Interesting Links for 31-03-2023

[andrewducker]

1. Clues to the Lives of North America's First Inhabitants Are Hidden Underwater

(tags:usa prehistory archeology ocean )

2. Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

(tags:work family remote Technology society )

3. The Uniquely American Future of US Authoritarianism

(tags:usa authoritarianism )

4. "If you want to watch games on your tractor, please use your own iPad"

(tags:funny Technology farming )

5. An Unusual Finding of a Ladybug on Screening Colonoscopy

(tags:healthcare insects unlikely )

6. Quarter of British renters don't report repairs over eviction fears

(tags:uk rental OhForFucksSake )

7. DeSantis, the Disney board and King Charles III: A power struggle, explained

(tags:law Disney republicans LGBT USA Florida )

8. A Greek and Roman Mythology Walk around London (I've been on one of Tony's walking tours and he's an academic who really knows his stuff)

(tags:London Greece Rome history UK walking )

9. Growing a chicken in an open egg

(tags:chicken life eggs video weird )

10. Finland clears its last hurdle, will join NATO in July

(tags:Finland NATO )

11. UK-Asia trade deal to boost UK economy by...0.08%

(tags:trade UK pacific )

Comments

[rhythmaning]

From the Wired article on authoritarianism:

"Nearly half of Republicans say they would prefer “strong, unelected leaders” over “weak elected ones,” according to a September Axios-Ipsos poll, and around 55 percent of Republicans say defending the “traditional” way of life by force may soon become necessary. About 61 percent of Republicans don’t believe the results of the 2020 presidential election."

WTAF?!! I suggest the Democrats give strong unelected LIBERAL leaders. See how they like it then!

[andrewducker]

Lovely thought the thought is, I'd rather we gave them democracy.

Liberal dictators have a tendency to not be quite so liberal after a bit - but still a dictator...

[rhythmaning]

True!

[aldabra]

I had a letting agent who routinely threatened to evict us for mentioning repairs were needed. The landlady ended up evicting us anyway, three months before K's GCSEs, on the grounds that she had done no repairs in the twelve years we were there and the house was now falling apart. (One of the windowsills broke off in her hand.)

[channelpenguin]

Huh?. Surely the logical response would have been SACK THE AGENT?

[aldabra]

They were as bad as each other. We did report the large patch of mouldy damp in the bathroom, and they spent five years economising on fixing the roof by intermittently painting over the damp patch themselves. If my employment had been secure enough we would have moved, but by that stage it wasn't.

[aldabra]

... but, more importantly, there is no legal responsibility on anybody to behave logically. (I think, as a tenant, it is my ethical duty to report problems with the property, but my rational priority is whether I can afford to risk a forced house move if I do.)

They ended up doing a massive renovation including a new roof and are now letting it out at 50% higher rent, through a different agent.

[calimac]

7) This article is pretty good on the power struggle between Disney and DeSantis, though it glosses over an explanation of why DeSantis doesn't like Disney (perhaps it assumed that was obvious). However, it's rather confused over the King Charles III part. It's not "until England's monarchy dies out," but until 21 years after the death of the last of his descendants now living.

The idea is to create a presumably long but not endless time period, and not of pre-specified duration, and the lives of living members of a famous family are often used in perpetuity-avoiding cases because it's easy to check on whether the conditions have been fulfilled. This is actually a common legal maneuver (though what the article means by "the tactic resembled one that Republicans have used" is the tactic of stripping powers before handing them over). What's unusual is for a US case to use the British monarchy for it: my understanding is that most American cases use local celebrity families like the Kennedys or Rockefellers.

[andrewducker]

Over at https://davidallengreen.com/2023/03/happily-ever-after-disney-and-the-rule-against-perpetuties/ they speculate that the important factor is that the most recent descendant (and therefore the one that counts) was born in 2021.

[nancylebov]

2. I'm so used to fear-mongering that I was expecting remote work to have a negative effect on family formation, but it actually encourages family formation.

Also, the headline was very unclear-- I think it's about early research, but I had no idea if it meant early in the day or early in life or what.

9. I think I've seen the open shell thing decades ago, but I remember it as a smallish window rather than cutting off the whole top of the shell.

[hairyears]

8: Tony is a well-known figure in London Fandom, and a magnificent raconteur: I would thoroughly recommend his tours and talks!

[bens_dad]

2. Is it usual for "fertility" to mean number of babies a woman has or will have, rather than a measure of ability to conceive ?

[andrewducker]

I've seen it used for both in different contexts.

[drswirly]

I was confused and then disappointed by "A Greek and Roman Mythology Walk around London", because I had snoozily parsed the title as in "An Englishman and a Scotsman go into a pub".

I was hoping to read about a pair of mythologies walking around London.

[andrewducker]

I'm afraid you're going to have to write that one yourself :⁠-⁠)