Interesting Links for 06-03-2021

[andrewducker]

Women in 20s told 'get pregnant' to ease endometriosis symptoms

(tags:pregnancy healthcare women UK OhForFucksSake )

Lying liar Boris Johnson lied to parliament over Covid contracts, court order shows

(tags:lies BorisJohnson UK contracts pandemic )

What is going on with government Covid contracts?

(tags:UK contracts corruption government )

Why I hate "The Knack" (the idea that some people are born to be engineers, and nobody else can be one)

(tags:engineering )

The amount of money that the average young person can expect to have has dropped dramatically over the last 30 years.

(tags:wealth inequality history visualisation )

Why have Harvard University's expenses gone up 45% between: 2004 and 2019?

(tags:university business accounting )

The Notorious B.I.G. raps H.P. Lovecraft's Nemesis (produced using AI speech synthesis. Impressive stuff)

(tags:hplovecraft music ai video )

NFTs, explained: what they are, and why they're suddenly worth millions

(tags:art cryptography WTF )

Someone forgot to tell Audrey Niffenegger they were making a musical of The Time Traveller's Wife (which she wrote)

(tags:books scifi wtf musicals )

Young People 'On The Brink Of Revolution' As Older Generations Book Holidays Abroad

(tags:pandemic age UK inequality )

Comments

[rhythmaning]

As Niffenegger acknowledges, there was no reason they needed to tell her, though it would have been polite.

[andrewducker]

Ah, that wasn't up there when I first saw it.

Glad she's in the loop now. I am surprised nobody told her!

[lilysea]

I had a female GP tell me "your periods will get better when you've had a baby"

I was 16, not sexually active, not in a relationship

and my period cramps were so bad that
several days every month I could not sit upright in class and had to leave class to go lie down in the school nurses office...

[and sometimes my period cramps were so bad that I could not stand up or walk]

It wasn't endometriosis, it turned out to be retrograde menstruation = blood flows backwards into the fallopian tubes instead of out of the vagina during menstruation.

[andrewducker]

"Women are mysterious creatures and nobody understands their bodies. Jane you tried creating a new life to see if that brings you into harmony with the spirits?"

[calimac]

spacefem says she doesn't believe in "the knack" of being an engineer, but then writes: "Anybody can fix anything if they know enough about it how it works. 'Knowing enough' can take some time, interest, and a little talent to keep things in your head, but again it's not magic."

That's "the knack"! If you have it, you think anybody can do it if they just apply themselves. But they can't. I once attended a lecture by a professional artist who was convinced that anybody could be as good an artist as he. All you have to do is move your hand the same way he moves his. Easy for him to say.

For some people, a special skill comes easily. Others can achieve mastery by severe application. Others can become just modestly competent. And many more can't do it at all, no matter what.

spacefem goes on to say the really valuable engineers are not the ones with "the knack" but those who can communicate. That's another, and quite different, knack! Possibly more widely learnable than other knacks, but still, some can and some can't.

[andrewducker]

I think the problem is that a lot of people think "a little talent is part if the mix" is actually "all of it is talent, and you have to have a lot of it".

[anef]

Surely a vaccine passport would need to be combined with some system of testing for people who haven't been vaccinated? How would not introducing a vaccine passport actually help anyone?

[andrewducker]

I'm confused - why would it need to be combined with a testing system?

[anef]

Because some people are not going to be able to get vaccinated, (or won't want to) but will still need to prove that they're covid-free. So they're still going to have to be tested, even if the rest of us can swan about with passports.

[andrewducker]

I suspect those people will just be stuffed.