we're used to, and damnit if none of us can stand change. The huge number of posts people make here about trying to change attitudes and improve the world for everyone, and yet things seem to change at a glacial pace, is testament to that.

Long live Système international d'unités. Even if it is French.

[andrewducker]

*applause*

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I quite like the flexibilty of the base-12 money system when dividing things into fractions.

I think having a base-12 money system and a base-10 counting system was probably not the best way to set things up.

Duodecimal for the win!

[0olong.livejournal.com]

This whole counting-in-tens thing has been a disaster from start to finish, as far as I'm concerned.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

> A year later they were joined by the ­hexagonal 50p coin, which replaced the ten-shilling note

I really shouldn't be surprised that the Daily Mail can't even count!