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.

[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.

[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.