Interesting Links for 08-12-2022

[andrewducker]

1. Support for Independence hits 56%, 51% of people to vote SNP (53% if it's a defacto referendum)

(tags:scotland independence polls )

2. Transphobes are now attacking...The Samaritans.

(tags:lgbt transgender bigotry OhForFucksSake suicide )

3. BBC plans to switch off broadcast TV and move to internet-only programmes

(tags:bbc thefuture streaming broadcasting )

4. Discovery of world's oldest DNA breaks record by one million years

(tags:genetics dna prehistory )

5. The Art Game and the Money Game and how the ending of Minecraft was set free

(tags:games art money copyright Microsoft contracts )

6. Sats: MPs and peers fail tests for 11-year-olds as campaign groups call for overhaul of 'high-stakes' exams

(tags:exams children politics )

7. First UK coal mine in decades approved

(tags:UK coal environment globalwarming )

8. Europe First: Brussels gets ready to dump its free trade ideals (because the USA and China both already have)

(tags:Europe China USA trade )

9. Two inhaled covid vaccines have been approved. Here's what you need to know.

(tags:vaccines pandemic )

10. AI learns to precisely manipulate individual atoms

(tags:ai atom physics research )

11. How Many Fundamental Constants Does It Take To Explain The Universe? (26, at the moment)

(tags:physics )

12. People expect identical twins to be *really* identical

(tags:twins genetics statistics )

13. Humans are surprisingly poor at picking up cues of aggression in dogs

(tags:dogs behaviour psychology )

Comments

[simont]

#3 requires registration to get past the first paragraph, so I didn't read the whole thing. But what does this imply for the licence fee?

If TV is delivered over the Internet instead of via broadcast, then presumably the simple thing is to turn the licence fee into an online subscription that unlocks your credentials to connect to the streaming server. Pro: enormous amount of effort saved on TV licence enforcement, and no further need for special legal support from the government.

If that happened, the BBC would presumably become just another streaming service alongside all the existing ones, competing with them on an equal basis. One wonders if they'd have any remaining reason to not pursue profit at the expense of public-service considerations, e.g. any impartiality they might have left!

[cmcmck]

2. These people are so sick in the head I just can't........... :o(

Coal Mines

[danieldwilliam]

One of the most interesting comments I read as part of the debate on the new coal mine was this:

In the UK we use steel. In the UK we make steel. Not all the steel we use. We also buy steel from abroad. If we did not make steel we would buy it from abroad in greater numbers.

There is currently no good alternative to coking coal for making steel. Coking coal is how you get very high heat *and* controlled injection of carbon in to the iron to make the steel alloy. So for the next period of time any steel used in the UK will use coking coal dug up somewhere and burned somewhere.

It is hypocritical of us to ban coalmine in our country and then import CO2 emitted in some other country in the form of steel we use. It is hypocritical to import coking coal from abroad to use in our steelmills. Also, it is dumb to miss out on the coal mining and steel milling jobs that our demand for steel creates.

I'm not convinced but by the argument but it has given me some pause for thought.

[nancylebov]

5. The story about the ending of Minecraft, and the ending itself, is spectacular.

[calimac]

3) If that happened in the US, it would render my tv set useless. In theory we could connect it up to our internet, but it seems far too complicated a job to undertake. So we just watch internet-only video on our computers.

6) I agree with Flick Drummond: it's the grammatical terminology that's puzzling; I was never taught using those terms. However, in the displayed question, "Which option is punctuated correctly?" the answer is NONE: it needs an Oxford comma! (Aside from that, it's the first one.)

11) What the heck is a dimensionless constant? How do you measure mass, for instance, without a unit?

12) I've known two pairs of identical twins (all male). Physically, once I saw both twins in the same place at the same time, I never afterwards had any trouble telling them apart. Personality-wise, they were alike, but I've known other pairs of brothers, even father & son, who were just as much so.

13) I don't think I apply here, because I read everything from a dog as a sign of aggression. I literally cannot tell the difference between a dog bounding towards me in joy and one bearing down to tear my head off. It always looks like the latter. This is why dogs terrify me.

[movingfinger]

The Minecraft story is bizarre. It's very self-justifying. The writer knows he screwed up and that he screwed people, not just himself, in this.

I think Julian Gough does not realize how badly he comes off in his own narrative. I pity his agent, and those are not words I ever thought I could string together in my brain. I pity his ex, his kids, and his current spouse, too. This kind of self-important, toxically passive-aggressive behavior is exhausting to deal with.

[agoodwinsmith]

#9

I haven't read about the inhalable vaccines yet, but immediately upon reading the title I had a wicked thought: the way to get COVID deniers to wear masks is to tell them that there is a conspiracy to use inhalable vaccines in all public indoor spaces.

I am entirely too entertained by my own wicked willingness to lie for lols.

:)

Regarding Point Nine:

[dewline]

The name "CanSinoBio" rings familiar and unwelcome bells for many Canadians, particularly from early on in the Pandemic and there are connections to the story of the Two Michaels.

[alithea]

As someone who owns a dog who is moderately reactive to a small subset of other dogs (male, his size or bigger, generally black) I have become both very aware of his aggression warning signs and also how oblivious many other owners are to such signs (no, do not say "oh it's fine" to me while allowing your bristling dog to stalk up to my also bristling dog that I have put on a lead for a reason!!)