Interesting Links for 07-05-2018

[andrewducker]

"My little Step-Children" - for your child who really wants to be a wicked step-mother

(tags: children funny )

Sometimes people's lack of understanding of difference boggles me

(tags: People wtf )

SkyKnit: When knitters teamed up with a neural network

(tags: knitting ai )

The UK has fewer beds per head compared to virtually all other EU nations, fewer doctors and nurses, reduced access to investigations such as MRI scans, and is spending less on medications

(tags: nhs UK health money )

What did Marx have to say about "sexual redistribution"?

(tags: sex communism )

Possibly the worst password advice of all time

(tags: passwords OhForFucksSake )

Turns out it mostly isn't automation which is costing Americans their jobs

(tags: usa jobs automation )

Deadlock in a divided country - what the local election results mean for the UK

(tags: uk elections politics )

Comments

[coth]

Now that article about manufacturing statistics is _really_ interesting.

[andrewducker]

I'd love to hear more about it - whether others agree, or if there's a rebuttal.

[danieldwilliam]

I'm still thinking about it.

I'm a bit suspicious of any position that is essential that the national statistics office is wrong and no one else has spotted it.

[skington]

I appreciate that you have absolutely no free time at the moment, so just add this to your wish list: it would be quite useful if your link-sharing tools realised links from your tumblr are nearly always you reblogging stuff, so would fetch the original tumblr post instead.

[andrewducker]

I have no idea how one would even do that kind of thing!

[skington]

If the link is to andrewducker.tumblr.com, fetch the page and find the first link to a tumblr.com URL inside the div.post-content tag?

[andrewducker]

Might work, but looks like it wouldn't work for all layouts, so it'd be fragile.

Also, I'm not sure what's being gained by this?

[skington]

It doesn't have to work for all layouts, surely? Just the one that you use?

And the benefit is that the link goes to the thing you actually liked, rather than a page on your own tumblr saying “I liked this thing”, which adds an extra level of indirection and indentation; the latter can be significant given how unreadable tumblr can get when there's many comments and the layout indents each level of quoting.

[andrewducker]

Also, it's led a good few people to find my Tumblr, which has been very handy.

[calimac]

Stepchildren: My favorite story involving the "wicked stepmother" stereotype comes from a woman who said that her small son, thinking he was being crafty, asked her, "Are you my real mother or my stepmother?" When she replied, "Oh, I'm your real mother," being even craftier he asked, "How do you know?"

The mother's account didn't say whether she then fell on the floor laughing, but I did.

Understanding differences: I'm reminded of the conservative US Supreme Court justices not grasping that non-Christians see crosses on graves as a Christian symbol. To these guys, that's just normal, what you always see on graves.

Local elections: Does UKIP run in local elections? (I'm tempted to ask snarkily, why?)

[andrewducker]

I love that story!

UKIP do. And they went from 126 seats to...3, which I find thoroughly entertaining.

(Presumably they do so because it keeps them looking like a proper political party, and gives them more opportunities to spread the word.)

[jack]

I was going to say "not anymore" :)

I mean, other than hating what they stand for, I think it's a sensible strategy, even if your stated goals are all national level. Firstly, in many political systems, gaining traction in local politics is usually necessary to gain visibility in national issues. Secondly, even if you don't have any *specific* local manifesto items, people who support what you stand for can vote for you and get "that general sort of thing".

It'd make sense if there were more different local and natioanl parties for different issues, but it doesn't seem to happen.

[danieldwilliam]

UKIP do run in local elections.

There's a strong correlation between holding seats at local level and going on to win seats at Westminister - local councillors are a gateway to MP's.

I don't think it's the case that all of UKIP's policies are at a national level. They have views on many local issues which are shaped by the sort of nation they want to build (white, Christian, socially conservative, law and order).

There's been a big, big swing away from UKIP over the last 18 months. Mostly to the Conservative Party but many of the socially conservative, economically left-leaning former Labour voters have gone back to voting Labour.

If we are very lucky UKIP will cease to exist as a practicable political party just before Brexit is reconsidered. I don't think the UK deserves to be that lucky.