Interesting Links for 10-12-2017

[andrewducker]

Ballet rotoscope (delightful connection of line and motion)

(tags: dance video Technology )

Membership of Mensa associated with mental and physical disorders

(tags: mensa Intelligence health mentalhealth )

Germany has come up with the best solution to single-use coffee cups

(tags: environment germany )

How to deal with high housing prices

(tags: housing japan economics )

10 Surprisingly Effective 2 P.M. Pick-Me-Ups

(tags: work funny advice satire )

Line Rider synced to Hall Of The Mountain King is a lot of fun

(tags: music animation video )

Widening inequality is largely a US and UK phenomenon – why?

(tags: inequality uk society libdem )

First electric trains to run on Edinburgh-Glasgow main line on Sunday

(tags: Edinburgh glasgow electricity Scotland trains transport )

Global powers lobby to stop special Brexit deal for UK

(tags: UK europe )

iPhone slow? Try replacing your battery

(tags: iPhone speed batteries )

A Cruise Ship Called “The World” Is a Luxury Home at Sea for the Super Rich

(tags: money ship ocean )

The six Brexit traps that will defeat Theresa May | Yanis Varoufakis

(tags: Europe UK greece )

Recycling Chaos in U.S. As China Bans 'Foreign Waste'

(tags: usa China recycling )

EU closes mammoth trade deal with Japan

(tags: Japan Europe trade )

Two-year degrees to lower tuition fees

(tags: education UK )

Bermuda abolishes same-sex marriage after six months

(tags: lgbt marriage OhForFucksSake viaJennieRigg )

Comments

[jack]

"Espresso Georg, who consumes 300,000 cups of coffee per hour is fairly typical and can be used as a representative example of german coffee drinking" :)

[andrewducker]

They do love their caffeeeeeeeine!

The six Brexit traps that will defeat Theresa May | Yanis Varoufakis

[jack]

It feels like, The EU is so much bigger than an individual country, they have all the leverage. It's like a small supplier or buyer negotiating with Tesco -- Tesco's attitude is "here's what we offer, take it or leave it". There are a LOT of details, but the big picture seemed to be like that.

But in Greece's case, the EU were unwilling to do anything that helped (i.e. less austerity -- a better tax system might have been a good thing). And in the UK case, most of what the uk govt wanted was impossible whether the EU were willing or not, but the EU didn't budge on anything else either.

If we get to the level of negotiating any individual details, then the EU's greater preparation, competence, leverage, and resolve will likely overwhelm any negotiation the UK govt try to make, but so far, the uk govt seem to have shafted themselves royally with no particular need to be pushed.

Re: The six Brexit traps that will defeat Theresa May | Yanis Varoufakis

[andrewducker]

Yup, unless the EU decides, in general, to a different approach, the UK is stuck with whatever the bureaucracy pushes for.

And, frankly, Merkel, Macron, etc. seem pretty happy with how negotiation is going.

[momentsmusicaux]

"The U.S. exports about one-third of its recycling, and nearly half goes to China."

What that really means, is, 'There was badly-thought out legislation for recycling which didn't also provide the infrastructure to deal with it, and so for years it's just been handed over to China to be someone else's problem'.

I'm pretty sure I've read the UK dumps a lot of recycling on China too.

[andrewducker]

I don't have a problem with using offshore suppliers for this kind of thing when they're available.

We'll just need to produce our own now.

[momentsmusicaux]

It's a bit of a kludge, and also it's spending energy on moving recycling around which is a bit daft too.

[momentsmusicaux]

Or it could just be that the sort of person who wants to join an organisation like Mensa tends to have those disorders.

I mean, I like to think I'm pretty damn intelligent, and I've never had the slightest desire to join a society in which I can show off / or whose membership allows me to show off that I'm so clever. I'm rather put off by the idea.

Then again, I am not saying I'm in tip-top mental health...

[heron61]

Membership of Mensa associated with mental and physical disorders

Pretty much everyone I know well would be eligible for membership in Mensa, and I know 0 Mensa members, and have in fact only met one person who I've known was a member. My guess is that the key correlation here is high IQ people who choose to join Mensa, rather than High IQ people in general.

[danieldwilliam]

I fully expect a move to two year degrees (perhaps starting very soon after A-level exams and contingent on A-level performance) along with more use of open on-line course, sandwich degrees, part-time degrees tied in to school-leaver / graduate recruitment.

