Interesting Links for 24-03-2022

[andrewducker]

1. On why Apple-haters are every bit as misguided as any fanboy

(tags:apple bias )

2. Framed - The daily movie guessing game (I got today's in 3)

(tags:movies games )

3. Government ignored warnings about Putin's 'march to war' for 10 years, says ex-UK defence official

(tags:uk russia corruption war )

4. 'Worm-on-a-chip' device could someday help diagnose lung cancer

(tags:worm cancer )

5. The Real History of 'Perfect Blue' and 'Requiem for a Dream'

(tags:anime DarrenAronofsky movies )

6. SEC will require companies to list greenhouse emissions, climate risks

(tags:globalwarming business )

7. Economics 101 is conservative propaganda

(tags:economics inequality wages minimumwage )

8. Decisions made by human experts can be as inscrutable as those made by algorithms — but we don't realise it

(tags:decisions ai people psychology trust )

9. That's How It Works When You're a Woman on the Internet

(tags:harrassment abuse internet 4chan twitter misogyny )

10. Boris Johnson condemned for pulling funny faces as MPs told of Ukrainians huddled in basements

(tags:BorisJohnson OhForFucksSake )

11. Utah governor vetoes anti transgender bill. (I thoroughly appreciate his reasoning -read from "I am not an expert" onwards)

(tags:LGBT transgender republicans good sports USA )

12. Fertilizer is getting more expensive. Here's what that means to farmers. And you.

(tags:food gas Doom viaDanielDWilliam farming wheat )

13. Different word orders for different languages, illustrated

(tags:language visualisation )

14. The UK's proposed space-based solar power station would cost £16Bn for 2GW (About the same cost per GW as the Hinkley C nuclear power plant)

(tags:space solarpower UK )

15. Here's the Church of England with patronising propaganda about mothers for 5 year olds

(tags:religion mother women patriarchy OhForFucksSake children )

16. Russia has been pushing a narrative of the decadence of The West for about 10 years now, and many Brits have lapped it up

(tags:fascism russia propaganda bigotry gender lgbt transgender )

17. More than a million to be pushed into poverty in the UK, as the Conservatives cut taxes

(tags:inequality poverty uk )

18. Here's how our ability to empathise changes as we get older

(tags:empathy psychology age )

Comments

[andrewducker]

You'll notice we now have numbers at the start of each line. That's because some people were already using the numbers, but handcounting them, and a couple of requests came in from people trying to interpret the numbers to have them automatically there.

Let me know if you like/hate them!

[simont]

👍

[nancylebov]

I'm in favor of numbers for lists of links. They might add a *little* visual clutter, but they make conversation much easer.

[fub]

I cam to the comments specifically to call out that I appreciate the addition.

[andrewducker]

I'm going to end up wondering why I didn't do this before, aren't I?

[fub]

Rather than kick yourself for not doing it earlier, I'd prefer it if you'd join the celebrations that it is now done.

[snippy]

Think of it as proof that you are constantly growing and improving as a human being!

[penta]

I greatly like this.

[andrewducker]

No votes against so far!

[strange_complex]

Liking them!

[cmcmck]

Yes! 'I am not an expert' applies to all of the bigots and haters too.

Whereas as someone who lives it from day to day, I AM an expert!

[dewline]

3. I remember one thing that Harper did right about this: he told Putin "Get out of Crimea." That aside...we didn't follow up either, did we?

6. Good!

8. And we should have remembered this.

9. *winces at seeing that change is still having to be forced along*

11. Noting this particular passage: "I was heartened and encouraged to see legislators sitting down with LGBTQ advocates to work on a compromise that would both protect women’s sports and allow some participation for our most marginalized transgendered youth. No other state has done this, and we hoped that Utah could be the first."

Apparently the forces of organized bigotry were - as ever - set upon their preferred course to the contrary, and so the veto was invoked. It may yet be overturned by the state legislature, and even so...Governor Cox did the right thing for good and kind reasons...at least on this issue.

