Interesting Links for 19-06-2023

[andrewducker]

1. The horrifying toll of Sweden's lax pandemic policy

(tags:Sweden Pandemic Death OhForFucksSake )

2. Ursula Vernon has cancer

(tags:Cancer )

3. Possibly the finest money-making scheme of all time

(tags:business funny geology )

4. Read here about chickenpox parties, and consider that this is what the NHS still wants today in the UK

(tags:UK NHS vaccination OhForFucksSake history )

5. California restaurant had fake priest hear workers' confessions

(tags:catholicism fraud work USA wtf OhForFucksSake )

6. Rishi Sunak mocks trans women in leaked video footage

(tags:conservatives bigotry LGBT transgender )

7. Schopenhauer's 38 ways to unfairly win an argument

(tags:argument )

8. Apple wants to own pictures of apples. All of them

(tags:apple apples intellectual_property OhForFucksSake )

9. Companies in Japan opting for selected offices to work in English

(tags:Japan English business )

10. No matter how else you might feel about the internet, the opportunity it provides for people to educate themselves is *amazing*

(tags:Education internet )

Comments

[cmcmck]

6. Well according to Sunak's own logic, if 100% of women don't have penises then I must belong to 100% of women..........

I suspect he holds to the 'two kinds' theory (two kinds of trans women) but no one wants to hold that conversation for obvious reasons!

[simont]

#5: when people attempt these jaw-droppingly audacious acts of deception, why do they never seem to have the slightest sense of subtlety?

“I found the conversation to be strange and unlike normal confessions,” [...] “He asked if I ever got pulled over for speeding, if I drank alcohol, or if I had stolen anything,” [...] “The priest mostly had work-related questions, which I thought was strange.”

If they'd played the long game, substituting a fake priest and having them behave believably like a priest so that the fraud was not immediately detected, I could respect their competence even if not in any way their ethics. This way I can't even admire them as a worthy antagonist.

It's understandable in some contexts. Spam, in particular: I remember reading an analysis once that suggested that spammers deliberately make their pitches unsubtle in their dishonesty, on the basis that that way anyone short of 100% gullible will hit delete immediately and only the most likely of suckers will waste the spammer's time by actually responding. But the difference is that spammers are very hard to catch and shut down, so recipients don't generally have any stronger response than the delete key, and that doesn't stop the spammer trying other victims independently. Here, just one victim spotting the scam can blow the whole thing wide open for everyone, as in fact happened.

[bens_dad]

4. I take it the NHS is still not routinely given chickenpox vaccination then ?
They did give Ben one, but the answer was "No" until we mention Down's Syndrome.

8. Are they still stinging from losing "Apple Music" ?
Do they think they would have won that if McCartney had not had an agreement signed by Jobs ?

Ursula Vernon

[agoodwinsmith]

No. Just no. Okay, it is obviously yes, but geeeez.

Japanese VS English

[agoodwinsmith]

I'm trying to think how much of a hoo-ha that would cause if it was done in reverse here. Well - I'm not actually sure that it could be done here because we have, on paper, not kidding, official languages, and I bet someone not even wanting to be employed at the place would make a fuss.

Also - for anyone moving to Japan to take advantage of the opportunity, it's great until one has to leave work for, oh, grocery shopping, or picking up a parcel, or getting a haircut, or ...

[melchar]

#3 = Never underestimate the power of human gullibility. As the saying goes, there is no entry for 'gullible' in the dictionary.

#8 = Also, never underestimate the power of corporate greed.

Ursula Vernon has cancer

[anef]

I'm very sorry to hear this.