Interesting Links for 29-08-2017

[andrewducker]

Why do poor people vote for the Conservative Party in the UK?

(tags: uk Conservatives advertising poverty )

How a ‘bent’ policeman could be key to clearing a man’s name, 40 years on

(tags: police crime OhForFucksSake viaFJM )

A Failure of Intelligence - how the British Bomber Command failed to identify a massive German threat to their planes

Bomber Command told the crews that their chances of survival would increase with experience, and the crews believed it. They were told, After you have got through the first few operations, things will get better. This idea was important for morale at a time when the fraction of crews surviving to the end of a 30-­operation tour was only about 25 percent. I subdivided the experienced and inexperienced crews on each operation and did the analysis, and again, the result was clear. Experience did not reduce loss rates. The cause of losses, whatever it was, killed novice and expert crews impartially. This result contradicted the official dogma, and the Command never accepted it.
(tags: uk history fail wwii airplanes )

German police raid homes of men plotting to kill left-wing leaders

(tags: violence murder Germany fascism )

10 Disney Princesses Re-imagined as Electoral Maps

(tags: voting Disney viaSwampers funny )

Toyota Research Institute head says full autonomous driving is not even close

(tags: cars automation driving )

Some facts on making money as a writer

(tags: writing business money )

Outline business case published for taking trams to Newhaven

(tags: trams edinburgh )

Why Those Floating Fire Ant Colonies in Texas Are Such Bad News

(tags: insects water usa ants )

Eating triggers endorphin release in the brain

I hadn't realised that endorphins were opioids. And now it makes sense that opioids reduce interest in food - they're part of how the body regulates food intake!
(tags: food brain )

Comments

[cmcmck]

They failed to realise that Luftwaffe High Command had found that fitting a pair of upward firing high calibre cannon in the body of a JU88 (which was a fine night fighter by accident anyway) caused horrific losses which were put down to aircraft failure.

This was only discovered many years after the war.

[danieldwilliam]

I have often wondered how they failed to work out what was going on.

(My grandfather was a bomber pilot. I have a mild family interest in the subject.)

[cmcmck]

My Great Uncle was a tail end Charlie (rear gunner) on Lancasters- he survived the war which was unusual for tail gunners!

I'm a military historian (although of a much earlier period) so..........

[danieldwilliam]

My granddad was a pilot.

He managed to dodge the Luftwaffe but not a heart attack in 1950.

[cmcmck]

Great Uncle Les survived to go down to cancer in the sixties. :o(

[supergee]

The vote thing is another blow to American exceptionalism.

[danieldwilliam]

I skim read the rull tram report. It's very interesting.

I'm generally in favour of the tram extension and I think the report has made me slightly more in favour.

[andrewducker]

Yeah. It's very thorough.

[danieldwilliam]

If we're looking at 2022 before line 1A is finished then it's probably 2024 before they start any work on Line 2.

[andrewducker]

Which seems reasonable - as knocking out Leith Walk and North Bridge at the same time would probably lead to riots.

Still, it's giving the project back some momentum, which is a relief. I was worried the disaster of the original build would kill it.

[danieldwilliam]

I don't even want to think about the prospect of North Bridge being closed.

I think what we've learned as a city is that building trams is much harder than we thought it was and we should approach these projects with a bit of humility.

I think any of the additional lines I've seen proposed (running further out to Newbridge or a line down past the University and the Meadows and eventually to Musselburgh will have fewer problems with obscure and mysterious Victorian pipework.

You are right, it's nice to see the project back on the go.

(I am of course waiting for Elon Musk to bring one of his small diameter boring machines and install a subterranian space laser battery powered light rail system so cheaply that he pays us. I assure you Councillor MacInnes, this boring machine is fully operational.)

[andrewducker]

I think we mostly learned that contracts are hard.

Musselburgh would be good - a long loop out there, round Portobello, and back along London Road to Leith Walk would make me very happy.

I'd be totally up for an underground system if Edinburgh wasn't built on top of so many hills!

[danieldwilliam]

Sadly you are out of luck - the proposed route goes North Bridge, University, Meadows, Cameron Toll, Fort Kinnaird, Craigmillar, Musselburgh.

It's entirely for me to get to work from the gym.

I shan't need it of course because by the time it's built I'll be running ultra-martathons before breakfast just for fun.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes - I'm just hoping that once they've gone to Musselburgh they do the sensible thing and bring it back past my flat ;-)

From which I will undoubtedly have moved by the time it is built.

[danieldwilliam]

Don't worry, you'll have moved closer to the tram network.

[calimac]

Conservative voting: There was a line in the musical 1776 that explained the same thing. "Most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor. And that is why they will follow us ..." and he goes back to singing the rest of "Cool Conservative Men."

I spent too much time trying to figure out those electoral maps before realizing it was just a reproduction of the colors in the illustrations, not an indication of which states were most likely to vote for them.

Autonomous cars: I just happened to finish reading this long article about Google's autonomous-car research. Note, however, that despite all the emphasis on the quantity of research they're doing, there's nothing whatever on how good the results are.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I think it comes down to whether people will accept simply "better than humans" or if they'll require "utterly foolproof".