Interesting Links for 18-06-2017

[andrewducker]

On Empathy And Autism

(tags: empathy autism )

NASA's Wild Fabric Is Basically Chain Mail From the Future

(tags: materials nasa Technology )

If regulations were followed, the Grenfell Tower inferno should have been impossible

(tags: architecture design fire safety epicfail OhForFucksSake uk regulation )

Amazon has a patent to keep you from comparison shopping while you’re in its stores

(tags: amazon patents OhForFucksSake )

"Out for the Count: What I learned At the Election Counts."

(tags: elections voting scotland )

"Please Make Yourselves at Home in My Airbnb and Have Sex"

(tags: sex housing funny )

Tories refused to build new social housing because of Labour voter fears

(tags: politics housing uk )

Woman who urged her boyfriend to commit suicide found guilty in his death

(tags: death suicide law usa )

Comments

[xenophanean]

I didn't actually make it through Autism and Empathy, I totally agree that characterising May as Autistic and then beating on her for something Autistic people aren't was pretty shitty and inappropriate behaviour, but after that it started really digging into neurotypical people.

Honestly, I don't appreciate it, just because we've got sometging which makes our lives difficult doesn't give carte blanche to start casting aspersions on the majority of other people. There are indeed some awful neurotypical people who make life incredibly difficult, and there's some awful non-ASD but also non-neurotypical people who make life difficult too.

I don't hold with making an out group and beating on them, I find it depressing. And although I'm not the most ASD person I know, this is totally in my name.

[theandrewhickey]

A few things about that:
First, I tried to address your main concern in a paragraph you probably didn't get to if you didn't finish the piece:
"(Yes, I’ve just done precisely that separating in-groups and out-groups thing, and unfairly demonised an out-group based on it. Hurts, doesn’t it? I actually took about twenty goes to write that paragraph because I didn’t want to unfairly hurt my friends with neurotypicality, even though I think that kind of paragraph is absolutely necessary as a rhetorical device in this post.)"

Secondly, you refer to "some awful non-ASD but also non-neurotypical people". You're using the word neurotypical differently from how I'm using it. I'm using it *very specifically* to describe only people who are not autistic. This is the original meaning of the word, as it was coined by the Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical back in the late 1990s ( the website does not exist any more, but there's an archive.org snapshot at http://web.archive.org/web/20060105221838/http://isnt.autistics.org/ ). The more recent dilution of the term to only refer to people with no neurological or mental health issues is something I get quite angry about -- it's the appropriation of a bit of autistic culture, and it leaves us without a useful term. I continue to use the word as it was originally intended, as a descriptor for people suffering from neurotypical syndrome.

And finally, you say "this is totally in my name". No it isn't. I don't speak for anyone other than myself, never have, and never will. It's in *my* name, which is in the URL of the site. If you don't like people being lumped into groups, don't then also try to limit my speech by saying I must represent everyone in a group rather than my own opinion.

[calimac]

Then maybe, just maybe, you ought to consider not making sweeping statements about categories.

I mean, the opening sentence, though no doubt intended rhetorically, is so sweeping that it renders the immediately following critique of sweeping categorization into something comic, and not in a good way.

single transferable voting

[calimac]

"The maths in this can be quite daunting ... Fortunately it is done by computer."

That it's daunting is something I've long known. That it's done by computer is obvious.

But STV is older than computer-counted balloting. The question I've long wondered is, how was it counted before then?

Re: single transferable voting

[iain_coleman]

Slowly.

Re: single transferable voting

[po8crg]

Slowly.

There are several STV algorithms (which are slightly different). Some, such as the original Hare method (which involves doing a surplus by randomly selecting which votes to transfer) are particularly easy to do manually.

Others are designed for manual counting, but involve noticeable amounts of calculation - possible by doing lots of multiplication and division on paper, but much easier with access to an electronic calculator.

The Newland-Britton method (used in Lib Dem internal election) is one such; so is Weighted Inclusive Gregory (used in Scottish local elections). I have counted elections manually using the Newland-Britton method and a pocket calculator, or more recently the calculator app on a mobile phone for many years. I could count WIG as well.

Finally, there are methods that effectively require a computer because they are iterative, these are Meek and Warren, and they require solving infinite series (they converge, but still...)

Re: single transferable voting

[naath]

You first need to know how many votes are needed per seat, then you know how many votes A actually got. now one - t'other is 'surplus votes' got. Each of these votes is still worth 1 vote but you don't know *which* those votes are, so you reassign *all* the votes for A into new piles and tag them as being worth surplus/total each (you get a lot of piles...). Alternatively randomly select the right number from the pile (this is easier to do, but less good).

Re: single transferable voting

[calimac]

That's how STV works. That I knew. What I was asking was, how do you count it? With a large electorate (and one of the points of STV is to have large constituencies), doing all those piles by hand, especially since you then have to calculate percentages of their contents, seems practically infeasible.

Re: single transferable voting

[matgb]

You write in pencil on the ballot paper the new value of each vote. I've done this (once) for a student society election, and have no intention of doing it ever again, 100ish votes was annoying enough but it was viable.

I haven't read the records for how it was done for the Westminster seats that used to use it, nor for the Irish/Northern Irish elections that used it, but doing it manually was the norm for a long time.

[conuly]

Wait, Amazon has a what now? This IS the company that tacitly encouraged everybody to check their prices while in physical stores, right?

[calimac]

Just not their stores.

I expect they're probably Republicans.

[conuly]

No bet.

[matgb]

Observation: having a patent for a technique isn't the same as using the patent, it can simply be used to stop anyone else from doing it. Note it's only if you're using their free in store wifi and there's no evidence they've deployed it anywhere, merely that they've got a patent for it.

[momentsmusicaux]

> It might notify an Amazon salesperson to approach the customer. Or it might send the customer’s smartphone a text message, coupon or other information designed to lure the person back into Amazon’s orbit.

That's not new. John Lewis has had that for years, just implemented differently ;)
It has a great big 'never knowingly undersold' policy, so you just want up to a shop assistant, say 'hey this is on sale for less at this store' and they'll match the price.