Interesting Links for 01-09-2018

[andrewducker]

Mystery of the cargo ships that sink when their cargo suddenly liquefies

(tags: ocean shipping physics materials viaFanf )

The Howard Rule: A Modest Proposal for Libdem policy

(tags: libdem politics uk )

Well this is one of the least Jewish things I’ve ever read...

(tags: Jews OhForFucksSake middle_east )

American border police are defending them against...Dungeons & Dragons Artists

(tags: dungeonsanddragons immigration usa OhForFucksSake )

EAT CHEESE LIVE FOREVER EAT CHEESE NEVER DIE

(tags: cheese journalism funny satire research health )

The Irreverent Joys of a Japanese Sherlock Holmes

(tags: tv SherlockHolmes Japan viaSwampers )

How well does population density predict U.S. voting outcomes?

(tags: voting demographics statistics usa )

Maersk installed 100-foot-tall rotating sails on one of its tankers to cut fuel costs

(tags: ocean shipping wind )

The Dark Core of Personality - I scored 2

(tags: evil psychology testing )

You are mostly not stardust.

Nor, as autocorrect would insist, are you mostly starfish.
(tags: physics space )

Comments

[aldabra]

I score 2 too. But I dispute that "It is hard to get ahead without cutting corners here and there" belongs. I think it's true, and I think the correct response is not to try to get ahead, and I don't think that's a Dark Core symptom.

[andrewducker]

I'm not sure I agree. You can get ahead by cutting corners in the short term, but it catches up on you, and you spend more and more effort covering things up until it's taken more effort covering up than it would have done to not cot corners in the first place.

[jack]

It sounds like more of the problem is in thinking of getting ahead as a competetive event. Whether "cutting corners" is a problem seems to be a question whether you consider "not cutting corners" to be "an appropriate, balanced amount of thoroughness" or "thoroughness over practicality to the maximum possible extent."

Like, I went to some effort to cut corners MORE and do things "well enough", as an alternative to trying to do things perfectly and never finishing.

But I'm fairly sure that when people took about malevolence, they're not talking about that, but about cutting corners which are very likely to bite SOMEONE on the arse, but they hope to be someone ELSE.

[calimac]

Very much agree with "the Howard Rule". A number of comments:

1. The old Liberal Party used to define itself, not as centrist, but as at the liberal end of the spectrum where Con and Lab were authoritarian. It only looks centrist if you turn the spectrum 90 degrees. They made something of a fetish out of this principle. But that would seem to be forgotten by today's LibDems. (SDP influence?)

2. There has rarely been such a thing as a liberal Home Secretary. The job seems to attract illiberal people. R.A. Butler and Roy Jenkins are about the only exceptions since WW2, and even they got worn down. I only set that time limit because I don't know all the ones before that, though some of them (Joynson-Hicks) were even worse than their appalling successors.

3. "Think tank" politics, where you don't get elected but your policies are enacted, has another good example in US politics: Eugene Debs of the Socialist Party, ran for President many times, never got a large vote, but boasted that his politics had eventually been taken up, especially by FDR. (Which is why Republicans called FDR a Socialist.)

4. References to framing the political discourse (small parties punching above their weight, "compromising" with opponents who refuse to move) is an evocation of the concept of the Overton Window.

CHEESE!

[agoodwinsmith]

Just a bit of Wensleydale, then. :)

(That was brilliant.)

[armiphlage]

Cargo liquefaction, once you know it can happen, is probably best addressed by longitudinal baffles and applying the Free Surface Effect* equations. More reliable than monitoring the cargo, as there's little you can do if it starts changing phase in the middle of the ocean.

(*it's what took out the Spirit of Free Enterprise).