Interesting Links for 24-01-2020

[andrewducker]

Is Your Child an Elder God, Fae Changeling, Keanu Reeves, or Just a Kid?

(tags:children KeanuReeves funny viaSwampers )

The Church of England can, as usual, fuck right off

(tags:LGBT ChurchOfEngland sex marriage OhForFucksSake )

I love that Doctor Who is still making stories with some of the very original cast in them.

(tags:drwho )

Gaelic becomes default language for pupils starting school in Western Isles

(tags:Scotland language )

Some people are just ridiculously talented

(tags:sports skills amazing video )

How Facebook allows political ads to lie to you

(tags:advertising lies Facebook politics )

A serious umbrella malfunction.

(tags:funny viaSwampers video )

Did you know that Russia was cancelled?

(tags:Russia funny )

Puberty blockers can be life-saving drugs for trans teens

(tags:puberty hormones transgender mentalhealth )

The Good Place Is the Last Great Sitcom on Network TV

(tags:tv philosophy )

Interpolating Pixel Art and Sprites with AI

In other words, adding extra frames between the manually drawn ones to smooth out the motion.
There certainly used to be a lot of people whose jobs were to draw these by hand for cartoons and the like...
(tags:animation ai viaMyBrotherMike )

Legalising same sex marriage caused dramatic fall in suicides across Sweden and Denmark

(tags:suicide LGBT marriage Sweden Denmark )

The ugliest colour in the world

(tags:colour )

I Can't Show You How Pink This Pink Is

(tags:colour video viaSwampers )

On what date was Britain at its absolute best?

(tags:UK history funny TV computers )

The top 2019 Wikipedia pages

(tags:wikipedia )

Comments

[cmcmck]

And that, m'dear, is precisely why I left the C of E at eighteen and joined the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

Sad to see they are still unable to overcome their paranoia.

Church of England

[wildeabandon]

I would find "sex is permissible in mixed-sex civil partnerships but not same-sex ones" a vastly more offensive position than "sex is only permissible within marriage".

Obviously the failure of the CoE to recognise my marriage is a problem, but it's not news.

(Also the Church is more than just its leadership, and includes quite a lot of LGBT people.)

Re: Church of England

[cmcmck]

They have you coming and going, don't they?

I'm married in a straight relationship (ie one of each) but I'm still problematic because I'm a trans woman they don't seem to like that either.

Just how they suppose they'd know if I'm not saying is another question, however........ :o)

Re: Church of England

[andrewducker]

God knows what's in your genes/pants/etc.

And cares deeply.

Re: Church of England

[cmcmck]

I've always taken the view that God isn't too bothered about gender (as well as having a strange sense of humour)!

Re: Church of England

[wildeabandon]

Actually, the CoE will marry (and recognised the marriage of) two people who are legally of different sexes, no matter what their asabs. There is an allowance for an individual priest to refuse to conduct the service if they know that one partner is trans, but they can't prevent another priest doing so in their church, and the guidance also says explicitly that there's no duty to disclose.

I am slightly curious as to what would happen if someone put off applying for their GRC until the day after their obviously same-sex but legally mixed-sex church wedding, but obviously that requires a willingness to turn your wedding into a political protest, which isn't a choice that many people are going to want to make.

Re: Church of England

[andrewducker]

If you're married and one of you changes gender does the church have an official opinion on whether you're still married?

Re: Church of England

[cmcmck]

Now you still are whatever they might think if the transitioned partner deals with the necessary paperwork, but there was a time that it got complicated.

I know a couple that pre GRA had to change their marriage to a civil partnership because (the horror) same sex marriage and then post GRA they were able to get married again!

Nuts doesn't begin to describe it!

Re: Church of England

[cmcmck]

We solved the issue by having a civil wedding (thank you Stirling registry office). I didn't want to confuse folks by insisting on a Quaker wedding when most of my acquaintance, not to mention my husband, aren't. :o)

Having transitioned in the seventies I was taught that blending back in was the safest way to go, so yes!

[momentsmusicaux]

*cough*

s/talented/have worked really hard at something to get good at it/

[andrewducker]

Sorry, yes, I should have said "skilled".

[momentsmusicaux]

It's hard to shift that mindset, I know! :)

The top 2019 Wikipedia pages

[jack]

Wow, that's a big "top of" list :)

Russia cancelled

[anna_wing]

Since every country in the world has some nasty things happening in it, obviously this rule should apply to all nations. In fact, since everything ever posted online is undoubtedly ideologically upsetting to someone,somewhere, we could just drop this whole internet thing, and go back to the days when only people in our immediate vicinity knew that we were idiots.

The Good Place Is the Last Great Sitcom on Network TV

[jducoeur]

Nope, can't agree.

I mean, yes, "great" applies -- The Good Place is one of my top five shows of the past ten years, and probably one of my top ten of all time.

"Last Great on Network TV" -- time will tell, but it's sadly possible. We're in the process of cutting our cable, and the decision to do so has gotten nothing but easier over the past couple of years. Network TV is increasingly sad.

But "Sitcom"? No. A sitcom doesn't *go* anywhere. That's "situation comedy", and the "situation" in a sitcom is more or less immutable: fine details might evolve a little, but the general framing never does.

The most delightful thing about The Good Place is that you're never quite clear on the details of what's going on until pretty close to the end, and the situation changes practically every episode. It's almost the inverse of a sitcom: I have literally never seen a show where I had so little idea of how they were going to upend the story next.

And the best part is, from the very beginning, there was a clear sense of plan and purpose, even when we didn't know what that plan was. You really don't know what the show is *about* until fairly late, but in retrospect it's a magnificently tightly-designed novel about Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Many shows claim to have a pre-designed arc. This is one of the rare examples where it clearly did, pretty much from the outset, and it's one of the finest must-sees as a result.

(I really need to write up a review of the series...)