Interesting Links for 02-04-2018

[andrewducker]

Responding To The Lib Dem Policy Consultation on Immigration

(tags: libdem immigration OhForFucksSake )

On discovering that you're not a failure - you're a penguin

(tags: penguins autism diversity )

New favourite theory about Mad Max

(tags: movies funny australia )

Check out this amazing hyper realistic painting of a cat!

(tags: cats art )

America is a dystopia

(tags: usa dystopia OhForFucksSake school )

Frodo Laid a Geas (I really ought to re-read LOTR)

(tags: lotr magic )

Cuttlefish does an amazing impression of a hermit crab

(tags: animals impressive ocean )

Heavy metal imagery to help with depression

(tags: depression HeavyMetal )

Men's ideal Hugh Jackman vs Women's ideal Hugh Jackman

(tags: gender society )

Why Do Cracking Knuckles Make That Noise?

I really wish mine didn't need to do it intermittently
(tags: bodies sound )

Vince Cable on internet regulation

(tags: regulation internet libdem )

How Amsterdam is reducing child obesity

Annoying that the article leads with the exercise, rather than the advice on healthy eating, the dieticians, and the banning of junk food advertising on the subway/sporting events.
(tags: obesity children netherlands )

The flags of most countries are really new

(tags: flags history )

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

The downfall of Australia was caused by the reaction of the population to the ball tampering scandal. The population were unable to reconcile living in a world where Australian cricket is ridiculed by everyone rather than feared with the national pysche of Australia. So the Australian government took the bold step of severing all contact with the rest of the world by pretending that a nuclear war had broken out between Russian and the UK over the soccer world cup. The whole desert wasteland business is just a cover for the rehabilitation of David Warner. Mad Max is a roman a clef for Max Walker.

Anyway, Australia isn't a cricketing nation, we're a Thunderdome nation now.

[danieldwilliam]

Flags - ever controversial.

[cmcmck]

As far as I know no one has written a US based dystopia.

Perhaps it's time for a US 'Nineteen Eighty Four' or 'We'?

[andrewducker]

The Handmaid's Tale and Revolt in 2100 are both set in theocratic dystopias in the USA, I believe.

[theandrewhickey]

And, just off the top of my head, The Iron Heel (the first modern dystopia), The Running Man, The Hunger Games, most cyberpunk, the Judge Dredd series, and It Can't Happen Here.

[jack]

Many of the most famous do seem to be non-american. The internet suggests Farenheit 451, Blade Runner, Running Man and a bunch of cyperpunk though.

[nancylebov]

I expect that the Amsterdam program will have little effect on childhood obesity and will increase eating disorders.

[momentsmusicaux]

'Check out this amazing hyper realistic painting of a cat!'

I was dreading a rickroll.

[andrewducker]

Would I do that to you?

[danieldwilliam]

Andrew Hickey does not sound happy with the Lib Dems policy consultation at all.

And I think rightly so.

[andrewducker]

Yes. It really does make me worry sometimes.

[threemeninaboat]

Yup, American schools are exactly like that.

[andrewducker]

If more Americans knew more about the rest of the world, I reckon they'd be aghast.

[threemeninaboat]

Nope, our priorities are violence. Football, military.

[calimac]

Actually, Frodo isn't casting a geas; he's displaying foresight, something he and other characters do quite often during The Lord of the Rings. Though if you want to make the geas argument, I'm not really going to object.

What's going on here is much less Frodo using the Ring than the Ring using Frodo, who inevitably has come to too close association with it. Observe what Frodo is doing immediately before Gollum's attack, which is reaching for the Ring against his own will.

Nor is he "filled with energy" after this scene, though he does manage to walk - slowly - by himself, which he hadn't been doing before. But Tolkien addresses that as well: it's having to defend himself physically against a direct attempt by Gollum to seize the Ring that roused what little energy he had.

Also, I think they're totally misreading what Galadriel says about access to the Ring's power, but let that pass too.

[andrewducker]

Cheers - I figured I could rely on you for a solid, educated, response!

[calimac]

I don't mind if you have to crack your knuckles occasionally, just so long as you don't do it to pass the time while seated next to or immediately behind me during the quiet passages of symphony concerts, a choice of venue that some of your knuckle-cracking brethren seem fond of.

[andrewducker]

I do try not to do it in that kind of situation. I figure I can manage a little bit of discomfort to avoid disturbing others.

[darkoshi]

I'd like to know what makes some knuckles crack (and feel stiff/uncomfortable until they are cracked), and others not. (Also why some people have cracking joints, and some don't.) My finger knuckles rarely if ever crack. My spine has cracked as long as I can remember. My neck started cracking one and a half years ago, and I still don't know what triggered it.

[channelpenguin]

Me too! My fingers and toes do not crack. Almost everything else does. Especially my right hip - which is loud enough to draw startled glances and comments from other people. That hip has an unusually shallow socket - I wonder if it is relevant. The left hip does not crack.