Interesting Links for 02-03-2012

[andrewducker]

• Apple censoring books because they contain URLs to a competitor
  (tags: censorship amazon ebooks apple publishing )
• You cannot use two genes to predict voter behaviour
  (tags: psychology politics genetics )
• If you're doing anything on a .com domain that is illegal _if you were doing it in the US_ then it can be taken away.
  (tags: internet web law dna usa )
• Coding tricks of game developers - anecdotes and examples of things you should hope you never have to do
  (tags: coding games development programming )
• A generator that uses waste water for power - and desalinates it at the same time.
  (tags: power water )
• How Not To Sell Software
  (tags: software business sales )

Comments

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Moving on from the genetics / voting thing:

I wonder if anyone has ever made a study to see if there is a correlation between favourite sports teams and favourite political parties. This batty theory occurred to me the other day. Most people will choose a favourite football team long before they have a favourite political party. It's not out of the question that for some people, at some level, political thoughts in childhood are associated with positive feelings towards their team's colour.

So someone who decides to support Liverpool or Manchester United when a small child begins to see red as his colour. Does that make him more likely to be sympathetic to the Labour Party in adult life? Conversely, someone who supports Chelsea or Everton could be more likely to see blue things (and hence the Conservative Party) in a popular light.

I doubt there would be a strong correlation, but even if there was a small one, that could be enough to affect election results in constituencies with football clubs.

(It would also be bad news for the Liberal Democrats. Not so many football teams playing in yellow. Although one example would be Torquay United, and now that I think about it, there are a lot of LibDems in south Devon...)

[andrewducker]

I would _love_ to see some study put into that one. I'm sure that a lot of influence would come from the views that people spend their time around anyway, so that would have a big effect, but it would be fascinating to see if the pure colour by itself had an effect!

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Perhaps explaining the success of the Green party in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

You might have to correct for the effect of the Hillsborough 96 Don't Buy the Sun campaign in Liverpool.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

That would be the problem - you'd have to correct for so many local issues like that (although I don't think there were many Conservative voters in Liverpool even before Hillsborough!).

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Everton supporters were/are just as likely to boycott the Sun as Liverpool ones though.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

For the same reason?

I did not know that.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. Unlike the football rivalries in other cities, the Liverpool/Everton one is almost aggressively friendly (e.g. the Harry Enfield Scousers sketch "I hope *your* team win." "Yeah, well I hope your team win." "You what?" *headbuts*).
Even without that, though, most Everton supporters within Liverpool will have friends, relatives or colleagues who died at Hillsborough, and will be very sensitive to the reputation of the city. It was (and from what I can tell still is) seen as much bigger than which team you support.