Interesting Links for 30-11-2011

[andrewducker]

• Welsh paralympic great Tanni Grey-Thompson criticises absence of women on BBC Sports Personality Of The Year list
  (tags: women sports uk bbc gender )
• The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin (I find it fascinating. Sticking to pounds for now though.)
  (tags: bitcoin currency economics money Technology )
• Good Lord, Windows phones seem to be selling. (Always in favour of more competition)
  (tags: MobilePhones Technology microsoft Windows )
• Top Five Regrets of the Dying
  (tags: death life living )
• And an interesting piece on those deathbed regrets.
  (tags: death psychology life )
• EU: Copyright Doesn't Cover Functionality, Programming Language or APIs
  (tags: law eu europe programming copyright EpicWin )
• Should public racism be cause for arrest?
  (tags: liberal freespeech racism uk )
• 17 cultural reasons why this European never wants to live in America
  (tags: usa culture )
• One of Europe's largest companies wants to abandon email. Bwahahahaha
  (tags: email collaboration communication )
• So, who else is looking forward to the forthcoming war with Iran?
  (tags: war iran )
• This is pretty much how I feel about respecting other people's beliefs
  (tags: respect belief )
• Women who play online games have more sex
  (tags: sex women gaming statistics )
• Subtitling educational pictures. I declare myself "amused"
  (tags: education funny )
• US judge goes crazy, orders hundreds of sites "de-indexed" from Google, Facebook
  (tags: censorship usa law EpicFail )
• Scooby-Doo and Secular Humanism
  (tags: ScoobyDoo rationality tv )
• Apple's Siri Is (currently) Pro-Life (one hopes they update this)
  (tags: apple abortion iphone )
• Cheer up: The economy could be much worse (soon, I suspect).
  (tags: economy uk europe )
• Egypt imports 21 tons of tear gas from the US, port staff refuse to sign for it
  (tags: egypt usa weaponry )
• The Apologies of Zuckerberg: A Restrospective
  (tags: facebook MarkZuckerberg )
• Quote of the Day - Isaac Asimov on Ignorance in America
  (tags: ignorance usa asimov )
• If you want to be the best in the world at something then you cannot be normal.
  (tags: games mastery advice experience )

Comments

Via the network

[rydra_wong]

If you want to be the best in the world at something then you cannot be normal.

This reminded me of a post by an expert in a very different field (rock climbing):

http://www.onlineclimbingcoach.blogspot.com/2011/11/importance-of-being-not-normal.html

Re: Via the network

[andrewducker]

Thank you for that - fascinating stuff!

[miss_s_b]

"Women who play online games have more sex "

Could have told you that... ;)

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

I have never once been in a situation where someone from Ireland was asked where they were from and the response was "I'm Irish."

When someone is Irish it's very, very obvious to anyone who speaks the English language and any time I, or anyone I know, has asked someone from Ireland where they are from the response has been "Dublin" or "Belfast" or some town with many, many consonants in it because it's always been understood that you don't mean "what country" but "where."

Come to think of it that's been the case with every single UK person I've ever met. The response isn't "I'm British" it's "Manchester" or "Liverpool" or some such - because, again, if someone is from the UK it is blindingly obvious to anyone who speaks English.

And, when I'm asked where I'm from I don't say "I'm American" for the same reasons.

Ireland, the UK and America have some of the most distinctive accents in the entire world. The only UK accent I can see where some Americans might legitimately be confused about where the person comes from is the Scottish, because some Scots have accents that can make them sound as if they are speaking a language other than English if you don't have a trained ear.

Scottish accents

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

I have trouble with accents, it takes me a while for my brain to "click" onto them. However, I moved from the north of Ireland, to Scotland, not a great distance, and both accents have similarities. First day at the supermarket, and I had absolutely no idea what the checkout lady said to me. It was probably, "That'll be 23 pounds and 40 pence," but it could easily have been "Three gorillas and a bottle of beer". Since, I have developed a Scottish accent modulator in my head.

Re: Scottish accents

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there are a lot of Scottish people in the city I live in and for the first six months here I often had no idea what the Scots were saying, but now, I can understand it, but it can be a royal bitch of an accent. And still, after 10 years here and many Scottish friends there are still times when t hey use words and phrasing that I don't understand.

The use of "wee" is an amusing part of their accent.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

LOL! I have had a Czech on a train decide from me speaking English to him that I wasn't a native speaker and that German (which he probably spoke better anyway) was a much better bet. (I'm from Glasgow[East Kilbride] with possibly a few late-acquired touches of Stirling).

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I get asked where in Australia I'm from (or New Zealand if they think they're being clever) pretty much once a week. I don't know what it is but people here do seem to have a completely tin ear when it comes to English Speaking accents.

This amuses me as I really do have a pretty neutral Home Counties English accent of the type only an Irish Father and Cockney mother can enforce as "aspirational".

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

"it's "Manchester" or "Liverpool" or some such - because, again, if someone is from the UK it is blindingly obvious" ...and they have a blinding hatred of the football team of the other city

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Not always distinctive to outsiders. I can only take the vaguest of guesses at North American accents - i.e. if the person is from the top, bottom, or left or right coast. *

American who don't know English accents can totally miss where someone is from. Even if they're from Australia.

* If they say "aboot" it's the top. If they say "y'all", it's the bottom. If they say "like" a lot it's the left coast. Otherwise, must be right coast.

