Interesting Links for 06-10-2023

[andrewducker]

1. Scientists have finally worked out how cats produce purring sounds

(tags:cats )

2. Bears, birds and kangaroos: Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2023

(tags:funny photos nature wildlife viacmcmck )

3. When does spider season end? Why there are so many spiders in your house right now and how to stop them

(tags:spiders )

4. X stops showing headlines because Elon Musk thinks it will make posts look better

(tags:twitter ux awful )

5. Can you melt eggs? Quora's AI says "yes," and Google is sharing the result

(tags:ai epicfail fraud google )

6. Private equity managers could face £420m annual bill after legal challenge (this kind of thing is one of the reasons I donate to the Good Law Project)

(tags:law uk tax money )

7. Study into trans women in hospitals didn't find one single complaint

(tags:LGBT transgender NHS bigotry conservatives )

8. Finally, a trans debate worth having!

(tags:satire transgender video LGBT )

9. The extreme robot arm that can chop up a ship

(tags:automation ship waste )

Comments

[lilysea]

What the news announcer says to the transphobe at the end

"ta geule!"

roughly translates to "shut your hole!"

geule = animal mouth, not a human mouth.

And of course he's using the informal tu.

[cmcmck]

7. And I'd not object to a fiver for every time this debate has been had with this same outcome!

The old, old thing. If I'm not saying, how does anyone suppose they'll know?

When will people recognise the hatemongering for what it is?

[lauradi7dw]

I don't try to keep our house spider-free. They come and go as they please, and I hope that they are eating bugs that we don't want.

[channelpenguin]

1. If I recall right, vibration of the vocal folds (as opposed to vocal cords) is also how death/black (etc.) metal vocalists do it. But (probably?) without the special "pads" our purry friends have to make it effortless.

3. I don't mind spiders. My cat has fun with them.

I DO mind the creepy dead covered in white fuzzy (mould?) ghost zombie spiders in the cellar. I'm not sure how to clear them up but I have to try tomorrow...

4. I don't care. Honestly. Just everyone get off these toxic timewaste data suck platforms. Back to bulletin boards, that's what I say! Lol.

5. ??. I can't imagine even asking that question, but hmm. Yeah. Funny.

7. Unsurprising but depressing. Humans aren't rational at certain scales. Or rather, maybe they are - but IMO, a politician should have nobler aims than getting into and staying in power through lazy populism.

[andrewducker]

If we did have those pads then someone would be using them to sing, I feel sure. Which would be pretty awesome.

[calimac]

8) And I note that the trans man in this video has a characteristic that both the trans men I know personally have: a beard. Someone's going to look at him and think "That's really a woman"? Oh, come off it.

Of course, nobody really cares about trans men; they're merely off on depicting trans women as indistinguishable from drag queens, but it's the same issue.

[conuly]

1. I'm so glad that the article I read about cats purring took the time to explain that the subjects were cats who had been euthanized for illness. No sarcasm.

3. I've always been told that it's lucky to have a spider in the house. I have never been told if the luck stacks.

[movingfinger]

1. I'm going to keep on telling people they're rubbing their kidneys together.

[threemeninaboat]

Look I'm not opening that spider article in case there are pictures. Please TL:DR it for me.

[darkoshi]

Spider season in the UK is roughly between late summer and early autumn ... This period coincides with the mating season of house spiders, he said, which only occurs once a year. ... it is usually over by mid October.
...
Moving spiders outdoors by trapping them in a glass using a piece of card is the most humane way to remove spiders from the house, said Professor Hart.
But the problem with this method for people who are scared of spiders is that you have to get quite close to the spider to do this. He said that there are spider “grabbers” on the market that can be used to humanely remove spiders from an arms’ length.

[andrewducker]

It's their mating time, so they're more mobile than usual, looking for a mate, so we bump into them more rather than them being hidden in dark places where we don't spot them.

(And yes, there was a photo, so you did the right thing.)