Interesting Links for 30-11-2017

[andrewducker]

"It’s a Dead Issue”: Fantastic Beasts Director Defends Johnny Depp

(tags: abuse johnnydepp movies harrypotter jkrowling )

Belief in our moral superiority is the most irrational self-enhancing bias of all

(tags: bias morality psychology )

Here's the thing about "just joking."

(tags: humour society psychology racism )

White men facing money trouble tend to cling to guns for power, identity

(tags: guns usa psychology identity )

Brexit bill: Will we ever know a precise figure?

(tags: UK europe money )

Trailer for Marvel Studios' Avengers: Infinity War

(tags: Trailer marvel movies )

London suburbs set for housing boom as Sadiq Khan relaxes rules

(tags: Labour London housing GoodNews )

Stress during pregnancy affects the size of the baby

(tags: babies stress )

Low vitamin D levels at birth linked to higher autism risk

(tags: autism vitaminD )

Why you’re more likely to remember something if you read it to yourself out loud

(tags: reading memory sound )

Mulan: Disney casts Chinese actress Liu Yifei in lead role

(tags: Disney china )

One-third of UK dieters have used slimming pills bought online - many of them dangerous

(tags: diet drugs safety uk web )

First electric train runs full Edinburgh-Glasgow line

(tags: Scotland trains transport )

Terrorists 'certain' to get killer robots, says defence giant

(tags: robots automation weaponry military thefuture )

'Evil racist': how the UK reacted to Trump's Theresa May Twitter attack

(tags: twitter politics racism usa uk )

As Meghan Markle Chooses To Become A British Citizen I Just Wait For My Wife To Be Able To Come Home

(tags: immigration UK OhForFucksSake )

Comments

EGIP

[danieldwilliam]

Well done EGIP. Rail electrification will mean that hundreds more fathers get home in time for bedtime.

And I look forward to the eventual Greater Edinburgh and Glasgow Metropolitan City Region Co-Prosperity Sphere going live.

But more importantly I'm waiting for the line out to East Lothian and the Borders Coast to be improved.

Re: EGIP

[andrewducker]

Any news on the East Coast line?

(Also interested in any opinion you have on the bitcoin article I posted this morning)

Re: EGIP

[danieldwilliam]

It looks like it has been delayed until 2022 or beyond.

Still supported in theory by the Scottish Government but a new study to be commissioned to report in 2020. The next round of the railway infrastructure plan runs 2019-2024. Lots of warm words from Humza Yousef, not much action.


http://www.rages.org.uk/LatestNews.html

I would not be surprised if it got pushed in the plan running from 2025 onwards.

Which is unhelpful if you want to increase the numbers of people who could commute to Edinburgh from the Borders Coast.

And particularly if you, yourself, might be one of those communters.

Re: EGIP

[andrewducker]

Shame that.

Would you really want to move out of a place on the Meadows?

Re: EGIP

[danieldwilliam]

The plan I have in my head is that we would have the option of moving out there during the school summer holidays. I'd take some time off work but for the rest of the holiday I could commute in to Edinburgh by train and MLW and the Captain could have a coastal holiday.

And we would rent the Edinburgh flat out for more than we rent out the cottage.

Not sure I'd want to do that every year but I wouldn't mind the option.

Re: EGIP

[andrewducker]

That makes sense. Summer semi-holidays there would be terribly pleasant. I hope they get a move on and build out the transport links!

Re: EGIP

[danieldwilliam]

It's a bit of hydra project. For the project to go ahead it needs capital committments for the stations from the Scottish Government, the East Lothian council for East Linton station and the Scottish Borders Council for Reston station. They probably also need some Westminster capital funding too. In parallel it also needs a new train path plan that has space to run between Berwick-on-Tweed and somewhere like Alloa (it being easier to turn the trains around at stations other than Edinburgh. None of this is impossible, it just needs to be done in the right order and with people making committments at the right time.

I am not expecting it until 2022.

Depp

[danieldwilliam]

So, I think Yates position is that he doesn't believe Depp did the things Amber Heard says he did so he's happy to keep working with Depp.

Am I reading the article correctly there?

Re: Depp

[andrewducker]

Something like that.

He seems to be claiming both that it didn't really happen (see http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/amber-heard-domestic-abuse-photos_us_574f30e3e4b0ed593f131187 for evidence it did) and that it was qualitatively different to what Weinstein was doing (Which it was. But that doesn't make it ok or better).

Re: Depp

[danieldwilliam]

No, I don't think it's better than Weinstein either. Different. Well somewhat different.

And those photographs suggest that to me that probably a reasonable person might not believe Depp or be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Which I think might make Yates position less tenable.

Re: Depp

[alithea]

That's certainly my reading of it too.

Re: Depp

[danieldwilliam]

That doesn't strike me as an entirely unreasonable position absent my knowing much about Depp,Heard, their relationship or how close Yates and Depp are.

I personally am inclined to give more weight to Heard's position but someone saying "He's my mate, I don't believe he did the things he's accused of, so I'm going to keep working with him" doesn't seem very evil.

Compared to say, a writer or director who knew that Weinstein was a serial abuser and kept quiet about it because they were worried about their own income.

Re: Depp

[danieldwilliam]

Andy has pointed me in the direction of an article which I think makes me think Yates ought to do more due diligence on his mates.

Re: Depp

[alithea]

I think the base issue here is that men tend to believe other men they like over women and to not take into account that how a man behaves around his male friends can be very different to how he behaves in his marriage in private.

So while it isn't the same as men knowing about Weinstein's behaviour and keeping quiet, it does play into the same culture of devaluing women and their experience.

Re: Depp

[danieldwilliam]

Excellent point. Well made.

Re: Depp

[miss_s_b]

This

[momentsmusicaux]

Those new trains are so ugly though, with that yellow snub node at the front. I presume that's a carriage connector thingy so that they can be stuck together in longer units, which will give more flexibility as currently IIRC they have 4-car units which are indivisible, and the only thing to do is double them up.

But still. Ugly.

[miss_s_b]

I wish I wasn't something people try to avoid risk factors for.

Killer Robots

[danieldwilliam]

I think the House of Lords is right to be a bit worried about killer robots.

I'm not suggeting that the technology is uncontrolled or trivially easy to replicate but getting a hundred small aerial drones armed with a simple shotgun to fly out of a container and autonomously roam around looking for faces to shoot is far from impossible.

And if you are a terrorist organisation it doesn't matter much if your failure rate is higher than would be acceptable to a state actor. In some ways random killer robots are mor scary than tightly controlled killer robots in the same way rabid dogs are scarier than well-trained guard dogs.

Re: Killer Robots

[andrewducker]

Oh brave new world that has such etc in it.

Re: Killer Robots

[andrewducker]

Yeah, semi-autonomous drones are common, my phone can recognise faces, and strapping a weapon onto one would be fairly easy. The genie is thoroughly out of the bottle.

Re: Killer Robots

[danieldwilliam]

Watch out grey squirrels and other invasive species.