Interesting Links for 16-02-2018

[andrewducker]

Satire editor wearily hits “Repost” on mass shooting article again

(tags: guns satire usa OhForFucksSake viaSwampers )

Not so fast: why you should think twice before restricting your diet

(tags: health food diet )

The NY Times Fires Tech Writer Quinn Norton, and It’s Complicated

(tags: writing racism society internet journalism )

IRS struggles to convert 50-year-old assembly language to Java

(tags: computers usa programming history java tax )

Undiagnosed adult ADHD could cost UK billions a year

(tags: adhd uk )

Review of The Tyranny of Metrics

(tags: management numbers statistics )

Transgender woman breastfeeds baby in first recorded case, study says

(tags: transgender breastfeeding uk )

Every Single Word: edited down popular movies to only the words spoken by people of color.

(tags: movies race videos )

Things Corbyn has said, done or written re: foreign policy

There are a few of these where I actually agree (Although I might not have phrased it that way). But many where I really don't.
(tags: Labour politics )

Why gun control works and drugs control doesn't. (In the UK)

(tags: drugs guns law uk society )

One year ago: Trump Signs Bill Revoking Obama-Era Gun Checks for People With Mental Illnesses

(tags: guns republicans usa OhForFucksSake )

My employee insinuated I was having an affair … with my husband

(tags: relationships work advice )

The entirely unnecessary demise of Barnes & Noble (appalling, appalling management and terrible business decisions they don't understand how people work)

(tags: business books )

HMRC wins tax case against BBC presenter

(tags: BBC tax uk )

Remarkable secrets of ketamine's antidepressant effect unlocked by scientists

(tags: ketamine depression )

Why "gun training" is not the answer

(tags: guns failure )

Twitter Says Impersonating A Journalist During A Mass Shooting Doesn't Violate Its Rules

(tags: fraud journalism abuse Twitter OhForFucksSake )

See a baby learn in real time

(tags: funny video baby )

Britain's bus coverage hits 28-year low

I wonder how much urbanisation is affecting this
(tags: buses transport uk )

Isaac Asimov's 1964 predictions of 2014

(tags: thefuture Technology asimov predictions )

Sinn Fein claims released documents show DUP walked out on deal to restore Northern Ireland government

(tags: NorthernIreland )

The Alt-Right Is Killing People

(tags: politics murder racism usa )

While the Media Panicked About Campus Leftists, the Far Right Surged

(tags: usa politics racism society university )

Inequality in British society is the biggest Issue that we face

(tags: inequality uk )

Comments

[ckd]

I find it particularly ironic for the NYT to complain about Quinn Norton befriending a Nazi after their publication of a profile of the "nice Nazi next door".

[autopope]

I know Quinn. Not well, but we've hung out a few times and have tangentially intersected via the net for close to 20 years.

I have seen/heard nothing from her to indicate that she's a white supremacist or neo-nazi sympathizer (although absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).

I do think she's a complex cultural critic and she has of necessity hung out with and reported on fringe people, some of whom are now identified as neo-nazis (although I note that when Weev first showed up on my radar — or Vox Day, for that matter — neither of them were forthright racists: either they radicalized some time in the past five years, or they hid it well until recently).

The NYT is worse off for not having the benefit of her reporting, although given the shit-storm that hit when they announced her hiring I can quite see why they didn't want to continue down that path (and I think she handled the fallout wisely, i.e. by STFU, because there is no good way to declare war on the internet).

NB: I stand ready to eat this comment if it subsequently turns out that I've had the wool pulled over my eyes.

[andrewducker]

I think that part of the issue has come down to the meaning of "friends". Where some people are interpreting it as "People I feel really close to, and trust", and she seems to mean it more as "People I can spend some time with and exchange views/have discussions with". And so the "being friends with Weev" has resulted in people thinking she's closer to him than she necessarily is.

[danieldwilliam]

I would be interested to see what the number of people covered by a good bus service was currently and how that had moved.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, me too.

[calimac]

Tweeter writing about drug control and gun control says whether they work is more a matter of culture and of laws. Says gun control works in the UK because of a non-gun-carrying culture, but is not an American, doesn't know American culture, wouldn't know whether it could possibly work there.

Well, I'm an American, and I don't have any idea either. American obsession with guns makes no more sense to me than to you.

[autopope]

Wasn't there a figure that circulated recently, that about 40% of the guns in the USA are owned by 3% of the population?

Americans aren't obsessed with guns: some Americans are obsessed with guns. Reframed in this form, it now looks like the question to ask is, which Americans, and why? Only the NIH are forbidden (by Congress) from collecting figures on the epidemiology of gun violence ...

[calimac]

Care to respond to this guy?

[danieldwilliam]

I have largely given up paying attention to US mass shootings.

What they are currently doing doesn't work. The obvious solution of gun control seems very likely to help and to help more than any convoluted alternatives that are proposed. It's certainly the first thing I'd try if I was concerned about gun deaths in my country.

They don't seem to care about the issue. They seem okay with thousands of people dying each year. They get upset but do nothing. They could fix this problem if they wanted, but they don't fix it, so I assume that they don't want to fix. I'm not going to enable their hypocracy by providing an audience for their mawkish hand-wringing and "Thoughts and Prayers." I assume they are okay with school kids being killed on a weekly basis.

There are plenty of people dying and being killed in countries that want to stop that happening but can't - those people deserve my help, or at the least, my actual thoughts and prayers.

[mountainkiss]

+1

[alithea]

Word.

Although I do feel for the anti-gun campaigners over there who can't effect change because the gun lobby is so powerful.

[danieldwilliam]

They have a lonely row to hoe.

[pashazade.livejournal.com]

+3

I really believed that something significant would be done after Sandy Hook. It wasn't. If you have the power to change this and still do nothing then I assume you are fine with dead six-year-olds.

[danieldwilliam]

Yeah - it was after Sandy Hook that I decided that the USA just doesn't actually care that much. So why should I?

[zz]

just realised i was reading hacker news and expecting to see an OhForFucksSake tag under some headlines :D

[andrewducker]

Certainly sometimes deserves it!