Interesting Links for 20-12-2017

[andrewducker]

Sugar is 'powerfully negative' for your health

(tags: sugar )

Motoring myths: what ‘black boxes’ reveal about our driving habits

(tags: driving safety surveillance insurance )

In Raising the World’s I.Q., the Secret’s in the Salt

(tags: Intelligence salt )

Oxenfree, unarguably the best game of 2016, is free on GOG right now!

(tags: games free )

Catholics highlight hidden abuse at the Boston Globe

(tags: media abuse newspapers usa )

MPs Have Absolutely Torn Into The Social Media Giants Over Hate Speech

(tags: abuse freespeech internet Google Facebook twitter )

How Machines Learn (a brief, simple, video introduction)

(tags: video ai )

Philosophy Needs a New Definition

(tags: philosophy )

Clients From Hell provides several reasons why you double never go freelance

(tags: clients business OhForFucksSake )

Pesticides even more harmful to bees than previously thought

(tags: pesticide bees )

Uber is officially a cab firm, says European Court Of Justice

(tags: europe taxi )

Amazing, detailed, article on how Google is generating maps that show what people find interesting

(tags: google maps apple )

Why the UK has the weakest hand in the Brexit negotiations

(tags: UK europe )

Comments

[cmcmck]

MP's attacking social media when it's their own hides that are being threatened? Quelle surprise!

Where have they been while the recent online hatefest (not to mention print media hatefest) against trans folks has been going on, I find myself wondering?

[calimac]

Much in that driver-habits article makes a lot of sense. Including that 17-year-olds are safer drivers than 18 or 19-year-olds. When I first drove, I was terrified of high speeds, and on my first long trip on a motorway crawled home at the minimum possible speed in the slow lane. Later on I got more relaxed.

Also about country roads with 60mph limits. This is a huge difference between UK and US practice. In the US, narrow country roads of this kind (and this includes some of what are laughably designated with A numbers) would have speed limits of 25 or 30, and even speeders, which are habitual here, wouldn't take them faster than 45 at most. Whereas in the UK drivers habitually barrel down them at 55 or 60. That seems insane to me, but I had to learn to do it, because otherwise people would pile up behind me honking, and I couldn't pull over to let them overtake because there was nowhere to do it owing to the stone walls hugging the roadside everywhere (something completely unknown in the US).

Another trans-Atlantic cultural difference appears in the social media article, where Yvette Cooper chairs the home affairs committee. In the US Congress, a member of the opposition would never chair a committee. It just isn't done. That's the whole point of having a majority over here: you get to chair all the committees. It certainly isn't that you get to pass all your legislation.

[drplokta]

I drive on a lot of narrow country roads, and no one goes at 55 or 60 on them, which would indeed be most unsafe. They only go at that kind of speed on wide country roads, the ones that are wide enough for two cars to pass each other going in opposite directions, which most country roads are not.

[calimac]

What we have here is different definitions of "wide" and "narrow." The topic was roads with 60 mph speed limits, some of which, as I noted, even have A number designations. All of these are wide enough to allow cars to pass in opposite directions, but they're no wider than that. Iron control of the exact placement of your car on a twisty lane hardly wider than the car is necessary to keep from hitting either cars going the other way on your right or close-in stone walls on your left.

In the US, as I said, even daredevil speeders wouldn't take a road like this at more than 45, and very few country highways here are that narrow. The fact that you consider this "wide" is possibly an explanation for why UK drivers barrel down them at 55 or 60.

On the narrow lanes, as I'd call them, usually not designated with highway numbers at all, which is what you're calling "narrow country roads," they do indeed not go that fast. But on straightaways with no car coming, they still pick up far more speed than one would in the US.

[drplokta]

I assert that your distinction between wide and narrow country roads is useless, since they all fall on the narrow side and so there are no wide ones at all, according to you. And note that the genuinely narrow ones all still have 60 limits.

[calimac]

there are no wide ones at all, according to you

I said nothing of the sort. I'm talking about the roads discussed in the article. To quote from it: "winding roads ... a country road [where] you shouldn't be doing anywhere near 60 mph ... where it is inappropriate to drive near the limit ... rural roads with narrow lanes, blind corners and slow-moving vehicles."

There are plenty of roads in the UK that do not meet that description, and not just motorways. On those, it is perfectly safe to drive that fast (albeit then they tend to drive even faster). But those roads are not on the table in this discussion.

[naath]

A roads vary from 'practiclly a motorway' to 'oh god I'm going tno die why is this road so tiny'. Indeed sometimes the same road... (th A5 begins s an extension of the M54 and turns gradually into a road that is barely 2 lanes). British roads are sometimes stupidly categorised. But I would use "country roads" to refer to roads without a number in rural areas.... which are all narrow.

[calimac]

Well, the people in the article were referring to roads which they consider unsafe to drive at 60 but which drivers take at 60 anyway. Since drplokta and I both agree that nobody drives on 60 on the roads too narrow for cars to pass by, we're clearly talking about the less-motorway-like end of the category of A, and sometimes B, routes.

I'm calling these roads "narrow" because I'm an American, and roads are generally wider here. That drplokta considers those same roads to be wide, because two cars can get by each other without squeezing, to my mind suggests why they drive at 60, which by American standards would be horribly unsafe on such a road.

Motoring myths: what ‘black boxes’ reveal about our driving habits

[jack]

Interesting. Having something in-advance to tell people to knock off dangerous behaviour, rather than waiting till its too late, sounds positively idyllic. But I'm also scared of the intrusiveness, what else might insurance companies decide to monitor, or decide is an unacceptable risk for driving?

Re: Motoring myths: what ‘black boxes’ reveal about our driving habits

[andrewducker]

Well, under the GDPR they'll have to tell you what data they're collecting and how they're going to use it.

Social Media Giants

[elf]

Conservative backbencher Rehman Chishti held up a printed meme showing figures from the crusades with captions about killing Muslims: "That what you see there is not criticising religion, that's completely unacceptable, do you not accept that?"

Milner replied: "I would have to ask our expert teams to look at the content."

US hearings had similar conversations. I always want the authority to then say, "Oh, so you can't explain your policies; you aren't able to tell us what is and isn't allowed on your platform? Then please give us the names of the people who do make those judgment calls, because that's what we're here to discuss. I guess you're just the money managers. We need to talk to the people who make content decisions."

The sugar thing again.

[agoodwinsmith]

Some studies have shown a relationship between lack of insulin in the brain and alzheimers. Here's an example:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150727130816.htm

The previous studies I saw (& can't find right now) indicated that some of the causes of metabolic resistance also damage the brain's ability to use insulin, so obesity is not always concurrent.

[momentsmusicaux]

Freelance with agencies. Best of both worlds -- flexibility of freelancing, and the buffer of a project manager who deals with the clients.

[anef]

Well, being an employee doesn't necessarily protect you from unreasonable clients, particularly if your colleagues from another department frequently sign contracts requiring your input without actually consulting you...

[threemeninaboat]

Oxenfree was great!

[andrewducker]

Haven't got to it yet! Will do hopefully soon.