12. Already aware of this. I count farmers among my forebears, and I'm trying to keep an eye on agriculture.

14. The proposal has the advantage of boldness to it. I'm not sure that we couldn't exceed the expected performance with ground-based facilities in sufficient time to be ecologically helpful, though I expect to see informed arguments for each position as well as a "combined-methods" approach.

16. There are Canadians who also would prefer we be conquered by Putinists than be free to live any other way. I am not among them.

Also, I'd argue that the right-wing commentators have been doing much of the corroding they accuse everyone else of. Projection in action.

17. Appalling. I hope that Canada - at least at the federal level - is steering in a different direction now that we have the confidence-and-supply agreement between the Liberals and New Democrats.

[andrewducker]

Next up, can Canada get some kind of electoral reform?

[dewline]

Noting from this source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-singh-how-it-will-work-1.6393710

Democracy

A commitment to work with Elections Canada to expand voter participation, which could include expanding election day to three days of voting.

A change to elections rules to allow people to vote at any polling place within their electoral district.

Improvements to mail-in ballots so that voters are not disenfranchised.

A commitment to ensuring that the number of seats Quebec has in the House of Commons remains constant.

Not seeing anything moving towards either proportional representation or preferential ballots here...but would these listed items as quoted from CBC News be considered good steps?

[andrewducker]

They're not bad steps, but they're not PR!

[agoodwinsmith]

Hahahahaha. Hah.

[andrewducker]

Singh seems in favour, so there's hope.

[agoodwinsmith]

Not enough seats.

Trudeau the Younger campaigned on voting reform with Sunny Ways and Because It's 2015, and the minute he was elected he dropped that voting reform hot potato first thing, even before his acceptance speech.

Also, whoever put together the referendum/survey thing I participated in very clearly did not want voter reform because I never saw such a collection of convoluted nonsense ever.

[calimac]

3. That is the first semi-positive thing I've ever read about Harper.

[dewline]

Weird thing I saw in the Byline Times - of all places! - today: blaming Putinist operatives for Harper's defeat in 2015.

Say what?

Ummm...Harper undermined himself by being exactly who he was while he was prime minister, I think. He had eight years, and he pointedly refused to respect what Canada was and still is becoming in so MANY ways.

Celestial mechanics

[bens_dad]

14. (Space Solar)
A space-based solar power station in orbit is illuminated by the sun 24 hours a day and could therefore generate electricity continuously.

I believe that there are orbits where the power station would be continuously illuminated (circum-polar and some of the Lagrange points seem plausible) but I don't see how it can continuously beam energy down to a single fixed point on earth.

Does a single satellite and a single ground station really work, or do we need more of one or the other and some sort of relay ?

Re: Celestial mechanics

[andrewducker]

Only a problem during the equinoxes, and even then only for a maximum of 72 minutes a day:

https://www.viasat.com/about/newsroom/blog/how-satellites-are-affected-by-the-spring-and-autumn-equinoxes/

So, obviously not *perfect* - but that's a lot less time that we'd have to spin up the generators for than ground-based solar.

Re: Celestial mechanics

[bens_dad]

Ah. Thanks.

I guess we can manage running generators around midnight for up to 72 minutes a day for 88 days a year.

I was thinking the earth's shadow would be big compared with the geostationary orbit since the shadow is much bigger than the moon, but the gs orbit is a) much nearer the earth and b) several times the size of the moon.

Re: Celestial mechanics

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I realised I had no idea at all, so went googling. Thank goodness for people putting the answers to my random questions on the internet!

[adrian_turtle]

Thanks for the numbers!

18) I am fascinated at how they define a declining ability to read facial expressions as "declining empathy," rather than, perhaps, declining eyesight.

[calimac]

1. I don't decry the inner workings of Apple machines, I personally loathe the user interface. I don't care if other people like it, I personally hate hate hate it, and sneering "I understand Apple machines and you don't" posts like this aren't going to change my mind, because they miss the point. I don't have to like it just because you think it (or some other aspect of it) is better.

