Interesting Links for 02-05-2012

[andrewducker]

• MPs announce that Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to run News Corp
  (tags: media news RupertMurdoch uk )
• The EU's Common Agricultural Policy is slowly being reformed.
  (tags: agriculture europe law money )
• Unrealistic expectations of relationships are a scourge on society.
  (tags: relationships family society uk )
• How Marvel took The Avengers from a throwaway reference in Iron Man to a record-breaking movie
  (tags: movies Marvel comics IronMan thor CaptainAmerica hulk )
• Sleep cancels out obesity gene
  (tags: sleep obesity health )
• Pakistani province's high court orders government to stop censoring websites illegally
  (tags: government pakistan freespeech )
• See which parties voted the way that you would want them to.
  (tags: uk politics )
• Want to know what TV comes out when? Then this is the most awesome site in the universe.
  (tags: tv )
• The dilemmas of TV filming - camera types are changing, and the different styles cause different emotional effects
  (tags: video news reporting technology )
• Nine more people arrested for naming a rape victim on Twitter.
  (tags: privacy rape uk law twitter )
• Wormworld saga chapter 3 is out. The art is still gorgeous.
  (tags: beautiful art wormworld )
• On rape within the BDSM community
  (tags: sex consent bdsm rape kink )
• Have 26 per cent fewer houses been built under the Coalition?
  (tags: uk housing )
• Consumer ebooks sales increased by 366% in 2011. Still only 6% of physical books.
  (tags: publishing books ebooks )
• Microsoft removes racy apps from Windows Phone store. So glad my apps aren't censored.
  (tags: mobile_phones microsoft sex censorship )
• SPDY Performance on Mobile Networks. (From the figures, I think SPDY caches will be damned useful)
  (tags: internet http spdy )
• Final Fantasy 13-2 characters model Prada. (Okay, gaming is now officially completely mainstream)
  (tags: fashion computer_games )
• A computer built into a radiation detector. Gloriously retro-looking
  (tags: art computers )
• Android Ported to C# - staggeringly faster
  (tags: android java c# )
• Vote for the person, not the party, in your local council elections (if you're in a country with a sensible voting system)
  (tags: politics voting )
• Scottish children drinking less fizzy drinks, drinking lots of alcohol, doing no exercise, are very happy.
  (tags: scotland children happiness alcohol health diet )
• Radical Honesty - a step too far?
  (tags: honesty truth lying society )
• Cutting red tape and taxes will not revive Britain - it's spending it in the best places that will help.
  (tags: tax bureaucracy government uk business )
• Neal Stephenson answers interview questions (including the one about his epic battle with William Gibson). Old, but good.
  (tags: nealstephenson writing money encryption interview )
• Protection of Freedoms Act landmark achievement in fight for civil liberties.
  (tags: freedom rights uk libdem )

Comments

Radical Honesty

[thejeopardymaze]

I was just about to type something like "Great, because what we really need is a generation of exhibitionists", and then I thought, "Wait, isn't this what too many people using the internet for these days, so what am I complaining about?".

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

What really sucks is that lots of rapists in the BDSM community have no idea at all that they are rapists. There isn't a lot of education out there about what is OK at a scene or a munch and some guys mistake being a dom and having a sub available means that they can do anything. Sometimes you meet newbies who have never even heard the term 'safe word."

If the people running scenes were more active in educating the people - particularly newbie dom men - who are invited it would probably cut down on a lot of sexual assault.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

It's similar to that TV Episodes site, but I've been using MyEpisodes.com for the past few years and find it very useful.

[naath.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure why a US-based TV-listings site is interesting... (lots of UK folks have linked it, US people linking it makes more sense).


I'm sick of supposedly serious journalists claiming that marriage is superior to non-married cohabiting. Really fucking sick. I think they have the correlation the wrong way around on the break-up stats; but I also really don't fucking care - if your relationship sucks you should end it, and doing so shouldn't be something that draws social ostracisation.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

"Unrealistic expectations of relationships are a scourge on society."

