Interesting Links for 11-05-2021

[andrewducker]

Scottish independence referendum to go ahead when Covid crisis 'stable,' says SNP

(tags:Scotland independence pandemic )

How the transphobes harm cis women

(tags:transgender women LGBT society )

Covid vaccine: One AstraZeneca dose lowers chance of death by 80%, new research shows

(tags:death pandemic vaccine GoodNews )

"To an outsider we were success incarnate, but inside we were hollow": How my dream job at a board game startup became a nightmare

(tags:business games OhForFucksSake kickstarter )

How to make everyone in the company hate you with one email

(tags:trains security bonus OhForFucksSake )

By eating them, hyenas gathered 9 Neanderthal skeletons in one cave

(tags:prehistory Italy neanderthal )

Game developers break silence around salaries

(tags:games salary software )

What did Nicola Sturgeon's victory speech say

(tags:politics Scotland snp independence )

Exodus of EU truckers leaves UK hauliers facing acute driver shortages

(tags:trade transport UK Europe )

Very few writers make money. Here's how some do

(tags:writing money business publishing )

Some Analysis of the Scottish Election 2021 Results (what could have happened differently?)

(tags:voting scotland )

Covid in Scotland: Variant detected in Highlands cluster

(tags:scotland pandemic )

Comments

[cmcmck]

The harm to cis women is obvious when you think about it.

I'm trans, but short and slight and I have fine facial features, small hands and feet.

My voice is 'normal' female pitch.

I dress in fairly 'standard' female fashion.

I have a male life partner.

No one is going to question my presence in the public loos.

Many young cis women are way taller than me (how out of date terfs are in this- average European female height is now 5'6" and that's my own height exactly).

[danieldwilliam]

A difficulty with Kickstarter is that you are not contractually bound to deliver anything.

It's the strength of the platform as well. It breaks up the risk of starting a new thing in to two parts. The risk that nobody wants it is dealt with through the funding / trigger model. Not enough funding then the project doesn't start. The risk of the project going wrong is definately allocated to the funders. And where that risk sits is pretty clear.

The failure state is that of serial fraudsters or incompetents repeatedly running Kickstarters that fund and then not delivering on them.

In a legal model where there is a contractual obligation this would lead to the bankruptcy of the legal entity behind the Kickstarter and eventually the stricking off as a director of the management team. Which is not good for them and might be very bad for them. But see unsavory business practices in, for example, drive way tarmacing or roof repair businesses.

So reputation becomes important. Specifically a way to communicate bad reputations.

For example Ken Whitman (about whom I know nothing other than there is an entire - badly structured - blog about his failure to deliver Kickstarters.


https://notanotherdime.blogspot.com/

How to make everyone in the company hate you with one email

[jack]

I'm worried this is trend is reinforcing itself, like some self-important IT security executive sees the headlines and is like, "oh yes, that's MEAN, that clearly establishes my position as powerful and important, we should do that here". But maybe it just happens anyway, if people focus on "what makes me look like I'm hard hitting" rather than "what would help security" :(

[symbioid]

I am wondering if the Kickstarter board game article was by a TMG employee. TMG was a huge kickstarter success with multiple games. I was a fan of some of their stuff, and playtested an expansion for Eminent Domain.

I've fallen out of board gaming for multiple reasons, so I was taken aback when I saw claims that TMG is a husk of what it was with lies to backers about product updates, and I think, as in the article, one game designed later came out before a previously backed kickstarter.

IDK if this is that common or not. I thought since they mentioned the UK it probably wasn't TMG,but realized that could be altered to conceal it.

Shame...

[conuly]

By eating them, hyenas gathered 9 Neanderthal skeletons in one cave

Truly, they were doing their part for science.

[anef]

Only 9 neanderthals over approximately 40K years? Argues that humans were not a significant food source for hyenas. Or I suppose that there weren't many humans around.

My employer did in fact send everyone vouchers for Christmas, but the email was so badly drafted (and was from the voucher supplier, not in-house) that a significant number of people (including me) deleted them on the grounds that they were clearly spam/phishing. Fortunately my employer sent a subsequent email saying no, they are real vouchers, and deleted emails are recoverable.