Interesting Links for 18-05-2012

[andrewducker]

• Number of completed homes in 2011 less than half what is required to meet demand. Can we not just build some? Infrastructure = good.
  (tags: housing uk )
• Comics companies - still making it hard to work out what you should be giving them money for.
  (tags: EpicFail business comics )
• So, you think reason guides your politics? Think again
  (tags: bias belief politics )
• Accuracy takes power: one man’s 3GHz quest to build a perfect SNES emulator
  (tags: emulation consoles nintendo )
• Parents experience greater happiness and meaning in life
  (tags: psychology happiness parents )
• Strange Pictures of Hot Men
  (tags: sexy photographs men )
• Ovulating women perceive sexy cads as good dads
  (tags: hormones menstruation parents perception sex )
• Sacha Baron Cohen was banned from filming at UN for fear of upsetting dictators
  (tags: SachaBaronCohen movies dictators UnitedNations )

Comments

Strange Pictures of Hot Men

[teresafloyd]

This was just what I needed today.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how it's so expensive to build new affordable housing. Whenever councils seem to want to build new council houses, the quotes they get from building companies seem to be about 10 times what I could build the same houses for. It's bizarre.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

House building has dramatically slowed because of the sharp decrease in house prices. There are numerous building sites around here which have been mothballed and will remain in that state until prices rise again and makes completing those houses profitable.

[fub.livejournal.com]

Re: "Parents experience greater happiness and meaning in life"
The summary says nothing about the method used to measure happiness. If it's self-reported, I'm going to chalk it up to Stockholm Syndrome. ;)

[camies.livejournal.com]

And there are plenty of sites that could be reused. Midland Heart are currently opening a former theatre as housing - partly private, partly for homeless/vulnerable people in the Snow Hill Area of Birmingham:
http://www.midlandheart.org.uk/developments/the-snow-hill
although, a Cupcake Bakery ...?
(I know 'cos I have applied for an Admin post there!)

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

re: Ovulating women perceive sexy cads as good dads

The point not specifically made is that "stay with current (presumably reliable) bloke but screw 'sexy' one hoping to pass off his offspring as regular blokes" is a valid (and pretty good) reproductive strategy, since 'sexy' blokes have more offspring, so if you have a boy, you [probably] gain extra grandkids.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

The first seven words of that Sacha Baron Cohen headline were so promising, then it descended in specifics :(

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

> One can imagine the frustration of instantly losing three hours of progress and being met with an unbeatable game

Eh, any emulator worth its salt should have a memory save function.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I’ve been baffled by the apparent market failure around housing over the last ten or twenty years.

I’m putting it down to some mix of underlying infrastructure weakness and where the profit margins sit for housing.

I wonder if the answer is to start building pre-fab high rises like this one

http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/chinese-builders-erect-30-story-building-in-15-days-20120115/

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

There's no market failure here. Supply is constrained below demand, putting upward pressure on prices. (They'd rise even more but for some rather famous downward pressure.) Legislating to force prices down might or might not succeed in doing so, but will creat shortages.

To get more housing, the supply - of land and building - needs to be increased. But there's strong political pressure not to do that so I don't expect dramatic movement soon.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that my politics are based on vague morals and leftish urges, and a desire to slap Michael Gove, and other pasty-faced Tories.

Hmm, is that racist?! Baroness Warsi probably would get a slap too :)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there's a lesson for brain emulation in that SNES story.

[redshira.livejournal.com]

Parents experience greater happiness and meaning in life - could this possibly be because we live in a society/culture that excludes childless people and perceives them as less-than? Why yes, yes it could.