Interesting Links for 05-04-2012
Apr. 5th, 2012 12:00 pm- Scotland clearing away over 800 old laws to tidy up the statute book
- The Way of the Peaceful Parent
- Arizona Legislators Trying To Declare Pregnancy Starts Two Weeks Prior To Conception
- A conference call between Lib-Dem policy advisors and grassroots members on intercepting emails
- I love that the president of the USA is a geek
- If you live in Scotland and haven't registered to vote then click here and get it done!
- This is why people don't like (some) iPhone users
- Processing images in order to suggest the identity of the people featured is not permissible without consent (in the EU)
- The Government is lying about the reasons for introducing secret courts
- Autism mutations, scattered across many genes, merge into common network of interactions
- Canada is producing an electronic currency. I am intrigued.
- Where are you on the global pay scale? (164% of UK average, 339% of world average)
no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 11:20 am (UTC)It doesn't include pension arrangements. When I moved jobs I took a pretty much like for cash package but a much much better pension - which means much more of my income is free to spend.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-08 09:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-10 08:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 01:34 pm (UTC)When I dropped it to my pre-tax monthly pay I was again surprised to see how low I was... because my usually-substantial bonuses aren't paid monthly, they're paid annually. (Used to be semi-annually, but they've cut that to save wear-and-tear on Accounting.)
When I kludged together an estimate by dividing last year's annual pay by 12, I got the result I expected... close to the Canadian average, under twice the world average.
-- Steve certainly agrees he lives a much more affluent lifestyle that the world average, so he isn't surprised by the result.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 03:17 pm (UTC)The only thing I *hate* is cross-trolling on threads. I stopped reading Lifehacker iOS posts when 75% of comments were 'or just buy Android'
just.... fuck.... off
no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 05:55 pm (UTC)In the UK it's used as a best-guess of the date of conception and a guide to expectancy dates etc.
In Arizona it's set to be used as an excuse to strip yet more rights from women.
you could take a guess as to which of those people would have a problem with.
no subject
Date: 2012-04-05 08:26 pm (UTC)Spin Doctor: Mr President, I have a great idea for a photo opportunity!
Barack Obama: Oh yes?
SD: Nichelle Nichols.
BO: Who the hell is Nichelle Nichols?
SD: You know - Uhura.
BO: Ayers Rock?
SD: No, not Uluru, Uhura.
BO: Isn't that a kind of glue?
SD: No, Mr President, that's UHU. Nichelle Nichols played Lt Uhura in Star Trek. You know, the one with the indecently short skirts and thing stuck in her ear.
BO: Hey, I'm Obama, not Clinton!
The Secretary of State, listening from further along the corridor: I heard that!
BO: Sorry Hilary...
BO: So, Star Trek you say. Wasn't that like forty-odd years ago?
SD: Yes...
BO: So, what has she done since then?
SD: Oh, er, mostly film work.
BO: Hollywood stuff? Big budget stuff that lots of voters will have seen?
SD: Yes. Films like 'Star Trek', 'Star Trek II', 'Star Trek III', 'Star Trek IV', and 'Star Trek VI'.
BO: Wasn't there a 'Star Trek V' as well?
SD: Well yes, but it was a bit shit.
BO: Nevertheless, are we talking about an actress whose entire acting career seems to amount to one part where she didn't do much other than wear indecently short skirts and have something in her ear...?
SD: Well yes, but that's not the point. She has 28,500 followers on Twitter, and she says she's a big fan of yours. She says you played almost as important a part in black history as she did?
BO: Really?
SD: Yeah, she had the first interracial kiss on American television.
BO: When you say "interracial", let me just check: we're not talking aliens or anything weird are we?
SD: No, no, just a white guy.
BO: Right, so the idea is I go into the Oval Office, shake hands with this chick, she'll stick the photo on Twitter and 28,500 geeks will vote for me?
SD: Well, not shake hands exactly. Can you do this? (Does the Live Long and Prosper thing with his fingers).
BO: Err, yes.
SD: Right, when I give you the sign, do that and smile for the cameras.
BO: Really?
SD: Trust me on this Mr President. The geeks will love it.
BO: OK, well 28,500 votes is 28,500 votes.
SD: It gets better than that! She's friends on twitter with George Takei!
BO: Who the hell is George Takei?
SD: He was in Star Trek too. He was Mister Sulu.
BO: Sulu? That sounds a bit...Japanese. I'm from Hawaii you know. People there still remember Pearl Harbour.
SD: No, it's ok, Takei's American. He just played a Japanese character.
BO: How American?
SD: Well admittedly not so American that we didn't lock him up during the war. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that he has 332,000 followers on twitter!
BO: That's a lot. Of course I have 13 million...
SD: Yes, but you don't actually write any of yours, I do.
BO: And George Takei does?
SD: Yes.
BO: Is he another actor who hasn't done anything since Star Trek then, and consequently has a lot of time on his hands?
SD: Well, he did Celebrity Big Brother in England.
BO: And what's that?
SD: Trust me, you don't want to know.
BO: So how does he get more than ten times as many twitter followers as this Uluru chick?
SD: Uhura. U-HOO-RA.
BO: Yeah, yeah, Uhura. So? Why the 300,000 followers?
SD: Ah, this is the real beauty of the plan. He's a professional gay.
BO: Oh, you mean one of them?
SD: Quite literally! So, we get you to do the hand thing with Uhura, she puts it on twitter, he puts it on twitter, lots of their geeky and gay followers retweet it and not only will the geeks vote for you, so will the gays! And we can do all this without risking the votes of the hipsters, the blacks and the christians!
BO: Brilliant! It's like the geek equivalent of kissing babies to get women to vote for you.
SD: Yes sir, Mr President!
BO: One thing though. You said, she thinks she's more important in black history than me, the first mixed race President of the United States? What could possibly be a greater achievement than all of the struggles of my life and career?
SD: Well, it was William Shatner she had to kiss...
no subject
Date: 2012-04-06 07:34 am (UTC)
Date: 2012-04-05 11:38 pm (UTC)