Interesting Links for 01-10-2017

[andrewducker]

The pragmatic case for moving Britain’s capital to Manchester

(tags: uk politics viaFanf )

Is The Everything Bubble Ready to Pop?

(tags: economics debt bubble )

Video gamers have a learning advantage in uncertain situations

(tags: games learning psychology )

Is she Photoshopped? In France, they now have to tell you

(tags: Photoshop advertising models )

The World According to Dan Brown

(tags: writing )

Right to Practise Music Upheld by UK Court

(tags: music uk viaSwampers law )

Comments

[toothycat]

Is practicing with an electronic piano and headphones less useful? Am not musician, genuine question.

[andrewducker]

I believe the mechanical feel is different, and the movement of the keys is not nearly close enough for someone of a concert standard.

(Good starting point, of course)

[calimac]

If you're a concert-level pianist, it's absolutely not a substitute. You need a piano as close as possible as the one you'll be performing on. Key feel, sound quality ... it's all totally different. Even I, who am not a pianist, can feel the total difference between playing on a piano keyboard and an electronic one.

[nancylebov]

I'm surprised the bubbles in everything doesn't include a bubble in education.

[danieldwilliam]

I understand some people believe there is a bubble in education.

US colleage fees appear to have gone up and the number of people with degrees has also gone up.

[rmc28]

Bagehot agrees with me! (the excessive centralisation of London has been bugging me for years, plus no-one would design a parliament like Westminster if you were doing it from scratch)

[andrewducker]

Absolutely! (On both counts)

[calimac]

Pols to Manchester:

One argument is that the proposed site would have enough room for chambers large enough to hold all the members. The lack of room in the current ones is considered by some to be not a bug, but a feature. When the Commons was bombed during WW2, Churchill instructed it be rebuilt the same size. He thought the intimacy of the size was an advantage in the debate.

I hope nobody brings up the notion that the opposite-stalls layout of the chamber is responsible for the two-party system. Lots of historians claim this, but it is utter rot, complete nonsense. Details on query.

I think the article underestimates the social chaos which a move would generate. So much of what makes London what it is comes from the capital being there. If it were to move, it would devastate London and put unexpected burdens on Manchester, and the larger and busier a city Manchester is, the greater the burdens would be, as it would interfere with what's already going on there. Interesting historical point: Do you know why the Vichy government was in Vichy? They had to leave Paris, which was in the occupied zone, and Vichy's signal advantage was that it was a resort town, and therefore had enough hotel rooms to accommodate an entire government moving in on it. That's the sort of thing you have to think about, but don't. Manchester is a business center: how many unoccupied hotel rooms does it have, or where else would everybody stay?

[amaebi]

I will never trust the plumbing-of-depths of someone who thinks double cream in tea is elegant.

[agoodwinsmith]

I am wondering whether video games attract people with a particular skill set, so that what the study is saying is that people who play video games are good at tasks that are similar to video games. Which: yay, but so?

I'm thinking about this because my Dad is being tested for his driving skills, to determine whether or not he may keep his driver's licence (we suspect no, but the process is so lengthy that by the time we get an answer, the results will already be half a year out of date - this is a long time for someone suffering a progressive cognitive decline).

The first test given to the drivers was a computer test. A group of people come into a computer lab and take the test (or a variety of tests) together. No one needs to pass out tests, collect tests, mark tests, or tabulate tests. Not only less paper[1], but more efficient.

My Dad is 84. He used computers for the last ten years of his working life, and he continued to use computers at home for budgeting and household expenses and so on. His neighbour down the road, a friend from his chapel, took the test about two years before Dad and failed the computer part of it and so was not permitted to go forward to the physical driving test. The neighbour has never used a computer for any purpose. So, the test inadvertently measured two things: ability to use a computer and knowledge of driving law. If I asked you to write down your answers in cuneform on a clay tablet, you would never be able to tell me all that you know.

So - what is that study about people who play video games actually testing. The study could have been much more interesting.

[1] - less paper if you don't count the letter inviting Dad to the test, the letter sent by his doctor requesting the test, the letter about the results sent to his doctor, and the letter sent to Dad - as well as the records kept by the testing agency[2].

[2] - yes, I know that the booklets previously provided to people learning to drive, or brushing up their knowledge of the finer points, are no longer printed but only available online (problem for Dad's neighbour again), but that just means that someone like my Dad prints out the whole thing - single sided.

[naath]

Parliament needs to go back a millenium and go on tour :)