Yeah. I wonder what would happen if we had fewer stories about "our eyes met across a crowded room" and more about "and then we put in a lot of effort to understand what made each other happy, and as a reward, it worked really well"... :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

"How Marvel took The Avengers from a throwaway reference in Iron Man to a record-breaking movie"

Oh, that's awesome, I hadn't realised it had been such an ad hoc opportunity, but I'm really impressed that they did manage to assemble a bunch of films that work individually, but aren't wasted if they don't manage to culminate in one super-film.

[andrewducker]

The majority of the TV I watch is made in the USA. About the only UK TV I've watched recently is Dr Who, and the site has that.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

"Sleep cancels out obesity gene"

Although I seemed to have missed it if the article reported any evidence of that from the study: it claimed there was correlation, but I only saw speculation about causation.

[andrewducker]

The thing I particularly like about this one is that it produces an ICS feed that I then import into Google Calendar, so when I check my calendar each day it tells me what's ready to watch.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Sure, I watch US TV too... but I don't find knowing when it's going to be on in the US very useful.

[naath.livejournal.com]

See, that's a really nice message. But the way it was written made me too angry to get to that part... stupid story.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh no, I think the story was entirely "Baron so-and-so says MARRIAGE GOOD!" The idea that realistic expectations may be more useful that legally forcing everyone into unsuitable marriages I interpreted to be Andrew's gloss :)

[andrewducker]

Aaah. I do, as it tells me when it will be available for downloading (Game Of Thrones airs at 9PM in the US, which is 2am in the UK, which means it's available to download by the time I wake up).

[andrewducker]

Well, in the actual words he uses, he references relationships along with marriages the majority of the time.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Ah right. I'm. Er. Too lazy to bother.

Although I want to watch GoT season 2; so maybe I should dig it our of the the internet sewer.

[andrewducker]

If I want to watch TV in bed (and I do) then downloading it is the only option (other than waiting for the Blu-Ray, which I will be buying anyway).

As it is, I am not putting up with being massively spoiled by people talking about it online between now and next January when the season two box set comes out.

[steer.livejournal.com]

See which parties voted the way that you would want them to.

Oh dear... it seems my favoured political party would be a lunatic in a box making decisions at random by tossing a coin. This agreed with me more than the next nearest political party (Lib Dem at 44%). Conservatives agreed with me more than Labour which was a surprise.

Then again some of the issue summaries were kind of surprising and rather tangential to what the actual votes were: e.g. "All smoking should be banned" was a vote on advertising and smoking in public places. "Legal Abortion should be limited as far as possible" was in fact a vote to reduce the term from 24 weeks to 12. The one about the "right to strike" was a vote about prison officers (actually I think maybe they should but I do think some professions it's just too dangerous for them to strike, the precedents for a police strike are not good).

[naath.livejournal.com]

I read the books, so I'm not faffed about spoilers, but I like teh shiny moving peeectures.

[andrewducker]

They are very shiny.

And frequently _very_ pink.

[andrewducker]

I got much the same result as you - 44% is as close as I got (also Lib Dem), next was the SNP, then Labour, then Conservatives.

Sadly, there are no coin-tossing lunatics running for election, so I will probably vote LD->SNP->Lab tomorrow.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Heh... you've reached the point of "when can I start torrenting this" with GoT too?

Have you come across tvtorrents.com? It's a minor pain to get started but it really is very good.

[andrewducker]

I mostly use http://KAT.ph which has a page for each TV show, broken down by episode, which is very handy.

What does tvtorrents.com do for you? (I am _so_ not looking at it from work.)

[steer.livejournal.com]

I fear that by phrasing the questions correctly you could write one of those such that the typical question answerer would agree with more or less whichever party you choose.

E.g. Reword the "all smoking should be banned" (which > 50% of people disagree with) to "smoking should not be allowed in some places" or (which > 50% of people agree with) and you've reverse people's political stance.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes. You can twist them back and forth all over the place.

The fact that no one party exactly matched what I want (and none even got above 50%) does at least tell me that if they're cheating they aren't doing it too egregiously.

[steer.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it does tell you that... it could be that it was set up to get us all to come out Lib Dem but to do so it had to go through quite a lot of contortions so on many votes that the average person would disagree with every party in British politics.