Interesting Links for 03-12-2022

[andrewducker]

1. A really important thing to remember when you're wondering why you don't look like fitness coaches no matter what you do

(tags:exercise genetics video )

2. One tiny diorama, every day

(tags:art calendar )

3. Smartphones wiped out 97% of the compact camera market

(tags:cameras phones business )

4. Elon Musk's legal problems are *hilarious*

(tags:ElonMusk Twitter work rights law funny )

5. Impressive examples of working around the limitations placed on AI.

(tags:ai viaSwampers )

6. Kanye West: American Nazi

(tags:USA Nazis OhForFucksSake )

7. Are You Decorating for the Holidays with Children, or Playing the Lead in a Heist Movie?

(tags:children movies crime funny viaSwampers )

8. The cruel, dishonest and shameful story of Britain's last colony may be coming to an end

(tags:UK OhForFucksSake )

9. 'Control Freak' and the Power of the Intimate Video Game Memoir

(tags:games design biography )

10. Scotland agrees to return totem pole stolen from First Nation village in Canada after nearly a century on display in Edinburgh

(tags:Scotland Canada museums )

11. The Maddening Mess of Airport Codes! ✈️

(tags:airport history video )

12. Why China Is Still Stuck in a Zero-Covid Nightmare

(tags:China Pandemic )

13. The real reason that September, October, November, and December are numbered 9,10,11, and 12. (Not the reasons I was taught)

(tags:calendars history rome viaDanielDWilliam )

14. World's first job guarantee trial 'eliminates' long-term unemployment (by creating new jobs)

(tags:work Australia )

15. 98% of teenagers who use puberty blockers go on to use gender-affirming hormones (new study published in the Lancet)

(tags:Netherlands hormones LGBT transgender teenagers )

Comments

[simont]

#13: I'm curious to know what reasons you were taught.

I had always believed that the numbers were off by two because the year originally started in March, which makes sense of the numbers and also of the fact that the weird variable fixup thing happens just before the start of the next March.

That Twitter thread doesn't really seem to contradict any of that, it just adds a lot more detail. (Like how in a previous design the variable fixup thing was "entire intercalary month decided on by hand each year" rather than "reasonably organised occasional day", and that the reason why the start of the year shifted is because consuls' taking office was offset from starting to plan your military campaigns and at some point minds were changed about which one ought to match the calendar year.)

I'd certainly never heard in the first place the claim that the start of the year shifted because of Julius Caesar inserting July to confuse matters. Was that the wrong idea you were given, or was it something else?

[cmcmck]

15. Which should tell the naysayers all they need to know about the situation, but it won't!

[bens_dad]

13. I had heard this idea that Julius and Augustus *added* months, upsetting the numbered months that followed, but believed (correctly it seems) it to be wrong.

However I am now confused about who moved the new year from March/Spring Solstice to January.
I was under the impression that until the C17 or C18 the British (English+Welsh?) new year started in March so we were not following the Roman switch of 153BC.

My recollection of when we switched from March to January is mixed up with the switch to the Gregorian calendar but I note that the 6 April Gregorian is 25 March (Lady's Day) Julian , allegedly since it was OK to have a short calendar year but they did not dare to have a short tax year !

* Ah. Wikipedia says that Scotland moved to 1 Jan in 1600, but the rest of the British Empire moved in 1752.

[bens_dad]

#3. I am not surprised that smart phones have killed compact cameras, but that link recommends https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-trends/Nikon-pulls-plug-on-SLR-camera-development-in-shift-to-mirrorless which seems much bigger news: Nikon to pull the plug on SLR cameras !

[dewline]

3. As someone who finds a positive value in both "traditional" digital cameras and "smartphone" cameras, I find this news distressing.

4. Yes, they are. At least, as explained by Mr. Cohen.

10. Finally!

[rhythmaning]

What an excellent crop of links!

[rhythmaning]

As a corollary to the thread on Roman months, the start of the year astronomically used to be measured from the first of point Aries - the zodiacal constellation which marked March.

It is still astronomically important (or was when I studied astronomy fifty years ago). But sdue to precession is no longer in Aries. It is still called the first point of Aries, though. Obvs.

(And I'm glasd Wikipedia backed up my memories!)

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

[bens_dad]

#15
69% of people studied were assigned female at birth.
Reading the popular press you wouldn't guess there were two trans-men for every trans-woman.

At the start of GnRHa treatment, the median age was 16·0 (14·1–16·9) years for people assigned female at birth.
I'm surprised that many young women are still in puberty at that age. How much of women's puberty comes after the obvious symptom: periods ?

[stormehowl]

I'm a newbie to your journal but a big thank you for compiling such great reads for us.

[mme_n_b]

As of today you are the last person in my feed that still links to Twitter.

[mellowtigger]

#12 That story (like so many covering China's recent troubles) reads like SARS-CoV-2 is "one and done" for infection. The only thing that's certain is that it ain't so. People get reinfected within weeks, and each infection carries significant risk. Zero Covid is still the best policy. Yes, it will eventually fail to shield everyone, but they've already bought their population almost 2 years longer than the rest of the world in the timeline of progression. That's more time to find pharmaceuticals that mitigate the long term cost.

[cellio]

Link 4 is glorious.