andrewducker | Interesting Links for 25-02-2021

andrewducker

'10-year prison sentences for breaching COVID-19 entry requirements into the United Kingdom'. How Governmental Decree is undermining the Rule of Law.: (tags:UK government law pandemic viaDanielDWilliam )
Five things worth knowing about the Mars Perseverance Rover: (tags:space mars Technology comic )
Robot War Dog Company objects to their Robot War Dogs being called War Dogs: (tags:robots military marketing )
The Boston Dynamics robot dog commercial with Terminator 2 music is just perfect: (tags:music robots terminator movies video )
Why are anime titles frequently so terrible?: I mean, I could understand it in ye olden days, but surely nowadays they have decent translators involved?
(tags:translation anime japan )
This is basically how I feel about the sciences: (tags:science physics chemistry biology funny comic )
Down with Bank Holidays.: (tags:holidays )
How do Scotland and England's routes out of lockdown compare?: (tags:pandemic UK England Scotland )
Timelapse: Spectacular eruption from Italy's Mount Etna: (tags:video volcano Italy )
Is the British way of raising kids weird?: (tags:children UK USA India Japan parenting sleep )
Historic Edinburgh street to get European boulevard feel: (tags:Edinburgh transport )
Scotland reaps dividend of Covid response that diverged from England (Google the headline if the paywall blocks you): (tags:Scotland pandemic vaccination UK )

Crossposts: https://andrewducker.livejournal.com/4005763.html

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From:

bugshaw

Bank holidays: I applied for a 50:50 job share once; front of house reception, so no work backlog when the office was closed. Bank holiday entitlement wasn't split 50:50 by default; "Whoever works Mondays gets the bank holidays, you have to work out the rota between you". One could do fiddly switching but you might not want that if you have child care on fixed days, or another part time job. I didn't get the job so didn't need to worry about the rota share...

From:

andrewducker

Very glad my work just adds the days on to our overall allowance.

From:

naath

oh lucky you... we get made to take them off. Then again, we regularly fail to take all our holiday, so forced holiday is probably good.

From:

jack

At my last job one person didn't work Mondays (or maybe another day rust WASN'T Monday?), and he basically took bank holidays when they fell on a day he'd normally be working, but his overall holiday allowance was adjusted to be full time employees allowance reduced pro rata to 80%. Which sounded simple enough but apparently involved rehaving an argument every time a bank holiday moved...

From:

channelpenguin

The German titles for both films and episodes is often awful and most of the time either literal or boring. Very often totally spoilerish too!

From:

anna_wing

What is the difference between a Bank Holiday and any other public holiday?

From:

andrewducker

Just the British name for public holidays.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_holiday

From:

danieldwilliam

The fun reason that they are called Bank Holidays in the UK is that the political campaign for some sort of paid time off for workers couldn't persuade Parliament to create public holidays but one of their MP's realised he could get a Bill through Parliament requiring banks to be closed on certain days and, if the banks were closed, lots of other businesses wouldn't be able to trade so they would close on those days.

From:

andrewducker

I did not know that!

From:

danieldwilliam

John Lubbock is the chap responsible. Later Baron Avebury after he bought part of the place to preserve the ancient monuments. I'd forgotten about the other shoe in the holiday problem, that of banks going bust if they were closed.

https://libraryblog.lbrut.org.uk/2016/12/origins-bank-holidays/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lubbock,_1st_Baron_Avebury

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Holidays_Act_1871

https://www.publicholidayguide.com/bank-holiday/history-bank-holidays/

From:

anna_wing

Thank you! I learned in my History A-Levels that in medieval Europe there was no such thing as a weekend, but there were so many saints' days, which of course all had to be marked in some way that did not involve working, that they functioned in much the same way.

From:

anna_wing

Thanks! I've never actually worked in the UK, and they never impinged on me as a student. And they seemed to be attached to some sort of historical public holiday, but not always, so I wasn't quite certain of the connection.

From:

danieldwilliam

Several years ago, on a family holiday to southern Spain, it was the Saint's Day of the local saint whilst we were there. I was very taken by the celebrations. Two locals spent the day letting off fireworks around the perimiter of the town and in the evening they processed the saint's statue from the church and around the streets with a big crowd. And then drink was taken and there may have been some singing, and even some dancing in the square, the details became a bit hazy.

From:

autumnstwilight

I don't know exactly why Japanese creators frequently title their works without consulting an English speaker, but in the case of series like Attack on Titan, where the "English" title is part of the original Japanese work and on the Japanese volumes... actual English speakers are an afterthought. The title "Attack on Titan" is there to look/sound cool to Japanese readers first and foremost (Or perhaps the Japanese marketers and promotors). An audience that generally only knows basic English.

