Interesting Links for 19-11-2020

[andrewducker]

Pfizer: COVID-19 shot 95% effective, seeking clearance soon

(tags:vaccine pandemic GoodNews )

So, it turns out we can produce a vaccine in less than a year if we really work at it. Multiple ones, even. Shame we don't do that more often...

(tags:pandemic vaccine )

If you've ever wondered why I bang on about trans rights, this is why.

(tags:transgender LGBT )

Right to scrap First Past the Post won for Welsh councils

(tags:elections reform Wales )

#DisneyMustPay Alan Dean Foster

(tags:Disney money writing publishing )

Openstreetmap is having a moment

(tags:OpenStreetMap data maps )

School LGBT bullying projects axed by UK government

(tags:UK school bullying lgbt OhForFucksSake )

UK-Japan deal dismantles UK's privacy protections

(tags:privacy UK Japan trade OhForFucksSake )

Unseen JRR Tolkien essays on Middle-earth coming in 2021

(tags:lotr Tolkien )

Comments

[cmcmck]

And if any of your readers want to know what it's like, they only have to ask me..........

I don't bite!

[cmcmck]

Oh and thanks for banging on! :o)

[andrewducker]

I wish it wasn't necessary, but while it is...

[cmcmck]

It won't be all that long now until I'll have been banging on for fifty years!

[dewline]

Thankfully, other friends of mine have saved you some of the work of answering such basic questions. Questions to you will more likely involve your neighbourhood.

[cmcmck]

Happy to answer those too! :o)

Disney vs Writers + Artists

[dewline]

Alan Dean Foster is a rather high-profile case, thankfully, and I expect there are others more vulnerable because of their lower profile. And because of Disney's international reach and its subsidiaries - Marvel, LucasFilm, Pixar, Touchstone, etc. - they need a lot of attention!

Re: Disney vs Writers + Artists

[calimac]

And Foster, to his credit, has pointed that out: if Disney can treat that way a high-profile person with well-known work, how much worse have they acted towards others?

OpenStreetMap

[dewline]

Well, this item in particular is heartening. Vigilance will still be required to keep the situation this way, of course.

[calimac]

I've heard from Carl Hostetter, the editor of that Tolkien book, about its contents: it's going to be more juicy "non-fact" sub-creational and philosophical stuff like that buried in the backs of Unfinished Tales and The Peoples of Middle-earth, and sometimes expanded texts of the same things.

[andrewducker]

Is there a lot of interest in that kind of thing?

[calimac]

Apparently! The publishers are willing to issue it, at least. It surprised me when Carl first told me about it. There's also a memorial Festschrift for Christopher Tolkien in the works. And a lot of other books about Tolkien still come out. I particularly recommend The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien by John Garth, a tour of the geography of Middle-earth and its inspirations, a topic on which a lot of rot has been written, but the only rot in this book is to have it debunked.