Interesting Links for 17-07-2023

[andrewducker]

1. How much would it cost to make a simple piece of clothing by hand

(tags:clothing money prehistory viaDanielDWilliam )

2. Kitchen implement or torture device?

(tags:cooking torture )

3. More than two kids? Labour thinks they should starve

(tags:labour poverty children OhForFucksSake )

4. One Scottish care home closing every week, industry warns

(tags:care Scotland Doom )

5. What's going on with Twitter? (It's turning itself into a pyramid scheme of awfulness)

(tags:Twitter Doom )

6. The UK government is about to destroy the UK's access to the internet

(tags:internet UK doom OhForFucksSake )

7. What if AI could only be trained on material that was out of copyright?

(tags:ai copyright funny comic )

8. China is making huge strides in its green economy

(tags:China solarpower pollution impressive )

Comments

[adrian_turtle]

1. Thinking of ancient cloth manufacturing in those terms did make me look at the Iliad differently. (What did it for me was Women's Work, The First 20,000 Years.) A king giving his follower a cloak and tunic is a big deal, not just because it's an honor but because it's a year of crystallized labor.

5

[danieldwilliam]

I think this week is the week I became convinced that Twitter is going to go bust. I'll hang around on it but I am now primarilary there to watch it implode.

Re: 5

[andrewducker]

It is a massive shame, because there continues to be a huge amount of useful and interesting discussion on there. But I agree that it's just not working.

My remaining hope is that someone sensible buys it up on the cheap and sorts it out.

[dewline]

3. Yikes.

4. Also yikes for different reasons.

5. Are we surprised?

6. Canada's bringing in an online harms bill, and it's not getting the same response from those companies. Mind you, we still have concerns about the consequences of such bills passing into law.

7. Another yikes!

8. Good.

[nancylebov]

3. Heinlein's _Farmer on Ganymede_.

[agoodwinsmith]

1 - thank you; fascinating

That's why women span wherever they went, all the time, even riding horses. Your daughter is old enough that she would be spinning, and that constantly.

The linens from ancient Egypt are so fine that we can't actually make thread that thin. There were rooms of women spinning and weaving in cramped quarters their whole lives to produce the fabrics.

And let me tell you: even now, buying ready-made fabric and using scissors and a sewing machine to turn it into a dress takes a long time, and what used to be an economical method of clothing oneself is now comparatively expensive and only worth it if one can't buy a ready-made version of what one wants (nobody makes proper comfy cotton nighties anymore, sob).

3. More than two kids? Labour thinks they should starve

[anef]

The Guardian has a slightly more optimistic take: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/20/starmers-caution-infuriates-some-in-labour-but-theres-method-in-his-mildness