[star-tourmaline.livejournal.com]

I hold a strong distinction between respecting others' beliefs (for me, a requirement) and respecting their words and actions (whole 'nother ballgame).

[andrewducker]

I respect people's right to hold whatever beliefs they wish to. I don't have any respect for ideas though, which is what beliefs boil down to.

So if someone wants to believe, in their own head, that the world sits on the back of a giant turtle, and doesn't want to talk about it, that's fine by me. If they start having a discussion about it then that makes the belief fair game.

I do believe that being nice when talking to people helps to engage with them, so I tend to approach things that way. But it wouldn't mean that I'd find certain beliefs any more likely.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

The 17 Reasons tempts me to be proud to be an American.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I must be honest, while there are still a couple of apps which I'm using my iPhone for, my go-to phone is now the Nokia Lumia 800 which is basically the best smartphone I've used in years. It really needs some more apps but that could be a self correcting problem.

[andrewducker]

Glad to hear it. I must have a play with one at some point. Anything which puts more pressure on Android to keep getting is good by me!

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

emails are used a lot by people who don't have much to say. I'd like them largely replaced by forums, and meetings replaced by forums as well.

[andrewducker]

Forums aren't enough by themselves. For a start, they're pull, you only get to them when you go trawling through them all.

We have a few thousand people working here, how would I find the message that someone wanted me to clarify a point in a specification in all of the other messages?

[andlosers.livejournal.com]

Hrm. Re: the 17 reasons post --

I agree with 1

I'm guilty of 2 (it's an awesome word!)

3 misses the point entirely.

They do mean it. That's the point. You can absolutely tell when it's been mandated that someone smiles, or if they feel like they have to, but people really are smiling at you for natural reasons. On a personal level, it's a less cynical culture. They do want you to have a nice day - and again, when they don't, you know it. I know it sounds unlikely coming from a European environment, but I swear to you, it's true.

4 and 5 are completely true (although not good enough reasons to not move somewhere)

6 is pushing me to the point of psychosis, I'll admit

7 is a completely international phenomenon

8 comes from not traveling. It's harder for them to travel, so I can understand why they come to these assumptions. A related thing happens in Britain from people who have barely left the country, whose families have been on the island since forever etc etc. There's a huge number of people who are basically scared of foreign people because they're an unknown. It's sad, but there it is. Usually, at least, the American stereotypes aren't negative - just wrong.

9 I don't understand the problem with. The only problem I could see is if the author is also precious about his national identity.

10 you get used to, but it's undoubtedly odd. It varies massively from place to place; California seems to be very lenient.

11 is bullshit. Yes, you get the evangelical crazies, but believe me, they're in Europe too, and in both places they're a minority of the total religious population. They're loud, for sure, but not omnipresent. I don't see them at all here.

12: I have at least 50 independent small businesses who will sell me lunch for a good price within 10 minutes' walk.

13 I don't own a car, and don't need one.

14 The fish and chip shop evolved in tandem (at least) with McDonald's. Fast food isn't purely American. And being on time for business is no bad thing. The push to be productive is to do with the lack of a safety net; there's a definite feeling that you have to do that to stay afloat. I share it, and shared it when I was in the UK too, as many people do. I do think the lack of welfare in the US is deeply concerning, but I think the urgency is understandable in that light. I think we're about to see more of that in Europe too.

15 I think that's a certain segment of the population, but by no means all or most Americans. He seems to be talking about entrepreneurs, who by their nature are going to be more concerned with money. Talk to academics, and I suspect you'd get a completely different story.

16 Stop eating out. What's with all the wasteful consumerism?!

17 Patriotism and, worse, nationalism are deeply annoying no matter where they come from. But they aren't unique to America.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

9 drives me f'king insane. I'm a Brit living in America. The fact that my father was born in Limerick and I have an Irish passport doesn't make me Irish anything, anymore than the fact my wife has Chinese, Indian and French ancestry and a family from Mauritius makes her anything other than South African.

The number of times I've heard, "oh I'm Norweigian/Scots/Irish/German/Spanish...." when actually, the speaker hasn't had an ancestor born outside the USA since the 19th century, is quite high. I was born in England, I'm British - the fact that I and about 5m other British English people have Irish parents is beside the point.

It's actually an interesting counterpoint to 8 - holding onto something that isn't really real but having a strong national identify to the detriment of all others when you feel like it.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

12 - is largely a factor of where you live. Where I live I have many places within walking distance. If I lived in a suburb 10 miles away those choices would be McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Subway, Starbucks and a Taco Bell - and good luck if I wanted to walk to them.

I'm fortunately in being able to afford to live in a place where I can do without a car.

[i-ate-my-crusts.livejournal.com]

the "women who play online games have more sex" link is dubious; the percentage differences are barely sufficient to count as any kind of significant difference, and there's no controlling for other factors (eg, those who are fitter/more active seems to correlate just as well with the higher rates of sex, but they don't appear to have controlled for activity to see whether it is activity or online games or both that is a factor. Sigh.)

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

The 'respecting other people's beliefs' comic and yesterday's 'I won’t “agree to disagree”' -- both very good.

I wonder, are these indicators of a reaction against happy clappy everyone-can-be-right liberalism?

[andrewducker]

One assumes so.

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

the spammy sites I posted were sites that were de-indexed from Google. So horrible you deleted them upon sight.

[andrewducker]

Aaah. Your comments looked like the kind I get intermittently from spammers - I thought you'd been hacked!