Interesting Links for 22-11-2011

[andrewducker]

• The spider that can process things too complex to fit in its brain all at once.
  (tags: intelligence spiders cognition )
• What the recent paper on statistical interpretations of quantum physics means. (I skipped the equations).
  (tags: science physics quantum )
• The cool twists of language
  (tags: language english )
• Should swearing be against the law? (Err, no)
  (tags: swearing language law uk )
• How the automatic transmission almost killed the sperm whale
  (tags: whales cars technology )
• UN General Assembly Votes To Allow Gays To Be Executed Without Cause | The New Civil Rights Movement
  (tags: UnitedNations lgbt execution homophobia africa )
• How SpaceX is revolutionarising space travel.
  (tags: spaceflight paypal business rockets ElonMusk )
• This is how I feel about dress codes.
  (tags: clothing style fancydress )
• 5 Prejudices That Still Show Up in Every Movie
  (tags: film sexism racism prejudice )
• British Columbia court to rule whether polygamy is constitutional
  (tags: polygamy marriage canada law )
• The 12 Most Baffling Genres of Stock Photo, Explained | Cracked.com
  (tags: photographs )
• David Frum on the GOP’s Lost Sense of Reality
  (tags: politics republicans usa )
• Bionic contact lens to project emails before your eyes
  (tags: science technology light interface )
• The Secret World - A Lovecraft meets Illuminati MMO
  (tags: mmorpg hplovecraft ComputerGames illuminati )
• Why the eurozone must change or die (part #1742)
  (tags: euro finance politics )
• The daft hysteria over the EU's ruling on water and dehydration
  (tags: europe journalism media science )
• General tax avoidance prohibition should be introduced
  (tags: tax law uk )
• The Trials and Tribulations of HTML Video in the Post-Flash Era
  (tags: html5 video Flash web )
• Are you a graduate with a child at least 18 months old? Take 5 minutes on a study to help understand autism.
  (tags: psychology autism parents genetics education )
• Can there be party funding consensus? (in the UK. Clearly there won't be in the US)
  (tags: funding money politics uk )

Comments

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

Re: dress codes.

Loved the post but odd that you should use those tags because that article sums up not only how I feel about dress codes but also how I feel about fancy dress. Some folks love it and good luck to 'em. When I go to a party I want to go, socialise, drink and enjoy myself, not have to devote time to something I don't want/need to do :)

[andrewducker]

I vary in how I feel about Fancy Dress parties. I don't mind them occasionally, but I'd feel irked if every party was like that.

And I very much view any kind of dressing up as fancy-dress :->

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I'm going to be in the minority on this one, and some may think I'm old-fashioned, but bear with me...


I think the guy complaining about the dress code for dinner in a luxury hotel is completely unreasonable and is missing the point.

This is a luxury hotel. The dress code is simply asking him to show a bit of respect to his fellow diners. I'd say it seems like a pretty relaxed dress code anyway - it doesn't require a tie or a jacket or even socks. What it does do is prevent slobs from getting our of the pool and going to dinner in shorts or jeans, flip-flops and no shirt like you might see in some two-star beach hotel in Benidorm.

Dressing properly is nothing to do with obeying pointless rules and everything to do with basic politeness.

[andrewducker]

This, of course, assumes that it's anyone else's business what I'm wearing, and whether other people's attire should bother you one whit.

I am aware that some business cater to those who wish to impose rules on the attire of those around them, because they are so sensitive to them that they can have their evening ruined by the sight of a pair of shorts. I find it ridiculous though, and I'd rather not pander to them.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I can see the basic politeness argument if you've been invited to a special occasion such as a birthday dinner or a wedding, but I think extending it to random strangers who happen to be in the same venue as you is taking it a bit far. If I go out for a fancy dinner, I might well care that my partner has made an effort but I'm not going to be offended by some random guy on another table wearing jeans.

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I mostly agree with this, I have to say. At first I thought the article was saying the hotel demanded smart dress at all times, like walking through the lobby and things (which would have been ridiculous), but the hotel is clearly trying to create a luxury atmosphere in the restaurant and patrons' clothing does contribute to that. It's not a requirement to go to the posh hotel restaurant when you're on a work trip. I agree that some dress codes can be silly, but if you don't want to dress up for a luxury restaurant...don't go to the luxury restaurant?

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Yes, the respect argument got touted a lot at me when I was a kid.

Balls to it, I say.

How on earth is it disrespect to other diners? Is the poster's proposed attire unpleasant to see? Smelly?

[feorag.livejournal.com]

The UN story is old and the vote has subsequently been overturned.

[andrewducker]

Oh, that's fantastic. Cheers. I really should have checked the timestamp on that before passing it on!

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

Space X is my hero.

[andrewducker]

I agree. I hadn't realised how much of a difference they were making!

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Hollywood is weirdly prudish about sex still.

In Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 they were told they had to cut out the deflowering scene but could keep the birth scene if they wanted a PG-13 instead of an R even though the birth scene was really much more graphic than Bella losing her virginity.

