Interesting Links for 07-02-2023

[andrewducker]

1. Star Wars, The Osmonds, and Twincest Predictions

(tags:StarWars twins incest music predictions )

2. Scientists suggest way to help children get desensitised to peanut allergy (effective for 80% of them)

(tags:peanuts allergies )

3. Call of the Void: Seven years on, what do we know about the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370?

(tags:airplanes crash Malaysia )

4. How damaging is the trans prisoners row for the SNP?

(tags:transgender lgbt snp scotland )

5. The kindest way to break up with a friend is to ghost them

(tags:friendship )

6. What actually helps reduce bullying?

(tags:bullying society )

7. LGBTQ: Plan to make it easier to change gender in Wales

(tags:lgbt wales transgender GoodNews )

8. I have regularly thought that more computing education should be as apprenticeships. I suspect the same is true of many other jobs.

(tags:apprentices Education uk )

9. China is building a staggering amount of solar power, here's how

(tags:China solarpower )

Comments

4

[danieldwilliam]

I fear the Gender Recognition Reform Bill issue will prove difficult for Sturgeon. Not necessarily politically fatal but problematic.

Firstly there is the optics.

And I draw a distinction between three things

1) public sympathy for trans-rights

2) what the GRR Bill *actually* does

3) what people who are not paying any attention to the issue whatsoever until they read the newspaper headlines last week *think* the GRR Bill does (this is most people in Scotland)

and the different levels of public warmth and salience on the those things.

The public, when asked, seem broadly supportive of trans-folk being treated better - but they do not think it is a very important issue for them.

When asked in detail about the specific reforms that the GRR attempts to bring in the public appear to be much much sceptical about those. They are possibly on balance actually against them. Difficult to tell because getting people to pay attention to that fine level of policy in an opinion poll is tricky. The best polling I've seen on the specific policy changes does indicate the public were not supportive. However, still not an important issue to most people.

I suspect that for the many people who are only just starting to pay attention now that the story is making headline and looking at what they now think the GRR is about - folks will be against that and think it is very important.

Now supporters of the GRR can say till you are blue in the face that the GRR is not about what people *think* it is about. And my response to that is to point those people at the AV referendum campaign and forecast that that argument will not end well and try to sell you a bus for 350 million Euros.

Second factor is the SNP's relationship with the SGP and specifically the ongoing issues with SGP ministers making incorrect statements to Parliament on the question of offshore wind energy potential. That sort of situation has been viewed by Sturgeon as a resigning matter in the past. How Sturgeon manages that whilst the SNP and SGP relations are potentially strained during a period where the SNP has to manage the optics of point 3 above whilst the SGP take a much more forceful line on transrights will be interesting to watch.

Third, this issue is at risk of damaging the independence movements short-term prospects. Those prospects are based in part on the SNP's image of sensible, competent modestly beige centre-left government. The independence movement (which lots of people do think is important to them) is a bit split over the Referendum Now or slowly softly catch thee monkey approach. Those short term prospects and the relative calm between those two factions of the independence movement I think rests a lot on Sturgeon's own reputation, popularity and political strength. If she's not in a strong position then both the promise of competent government and her own ability to manage the political divisions in the independence movement are weaker.

And that's before we consider the question of independence as an instrumentallity. People are broadly voting for Scottish independence in order to get something else - usually that something else is Not Tories or some form of Beige, Red or Green programme of government. There are some people who take the opposite tack and will vote for the Unionist Tories exactly in order to prevent an independent Scotland being socially liberal. There's probably not many of them and they probably mostly vote Tory already so the valence of the issue is not high - but worth keeping an eye on.

Forth, time is not the side of the SNP. They've been in government for more than decade. Sturgeon as FM for 8 years. They will probably win the next round of general elections but I don't see them winning the 2029 general elections. By 2029 Keir Starmer will have been UK Prime Minister for a whole parliament and the Vote Indy to Get Beige Centre-Left Careful Social Democracy boat will have sailed. I think that if they can't gain the necessary mandate for independence in the next three or so years then they are going to have wait a whole cycle of governments. And the independence polling is very close. So getting dragged in to any kind of messy, undignified, factional fight - particularly one which people don't think is a Top Ten issue for them is not going to help the stability perception.

Lastly, because Sturgeon has been so personally attached to the issue and these specific reforms have been accompanied by some pretty devise and intemperate language it's difficult for her to manoeuvrer round this. That's made worse by the likelihood that the GRR Bill does not actually do what people think it does, so she can't actually change policy in order to achieve what most voters think they want on this issue.

Probably not fatal but a potentially sticky spot.

Re: 4

[alithea]

Interesting analysis thanks.

I think Starmer being in charge in Westminster resulting in a Centre Left government is optimistic but I look forward to being proved wrong!

Re: 4

[danieldwilliam]

Perhaps it is better phrased as "a government to the left of the current one and perhaps perceived as centre left".

Re: 4

[autopope]

I perceive Starmer as being slightly to the right of Margaret Thatcher.

I am old enough to remember Thatcher directly -- I was 15 when she first formed a government and lived through the worst of her reign of terror as an adult.

