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.

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?

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!