Interesting Links for 28-02-2023

[andrewducker]

1. Edinburgh Labour councillor quits, says that Labour head office banning coalitions with Greens or SNP has caused a shambles

(tags:labour scotland OhForFucksSake )

2. This is my favourite recent computer game review

(tags:games review )

3. A Stroke Of The Pen: A Collection Of Rediscovered Short Stories By Terry Pratchett

(tags:terrypratchett short_story )

4. I am actually pretty impressed at how much the UK managed to get in the new deal over Northern Ireland

(tags:NorthernIreland trade Europe UK Ireland )

5. Rez on the PSVR 2 uses eye tracking for locking on!

(tags:VirtualReality games eyes amazing )

6. Aurora Borealis. Edinburgh, 26 February 2023. (I couldn't see from where we live, but I do appreciate these photos)

(tags:auroraborealis edinburgh scotland )

7. The Jewish influence on Good Omens

(tags:judaism neilgaiman )

8. Elon Musk defends racist tirade by Dilbert creator Scott Adams

(tags:racism dilbert ElonMusk )

9. TikTok's new face filters are very impressive, and make people feel awful about their real faces

(tags:faces photoshop video )

10. Amazon Removes Books From Kindle Unlimited After They Appear on Pirate Sites

(tags:copyright amazon piracy wtf publishing )

11. Physically Demanding Work Tied to Male Fertility

(tags:exercise fertility men )

12. Eggs and margarine drive food inflation to record 17.1%

(tags:food inflation economics uk eggs ukraine doom )

13. Two in three Britons want new political party to take on Tories and Labour

(tags:politics UK )

14. Study finds video games are not harmful to children's brains

(tags:videogames games brain children )

15. 25 years after the MMR vaccine autism fraud, we're still dealing with the consequences

(tags:fraud autism mmr vaccination OhForFucksSake history )

Comments

[nancylebov]

11. I wonder whether they didn't ask about weight-lifting from exercise, or if exercise in concentrated periods doesn't have the same effect.

[channelpenguin]

Serious bodybuilders are all on steroids, and increasingly less serious ones too, which will mess up the data badly. :-(.

[rhythmaning]

Here's a photo of the aurora from the Braid Hills on Sunday - https://flic.kr/p/kxoHd4

And this one - not such a good picture (perhaps a bit windy for their tripod?) - from Blackford Hill! https://flic.kr/p/kxaz4V

When your children are older (it not being a good idea to take toddlers for a hike in the dark...), taking them to see the aurora from the top of Blackford Hill might be an idea!

[andrewducker]

I had Sophia on top of Blackford Hill in the dark for the 5th of November. That was pretty awesome.

But that was around 7pm - I didn't hear about the aurora until 9pm.

[rhythmaning]

"Two in three Britons want a new political party ..." But don't want the constitutional change that would make a three-party system work!!!

[cmcmck]

Yes! The same Britons who voted down a PR system. Admittedly, it wasn't the best one possible but a long way better than nowt!

[andrewducker]

It really would have been!

[danieldwilliam]

People were pretty iffy about the Alternative Vote - even before the referendum campaign. Polling suggests they are more in favour of electoral systems that are more deliberately proportional but it's the sort of inside baseball issue that people struggle to get excited about as it's about 3 steps removed from actually delivering any policy.

[andrewducker]

It does occasionally remind me of the story you told me about The Captain where he would occasionally say "When are we going to visit the island in Minecraft?" and you'd remind him that he needed to gather a bunch of supplies in advance, and he'd say "Oh yeah" and then totally fail to do so, before asking about the island again a few days later.

People seem to be *slowly* coming around to the idea that PR is a necessary precursor for other good things. But they are taking a very long time about it.

[danieldwilliam]

A factor in the slowness is that the impact of a different voting system is hard to see. The obstructions to voters having more effective choice and more effective power are obscure. You can, in theory, vote for anyone you like using First Past the Post and as soon as someone starts burbling on about co-ordination problems and Duvergeurs Law and son you've lost most people who are quite right more focused on the immediacy of their own lives.

11

[channelpenguin]

So, back when I was single and horny, my friend who recommended that I followed up with all the builders in my fave cafe who were eyeing me up may have been onto something?

And the tradition of the upper class ladies shagging the gardener might have had some logic? Lol.

[hairyears]

The new Northern Ireland agreement has the marks of something produced by competent negotiators on both sides.

Specifically, the UK.

This is an astonishing break from expectations and the well-established practices of the regime in Brexitstan.

So what's happening in Whitehall and Westminster?

On the one hand, we have to confront the unlikely possibility that all of the following miracles have happened:

1. Sunak has called his party and the ERG to order, so that a workable approach isn't immediately sabotaged by populist grandstanding and unreasonable demands from Euroskeptic extremists;
2. Experienced negotiators from Trade and the FCO are no longer regarded as Eurotraitors and excluded from decision-making;
3. The ministers involved are actually listening to sensible advice and engaging in an intelligent conversation - a laughably-improbable suggestion in any cabinet since the Referendum;
4. The Department for Exiting the European Union have been excluded, silenced, and walled-up in a cellar with candles, turnips, 'Sunlit Uplands' propaganda posters, psychiatric medications and a crack team of media experts telling them that Brexit is going swimmingly well;
5. The media are onside, including the Murdoch Empire, the Barclay brothers, and the UKIP PR executives who have been firmly entrnched at BBC News & Current Affairs for over a decade.

On the other hand, we could speculate that the EU designed the whole agreement from the ground up - both sides of it - with an in 'ghost team' acting as internal 'negotiators' for a failed state deemed incapable of participating in First-World diplomacy. Effectively, treating Brexitstan as a protectorate with no near-term prospect of developing effective indigenous government, being given pre-written treaties by their betters to sign for their own good.



Also... This is, actually, a border in the Irish Sea, an agreement predicated on a high degree of compatibility (or conformity) in Northern Ireland's regulatory regime and EU standards, and submission to the European Courts as final arbiter in all disputes.

[andrewducker]

It very-much feels like they've finally decided that they need adults in the room. That the way the Conservatives were operating under Johnson and Truss was a complete disaster. And so they've actually done the right things.

And, frankly, much though the Tories can fuck off, I'd much rather have competent evil than the utter chaos of the last few years.