Interesting Links for 28-06-2017

[andrewducker]

Sikh couple blocked from adopting 'due to cultural heritage'

(tags: children race uk )

Abortion should be decriminalised in the UK, says British Medical Association

(tags: abortion crime law uk )

US Support for Same-Sex Marriage Grows Dramatically

(tags: lgbt marriage usa )

How "BBC English" was invented by a small team in the 1920s & 30s.

(tags: English history language bbc )

'Polishing a Rusty Knife' is a perfect video and deserves the world

So satisfying to watch
(tags: knife cooking video )

Dungeons & Dragons Wouldn’t Be What It Is Today Without These Women

(tags: women roleplaying history )

UK police arrest man via automatic face recognition tech

(tags: wales police faces Technology surveillance )

Man just going to ignore new girlfriend’s belief in reincarnation

(tags: relationships satire funny belief )

Slow motion makes soccer referees more likely to give a red card

(tags: time perception sports )

Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?

(tags: publishing research science history )

Ocado's self-drive vehicle makes deliveries in first UK trials

(tags: automation delivery food uk )

I Don't Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People

Which leads into a whole bunch of interesting psychological stuff about what environments lead to people being caring. I strongly suspect that prevarious living situations cause (most) people to care less about others, which leads to continued levels of insecurity.
(tags: empathy caring politics usa )

What Google searches for porn tell us about ourselves

(tags: sex fantasy porn google )

What It Costs to Open a Restaurant in San Francisco

(tags: sanfrancisco restaurant money business design usa food )

Designing an Authentication System: a Dialogue in Four Scenes

(tags: design security computers programming )

Kids who deviate from social norms are more likely to be bullied

(tags: bullying children personality )

Facebook now has 2 billion monthly users

(tags: facebook )

Opt-out organ donation system in Scotland planned

(tags: scotland organs )

Comments

[miss_s_b]

"Kids who deviate from social norms are more likely to be bullied"

... well, yes. Isn't that what bullying MEANS? Rigid peer enforcement of social norms, with violence as coercion?

[andrewducker]

Sometimes it means violence as fun, with targets picked opportunely.

[miss_s_b]

Hmm. I am not sure I buy that. I mean, sure, I can see that on the surface, but even opportunely picked victims almost always have the wrong haircut or "look gay" or whatever.

[andrewducker]

Pretty much everyone has something they *can* be picked on. My experience at school was largely of deeply unhappy kids picking on others because being mean to someone meant they felt better about themselves.

[calimac]

And what makes for the opportunity? Violating social norms, usually. I guess the difference between you and miss_s_b is on a perception of the purpose for doing it, and that strikes me as hard to determine.

[andrewducker]

Being short. Or unwilling to defend yourself. In my experience.

[cmcmck]

That first one is a real OFFS!

The couple are not practising so religion wouldn't be an issue and colour of skin certainly shouldn't be!

That said, they turned us down years back because I'm trans so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

And meanwhile kids in need of a family can stay in need for them.......... :o(

[calimac]

I thought abortion had been decriminalised in the UK (outside of NI) by the Abortion Act of 1967. What am I missing?

I wish people would stop writing longer essays as series of tweets. It's really irritating trying to read them that way.

"I don't know how to explain" is pretty good, and illustrates why I don't get into discussions of that kind, on a lot of topics. I can't think of what to say to people whose minds are so twisted.

If you open an upscale restaurant in San Francisco, you must really want to have it in San Francisco. There's plenty of equally upscale restaurants in less expensive and less competitive, but nearby and attracting customers, in nearby satellite cities like Berkeley (home of the famous Chez Panisse) and Palo Alto. Some of the most prestigious local restaurants are in a tiny outlying village called Yountville (home of The French Laundry and Ad Hoc).

[ETA: Sort of the equivalent of Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons in Oxfordshire, which is roughly as far from London as Yountville is from SF.]

Incidentally, San Francisco itself is about 8 miles square. On London that would stretch from about Whitechapel to Hammersmith, I think. Anything outside that would be outside the city (though bearing in mind that SF is surrounded by water on 3 sides, so most things outside it have to be further away than that). On Edinburgh it would mark an area somewhat smaller than that inside the A720 bypass I see on the map here.

[jack]

I wasn't sure either, but reading the article, it sounds like they're talking about (a) not having a legal time limit (b) not having any specific requirements, like the current requirement to have two different doctors sign off. They don't say about NI.

