Interesting Links for 22-02-2018

[andrewducker]

Amazon Studios to Adapt Consider Phlebas, First Novel of the Culture Series, for Television

I mostly want it to be successful so they make Player of Games.
(tags: Amazon TheCulture tv IainBanks scifi )

Hundreds Of Homeless Slaves Recruited On UK Streets (Government completely incompetent)

(tags: slavery UK homelessness OhForFucksSake )

Scottish Greens won't enter budget negotiations next year unless council tax reform is underway

(tags: tax Scotland GreenParty )

Disneyland withholds bonuses for hotel workers until they agree to contract offer

(tags: Disney pay money )

I am _fascinated_ by how badly KFC have cocked up their deliveries

(tags: kfc food transport epicfail )

Japanese 'Prince' Switched at Birth Was Raised a Pauper

(tags: epicfail identity Japan children )

Wrong haircut? No education for you!

(tags: school hair UK OhForFucksSake )

Ancient Britons 'replaced' by newcomers, 4,500 years ago

(tags: prehistory uk europe )

Whovian Feminism — A #MeToo Moment Unfolds At Gallifrey One

(tags: drwho women abuse acting )

Disney loses bid to stop Redbox from selling its digital download codes

I wonder if this would also apply to reselling music CDs after Amazon has applied the downloads to your account
(tags: copyright Disney movies )

The environmentalists using gene editing to wipe out invasive species

(tags: environment genetics )

Major study finds that anti-depressants work. Which is good, because up until now we've just been plugging random chemicals into people's brains without any testing.

(tags: antidepressants research )

TV viewing is dropping, and advertising along with it

(tags: advertising tv )

Europe forces UK to stop poisoning its populace

(tags: pollution UK Europe )

Boston Dynamics is teaching its robot dog to fight back against humans

(tags: robots war )

Why Is the Manhattan DA Looking at Newsweek’s Ties to a Christian University? (The Editor's Notes are _astonishing_)

(tags: media journalism OhForFucksSake viaSwampers )

Comments

[cmcmck]

Wrong haircut? That one I know.

Back in the day I had very long hair. You know why I had very long hair, but the educational authorities thought I was being 'difficult'.

Result? I left school at fifteen unqualified.

Beaker People

[danieldwilliam]

What have the Beaker People ever done for us?

Re: Beaker People

[anef]

They seem to have developed the prototype for the reusable coffee mug.

Re: Beaker People

[danieldwilliam]

And thus invented the economy of the 21st Century.

Neolithic Britain

[danieldwilliam]

So I think my current understanding of the Neolithic in the British Isles is

There was more impressive stuff than we initially thought

the culture seemed to spread southwards from the Orkney Islands

There seemed to be interconnected and large trading and cultural links

It went a bit wrong probably because of climate change and the population started falling

The Beaker People turn up, possibly with some nasty diseases, and move in to the British Isles that are less full than they used to be. The Beaker People don't do big projects.

[alithea]

It's good to see we finally have some decent data on the effectiveness of anti-depressants. Interestingly enough, mine, which has seriously changed my life, is on the list of most effective ones. Hopefully this will help my case when I go back to my GP and tell him I don't want to come off it.

KFC

[danieldwilliam]

The KFC difficulties are perhaps a preview of the absolutely worst case Brexit situation - the one where we stuff up the negotiations very badly but still leave and discover that we can't move any lorries in or or out of the UK and all the food trucks are stuck on an overflow on the M2.

[simont]

I mostly want it to be successful so they make Player of Games

Never mind the TV adaptation of Player of Games, when can we buy the board game? :-)

[danieldwilliam]

In Azadian Empire, game plays you.

[redbird]

You're right about the editor's notes on that Newsweek article.

[movingfinger]

On television advertising and viewing: We watched all of Galavant this past weekend. "Half-hour" episodes were 21 minutes long because of the enormous amount of time allocated to advertising. I believe this is true of most broadcast and cable TV now, and it's why I don't bother with TV.

[movingfinger]

On Boston Dynamics: the original spec for the projects was written in the late 1980's or early 1990's, and it was specifically for something intended to function in a policing and war context in urban/built-up settings (thus, the spec for smaller-than-doorway size). The bipedal bots (Atlas) are to spec. The search-and-rescue usage line is BS and the "oh they're too noisy" line is also BS. These are designed and intended to be used against humans.

My first reaction on seeing the early concept was that this is evil and my feeling has not changed. The benign reception of the "cute" videos is disturbing.