Interesting Links for 13-08-2020

[andrewducker]

Why is Britain's GDP down more than other major nations?

(tags:UK pandemic gdp )

Periods, the pill and the effect on female athletes

(tags:women menstruation sports )

National Grid fires up coal power station for first time in 55 days

(tags:coal electricity UK )

Coronavirus: England death count review reduces UK toll by 5,000 (matching method used by rest of UK)

(tags:UK pandemic statistics )

Debunking The Lies, Smears, and Distortions about Kamala Harris

(tags:politics usa )

23 Of The Most Beautiful Terry Pratchett Quotes To Remember Him By

(tags:terrypratchett quotes )

'Avatar: The Last Airbender' creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko have exited the live-action Netflix series

(tags:avatar animation TV OhForFucksSake )

Researchers find a chemical that makes locusts swarm

(tags:insects behaviour pheromones )

Coronavirus in Scotland: Positive cases spreading 'rapidly' in Orkney

(tags:scotland pandemic )

No silver lining for first-time home buyers even if prices collapse

"in the 1990s, a typical young couple putting away 5% of their income each year could save enough for a deposit in just four years. By 2019, that figure had risen to 21 years"
(tags:housing OhForFucksSake uk )

UK police use of secretive facial recognition software stopped by the courts

(tags:law police faces )

"My Landlord is Evicting Us Over My Wife's Quarantine Courgette Harvest"

(tags:rental OhForFucksSake pandemic vegetables )

This owl is not impressed

(tags:owls )

When children's stores reopen, let's leave boys' and girls' sections behind

(tags:children gender toys shops shopping )

Comments

[ninetydegrees]

Researchers find a chemical that makes locusts swarm

Best news I have ever heard in a good while. This could save so many lives. Thanks for the link!

[andrewducker]

I hope we find a good way to use it.

[claudeb]

Ah, so we're not the only country to massively over-report deaths from the virus by including victims who happened to test positive but died from other causes. Is there more blatant evidence that state authorities everywhere are trying to make the crisis look worse than it is? And that's a well-known tactic of dictators, that they use to grab power.

[andrewducker]

It's not a massive amount - about 12%. Certainly worth fixing, but not something that would change policy.

[lilysea]

Well, British nursing homes had a policy of only testing the first 5 residents in any given nursing home with COVID symptoms for COVID, so in the case of nursing homes, they're probably massively UNDER-reporting COVID as a cause of death...

[andrewducker]

Yeah, "excess all cause death" is the only metric I really trust.

[rmc28]

Although last week and this, it will probably be heat rather than pandemic ...

Boys and girls sections in toyshops

[anna_wing]

I was utterly boggled at my first sight of FAO Schwartz in New York, lo these many decades ago, precisely because of the separate sections for boys and girls.It told me many things about the bizarre and unhealthy nature of American thinking about the sexes.

Re: Boys and girls sections in toyshops

[maia]

Yes, indeed!

[calimac]

Regrets over the Terry Pratchett quotes which have been replaced with "This image is no longer available."

[andrewducker]

It is a shame how the internet rots away.

[darkoshi]

https://web.archive.org/web/20200613053836/https://www.buzzfeed.com/kayetoal/23-of-the-most-beautiful-terry-pratchett-quotes-to-remember