Interesting Links for 24-07-2017

[andrewducker]

How to view and download ransomed Photobucket gallery images, on a per-image basis

(tags: photos internet )

Labour would take Britain out of the EU single market, Jeremy Corbyn says

(tags: immigration Europe Labour OhForFucksSake )

Jeremy Corbyn: Student debt write-off not a commitment

(tags: debt students labour )

People to be allowed to pick their own gender without doctor's diagnosis, under Government plans

(tags: gender law uk )

An interesting snippet of an interview with Jodie Whittaker, in light of her casting as Doctor Who

(tags: drwho acting gender )

"My father-in-law won't become a coder, no matter what economists say"

Pssssst, basic income...
(tags: employment jobs Technology )

How are things going with the Hugo Award attempts to deter slates?

(tags: voting awards hugo )

World's first floating wind farm emerges off coast of Scotland

(tags: Scotland windpower ocean )

Many of the best Scrabble players are Thais who don't speak English

(tags: language games )

'A misuse of scarce funds': NHS to end prescription of homeopathic remedies

(tags: homeopathy NHS GoodNews )

Etobicoke "park stairs" story is a perfect example of the anti-regulatory nonsense that led to the Grenfell disaster

(tags: regulation safety )

How 1967 changed gay life in Britain: ‘I think for my generation, we’re still a little bit uneasy’

(tags: lgbt UK history )

18yo arrested for reporting a bug in the new Budapest e-Ticket system

(tags: crime bug OhForFucksSake transport epicfail )

Wisconsin Company Offers to Implant Microchips in Employees

(tags: technology cyborg usa )

Why Brilliant Girls Tend to Favor Non-STEM Careers

(tags: gender science research bias )

Comments

[cmcmck]

I'll be glad if the gender laws make things simpler and I speak as one who had a lot of hoops to jump even though being so long transitioned and of the 'first generation' to benefit from the new laws as they were in 2004 gave me free pass past a lot of them.

Some of us favoured non STEM careers 'cos we're academic historians!

[andrewducker]

Which would be partially the point - you had a facility with something other than maths, and so could get a job that wasn't mathy.

[danieldwilliam]

It's not often I'm tempted to use "game changing" when looking at technology but those floating wind turbines might well be game changing. They open up vast areas of sea to commerical energy generation. It's the technology that might theoretically allow wind to supply 100% of energy demand and leaves the arguement down to one of cost.

[andrewducker]

I'm intrigued to know the cost of the power they'll produce.

[danieldwilliam]

I believe that these prototype units cost something like twice the current cost of offshore wind. Whether that it is twice the cost you are paying if you install a sea bed mounted wind turbine today, July 2017 or twice the cost you would expect to pay if you were ordering an offshore wind turbine in July 2017 for delivering in 3-5 years I'm not sure. There is some indication that offshore wind turbines for delivery in 2022+ are cost competitive with other generation without subsidy.

In any event, these 5 units cost a lot, but StatOil must be targeting a cost that makes them subsidy-free competitive in the next few years.

"My father-in-law won't become a coder"

[jack]

The CNMB articles seem to spend a lot of effort tactfully saying "ok, what I'm about to say isn't 'rah, capitalism', but might it possibly be worth listening to anyway...?" :) I dragged myself past that to the actual conclusions.

Previous innovations have indeed been pretty bad to people who's jobs were replaced. No work on the farm? No work in the mill? No work for people who can't read? The people who owned the stuff could replace people with machines, make more money, and leave people with no income to starve, or become dependent on state support. So-called luddites had a very valid objection to technology, they didn't dislike it on principle, they disliked it because they might starve.

But in the long term, it's hard to say society would be better if were were all hunter gatherers and never invented artificial medicines etc.

In the short term, mechanising might not be worth it if owners were directly responsible for the continued wages of workers they replaced. But in the medium term, it probably would still be more efficient even if they continue paying wages forever for workers no longer needed at their old jobs (as they do indirectly, via taxes).

What would be desirable is a way to allow transition without ruining people's livelihoods along the way. As you say, a basic income seems like it might be a good candidate. It may not be worth an individual company retraining someone nearing retirement. But if society as a whole viewed retraining as a natural expectation, rather than a grudging concession, it might be a lot more possible.

This time might be different

[andrewducker]

I agree that that industrial revolution worked that way. I'm not so convinced that the next one will.

Previous industrial revolutions replaced human strength, boosted human mental capability, used human agility, and relied on human intelligence. This one looks to replace all of the above.

We're racing ahead, and the question is - what jobs will still exist to retrain people into, in a decade or two?

Re: This time might be different

[movingfinger]

...what jobs will still exist to retrain people into, in a decade or two?

Pink collar heavy-emotional-labor jobs such as child care, nursing, and teaching remain, which men like the writer's father will not stoop to fill, are already going begging because men for whom those jobs might be possible to do have been socialized to consider that work demeaning.

Re: "My father-in-law won't become a coder"

[danieldwilliam]

I think the distinction between boosted and replaced that Andy touches on is a useful one.

We are perhaps tantalisingly close to a situation where your house is watching you and if you want a thing your house orders it, a machine receives the order, makes the thing, a machine carries it to your house which receives the thing and money is exchanges, perhaps without you actually being aware that you wanted the thing or any actual human beings being directly involved in the process - loo roll and pasta just turns up.

And that might happen quickly and very comprehensively and displace tens of millions of workers.

