Interesting Links for 15-01-2018

[andrewducker]

Eliza Dushku speaks out about being molested age 12

(tags: abuse Child_abuse hollywood )

Data Wing is the best mobile game I've played.

(tags: game review phones )

Legal marijuana cuts violence

(tags: violence murder marijuana drugs usa legalisation )

"People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did you do and do you regret it?"

(tags: Hawaii nuclearweapons )

Rape Culture, Autism, Ableism, Body Language and Consent

(tags: consent disability rape RapeCulture autism )

The US commando who vanished in Vietnam, and then reappeared 40 years later. Or did he?

(tags: identity war vietnam history usa )

Virgin Trains will stock Daily Mail newspapers, says Richard Branson in U-turn decision

(tags: DailyMail virgin trains )

First-time buyers see biggest rise in asking prices (because they're exempt from stamp duty people can afford to pay more)

It's fairly simple economics - (most) people pay as much as they can afford per month. So removing stamp duty was never going to actually lower the prices. The only way to do that is to...produce more housing supply.
(tags: housing uk )

Seattle builds new apartments, rental prices drop

(tags: economics housing usa )

Meet Science Cat!

(tags: cats science funny comic )

Comments

[drplokta]

It's actually not true that most first-time buyers pay as much as they can afford per month. Lenders won't let them borrow that much (especially since the Mortgage Market Review a few years ago), so that they have some cushion for emergencies or interest rate rises. First-time buyers borrow as much as they can, but that's not enough that every spare pound they have is going on mortgage repayments. Can't comment on the linked article specifically, since I helped to write the report that it's based on.

[miss_s_b]

God the Virgin Trains/Daily Mail thing is so infuriating.

[momentsmusicaux]

> As you play, the story unfolds in surprising ways. You meet friendly malware that tries to tempt you, and peek into the innermost thoughts of the user.


Hmm, a bit like the Talos Principle then?

[andrewducker]

That's on the list, but I haven't played it.

[momentsmusicaux]

Ah. Shan't say more then. Spoilers!

Virgin Trains will stock Daily Mail newspapers, says Richard Branson in U-turn decision

[jack]

I've no idea what's right here but I feel like train companies should avoid "U-turn" headlines :)

"People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did you

[jack]

Ouch :(

It's interesting that many people went for "it's probably a false alarm", but many people didn't. I think I didn't realise how serious it was at first because my reaction was more likely to be in the first camp (though if I'd lived somewhere with building tensions, I'd be more likely to think it was real)

Re: "People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did

[jack]

For that matter, if it happened for real, I've no idea how widespread the attack would be: I'd expect the most likely thing to be *one* ICBM from NK, but taking cover may still be worth it if it lands far enough away.

Re: "People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did

[danieldwilliam]

Wikipedia has a digest of public sources on the North Korean nuclear capability.

They seem to have about 60 nuclear weapons with the largest probably 50 kilotons in size, perhaps 150 kiloton. (The Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombs were about 20 kilotons.)

They also seem to have a long-range ICBM that could reach Hawaii but isn't reckoned to be very accurate at that range or particularly reliable.

So, based on that, if the North Koreans launched, say 30 missils (the largest strike on Hawaii they could whilst still leaving themselves enough warheads to threaten to destroy South Korea?) then depending on the how the ICBM's performed you could get 0 out of 30 being effective. They miss, fail to detonate, the warhead detaches from the ICBM on re-entry, the ICBM fails. Or 15 out of 30 being effective. The difference being that you have some damaged ocean in the best case scenario or in the worst case scenario pretty much everyone on Hawaii is killed.

Oh, and everyone in North Korea is killed by the US retalliation and the resulting famine.

Re: "People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did

[jack]

Ah, right, thank you for filling in some actual details. That is much more capacity than I'd imagined (although I imagine "hiding because it might not be as bad as it could be" is still a worthwhile strategy in a way it might not be in an even larger nuclear exchange)

Re: "People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did

[danieldwilliam]

I was surprised by how high the estimates of the North Korean capability were but I suppose once you've built the first one then you are just repeating the process over and over again. It's not like they get used often.

There were some comments buried deep in the reddit discussion by someone who seemed to know what they were talking about saying that getting under cover and hiding were always worthwhile. The effects of the explosion are unevenly distributed. Lots depends on the structure you are in, the atmospheric conditions, wind direction, etc etc. He cites the case of a woman who survived one of the Japanese bombs 300 meters from the explosion.

Re: "People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did

[jack]

I suppose once you've built the first one then you are just repeating the process over and over again.

That makes sense.

I also wasn't sure if they'd automatically have more than one long range missile, but I guess if I underestimated the nuclear capability I probably underestimated that as well.

getting under cover and hiding were always worthwhile. The effects of the explosion are unevenly distributed.

That makes sense. That is roughly my intuition, even though I don't have any particular knowledge. I mean, it may not have a high chance of helping, but it MIGHT help. I also imagine, if you feared an all out USA-Russia exchange you might feel there was a lot less point trying to survive, whereas if you fear a limited exchange, it's more worth giving yourself a chance of surviving.

