Interesting Links for 20-12-2020

[andrewducker]

Some very detailed analysis of the new Covid variant

(tags:genetics virus pandemic uk )

Where does the new Covid variant fit in to the tree of all variants? And how does it compare?

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1340359989395861506.html
(tags:pandemic virus genetics viaPatrickHadfield )

A short video of plague carriers preparing to spread the virus around the UK

(tags:Pandemic trains Doom OhForFucksSake uk )

How well can non-Maori speaking New Zealanders tell if a word is valid Maori

(tags:language newzealand Maori )

Hokusai's Iconic Print, "The Great Wave off Kanagawa," Recreated with 50,000 LEGO Bricks

(tags:art Lego Japan )

A Muslim is introduced to Christmas and carefully observes its ways

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1340439172687998981.html
(tags:Christmas Islam funny viaFJM )

Comments

[cmcmck]

Notice how 'I' am always different to all the rest of the plague carriers and 'my' excuse is always valid?

Heigh ho! :o(

[movingfinger]

I do not understand the inability to think of the future these people are demonstrating, but I guess that the individual prioritizing their own desires over any and every public interest is what the Tories are about.

My older relatives are all in their 90's and they are all alone, literally living alone, except the one person in a care home. And they are dealing with it, because getting COVID or causing a family member to get it for Christmas or any other reason is unthinkably, horrifyingly wrong.

[cmcmck]

We have two new great nephews we have yet to meet, but are we bowling off down to Kent from Shropshire?

Nope.

That might be because we're not Tories...........

[agoodwinsmith]

This. And yet - how can a person take themself to see their mother after wallowing in a crowd that is guaranteed to have at least one asymptomatic person? Why is this person not afraid? Silly of me to ask - anyone who has reconciled swimming in this to their own health's detriment already has a large suppy of justification. I know we all do it when we really want something, but gosh.

[calimac]

Cue numerous cases of people being able to recognize a language even if they can't speak a word of it.

I'm not much good with spoken languages that way, but at the height of my library cataloging career I could easily distinguish the written form of every standard Latin-alphabet European language, including Czech from Slovak and Slovene from Croat, by sight alone, whether I knew any of the words or not.

[dewline]

The weird thing is that I think you're probably right. I've probably been picking up similar skills without realizing it.

Also, there are specific glyphs added to the Latin alphabet's expanded charset that will tell one whether or not a specific Indigenous North American/Turtle Island language is being written out. Certain temp day-jobs I've held in recent years have helped flag such details to my attention.

Typewknd helped remind me similar is in play re: African languages using the Latin alphabet, too...

[calimac]

Distinct repertoires of diacritics is a big help in distinguishing. But also, for related languages, their different patterns of usage of the diacritics they have in common. As well as other things, like characteristic letter sequences.

[armiphlage]

"Queue at St Pancras as we wait to board the Leeds bound train."

Wait, there really is a Leeds? I thought it was a dismal wasteland of a city created by Charles Stross to be a setting in his Laundry series.

[andrewducker]

There really is.

Some other details of the books are also more real than you might think.

[calimac]

I've had the experience of having British visitors comment on the legendary or indeed fictional qualities of various places in California we pass by the road signs for.

[simont]

I spent half my childhood thinking New Mexico was probably fictional.

(I encountered its name in some far-future SF context where it wouldn't be surprising to have no end of places called New [current Earth place] that didn't really exist. And back then it wasn't a two-second web search to find out which category something fell in.)

[andrewducker]

I think I associated Spanish sounding place names with science fiction due to Terminal Cafe/Necroville and that stuck for a while.

[cmcmck]

There are two- there's a village in Kent of that name as well.

It has rather a stunning castle!

[andrewducker]

I lived not far from it for years and we never made it there!