Interesting Links for 23-05-2012

[andrewducker]

• Could Angry Birds lead to mass murder? (and other tales of computer-game-inspired violence)
  (tags: computer_games violence society )
• Does alcohol cause 1 in 8 deaths before retirement? (No, no it does not)
  (tags: alcohol statistics uk )
• SpaceX ship has Scotty's ashes on board
  (tags: space spacex startrek )
• On road taxes, fat taxes and cigarette taxes
  (tags: happiness politics tax economics )
• Incredible realtime lighting demo in a browser. Pretty.
  (tags: graphics animation web javascript )
• What's going on with the UK's nuclear deterrent?
  (tags: libdem uk nuclearweapons )
• MIT's Freaky Non-Stick Coating Keeps Ketchup Flowing
  (tags: ketchup storage technology )
• Nine-year-old’s lunch blog shames school into making changes
  (tags: food children blog usa school )
• An interesting input method for computers. Still going to suffer from the Gorilla-arm problem, but nice to see new approaches.
  (tags: input computers technology )
• Which TV shows have the highest body count?
  (tags: tv death )
• HS2 rail alternatives no solution
  (tags: trains uk transport )
• TaxPayers’ Alliance: opponents of tax cuts suffer from “sexual jealousy”
  (tags: tax uk wtf )
• I Don't Respect Your Beliefs
  (tags: belief respect religion )
• Mozilla Collusion - see who's tracking your movements across different web sites.
  (tags: mozilla firefox privacy web )

Comments

[thejeopardymaze]

Fat tax: Well I don't agree with the blame on fat for causing fatness, but what I'm really worried is how this kind of thing affects people with epilepsy-who are not just kids-who rely on fat heavy ketogenic diets. Why is their right to treatment without extra penalties not considered? It's incredibly stupid.


Nine year old shaming school: I'm willing to bed if she was a US student she'd be penalized by the school system if not outright be kicked out and forced to change districts due to Zero Tolerance.


I Don't Respect Your Beliefs: I tend to see these things as more of an ideology problem, and stupid ideologies are in practically every power structure to control people. In addition I was never impressed with the film Dogma. Not because I'm a bitter ex-Catholic (well I am an ex-Catholic, but it was very religion-light), but it doesn't really challenge institutional structures.

[andrewducker]

I just thought Dogma wasn't a very good movie. Dull, and not terribly insightful.

And yes, as someone who can't eat much in the way of carbs because of blood sugar, fat taxes would be incredibly annoying.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Which TV shows have the highest body count?

Hitchhikers. Entire human race (less two) destroyed in first episode. Entire universe destroyed in subsequent episode.

Still going to suffer from the Gorilla-arm problem.

I am glad someone else still remembers this. When I was an undergraduate it was the canonical example of bad UI design which looks cool on paper. Seemingly half the world doesn't remember this -- or at least the half that designs UI in film and games. (I wince every time I watch Joker use the console in Mass Effect -- his arm is half suspended in the air all day and he has those brittle bones. He's got to be in agony by the end of shift.)

[andrewducker]

Yeah - they look awesome, but ow,ow,ow.

I was playing Dance Central yesterday, and the menu selection method there is to wave your arm up and down to select an option and then swipe it across your body to select it. Fine for occasional use, but long menus start to ache pretty quickly.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Heh... when playing "Red Steel 2" I had a sort of "tennis elbow" from hours of wiimote sword fighting. Then, I think that was actually sort of meant to happen.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

After watching people with Ipads and smartphones awkwardly using them on public transport where they're clearly not able to hold them or use them at an optimum comfortable angle, my suggestion would be that comfort/ease of use isn't necessarily a priority for a lot of people as opposed to perceived faux low tech ie "you just have to touch it!" ease of use and the appearance of using/owning it.

If you had a leap thing like that but on a surface angled at 45 degrees-ish in front of you, slightly higher than a normal keyboard would be, that might be more comfortable and hopefully not too sore on your neck.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

The ideal is presumably to have something which is super intuitive at first, but over time yonaturally use smaller and smaller motions until youre just twitching fingers the minimum amount.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

> Hitchhikers. Entire human race (less two) destroyed in first episode.

You probably don't see all the bodies on screen.

[steer.livejournal.com]

I would rather change the tone wouldn't it?

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

The Incredible realtime lighting demo crashes my browser (Firefox on ubuntu)

[andrewducker]

That's a shame - latest version of Firefox?

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

12.0

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

I installed google chrome on the same OS - it gets as far as a black screen with some c-like source code on it, and "compiled with errors".

[andrewducker]

Googling "Ubuntu webgl" throws up all sorts of problems. I suspect there are driver issues.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Non-stick coating> cool!

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

The fat tax piece is a good start, but it leaves out the effects of a fat tax on non-fat people, the question of whether eating less fat is a reliable method of losing weight, and whether losing weight is a reliable method of improving health.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

EXACTLY!! To do more good, it shd be a SUGAR tax. In fact just ban the stuff outright...

but point also on the lack of connection between excess weight(bodyfat%) and health...

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

If sugar were banned, there would be large negative health effects from imprisonment and from organized crime fighting over territories.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

+1

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

Over here in the States, the first step would be to remove the subsidy from high-fructose corn syrup.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Right. Increase the tax to zero.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Also the question of whether eating less fat/sugar is a reliable method of improving health whether or not you a)start out fat and b)loose weight.

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Which TV shows have the highest body count?

It's a bit of a cheat to put two vampire shows in there isn't it?

So that's why Midsomer Murders never sold to the US. Couldn't stand the competition.

Angry Birds and murder

[sandy666.livejournal.com]

Well, Coronation Street was used to plan a murder recently. Some kid/young man got the idea from Coronation Street and decided to apply what he learnt from the show on his parents.

If Coronation Street can inspire I murder, then I guess anything can. However, I would have thought it Coronation Street would inspire murder.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Isn't it in the food industry's interest for customers to be unable to use the last amount of sauce in the bottle and so, over a lifetime, buy more bottles of sauce than they would have needed if they had been able to use all of it?

[andrewducker]

Yes. But there's also an advantage to being the swish new brand that has a definable advantage.

If you think people will buy your stuff because your bottles are made from awesum powah, by more than the amount that you'll lose through wastage, then you'll do it.

And then so will your competitors.

And then you'd look like an idiot if you went back to the old way.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Unless, of course, said bottles aren't cheap or as easily recyclable :-)

[andrewducker]

Oh yes, if people _won't_ buy more of your stuff because of that, or the cost is too high, then the technology will just vanish.