Then you have the English fanbase, who, as a reaction to butchered dubs in the past, generally demand that anime translators change as little as possible. If an awkward English title already has market recognition, it stays. Japanese studios also sometimes insist awkward titles or terminology be preserved- the studio that makes Evangelion apparently pushed hard for "First Child" to remain as "First Children" even though it refers to a singular character.

(In the case of AoT, the Japanese title could be rendered multiple ways in English, and exactly what it refers to is only clear after several plot twists. So nailing it down to the "correct" meaning and titling the series with that phrase in English would actually be a spoiler!)

From:

andrewducker

Thank you!

From:

jack

Ah! That makes sense. I had a feeling that some of these names were more "sounds cool" than "made sense" but didn't quite realise where that might have come from :)

From:

steepholm

This reminds me of the band Bump of Chicken, reportedly so named because they wanted to translate the Japanese for "Cowards Strike Back!" into something English and cool, but only had a basic dictionary at their disposal (this was in the '90s). By the time they realised their mistake they had brand recognition, so the name stayed.

I don't know if that origin story is true, but it should be.

From:

andrewducker

There ought to be a word for "Stories that ought to be true".

From:

danieldwilliam

I'm not convinced that George Street will actually become a European Boulavard as advertised.

Not convinced that Edinburgh can manage the through-put of East-West buses it needs without using George Street.

Not convinced that the space won't be appropriated by commercial enterprises or that the attempt to do so won't trigger a rejection of the wholescheme by the Council.

Not convinced that the entire area available for parking won't end up being used as parking for disabled people.

From:

andrewducker

I am definitely nervous about buses. There's definitely not enough space on Princes Street to get any more on it.

From:

danieldwilliam

The buses strike me as really difficult to get around unless you are trying some more radical East-West bus routing. Either routing several East-West bus routes not through the middle of town, to the south via the Meadows or to the north via Henderson Row. (Depends on what the University is doing with Potterrow - there might be an East-West route there. Or, not having East-West routes but routes that come in to either end of Princes Street and then turn north or south.

From:

andrewducker

They mention something like that here:
https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/edinburgh-plans-merge-buses-and-trams-major-shake-public-transport-2903345?r=7108

"a comprehensive new public transport strategy and a redesign of Edinburgh’s bus network, which would include tackling congestion in the city centre, particularly reducing the number of buses using Princes Street."

I think that having buses either avoiding Princes Street entirely or using it as an interchange might work - the problem there is that if Princes Street is an end point then you need space for waiting buses and you need space for turning them around.

From:

danieldwilliam

I think (based on my experiences as a punter and of public transport in London) that if you have buses running on a route every 5 minutes or so (maybe 10) you can make an assumption that most punters will view a two-bus journey as functionally equivalent to a one-bus journey i.e. they will get off one bus and on to another and think that's okay.

Which in this context means you could have several bus routes running East-West that didn't along Princes Street, George Street or Queens Street and rely on most punters being happy to change on to a North-South bus to finish their journey to the city centre.

I think.

I would love to be involved in this but sadly I think I lack the skill set.

From:

andrewducker

Yeah, it's a fascinating problem.

And with the contactless payments that are capped, taking multiple buses isn't too much of an issue.

From:

danieldwilliam

That has really helped with the usability of the bus network.

And reminds me that I probably ought to change my season ticket at some point when things are more normal.

From:

andrewducker

Yeah. I have a season ticket that I got before second lockdown, and then haven't used very much (for obvious reasons).

From:

danieldwilliam

I kept my season ticket on because I didn't want to defund Lothian Buses during the pandemic but I doubt the current all you can eat monthly pass will be economic or useful once we're back to a more normal existance.

From:

andrewducker

If I'm not in work every day I don't think it makes sense for me either.

From:

danieldwilliam

How far is your walk now?

I find that on a nice day I quite enjoy walking in to the office. It's down hill. On a rainy day I might walk. I tend to walk home as it's uphill. But that usually involves 2 buses. So it was usually cheaper and a bit easier to use the Ridacard. Getting to and from work paid for it and it meant any other bus journey was free.

With the contactless capped debit card and the expectation that I'll be working from home a few days a week from the autumn I think the debit card become cheaper.

From:

danieldwilliam

I would be willing to make a small wager that England is coming out of lockdown a little too soon.

From:

jack

You wait ages for the government to bungle a pandemic response and relax quarantine too soon, and then three come along all at once :(

From:

jack

So the special quarantine is only for people coming from "banned" countries? And coming from "banned" countries aren't banned? And those countries don't include the countries with the highest infection rates?

From:

andrewducker

And are mostly populated by people with darker skin tones!

From:

jack

I didn't know they were hoping to bring samples back in a future mission!

From:

anef

Am I the only person who now has a Crowded House earworm?

From:

channelpenguin

In Germany, Bank holidays are on fixed dates. If they fall on the weekend - tough titty. This year is especially bad!

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