[andrewducker]

Possibly. I'm not sure that most people would be able to learn the same amount in two years that they currently learn in three. And many would struggle without summer jobs to refill their bank balance.

[danieldwilliam]

It depends on the learning impact of summer holidays I think. Does having three months not learning significantly improve one's learning rate and quality?

From memory my university structure was roughly three months of teaching in Autumn -Winter, October to December. Three months of teaching in Spring-Summer Feb-April. Three months of working during the summer and three months of half-terms holidays, revision and exams and deadtime.

If a three year university degree is therefore six semesters then a two year degree aims to cut the final year and do those two semesters during the summer between Year 1 and the summer after year 2.

Financially students would be swapping lower holiday earnings for lower overall costs of getting a degree and entering the full time workforce nine months earlier. That requires a line of credit.

Perhaps we also need to acknowledge the underlying proposal. That the way we designed university education before the second world war as a means of providing education to a small social and academic elite isn't suitable for providing higher skills, knowledge and education to half of the population. That we choose not to provide a luxury good to 50% of the population in the way we used to provide it to 0.5% or 5% of the population.

How a two year degree programme interacts with one of the principles of university education, that you should have first hand access to those doing research and creating the knowledge I don't know. Perhaps it doesn't and perhaps that will have to be okay.

[danieldwilliam]

I'm quite enjoying the concerns that Bermuda has that removing same-sex marriage at this time is a bit foolish given that they want to keep out of the spotlight "for other reasons."

Not sure what the situation pre and post this legislation actually is, I'm not sure I understood the bits about "name without rights changing to rights without the name."

[anna_wing]

What benefit does joining Mensa actually give? If there is nothing substantive then why would anyone who is both highly intelligent and mentally healthy feel the need to join?

[andrewducker]

If one doesn't live in a central place, where there are many other highly intelligent people, then it used to be a way of meeting some people who might think like you, and provide a decent level of conversation.

[njj4]

I was a member of Mensa for about three or four years during my teens. Which was, in retrospect, round about the time my depression started to surface (although I wouldn't recognise it as such until several years later). In my case, I think the two are probably linked: I've concluded that one of the main causes for my depression was the rather aggressively competitive, pressurised and backstabby environment at the school I attended between the ages of 8 and 18.¹ As someone who was academically bright but still something of a medium-sized fish in a large and often hostile pond, easily passing the entrance test for a society that said "yes, actually you are intelligent" provided me with a bit of a confidence boost when I needed it, and put me vaguely in touch with a few groups of clever people who were interested in stuff.

A few years later I went to university and met lots more people like that, and I didn't bother renewing my subscription. But I think I got at least my money's worth during the time I was a member. Looking back on it, though, it is rather the sort of organisation that also attracts some of the sorts of insufferable people I just can't be doing with (eg ardent right-wing libertarians).


¹A 504-year-old independent school that includes D H Lawrence, Ed Balls, Ken Clarke and one of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators among its alumni. I had a scholarship that paid most of my fees, having apparently been deemed one of the deserving poor. I benefited tremendously from an academic perspective, but at a cost to my long-term mental health.

[andrewducker]

Glad you did much better once you left that environment. I wonder how many people it's actually good for.

[njj4]

Thanks. I find it interesting that none of the friends I've kept in touch with have sent their children there. One remarked "he's bright enough to pass the exam, but I want him to be a happy person". It's almost certainly different now - apparently they have a counselling and welfare team these days (rather than a general attitude of "pull yourself together old chap, and try not to let the side down"), plus they went co-educational shortly after the 500th anniversary.

As to how many people that kind of environment is actively good for (rather than merely not doing too much harm, which was probably the case for most of my classmates), I don't know. There's certainly a particular sort of person who actively thrives in that culture, and the current UK government is largely composed of such people. But I'm not sure I'd necessarily say it's been good for them as people. Who knows what worthwhile stuff Boris Johnson might now be doing if he hadn't gone to Eton.

At the time I was rather disappointed at just missing the grades to get into Cambridge, but in retrospect it would almost certainly have been a disaster - for me it would have been essentially another few years of a similar environment. A contemporary who made it into Oxford had his studies interrupted for a year by a nervous breakdown (the warning signs for which had been evident years earlier). I didn't like him and he didn't like me, but I sympathised nonetheless. Meanwhile, at York, I had a moderately wobbly second year but ultimately made it through relatively unscathed.