7. Unfortunately the writer is an economist which means that mere mortals like myself cannot penetrate the verbiage.

9. Not just the internet. I saw a post recently that described in-person "cat-calling" using similar dynamics. Misogyny and heterosexuality are a toxic combination. If such a thing existed, I'd favor therapy to turn all these men gay. They'd be a lot happier and they might leave women alone.

11. The most interesting takeaway from the veto message is the image of this overwhelming legislative hatred directed at four Utah high school students. Sounds like the governor, though he admits that at heart he is prejudiced, has taken on the message of the guy who said "Love your neighbor." The legislators certainly haven't.

16. And this is why I'm not reassured by those who insist that drawing a "line in the sand" in front of NATO countries like the Baltics would not prevent them from becoming Putin's next meal, whether or not he finishes digesting Ukraine. Putin thinks the West is weak and decadent and wouldn't follow through, especially if nuclear war might follow.

18. As a person on the autistic spectrum, I completely fail any test requiring me to deduce people's emotions from a still photograph. Especially when, as it usually is, that photo is small, black-and-white, and grainy.

[wildeabandon]

9. Not just the internet. I saw a post recently that described in-person "cat-calling" using similar dynamics. Misogyny and heterosexuality are a toxic combination. If such a thing existed, I'd favor therapy to turn all these men gay. They'd be a lot happier and they might leave women alone.

Wow.

Because effeminate queer men should what, just learn to man up and take the abuse when it gets redirected at us?

Wow.

[calimac]

No. Because then they wouldn't ... aw, never mind. You wouldn't believe it.

[wildeabandon]

What wouldn't I believe? That violent misogynists don't hate men like me almost as much as they hate women?

[channelpenguin]

I've met (and told to fuck right off) gay men who also REALLY HATE women and were even more contemptuous, creative, thorough and WAY over the line obscene in their verbal abuse. I guess when you don't need women for anything you could become truly frighteningly cruel rather than indifferent.

[anna_wing]

I've been lucky enough not to get obscene comments, but insults and contemptuous behaviour towards me by gay men, yes I've had that. Societal misogyny, was my assessment, in that particular context. The idea that women were even lower in the pecking order and could therefore be disdained with impunity.

[andrewducker]

1. "I don't have to like it just because you think it (or some other aspect of it) is better."

He isn't saying you have to like it. He specifically says "I do not recommend them for everyone. Each person has their own needs and should learn and judge appropriately."

But his point is "If someone/some group are not willing to make the effort to see why a very successful product/family/brand is successful, then it prevents them from learning any lessons from that success. That means that the outgroup is unlikely to ever challenge the success." - and I think that's a valid point. Lots of people love Macs. It's good to understand why, and whether any of that stuff is worth rescuing from the stuff that you don't like.

[calimac]

I am not impressed by insincere-sounding ritual denials inserted into treatises every other word of which screams a leaning in the opposite direction.

[cellio]

9 Not just the internet. I saw a post recently that described in-person "cat-calling" using similar dynamics.

Can confirm. :-( (And I'm not even physically pretty, so I don't get nearly as much of this crap as some.)

[anna_wing]

18: I do have doubts about this "cognitive empathy" thing. Who we sympathise with and how we show it is largely culturally determined, and trying to guess what other people are feeling based on their behaviour is very deceptive. It's just so much easier to learn the basics of local good manners and apply them.

After the 2002 Bali bombing, when Amrozi, one of the bombers, went to trial, there was a lot of huffing amd puffing in the Western media about the "smiling terrorist", and how evil he was for giggling and smiling in front of journalists before his trial. What they had no idea about, and what all of us in the region knew, is that locally, smiling and giggling are very often placatory responses, and are indications of nervousness and fear, not whatever it was that the journlaists thought that they would be feeling if they did the same thing.

[andrewducker]

I, too, do placatory smiling giggling. Have done since I was young. Has got me in trouble a couple of times.

[anna_wing]

Many of us, I think!

Movie guessing game

[trailer_spot]

Adding numbers definitely is a good thing.

2. I found the still a bit small and dark, so I wanted to have a better look and copied the picture into a new tab. The URL contains the name of the movie. :)