The reasoning they were given was that seeing a painful, bloody consequence of sex was fine for teenage girls, but seeing a teenage girl really enjoy losing her virginity and being the sexual aggressor would send the wrong message to teenage girls.

Of course, they'll just include the sex scene in the DVD, but still...

(The director and Kristen Stewart have both said that one thing that bothered the MPAA the most about the sex scene was that Bella was doing more "enthusiastic thrusting" than Sparkleboy was.

An even weirder story was with the second Herbie movie which they wanted a PG and not a PG-13 for. While there was no sex or nudity in the film at all, Lindsay Lohan had grown up between the two movies and had much larger breasts than in the first film. The MPAA thought that just the existence of her breasts (while fully clothed) was enough to bump it up to PG-13, so they had to use CGI to digitally make her boobs smaller in every frame.

[andrewducker]

I'm not sure which of those is the most ridiculous.

They're both despicable though.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, this seems to be the point where LiLo started to begin to go crazy. I've always wondered if there was a connection (it's certainly when she started to do everything possible to get out of her Disney contract - particularly since there was a morals/image clause in there that she would have violated if she'd admitted she was lesbian or displayed publicly that she was in a lesbian relationship.)

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Having heard a bit about Breaking Dawn, I was wondering how they were going to film it without it being an 18/R rating, I might know it would be because a horrific birth scene is a good anti-sex message for girls :(

And as for large breasts being unsuitable for children to see even clothed... Utterly appalling :(

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

To be fair her breasts are spectacular.

I think that they were worried that dads would take their kids to herbie 2 for the wrong reasons.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall a recent story of a male actor being CGI'd down to more modest endowment.

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

The BBFC on the other hand let the sex scene pass for a 12A certificate partly on the grounds that "the scene marks the culmination of a relationship that has been developing over the previous three films", which is rather sweet.

I don't know whether the British and US cuts are the same.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

In the US version, apparently, they kiss and then it fades out and when it fades back in they are under the covers and the bed has been broken, but that's all you get.

[erindubitably.livejournal.com]

Are you sure? Because I've read some reviews that I'm pretty sure are from US-viewers and they definitely reference the sex scene...

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Yes. I think Roger Ebert is a pretty reliable source.

"Yes, the most eagerly awaited deflowering in recent movie history takes place entirely off-screen."

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111116/REVIEWS/111119983

[erindubitably.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I guess the reviews I read were very good at using their imaginations.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Kristen Stewart has also bitched in several interviews about it - because she's mad that they singled out her "enthusiastic thrusting" and not his.

[andrewducker]

I heard that it had been trimmed somewhat:
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/news/a348145/twilight-breaking-dawn-sex-scene-cut-for-12a.html

Was there later news?

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I've said this before somewhere on LJ: no single individual, company or pressure group should be allowed to donate more than a few thousand pounds to any one party and nothing to any individual politician.

That is the only way to remove the corruption of political-favours-for-cash from British politics.

[andrewducker]

I'd go with that.

(And you said similar things recently on my LJ, and I think we ended up agreeing then too!)

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I couldn't remember where I'd said it...

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

When I win the maximum jackpot on the Euro-millions lottery one of the things I’m going to do is to so blatantly buy the next British general election with such a self-satisfied smirk on my face that citizen begin to realise that if you allow people to significantly fund political parties you will get the result that the funder wants.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

More old-time Hollywood prejudices:

6. Blokes with posh English accents are either bad guys or Hugh Grant.

7. It is not possible for an attractive woman to have dark skin. Where a script calls for the attractive female lead to be black, she will therefore be played by a half-white or otherwise mixed race actress with a complexion rather paler than a Wigan girl after two weeks on the Costa del Sol. This rule has done wonders for the careers of Halle Berry and Thandie Newton.

[andrewducker]

It is true that the English are all evil or fops!

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

And as an addendum to 7:

7a. Any half-black, half-white actor or actress is considered to be 'black'. In fact the ratio can be less than half for the actor or actress to still be considered 'black'.

(To be fair, this rule isn't restricted to acting in the US. The same rule applies to politicians - including the president. There is also the homeopathic Irishman rule whereby any American politician with even the tiniest drop of Irish blood in his ancestry can claim to be Irish.)

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

There's a homeopathic Scots rule for Americans too I think, and it doesn't just apply to politicians.

[fearmeforiampink]

Homeopathic Scots rule also applies at weddings.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I once had a frustrating conversation with a homeopathic Scot (or Mock Jock) from California about Scottish Independence and the restoration of the Stuart monarchy. He refusal to accept that the fact that his great, great, great, great, great grandfather once ate haggis did not qualify him to have a vote on whether we should turn our Northern European social democracy into an ultra-montane Catholic divine right Kingdom of Brigadoon for his picturesque viewing pleasure still irritates me more than it should.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

The article on general anti-avoidance rule illustrates the problem with GAARs:

"It recommended a series of safeguards, including an explicit protection for reasonable tax planning and arrangements which are entered into without any intent to reduce tax."

