Interesting Links for 08-09-2019

[andrewducker]

A story about 1,000 baby praying mantises.

(tags:insects viaFJM )

Ukraine and Russia exchange prisoners in landmark deal

(tags:Ukraine russia )

Lib Dems: Why is the party's LGBT+ group angry?

(tags:LGBT libdem politics uk )

GRRM on the Hugo Losers Party

(tags:GeorgeRRMartin party conventions scifi )

What if the Prime Minister deliberately broke the law over extending Article 50?

(tags:law UK Europe politics )

What happened with Stephen Kinnock's amendment, and what does it mean?

(tags:uk law politics europe )

MPs checked with EU chiefs over Brexit delay before passing bill

(tags:UK Europe )

Boris Johnson has chosen the 'left behind' towns he wants to help (and most of them are Tory marginals)

(tags:corruption election Conservatives )

Canada's view: British politics today is what results from the collision of an unstoppable force, an immovable object and a clown car.

(tags:UK Europe Doom Canada )

There are large gender differences in how men and women experience opposite-sex friendships

(tags:gender friendship psychology attraction )

Gender-neutral bathrooms can save women from waiting forever in line

(tags:toilets gender )

Will Brexit Affect Your Prescriptions? (Can anyone explain to me why it's already affecting some drugs?)

Explanation from a friend:
3 factors so far:

(1) Supplier stockpiling = less for immediate demand.
(2) Some drugs now supplied to pharmacies on monthly quota. No backfill if exceeded.
(3)Suppliers agree set price over fixed term with NHS. Value of £ dropping = selling at loss so, some drugs diverted to other markets.
(tags:medicine UK Europe doom )

Comments

[ninetydegrees]

Gender-neutral bathrooms would be awesome. As long as I don't have to see anyone's genitals and pee or worse on the floor or toilets (gender-neutral remark meant at everyone who doesn't pee in the bloody hole or doesn't clean after themselves), yes please. We have gender-neutral bathrooms at work and it's no problem at all.

[jack]

"GRRM on the Hugo Losers Party"

As someone put it, it's a good example of describing how running a large party like that is hard and how things like that go wrong sometimes, and takes responsibility, saying it's GRRM's responsibility, not the cons.

But it seems to miss the problem that apparently most people think it's a party for loses as in "nominees who didn't win" (emphasised by the "make fun of winners" thing, and seems to be how they thought of it in the first year), whereas GRRM claims it's a party for everyone who didn't win (including people nominated in previous years, people who might have been nominated and weren't, etc).

I'm sceptical of this description. That might be how he thinks of it, but it doesn't seem clear. I guess, he got used to running it and just didn't think about it too much, until something went wrong.

I think if you're hosting a party FOR some people, you need to make sure you have room for your guests of honour! Without waiting, or miscommunication. Apparently he didn't think he was doing that, but everyone else did.

It's a good point, that with a lot of categories, and a lot of nominees per categories, and you want to invite them all with +1, there's a LOT of people you expect to invite there. But that's the situation, if he wasn't doing that, he could apologise for not realising how people expected a "hugo loser's party" to mean a party for people who came second. Or run his own party and let worldcon run a losers party.

[melchar]

1000 Baby Praying Mantises was a delight to read. Made me giggle - then giggle more when I read it aloud to my husband - who was also amused. Thankee!