(The current Conservative party -- since 2017-2019 -- occupies the territory previously held by the National Front/British National Party, i.e. actual out-of-the-closet fascists.)

Re: 4

[channelpenguin]

ROFL! You are no doubt correct. I'm a little younger, but the UK has been one of the fastest at falling in a fascist direction. I got out years ago (I'm in Germany), but pretty much everywhere has issues. :-(. (At least here they call a nazi a nazi when they crawl out. At least it's a small comfort.)

Re: 4

[cmcmck]

I think the problem you have is that most people think (if they think about the issues at all) that trans people are like me- women (most of them don't think about the guys) who have gone through the whole process and come out the other side. I suspect they have come to believe that there are two kinds of trans people.

Re: 4

[andrewducker]

"whilst the SGP take a much more forceful line on transrights will be interesting to watch."

I should note that the SNP had in their manifesto a commitment to "identify the best and most effective way to improve and simplify the process by which a trans person can obtain legal recognition, so that the trauma associated with that process is reduced. We remain committed to making necessary changes to the Gender Recognition Act that arise from this work at the earliest opportunity."

Also, Labour promised in their manifesto "We will reform the Gender Recognition Act to demedicalise the process"

And the Lib-Dems, obviously, promised to "Improve laws on gender recognition in line with international best practice to allow trans people to change the legal gender on their birth certificate with a simple process based on the principle of self-determination"

And then it passed with the support of 2/3 of MSPs, including over 80% of every party other than the Conservatives.

So this isn't "The sensible SNP vs the radical Green Party", this is The Conservatives vs the vast majority of everyone else.

Re: 4

[danieldwilliam]

I think the SGP do, as a matter of fact, take a more forceful line on transrights, looking for example at internal party discipline. There are also viable alternatives to the SNP party leadership who take a differet approach to trans-rights than Sturgeon. If anything the alteratives to leadership in the SGP are more focused on trans-rights. Not that the SGP has much of a talent pool to fish in.

The positions of the Liberal Democrats and Labour Party are pretty irrelevant here. Unless you believe that the Liberal Democrats and Labour Party would prioritise the GRR or trans-rights in general over bringing down Sturgeon's government. I think, given the chance, those two parties would happily watch a division grow between the government coallition parties. I think they would happily watch the independence campaign hit a rock even if that meant taking a lukewarm position on the GRR.

The fight isn't about the GRR. The GRR ain't happening. It's about independence and the 2025 UK GE and the 2026 Scottish GE.

Re: 4

[danieldwilliam]

Coincidentally (and perhaps even causally) Sturgeon's personal approval ratings (1) have fallen to an all time low.

https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/02/08/scottish-leader-ratings-from-ipsos-not-good-for-rishi/

(1) Party Leader personal approval ratings outside of a general election long campaign period appear to be better correlated with election results than voting intention polling is.

9

[danieldwilliam]

That's an interesting approach which I think is going to work well in China and perhaps not work well at all in the USA or Europe wehre governments have to be a little bit less persuasive about what people put on their roofs.

The secondary win for China, and all of us, is that the volumes of solar panels being made to put on those roofs is going to help drive the long-term cost reductions from scale and learning curve effects.

I think we'll need to wait until solar PV installation prices are much more economically attractive to see the sort of retro-fit they are getting in China.

But we coud do much much more within our own paradigms of getting stuff done to support rooftop solar. Mandating in all new builds and slowly shifting the property tax status to support rooftop solar for example.

Re: 9

[penta]

In the US, rooftop solar complicates something I see very few people consider: firefighting.

How? Well, usual firefighting tactic for a single-family-house fire involves water. Obvious problems there, no?

It also involves opening up the roof, as standard operating procedure, as I understand it.

The reason I bring this up is because it makes mandating rooftop solar on new builds very difficult for municipalities and (not to be ignored at all) insurance companies. Solar's all well and good, but not at the cost of firefighter or resident deaths (especially) or complete loss of the house in the event of a fire.

Re: 9

[danieldwilliam]

That is interesting.

I'm not sure I see that rooftop solar PV is unique problem for fire fighting.

What is it exactly that you think presents a particular problem?

Re: 9

[penta]

The fact that firefighters have to literally cut open the roof, which is difficult with solar panels even if the panels are not live and electrified?

8

[danieldwilliam]

There are a lot of jobs where an apprenticeship, or a graduate apprenticeship or some sort of hybrid model would work very well. My own fields of accountancy and law are probably ripe for more in-work training and education.

[liv]

8. Degree apprenticeships are a really good idea and expanding that programme is one of the few actually good things the current government has done. My current employer runs one such course for bioinformatics, absolutely a classic example of a case where you need real-world experience and coaching more than you need theoretical knowledge, especially as most uni bioinformatics courses are wildly out of date.