Observations from previous industrial revolutions suggested that there was more boosting of human abilty and less replacement of human ability and that the boosted humans got paid more and this created demand for other boosted humans to do different work and mostly everyone was better off. At the same time more products became available, either because their manufacture was now possible, or now cheaper or because there was enough extra wealth to create useful demand. Things like antibiotics, glassware or newspapers become mass market.

I think there is a risk this time round firstly the pace and depth of change catches unawares. (I fear this in particular because my take away from the de-industrialisation I've seen in the UK and the Rust Belt of the US suggests to me that it's much, much harder and longer for communities to bounce back from industries moving out or de-manning.) I have a fear that this time round we have more replacement of humans than boosting so there are fewer newly boosted humans earning boosted wages. Thirdly, I fear that therefore the proceeds of the next industrial revolution end up with owners of capital who (when private citizens) have less marginal propensity to consume and therefore we might get fewer jobs created where human character is an integral and distinctive part of the product. Art, works of artistic craft, counselling, advise and guidance, performance, science.

What might happens is a citizens income by the back door where a large number of the current middle class discover that the returns to capital are so high and goods so cheap that they are able to join the idle rich on a modest monetary inheritance. We are looking in this scenario at deflation running at double digits for a decade. These people then leave the labour market or take up paying hobbies.

Or we might get a middle ground where deflation of goods happens and this allows lots of people to pay for extra human-in-the-loop activities.

But I'm not at all sure this is guaranteed.

Re: "My father-in-law won't become a coder"

[jack]

I'm also unsure about the no atheists in foxholes, no Ayn Rand supporters in unemployment.

There definitely are people who are unemployed who still buy into the "everyone is able to work, they just need to try harder" mentality. Sometimes very hypocritically, sometimes with great integrity, sometimes tragically.

I'm unconvinced that "the only thing that matters is who you are in the worst possible situation", which seems to be a common implication, as in the atheist-foxhole thing. I agree, that can be important. Sticking to your principles when it's really hard to do so is really hard and really worthwhile.

But I don't think it's the *only* thing. Most people break eventually. If someone lives in an abusive household, eventually escapes, and builds themselves up into a well-rounded healthy compassionate successful person, does the self they put effort into not count, because they failed to be that person under years of abuse? When they see everyone they know die horribly, many people LOSE faith. See the genre of WWI poetry. Does that mean atheism is the one true way? I think not. But people somehow think that if you gain faith from fear, not reason, or love, that somehow counts?

How are things going with the Hugo Award attempts to deter slates?

[jack]

It seems comparatively positive. In particular, the requirements that any changes need to be voted through in two successive worldcons seems to have done a good job at turning out some sensible proposals. In 2015, I was annoyed there was no way to emergency ban the troll entries. But in retrospect, it was worth having two years of turmoil and a *good* amendment to the voting system, than a quicker fix (especially considering how easy it is to put in something badly thought out).

Reading the post in more detail also made me realise, I'd got the impression E Pluribus Hugo would lead to less ability to nominate multiple works, but it seems, it doesn't, which makes me a lot more positive about it. I should have realised that earlier, but I correctly expected that whatever passed was probably a fairly good proposal.

The one thing I'm not sure is covered is, I would really like it if pre-approval, or being voted below no award, removed a work's "finalist" status. But I do see how that could lead to recriminations if people campaign against valid but disliked finalists.

Re: How are things going with the Hugo Award attempts to deter slates?

[theweaselking]

The three-stage-voting process would eliminate "finalist" status from items that didn't make the final ballot.

Submitting a proposal such that works and people who lose to No Award shall not be considered Finalists would be fine, but it would be new this year (assuming you could get it into the meeting) and wouldn't take effect until after 2018 ratified it.

re: EPH: The design goal of EPH and EPH+ is that no individual should be punished for nominating any thing or things, but no *group* of identical or near-identical ballots should be able to dominate the process. You and your closest 100 friends can get *anything* on the ballot, but you have to either pick one thing or accept that *one of* your picks is making it on, but not necessarily your first choice.

[movingfinger]

World's first floating wind farm emerges off coast of Scotland is a splendid headline. I hoped to read about Aquaman overseeing a coalition of exasperated marine life heaving it above the thundering waves, having resorted to building it to show the thickwitted humans how to generate electricity without destroying their habitat.

[jack]

Ooh, aquaman for sea power mascot!

[heron61]

Why Brilliant Girls Tend to Favor Non-STEM Careers
I'm unimpressed with this article, because the authors are sloppy and clearly have at least a strong a bias as any they are claiming be working to counteract. For example, there's this bit:

Women preferred working with people, whereas men preferred working with things, a preference that is detectable within the first two days of birth and among our close species relatives, rhesus monkeys!

First off, the rhesus monkey study is utter nonsense of the "evolutionary just-so stories" school of evo psych, and numerous studies have shown that infant (and presuming much later) behavior depends on how adults react to the infant, and gender difference reverse entirely in infants labelled as the other gender, because adults treat them very differently.

The studies quotes about "gender differences in interests" are both US-based, I'd be very interested to see the results of similar studies done in Iceland, Norway, Finland, or Sweden (the 4 best nation (in order) for overall gender equality. Also, as some quick googling revealed, at least in Sweden, problems persist. I have yet to see any explanations of this gap that can be accounted for by overall cultural sexism.