So what they are saying is that in a very complex tax environment, it would be verboten to make arrangements which follow the letter of the (highly complex) regulations and reduce a tax liability IF the intention was to reduce the liability...

But...

It would be acceptable to make arrangements which follow the letter of the (highly complex) regulations and reduce a tax liability IF the intention was something other than reducing the liability.

So you end up with a situation where HMRC inspectors have to guess people's intentions. And then argue them in court. Against lawyers. (And guess who has the best lawyers - ordinary taxpayers, HMRC or big corporations? Exactly.)

If a piece of tax law says in effect "If you do this, then you pay less tax", then a taxpayer surely has every moral right to "do this" and surely should continue to have every legal right to do the same.

Governments who want to stop taxpayers from doing "this" and thereby paying less tax, should concentrate on simplifying the tax code and removing the countless situations where taxpayers can do "this" instead of faffing around with half-arsed General Anti-Avoidance Rules.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

I'll take a guess that there are a lot of business arrangements where tax avoidance is the only possible explanation for the structure.

What are other countries experiences with GAARs?

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

(This might be the stage at which I should point out that although I'm an FCA, I don't work in tax...)

Off the top of my head, Australia has had a GAAR for years. Brief internet research reveals that Canada and New Zealand also have them.

I was able to find this article on the sometimes difficult history of GAAR in Australia, which illustrates my point:

http://www.nortonrose.com/news/31251/claire-falkner-the-tax-journal-the-australian-gaar-experience-uncertain-outcomes

[andrewducker]

I think that sometimes the intent is pretty clear. When money is being shuffled around in circles so that it never quite hits the taxable point then it's clearly trying to just avoid tax. But I suspect that most cases aren't that clear cut.

The problem is that any system can be gamed (it's one of those logically provable things), and attempts to make a system less gameable by blocking the most common methods of doing so tend to lead to people exploiting the new corner cases, and so on, until you end up with a horribly complex system that's _still_ full of holes.

I'm not sure what the answer is. Is there a tax system out there that's managed to be non-gameable?

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Key word "sometimes".

The way to make the system less gameable (and you make an excellent point in saying that any system can be gamed) is to reduce complexity.

[andrewducker]

You can have simple systems that leak like a massive pipe, as well as complex ones that leak like sieves. I'd love to see some work done on the mathematics done behind tax systems!

[fearmeforiampink]

The other big problem is that 'get tax money' and 'reduce tax avoidance' aren't your only priorities. There's the whole tax-relief/tax-credit/whatever stuff, that governments put in to encourage certain activities they think are good, but which are then themselves gameable, abusable.

[andrewducker]

Exactly. If the only thing was "Take 40% of everyone's money" then tax _would_ be simple. But the second you add in any other factor you make the tax system complex. It goes all fractal, which means that it's not going to exactly map onto any part of real life exactly, leavign holes to steal money through.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I’m a ACMA and not in tax either but my tuppence worth.

I agree the sentiment that if the rules say you can do X and reduce your tax bill then you are morally entitled to do X. If the tax authorities want a different outcome then they should change the rules.

I think the tax system can get complex even without adding another factor.

You could go about making the tax system simpler and this might reduce the areas where the system can be gamed (or it might not). I think one consequence of this is that it might increase the unfairness of the tax system. Tax systems are complex because business and life are complex. When you try and overlay a simple system over a complex system you get areas where it fits badly. People will either feel the unfairness which given that you are taking money off them at gun point is probably less than ideal or they will change the way they operate. I don’t think tax systems should really affect the way people live and work at the gross level unless this is explicitly what you want the system to do.

When you try and adjust the simple system to iron out the unfairness you rapidly arrive at systems that are just as complex as the one you have just simplified used to be.

I suspect that HMRC and co assume a certain amount of gaming and set the base tax rates at a level to compensate. So the contest is not between tax payer and HMRC but between different tax payers to best manage their tax affairs so that they are paying less tax and their competitors are paying more.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

There could be concensus on party funding, just like there's concensus on MPs pay - self-interest rules OK...

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

The spider story is fascinating, yet seems a bit too hand-wavy.

How do they know that's what it does internally?
And where does it store information while it's not keeping it in its tiny brain? In its kidneys, perhaps? The analogy to computers just doesn't fit.

[andrewducker]

Let's say you want to analyse the sight in front of you, but a photo of it is too big to fit in the memory of your PC at once. You can analyse it a part at a time, taking hours to stare at it, instead of analysing it all at once. As you analyse each quadrant (say) you can store the analysed results internally, and then once you've got them all together you can then analyse them together to get a final understanding.

At least, that was my interpretation.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

But then it talks about forgetting information until it's needed... that's the bit that flummoxes me.

[andrewducker]

Presumably it forgets the detailed picture it just looked at, and holds on to just the analysed version.