There are some potential downsides; one is the background climate of snobbism, where the qualifications you gain are looked down on, in the same way that vocational qualifications are thought of as "lesser" than academic qualifications like GCSEs, A Levels and university degrees. That's not just, people might say mean things about you behind your back, it has a big impact on job prospects. The other is that badly run apprenticeships are just an excuse for companies to pay very low wages and not actually provide any meaningful training. Partnering with universities helps to counterbalance that, but sometimes you end up with people trying to do 90% of the academic work of a traditional degree in effectively 20% of the time.

[andrewducker]

I can certainly see them going wrong and being treated badly. IT has a tradition of non-degree credentials though, and hopefully this could work well, once the bumps get ironed out.

[channelpenguin]

yes, a combo would be best because sometimes some underlying theory really really does help. I still use some from my Comp Sci degree. The practical is incredibly useful. Some kinds of engineering degrees used to involve industrial placements, and I vaugely recall there used to be technical colleges who did more involved hybrid training. That seems like the way to me...

[andrewducker]

It's definitely useful for some people. You're inquisitive and interested in how things work, so useful for you. But there are lots of devs out there who aren't, and for them solid experience and guidance in how to write maintainable code is probably about all they need (unless they then decide to build on it later).

[channelpenguin]

??? I'm now baffled as to how one manages to be non-inquisitive and not interested in how things work and still be a Dev. That seems to me to be fundamentally incompatible with the job. But maybe I'm just too old and there's been some other path in this profession for a couple of decades and I've just not noticed...

[andrewducker]

Have you not worked with people who are happy to be handed a design/requirements and churn out the code for it, but have no interest in how any of their libraries work?

[channelpenguin]

Hmm... oh, not as drastic as I was thinking. I see what you mean. Really not as often as I've worked with people who are MORE curious about inner workings than I am!

But it is typical that I'm the one who will casually suggest "what we need is a mutex", be surprised nobody has heard of one, and go find out what the issues with the algorithm used in the most popular library are ... (Spoiler, they ignored that last bit ... For a whole week - until we were under full load and hit the conditions that flaw shows up in).

On the other hand, I detest people interviewing me with uni level logic / code exercises and I'd not be able to tell you if the performance of this or that was On or O log n and all that bunk. That stuff I haven't thought of in 30yrs...

[hairyears]

The most useful career advice I received was in my induction at Zeda, where our group of trainees - all from non-traditional backgrounds - were told:

"You were recruited for your understanding of the theory or computing: but this is where you will learn The Craft of programming."

[andrewducker]

I'm a weirdo, but I think that craft should come first, and once you have a bit of a feel for things you'll pick up the theory much better.

[hairyears]

That's partially true: but nobody should be let loose on a database if they don't have some ability to think about data in a structured way - and that's a non-intuitive craft requiring teaching and an understanding of tables, queries and normalisation.

[andrewducker]

True. You're going to need a bit of theory there. Although the amount of training we gave to starting developers was about 6 weeks when I joined my previous employer and that included a programming language (COBOL) and two different database types (relational and hierarchical).
Of course we were only reading and writing to the database - we had DBAs to do the actual design.

[hairyears]

An actual training programme!

Who were they?

Zeda did COBOL and SQL, too...

[jducoeur]

To some degree at least, yeah.

As I often point out, I not only learned on the job, and not just as an apprenticeship -- I learned programming in classic Medieval fashion, working for my father for about five years during high school and the beginning of college, before going off to my first "journeyman" job.

The result was that the intro college programming courses were kind of a snooze for me, but I had the background to really appreciate the chewier bits of theory, and internalized them fairly deeply.

I got Big-O notation from college, but by that point I had already been building everything from device drivers to UIs to "backend" databases from scratch. (Heck, one of the first things I learned was refactoring, in order to make a big enhancement in a very memory-constrained assembly language system.)

So yeah: starting with at least some hands-on real programming will provide you with a ton of context, and often plenty enough knowledge to do even the interesting bits, so long as you have good mentors. And it will teach you tons about practical engineering that college classes tend to neglect.

[altamira16]

How is #2 different from the current way of doing Oral Immuno-Therapy?

Is it that people who would fail out at the smallest doses can begin Oral Immuno Therapy if you boil the nuts (instead of flunking out at the smallest doses?)

What do they mean by 80% effective? The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology is claiming a 60-80% effectiveness rate for the current form of Oral Immuno Therapy (OIT).

What is the drop out rate like? With current OIT, the drop out rate during the build up phase is incredibly high. This happens because people can experience anaphylaxis and incredibly upset stomachs during the build up phase, and they may decide it is not worth it.

You also have to eat an amount of the thing you are allergic to everyday forever to continue to be desensitized.

I think there are Facebook groups for OIT, and there were some issues like teens lying about taking their doses every day and then experiencing anaphylaxis when their parents said "I need to watch you do it." The kids didn't realize the importance of EVERY DAY to maintaining their desensitization.

There are different goals for OIT. Some people have a goal of tolerating an accidental bite, and others have a goal of free eating a thing that they were once allergic to. I think which you can do depends on the maintenance dose you stick with.

[agoodwinsmith]

#6

Have you come across the actual studies she found about training non/bully/victim students in community regulation? I would like to read those.

[andrewducker]

Alas, no.