Interesting Links for 09-06-2021

[andrewducker]

FBI sold phones to organized crime and read 27 million "encrypted" messages

(tags:FBI crime technology )

Transgender People, Bathrooms, and Sexual Predators: What the Data Says

(tags:transgender LGBT abuse toilets )

Boris Johnson's trade yacht plan could break World Trade Organisation rules we only just signed up to

(tags:WTO UK trade ship )

Reminder that the UK public is still not transphobic overall

(tags:transgender polls LGBT )

Has Rick and Morty hit the long-running show problem?

(tags:TV writing )

Halogen lightbulb sales to be banned in UK - fluorescent bulbs to follow

(tags:lighting technology UK globalwarming )

How FiveThirtyEight's 2020 Forecasts Did

(tags:polls usa )

Comments

[armiphlage]

Current LED bulbs are AWESOME! I can't see why anyone would prefer to use fluorescent or halogen, after looking at the quality and cost savings.

Plus they last so much longer. When we moved to our current home, I swapped out all the bulbs in the first week. I've only had to replace two bulbs in nearly four years, and that was due to a bad socket.

[andrewducker]

Agreed. I reckon it's inertia. Or people with fluorescent/halogen sockets who don't want to upgrade them, and so need a push.

(We have a fluorescent socket in the kitchen. We'll replace it when we remodel in the next year or two)

[calimac]

I don't want to replace a socket. It's not something I could do; I'd need an electrician, and electricians are notoriously hard to schedule. (I don't know why. Plumbers always come immediately when you call; electricians say things like "Sorry, I'm booked for the next six months," and then they skip the appointment when you do make it.) The new bulbs that replaced old florescent bulbs fit in the same sockets. When they make new bulbs which fit in the brackets which take those long thin halogen bulbs, I'll take them; until then, I'm stocking up on halogens.

Incidentally, I have a lot of problems with LED bulbs burning out. They're not as great as advertised.

[mtbc]

I too have replaced rather more LED bulbs than I expected to, of different brands, they don't seem to be lasting anything like as advertised. The typical failure mode seems to involve a state where they flicker. I did far better with CFLs.

[danieldwilliam]

That's my observation too but not on a huge sample size.

[danieldwilliam]

Many of the LED bulbs I've seen have the same form factor as the bulbs they are replacing so the sockets don't need to be replaced.

I'm honestly not sure how the LED bulbs handle differences in voltage, impedence and so on. My high school physics has failed me.

[calimac]

I'm not sure if I made myself clear; also, perhaps UK standards for light bulbs are different from those in the US. I've never changed a light bulb in Britain, but your electrical sockets are certainly different so maybe this is too.

Anyway, in the US the ordinary florescent light bulbs are actual bulb-shaped with a threaded end that screws into a socket, the ones that gave rise to all the "how many X does it take to screw in a light bulb?" jokes, and the new LED bulbs are almost identical in outward shape and fit the same sockets.

But the halogen lights I use are much smaller, long and thin with ceramic tabs at both ends, and snap into a pair of brackets. If there are LED lights of this shape, I've seen no sign of them.

[danieldwilliam]

UK scheme.

Incandescent filament bulbs: bulb shape, choice of 3 attachments (1) large screw (2) small screw - might be IKEA only (3) bayonet fitting - 2 horizontal prongs which you twist in to the fitting.

These have been replaced by florescent tubes wrapped in a bulb shape inside a bulb; same choice of 3 attachments.

Florescent strip lights, tube of glass in three different sizes with a sort of vertical pronged attachment. In offices with suspended ceilings these come in banks of tubes.

These are being replaced with a strip of LED lights with the same fitting but also in commercial property with new lighing banks that plug in to the same connection that the older florescent tube bank fitted in to.

Halogen bulbs, 2 types. Type 1 conical GU10 - similar sort of vertical prong twist attachments as the florescent tubes. These are being replaced by LED lamps with the same attachments.

My kitchen lights are currently half Halogen and half LED.

Type 2 very small glass with an attachment involving with what looks like a thread or needle or bare wire. Tend to be used in desk lamp.

No LED replacement for these as far as I can see.

So, for most lights in the UK you don't need an electrician to change the attachment. You just swap in a new LED "bulb". Commercial property is a little more involved but not much.

[calimac]

Thank you. Your bulbs are very different from ours, then. We do have florescent strip lamps, but only in offices: I've never seen them in home use and have never been involved in changing one. I also realize that every time I wrote "florescent" in my earlier comments I meant "incandescent." My grasp on the terminology is very weak.

[dewline]

The current crop of LED lightbulbs are indeed a blessed improvement.

[ninetydegrees]

This. I didn't like them in the beginning because they didn't make ones which made as much light as fluorescent ones but now you can find almost anything you need. If you buy quality ones they last for ages. The only ones I can't replace are some halogen kitchen lights (hood and spotlights) because they don't make LEDs that small, but halogen is still allowed in my country in this case.

As for Trans Acceptance

[dewline]

I see the delaying tactics in resistance to acceptance continue. And cis-males like myself are at the heart of that nonsense from what I saw in those stats from the UK. I've got to wonder if the people leading this unwise resistance are not telling on themselves in a disturbing way here.

Also...yeah, rehashing old bigotries among other motives...

FBI Phones

[danieldwilliam]

Willing to bet that the FBI-run successor company to ANOM already exists and is marketing itself as the trustworthy alternative.

I wonder if the FBI actually made money on that operation.

[momentsmusicaux]

I think Rick & Morty is progressing quite nicely!

We've had the second Beth show up, and presumably she's going to be in it from time to time. There's Evil Morty.

And there's that throwaway remark Summer makes in Morty's Mind Blowers, S3E8, along the lines of 'We're never going to keep on schedule if you guys keep fucking about like this' which makes me think there's a very long arc going on here that we're not seeing yet.

Sure, there are occasional fillers, but that started with Lawnmower Dog in S1 or Get Schwifty in S2.

[andrewducker]

I'm enjoying the arc stuff too. I think it's not as "special" to me as it once was, but I still really enjoyed the last lot of episodes.

[jack]

That review really described what I liked about Rick and Morty.

What's interesting about Rick and Morty is that they haven't written themselves into a corner because if they suddenly decided they want to be in arc 2 of an extended plot, they could just suddenly switch to that and make a joke about it :) But it is tricky to find a balance that lets Rick fly off almost anywhere in the universe whenever it suits the plot, but also have consistent difficulties that last between episodes that support some sort of character development

[andrewducker]

They do a good job with dropping a continuity episode in intermittently (like the finale of the last season with Beth), but letting a lot of episodes be stand-alone. I think they're managing pretty well at the moment.