Interesting Links for 09-12-2017

[andrewducker]

A guide to Bitcoin: The amazing investment based on dream gold invented by a wizard

(tags: Bitcoin satire funny )

Women can't sing rock: The Middlesbrough bar which bans female-fronted bands

(tags: women music OhForFucksSake ViaDrCross )

Korea is obsessed with Bitcoin

Also, I flew to Venice a few days ago and the in-flight magazine had _seven_ full-page ads for either Bitcoin or other blockchain/cryptocurrency technology. I wonder how much more ridiculous things can get.
(tags: bitcoin )

Couple Abandon Baby Because She Received A Blood Transfusion From A Transgender Woman

(tags: india transgender lgbt viaSupergee OhForFucksSake )

Theresa May’s Brexit deal ‘hard to reconcile’ with UK leaving the single market and customs union, EU says

(tags: europe uk )

Silicon Valley Is Hiring Models To Go Their Holiday Parties

(tags: party Technology business women OhForFucksSake )

A guide to Parliament’s Brexit tribes

(tags: UK Europe politics )

Healthcare for American Small Business Owners is Awful

(tags: healthcare usa OhForFucksSake business )

Learnings from a Mental-Health First-Aid course

(tags: mentalhealth )

My Lousy Children Are Both Fake Geeks

(tags: children geekery funny )

Trade talks will not start until February at earliest, EU tells UK

Maybe by then we'll know what we want out of them?
(tags: UK Europe trade )

Does Socialism Make People Happy?

(tags: socialism happiness europe )

Lithium-ion battery packs are $209/kWh, down 24% from a year ago and 80% from 2010.

(tags: batteries GoodNews )

Americans have to put up with Square Dancing because Henry Ford was scared of "negro music"

(tags: history dancing usa WTF racism )

Photo-realistic lip-sync from text

(tags: video technology voice )

How Patreon Sees Things

(tags: money CrowdFunding OhForFucksSake )

How William Carlos Williams’s famous poem about plums in the icebox became a meme.

My favourite: https://twitter.com/FW_Medieval/status/937726166785581057 Hwæt! þēos plumas þe in icebox wære swylce þu ge-saving hǽdfe for þæm breoc-fastum eaten hæbbe ic. Me forgif mine gyltas for synnum minum Swæt wǽre swa swa ceoll frofer mannum. Þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg.
(tags: poetry meme )

Comments

[miss_s_b]

I'd like to introduce that bar to Doro Pesch, Orianthi, and my fist.

Cryptocurrencies?

[dewline]

"No thanks" to Bitcoin and the like.

[calimac]

The William Carlos Williams poem was (has been?) a recurring meme in Making Light for quite some time. I'm not sure I can find the first instance, but there are some great plays with it here (read the comments):

Keeping the form and changing the content

Keeping the content and changing the form

[andrewducker]

Thank you, those were very entertaining.

[calimac]

There's a lot more in there somewhere.

I forgot to mention my recollection of how this first came up in Making Light, though I may not be remembering this correctly. It was an anecdote of a book editor using the form of the poem to write an apologetic note to an author (I don't recall the topic). The author did not get the literary reference, and was rather annoyed.

[danieldwilliam]

Looking at Gove and Davies since the Brexit Exit "deal", and their statements that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and that the British people can renegotiate the deal if they like and the mutterings from the DUP that they'd like to look at some of the detail in more detail I'm not surprised the EU is a sceptical that Britain actually has an agreed negotiating position to which the EU can agree.

I think the chances are about 50:50 that the current deal on the border unravels before Easter.

[cmcmck]

Women can't sing rock?

Try telling that to Janis, or Siouxsie or Patti Smith or..........

[agoodwinsmith]

Bitcoin = tulips.

(Tulips grow in every garden[1], but people at the beginning got bit hard - wait.)

[1] - fcv of "every garden" for the purposes of this pithy remark

[movingfinger]

The possibilities for abuse in the "Obamanet" project are glaringly obvious, or should be. I wonder whether they got permission from him to use his image and voice for the experiment.

[andrewducker]

I suspect they'd claim fair use.

[danieldwilliam]

Looking at the chart in the battery article, roughly the price of lithium-ion battery packs has been dropping by 20% a year since 2010.

In order to hit $100 a unit in 2025 the rate of change would need to fall to about 10% a year for the next 6-7 years.

I think the current rate of change is likely driven by economies of scale (ramping up for actual industrial production) and learning curve effects - so I don't disbelieve a fall in the rate over time, but there is a marked change between the future and the past.

[naath]

I rather enjoy square dancing, but twhat's some nasty racism lurking behind it.