Interesting Links for 27-08-2020

[andrewducker]

The Scots Wikipedia admins are looking for help from people who speak the language

(tags:language Scotland Wikipedia )

The daydream that never stops - When does living in a fantasy world become a problem?

(tags:thinking storytelling stories psychology mentalhealth )

New Mutants - reviewers are not going to risk their lives for this

(tags:movies reviews pandemic )

Coronavirus: NHS Scotland to get 12-minute Covid test kit (300 machines, 500,000 tests. Still nasal, sadly. 2% false positive, 3% false negative.)

Here's the info on the test: https://www.medtechdive.com/news/lumiradx-lands-third-covid-antigen-eua-as-demand-for-rapid-tests-rises/583845/
(tags:scotland pandemic testing )

Wealth, shown to scale

(tags:wealth inequality usa ViaDrCross )

The Conan Doyle estate can fuck off

(tags:copyright SherlockHolmes emotion OhForFucksSake )

Comments

[nancylebov]

Thanks for the update about Scots Wikipedia. I've sent it to metafilter and Charlie Stross's blog.

[andrewducker]

I hope they get some decent help!

[rhythmaning]

The story of Days is fascinating!

I find it strange that some want it to be classified as a disorder.

I reckon a career as a writer or games-creator beckons.

[andrewducker]

If they can translate it into that, then yes.

But I can understand that if it's making it hard for some people to function in the world then that's pretty much the definition of a disorder.

[dewline]

Seconding that. A lot of Indigenous languages could use that help too, but the involved nations need to secure a sufficiently large speaker base first, I suspect.

As for Movie Theatres

[dewline]

AV Club's people hit the right note at this moment. I don't plan on seeing any movie in any cinema without a vaccination already running through my veins and arteries.

[theandrewhickey]

Luckily, the "Conan Doyle estate" (which is nothing of the sort really, but whichever set of litigious people with little claim to it is currently winning in the courts) will be fucking off very, very shortly. All the Holmes stories have been out of copyright in the UK for twenty years (and in Canada for forty), but they made a fortune for much of that time by basically blackmailing anyone who wanted to use the characters in any way -- claiming that as the character kept developing right up to the very last Holmes story, and that a handful of them remained in copyright in the US, any use of the character at all was a derivative of those last stories, and they needed paying for it.

They also claimed that "Sherlock Holmes" was a single work, and so as long as Doyle's stories from 1927 were in copyright, so were the first Holmes stories from 1887.

Series like Sherlock and Elementary, and the Guy Ritchie films, paid up because it was cheaper to settle for a hundred grand or so than to fight it in court.

Thankfully, Leslie Klinger, who does great annotated books of things like Holmes and Dracula, refused to settle, and won in court against their ludicrous claims. That left them *only* owning the handful of stories still in copyright, not "the character". And the last of those stories falls out of copyright in the US on January 1, 2023. No doubt they'll still try to pretend they have some legal rights over something, but they'll basically have to stop bothering people then.

[calimac]

"Still nasal, sadly."

All the tests I've had were nasal. What's better?

[andrewducker]

Saliva tests. Spot in to a tube and you're done. Or a blood test, for many people. Can't do them at home, but a lot less uncomfortable for anyone with a strong gag reflex.

[calimac]

Are they more accurate, or just less uncomfortable?

When I first read about covid-testing, I understood that the swab went way up into your upper nasal cavity and could be quite uncomfortable. But every test I've had has swirled around the lower nasal cavity, and while perhaps some would find that discomfiting, I don't.

On the other hand, blood tests - some people are terrified by needles. I took the DNA test which is "spit into a tube," and while that sounds easy, I found it unexpectedly difficult to do.

[andrewducker]

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough - there is not yet a reasonable saliva based test for Covid-19. So I'm glad that there are new, faster, tests coming in. But disappointed that they still mean having to stick things up your nose.

Although if these ones work from the lower nasal cavity then it's not nearly as bad (Jane had to have one last week and it was nose and back of the throat, which she found incredibly hard to hold still for).

[calimac]

Back of the throat they didn't do to me. That could make me gag, but not extremely so. My sympathies to Jane.

[melita66]

Yes, there's both deep nasal which is usually administered by a medical professional although CDC has instructions on how to self-administer and anterior nasal which is a lot easier to do. It's 1-1.5" insertion versus 0.5", respectively.

[anna_wing]

The ideal test for any disease would be a breathalyser.

Or I suppose, a suitably-trained sniffer dog or Giant African Pouched Rat...

[andrewducker]

I would be delighted to have the NHS pop round with a sniffer dog to give me a playful checking over!

[anna_wing]

I'd love the Giant African Pouched Rats too. Super cute. Google 'Hero Rats' for the landmine-sniffing ones.