[matgb]

Abortion Act didn't decriminalise abortion, it allows it in a small list of cases, Wiki summary is
abortion remains officially restricted to cases of maternal life, mental health, health, rape, fetal defects, and/or socioeconomic factors

Basically Doctors aren't supposed to sign off on givign an abortion unless they believe the life or health of the mother or foetus is at risk or the mother would be financially able to provide for the child. There are a bunch of anti-abortion groups pushing for prosecutions of doctors that routinely go way beyond that scope.

We don't have abortion on demand or abortion-as-contraception. Not legally, anyway. Those of us that think we should haven't managed to get far with getting the law changed before now, this will help.

[calimac]

Thank you for clarifying this. I would have phrased the original cry differently - "decriminalise abortion!" sounds as if all abortion is criminal, no small list of exceptions, and that's what confused me - but it's more than clear that there's a lot more work to be done than I thought the 1967 act left unfinished.

Sikh couple blocked from adopting 'due to cultural heritage'

[jack]

WTF? Is there some way that's remotely legal? It sounds like they were turned down before there were any specific children in consideration, so how did they know they weren't *going* to have any children for whom they'd be a bad fit?

I'm not sure what children they're considering here. It's true, I wouldn't like to be raised with *no* connection to my original culture. But surely they have children from "generally british but we don't think about it too much" background? They're not going to miss out on "vaguely british ish" culture whoeever raises them, surely?

Re: Sikh couple blocked from adopting 'due to cultural heritage'

[cmcmck]

See my comment above- the adoption agency seems to get away with the most blatant -isms and -phobias in the name of 'won't somebody think of teh childrenz?' and it's the kids who suffer as a result of this arrant political correctness.

Fwiw, even though they thought I was the spawn of the devil I spent twenty years teaching seriously disabled and terminally ill kids......

I Don't Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People

[jack]

I have actually thought about this somewhat. I think it's partly, people tend to care for people they know personally, and that fails when society has more than hundreds of people in.

And partly, people tend to care about, people like them, because they expect to be cared for if the sort of disaster that might strike *them* happens.

But partly, people tend to be scared that "something for nothing" will lead to a population of layabouts stealing everything worthwhile from the people who made it, and is just wrong :(

Re: I Don't Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People

[calimac]

What that usually leads to is what I call the "liberal for a day" phenomenon. E.g. a conservative politician against spending money on disease research, but makes an exception for TB (or whatever), because his daughter has it. This will incidentally benefit other people with TB. That sort of thing.

What we're seeing here is far more nihilistic.

What It Costs to Open a Restaurant in San Francisco

[jack]

Those details are fascinating.

Re the investment. Yeah, glad he succeeded. If you get a 50% ownership offer from someone who knows your business better than you do, jump at it. But if you get a 50% ownership offer from someone else, however good they may be otherwise, be veeeeeery reluctant.

Re: the bureaucracy, Grenfell was a tragic reminder of how vital having and keeping regulations really is.

But other occasions make me think, this person signing off on this... is this actually really serving a useful purpose?

[amaebi]

Why care about others?

It wouldn't even take ethics or empathy. All it would take is a more enlightened or less myopic self-interest.

We need more movies on the causes of the French Revolution. And on infection. And on public sanitation deterioration combined with increased rates of mortality.

[andrewducker]

True. Although many people don't seem to appreciate the complex worldview that produces. And fall back on "Don't wanna".

[amaebi]

And, in my experience, on "Secondary effects are for sissies."

[haggis]

I strongly suspect that prevarious living situations cause (most) people to care less about others, which leads to continued levels of insecurity.

Massive citation needed on this. Most of the evidence I've seen suggests that people in precarious living situations are more likely to care about others around them and give more to charity as a percentage of income. It's the "I'm all right, Jack" brigade who can get by without help from other people who tend to be selfish.

[mlknchz]

I think Google searches mean less than the researchers claim. Curiosity does not equal homosexuality, or wanting rough sex. They're reading too much into this, just like they did with the study equating Google searches for racist topics with actual racism.
"Google searches are truth serum" is only true to the extent that it IS the truth about what's searched for, not necessarily our FEELINGS about, or what uses are put to, the results those searches find.

[movingfinger]

Jun also did a very charming "Store cat food versus homemade" video:

https://youtu.be/cofNVuXgjsA

and his ramen video is wonderful. So much work goes into ramen.

https://youtu.be/9WXIrnWsaCo

[snippy]

Google searches likely tell us a lot about fanfic writers, something about what people find arousing, and not very much at all about what people actually want to do as part of sex.

[anna_wing]

It depends on what kind of precarious circumstances. Communities and networks can be strengthened by the need to band together for mutual support against a common enemy or adverse situation.