Interesting Links for 14-08-2023

[andrewducker]

1. Adapting Intuitive Eating for Neurodivergent People

(tags:food health neurodiversity )

2. Edinburgh roads: Work to transform Lothian Road into a boulevard will not start until 2028

(tags:Edinburgh transport roads thefuture )

3. Firefox is bringing back full browser extension support to Android

(tags:Android Firefox GoodNews )

4. Labour: you deserve to breathe pollution

(tags:pollution labour policies UK )

5. The Main Lesson From 'Baldur's Gate 3' Should Be 'People Hate Microtransactions'

(tags:games business )

Comments

[ninetydegrees]

#5 This, so much. If I have to spend 60 to 80€ or more for an AA/AAA game it'd better be the whole thing. I'd rather buy quite a few indie games instead or wait till something's on GamePass. I think the only DLC I've ever bought was BOTW's because I liked the game so much, but it was complete on its own. Cosmetic microtransactions make some sense for F2P games or as a way to support tiny studios, but that's about it. It's still a terrible business model from consumers' POV.

[calimac]

1) This is one of the few writings on neurodivergency that makes me think I may have it.

4) Another example of trying to win votes that will only lose you the ones you already have. On the other hand, they may be thinking, "Where are they going to go?" If to minor parties, they're neutralized, because those aren't going to win (except the Lib Dems in places Labour wouldn't win anyway). Surely people disappointed with Labour for these reasons wouldn't vote Tory.

5) I think you have to have played the game to follow what they're talking about here.

[channelpenguin]

Funny, it makes me think the opposite. I am very good with internal sensations.

I am also fascinated with possible why as to the EXTERNAL over sensitivity, yet INTERNAL under- sensitivity. Mulling over hormonal causes (leptin/ghrelin) and7or some sort of fascia connection (because, dyspraxia and the fascial system's role in balance etc [faster than nerves!!])

[andrewducker]

The problem is the voters who say "I'm not voting for Labour, I'm just staying home."

As far as I can tell, lots of previously-Conservative voters aren't switching, they're just staying home. That seems to be a common issue - people who won't change sides, but also sit at home until they see a point in coming out again.
Conservative votes didn't change between 2017 and 2019 - about 13,000,000. But Labour dropped from 12,000,000 to 10,000,000 because a bunch of their voters didn't think it was worth coming out to support Corbyn.

Oh, and I went and checked. Lib Dems are in 2nd place in 91 seats, and only 5 of those aren't Conservative. https://www.libdemvoice.org/the-sunday-data-workshop-continues-the-91-seats-where-the-liberal-democrats-came-second-in-the-general-election-63280.html

[danieldwilliam]

Mike Smithson on Political Betting tracks the proportion of Conservative 2019 voters who are currently Don't Know / Won't Vote and it looks to be consistently in the high teens for the last twelve months and a large driver of the current polling lead of the Labour Party. It's the reason he's less confident about Labour winning a majority in the next general election. He's concerned that some of those DK/WV will re-engage as the election comes closer.

[andrewducker]

Yeah. Makes me nervous too.

I think a bunch of them will just not vote, but if the Conservatives can find something that sticks to Labour and Starmer loses enough people to "They're just the same as the Conservatives." it could still all go wrong for them.

(Not that I want a large Labour majority. But the point stands.)

[danieldwilliam]

I think you'd have to have an eye on where the different types of Labour voters are.

I *think* the sort of Labour voter who would be so put off by Starmer's current triangulation on Tory rhetoric (e.g. asylum seekers and child benefit cap) enough to not vote or to vote Green are more likely to be in city centre seats where Labour overkills. The type of voter who is either a) going to be reassured by Starmer's current mood music or b) a current DK/WV Conservative 2019 voter - an inactive Conservative voter - are morely likely to be in Labour / Conservative marginals. From an election winning point of view it's probably worth losing 50,000 of the former to gain 50,000 of the latter.

[andrewducker]

I agree. And I hope they've calibrated things well.

[danieldwilliam]

Any competent opposition would be 20 points ahead...

[calimac]

"a bunch of their voters didn't think it was worth coming out to support Corbyn."

What a change from when Corbyn was first chosen, when his selection was boosted as going to cause a huge number of previous non-voters to come from the woodwork out.

[andrewducker]

He energised a lot of one kind of Labour voter, but ended up putting off a bunch of others.
If we'd had PR then he'd have complimented Labour very nicely as the leader of a party on their left. But, alas...

1. Adapting Intuitive Eating for Neurodivergent People

[jack]

Ah, good points there. I've been trying to assume that my body has an intuition which is often but sometimes can't be relied on. I was thinking more about "right about a lot of things but wrong some" (eg if it instinctively measures hunger and fullness but is sometimes misled by carb crashes). But I also assumed that I heard it SOMETIMES, not all the time...

Re: 1. Adapting Intuitive Eating for Neurodivergent People

[andrewducker]

I am lucky that my body is pretty good at giving me actual growling stomach messages. Although I did have to learn to distinguish those from low blood sugar signals.

Re: 1. Adapting Intuitive Eating for Neurodivergent People

[jack]

I do SOME of the time, I always used to feel hungry, but now not all the time.

That's a good point, how do you recognise low blood sugar?

I was paying attention to both but hadn't actually thought how to separate them.

Re: 1. Adapting Intuitive Eating for Neurodivergent People

[andrewducker]

Hunger is literally my stomach growling at me, and feelings of emptiness. Low blood sugar is jitteriness and (eventually) hypoglycemia (shakiness, clamminess, need to sit down).

Re: 1. Adapting Intuitive Eating for Neurodivergent People

[jack]

Thank you!

[jack]

Maybe we needed to call ultra low emission zones normally common sense emission zones or something. It seems like in practice it's "everything goes except an extra charge for a lot of lorries and cars over 20 years old" which I think sounds plausible even if it's a problem some of the time, but somehow it always sounds like a lot of complicated hoops almost everyone has to worry about

[jack]

I like micro transactions for some things. Read one article, use an app once for a few hours, I'm at a point in life I'm PLEASED to pay something. But I don't like that it's a massive faff.

Whereas if it's something I'm engaging with regularly, a site I subscribe to, or a game I'm playing a lot, then paying in little bits almost always means that they want to interrupt the fun to trick me into paying more than I realise, which is I don't like.

If I'm getting something specific for it, it makes more sense. If there's a "lite" and "premium" version, or each segment costs 10 instead of the game costing 50, then fair enough. But almost always the microtransactions means, "pay again and again and again, try to extort as much as possible"