Re: "People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did

[danieldwilliam]

I think definately the size and scope of the attack you are expecting makes a difference to one's decision about seeking shelter.

If you are expecting a full on USA vs USSR nuclear exchange with multiple warheads aimed at every city, warhead sizes up to 1 megaton and a mix of airbursts and groundbursts then, if you live in a major city, I think a safe place probably doesn't exist unless you have a really good and deep bunker already prepared. I might well be inclined to kiss my wife and pour us both a large Scotch and be done with it.

If you are expecting the full first-strike capability of the North Koreans (30 missiles with 30 warheads of a size between 50-150kt) then getting under cover seems like a good thing.

For comparison, a 150kt explosion over London is estimated to kill 300,000 people and injure a million but large parts of even what I would consider central London are very survivable in. I get the impression that taking a few precautions (getting in the cellar or the smallest room in the house, sealing the doors and windows against radioactive dust) could make a big difference compared to being outside.

A 1MT explosion kills 1.2 million people and injures 2.6 million with blast effects out to Richmond.

If North Korea launched 30 missiles at Hawaii, that's a different story to them launching 30 warheads at the western USA where there are about 30 cities with a population over 500,000.

(I seem to have inherited a morbid fascination with this topic from my mother, who, if I recall correctly, was President of the Medical Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons.)

Re: "People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did

[andrewducker]

Yeah. It happening with a text is one thing. If the TV is broadcasting it and the sirens are going off...

I can't believe how long it took to tell people they weren't actually under attack!

Re: "People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did

[jack]

It did also occur to me that if sending the "THIS IS NOT A DRILL" message lit off sirens and red lights, someone might have noticed they needed to cancel it earlier. (Or maybe they DID notice but the UI for cancelling it wasn't clear.)

Re: "People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did

[drplokta]

There was no way to cancel it. The Hawaii state government had the legal authority to send out a warning, but not to cancel a warning. They had to get the FEMA to sign off on the cancellation, which is why it took a while.

Re: "People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did

[andrewducker]

Ahhh, thank you! I hadn't encountered that!

Re: "People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did

[drplokta]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/01/14/hawaii-missile-alert-how-one-employee-pushed-the-wrong-button-and-caused-a-wave-of-panic/?utm_term=.6a5f7bc09658

"The state agency had standing permission through FEMA to use civil warning systems to send out the missile alert — but not to send out a subsequent false alarm alert, he said."

Re: "People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did

[jack]

Oh! No, I hadn't seen that either. Thank you.

OK, that makes more sense, although, while I can see how they might have ended up in that situation, that itself seems less than fortunate. (Apparently now they did put in a "False alarm, disregard" message.)

(That also fills in some details I was unaware of, like they were apparently not blaming or naming whoever erroneously pressed the button, and the system did activate TV warnings not just text messages.)

Re: "People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did

[movingfinger]

Oh God, and FEMA is run by those clowns at "Homeland Security" now.

Re: "People who made an impulse decision when they found out Hawaii was going to be nuked, what did

[jack]

:(

Re: Rape Culture, Autism, Ableism, Body Language and Consent

[calimac]

"Mixed messages," as I've seen the term used in actual usage, and in various contexts, not just in contexts of sexual consent, does not necessarily or even usually mean that some of the messages are explicit "No." Or explicit "Yes" either. It's more usually used to mean a collection of unclear implications, none of which are explicit anything.

Please be aware…that not everybody is on Facebook

[franklanguage]

It's difficult—and annoying—for me to try and view FB content posted in your links; just putting that out there.

Several years ago I was banned from FB (their loss!) so I'm not likely to be signing up for a new account anytime soon.

Re: Please be aware…that not everybody is on Facebook

[andrewducker]

Sadly she only posted it on Facebook. If she'd put it on a blog I'd have linked to that.

(I have several non Facebook readers, so I try to avoid linking to it directly.)

[danieldwilliam]

The sort of capacity overbuild that Seattle might be seeing seems pretty common when two markets are linked but have different time horizons. The market for oil and for oil rigs for example.

Science Cat!

[agoodwinsmith]

Thank you!

[pseudomonas]

Other ways of potentially reducing land prices include land value taxation, and (if you like that kind of thing) direct rent controls. While increasing housing supply is a good way of reducing housing prices it's not necessarily the only way.

[andrewducker]

I'm against rent controls. I'm in favour of building enough property that we have sufficient for everyone to live in.

[pseudomonas]

I didn't say they were equally good options, just that they were alternatives depending on your political angle and how you construe the problem.

And clearly if the problem is insufficient housing, rather than "just" overpriced and unfairly-distributed land, then yes, building more is the only solution.

(for the record, I'm against rent controls, in favour of LVT, and in favour of increased housebuilding, as well as better regional development strategies)

[drplokta]

But we have no need to reduce land pricing. Land only costs around £10,000 per acre, you just aren’t allowed to build houses on it, so the tiny tiny amount that you’re allowed to build on soars in price. If we allow you to build houses on say 30% of the land, far more than is needed, then the price of land for housing will fall back close to £10,000 per acre (except in the middle of big cities).