Interesting Links for 18-07-2017

[andrewducker]

A List Of Times Doctor Who Was Ruined Forever

(tags: drwho funny )

Scientists marvel at creatures' precise body clock

(tags: time genes life )

Taiwan woman divorces husband who ignored her messages

(tags: communication relationships divorce marriage )

Is Love Racist? The TV show laying our biases bare

(tags: love relationships viaSwampers race uk )

Custos startup uses bitcoin bounties to make pirates rat on one another

(tags: piracy copyright bitcoin )

UK students should not try to pay off loans early

(tags: tax students uk )

Pay-per-mile road tax plan wins £250,000 Wolfson economics prize

(tags: tax cars transport economics viaSwampers )

Humans hardwired to lean to the right while kissing the world over

(tags: psychology romance kissing )

Manchester’s bike-share scheme isn't working – because people don't know how to share

(tags: sharing society bicycles UK manchester )

Flow battery developer ViZn Energy says it can pair solar and storage for 4¢/kWh

(tags: solarpower batteries electricity )

Generating random English place names

(tags: geography names AI England )

Doctor Who: We regret to inform you that you are still legally a man

(tags: drwho law lgbt transgender uk )

“Board game of the year” goes to Kingdomino (my copy arrives today!)

(tags: games )

A brain implant turns “loser” mice into aggressive fighters

(tags: mice brain aggression personality cyborg )

Programmers discuss "What's the worst thing your code has done?"

(tags: fail programming )

Smoking in the UK now down to 15%, government aims for 12%

(tags: smoking uk )

Advertising watchdog to get tough on gender stereotypes

(tags: advertising stereotypes gender uk )

Comments

Taiwan woman divorces husband who ignored her messages

[jack]

Yeah; ignoring "I'm in hospital, can you visit" is a very high level of ignoring messages! I feel like there's some cultural differences I'm missing even before that. For that matter, the husband is clearly not doing the "marriage" thing, but I generally prefer a country defaulting to no-fault divorce; if she *feels* like the marriage has broken down it basically has whether you can prove it in court or not.

Is Love Racist? The TV show laying our biases bare

[jack]

I have a weird tension here. I feel like, people *are* under an obligation to test out their boundaries and (probably) discover that "I don't fancy people of X race" was just a prejudice they get over.

But if they really try and really can't, sometimes you just can't control your sexual attraction. And you need to not make a big noise about it and write angry thinkpieces about "my prejudices are a natural law for everyone", and not rub people's faces in the fact you don't fancy them. But also, not force yourself to date people who have no attraction towards.

But I'm not sure if that's a reasonable compromise. Particularly in race; sexual attraction is really weird, but "only attracted to people of my own race" doesn't seem to be a thing (more attracted maybe, and "can't be bothered dating ignorant majority makes sense, but not as a "my orientation is....") But I don't want to pre-judge which orientations actually exist and which don't.

UK students should not try to pay off loans early

[jack]

That makes sense, although I'm always hesitant at people's complete omission of any possibility the government won't suddenly change the rules again to force everyone with a loan to pay more, given that's what the whole system seemed set up to do from the start. I mean, I hope they don't, and it seems likely the same logic of that article would apply in either case, but I expected them to say, "even if the government removed that cap, if there's a 9% repayment rate for life, it's better to pay for life that try to pay the loan off now" not "well, here's the current situation". I've read other articles talking about "oh my why on EARTH might people not want to take loans out when the repayment terms are so clearly specified and generous (but can be changed at any time)" and ground my teeth.

Manchester’s bike-share scheme isn't working – because people don't know how to share

[jack]

Having bikes where you don't need to find a vacant rack at the other end does sound very good. It's a shame it doesn't seem to be working :( I guess, paying remotely helps, since you can charge people if they just disappear with it, but not enough, judging by the "it's still on the system, but in my house" stuff?

Doctor Who: We regret to inform you that you are still legally a man

[jack]

Indeed, although I think the doctor is probably much worse off than that, in that he seems to usually have no legal status on earth at all (albeit one he can usually skirt with one-off hacks or plot-dodges).

Advertising watchdog to get tough on gender stereotypes

[jack]

Yes! I remembering hearing this from Sweden and it seemed really good. It's hard to eradicate gender stereotypes, but not constantly bombarding everyone with them all the time is a very good start!

A List Of Times Doctor Who Was Ruined Forever

[calimac]

Perhaps you might be amused to know that the first time I was informed that Star Wars had been ruined forever was when The Empire Strikes Back came out. Yes, really. I think the person was upset that Luke suffered.

Scientists marvel at creatures' 'precise' body clock

[calimac]

Judging on when they expect to be fed, our cats haven't got it.