Interesting Links for 07-12-2023

[andrewducker]

1. The internet helps solve an X-Files question that fans have been wondering about for 25 years

(tags:x-files music Twitter )

2. Why are movies full of CGI lying about it?

(tags:cgi movies fraud )

3. Incidence and burden of long COVID in Africa - the rates are *staggering*

(tags:Africa Pandemic Doom )

4. Building end-to-end security for Facebook Messenger

(tags:Facebook communication encryption )

5. No, having a cat doesn't increase your risk of developing schizophrenia. Probably.

(tags:cats schizophrenia ToxoplasmaGondii )

6. Services across England now lag far behind East Germany, as experts call for 'universal basic infrastructure' in UK

(tags:uk germany OhForFucksSake infrastructure austerity )

7. Commuting longer than 30 minutes os associated with depression

(tags:travel work depression mentalhealth )

8. Can the new Rwanda bill work and what could stop it?

(tags:law immigration uk rights echr )

Comments

[mountainkiss]

It might because cats gaslight people a lot.

[andrewducker]

I wouldn't let either of my children marry one.

[mountainkiss]

You have no weapons strong enough to counter their power to compel.

[andrewducker]

This is true. Sophia is desperate for a pet.

[danieldwilliam]

I can potentially offer you a good deal on some guinea pigs.

Or, if not interested in guinea pigs, I can potentially offer you a good deal on me not mentioning guinea pigs within earshot of Sophia.

[andrewducker]

I don't enjoy guinea pigs. Or hamsters. Or any other animals that small. They're very cute for about 7 seconds.

I'd like to have a dog. But that depends on me learning to drive. Which depends on me getting enough sleep. Which depends on Gideon sleeping properly in his own bed. Which depends on us being back in our own house.

So maybe a year or so from now.

[danieldwilliam]

Is being able to drive a neccesity for having a dog?

[andrewducker]

It is if we're going to go away places. You *can* take non-tiny dogs onto trains, but it's a pain, and we go to visit my parents in Devon by plane regularly, which would mean abandoning the dog if we couldn't drive down with it.

[danieldwilliam]

I see that.

And as a non-dog lover I'm a bit skeptical about people taking dogs on crowded long-distance trains.

[andrewducker]

Yeah. If you can't get them entirely out of the way then I'd feel pretty uncomfortable inflicting them on people who aren't comfortable with them.

(I love dogs, and I've still been cross with people who have their dogs lying across the aisle on the bus where4 anyone, including Sophia/Gideon, are going to find it hard to step over them.)

[danieldwilliam]

I should not have to put my twig and two berries in biting range of a dog whilst we are both being jostled on a moving conveyance.

[andrewducker]

Their dog should not have been on a moving conveyance if it could not be trusted not to bite people who bumped into it.

[calimac]

I once mentioned trampolines to a 6-year-old who was jumping up and down on her parents' bed. Her parents were not happy about the subsequent gift request.

[andrewducker]

Amusing as this is, I do think that parents need to be more comfortably saying no to their kids. Kids are going to want unreasonable things. They need to get comfortable with parents denying them those unreasonable requests!

[calimac]

It wasn't the child who earned the crossness. It was me, for having put the idea in her head. I suppose I should have known better.

[channelpenguin]

My cat instructs me to tell you that isn't true.

8

[danieldwilliam]

Law students are going to be studying the cases that arise from the Rwanda Bill for generations I think.

It is perhaps the single biggest act of tyranny in the United Kingdom in my life-time.

Re: 8

[andrewducker]

Instructing judges not to pay attention to law feels like one of those things that should make very loud bells ring.

Re: 8

[danieldwilliam]

Exactly so, exactly so. I fear that once we've established the political and legal precedent that you can exclude any judicial oversight over what legislation means for refugees it can and will happen in other situations. They'll come for the trade unionists next I expect.

Re: 8

[mountainkiss]

You’re not that old yet.

Re: 8

[danieldwilliam]

I feel that old.

Re: 8

[andrewducker]

Re: 8

[danieldwilliam]

First they came for the Simpsons memes and I did nothing...

[simont]

#7: I read through most of it thinking "Why aren't you talking about the type of commute?". When I go to the office my journey is over an hour – but it's walking, rather than driving or bus or train, which means exercise and fresh air and surely makes a difference to whether it depresses me.

(Cycling, on the other hand, I could see going either way. Exercise, tick; fresh air, depends on the level of traffic fumes; annoyance at obnoxious motorists, very likely...)

Eventually, down at the bottom, they mentioned the possibility, and it turned out they weren't able to factor that in because they didn't have that data available. Oh well.

I guess it probably didn't skew the results very much because motorised commuting will be the most common...

[andrewducker]

Enforced going outside? In the rain? Sharing a wet road with death machines? BAD!

Enforced sitting on the bus with a good book, watching the world goes by? I CAN LIVE WITH THAT!

[channelpenguin]

I get nauseous reading on a bus.

Outside is FUN! Especially in wet and rain*. Exercise and regularly getting cold (if otherwise heathy and not too expreme) builds resilience!!!

The Death Machines haven't got me yet (and none have tried for 25 years (touch wood) and I was on a motorbike).

*I may be a little brainwashed about what constitutes "fun" - growing up in Scotland, having bikes, motorbikes and especially sailing.

[andrewducker]

I find being cold physically painful. If I wrap up very warm then it's not too bad, but I absolutely don't enjoy it.

[channelpenguin]

Lol - I also hate being too warm, so yeah, for you, buses make total sense and cycling would be torture, whereas to me it's the other way round...

[andrewducker]

Also: I don't wanna be travelling. I wanna be home, doing nice things, occasionally spending time with my kids.

[danieldwilliam]

When you work out how to combine doing nice things with spending time with the kids do please let me know.

[andrewducker]

I quite enjoy some physical play. And they can be entertaining running around.

One on one can be quite entertaining.

The main issue at the moment is that if either of them feels the other one has received even an iota of favouritism then the volume in the room increases dramatically.

[channelpenguin]

well, life will sort THAT one out for them, in time.

anyway, I would reckon that the older one SHOULD get to do more things, and the younger one NEEDS more attention and it kinda sorta balances out? But I am dead sure that explaining that to the kids is not especially easy ... and probably not effective. logic vs emotion is dodgy enough with adults

[andrewducker]

Oh, I agree. Sophia does get to do more complex things, and Gideon gets more attention.

Except that she wants to talk about everything, and have attention too. Once she can read I reckon a bunch of that will diminish, but we'll see!

[channelpenguin]

Wow, yeah. I'm the oldest too, 2.5 years. Maybe that's why I learned to read so early! (I could read at 2.5. so just as my sister arrived)

a minor point about item 6

[redbird]

After listing services and public amenities that have declined in England in the last decade, item 6 notes that contrary to public perception, the number of libraries have increased. My immediate thought was to wonder how they're counting that. My mother's local library in Finchley (north London) is staffed only a few hours a week. The rest of the time, people who live there can check out and return books, but there are no library programs, not even a librarian who can help people select books, much less story hours or adult education sessions.

Re: a minor point about item 6

[andrewducker]

That's definitely worth knowing about.

Re: a minor point about item 6

[calimac]

My local public library has just introduced, with great fanfare, non-staffed open hours.

It's not as good as being staffed, but it's better than being closed.

Re: a minor point about item 6

[redbird]

Better than being closed, yes, but a lot depends on how many staffed hours there are. I think my mother said her library now has a librarian only a few hours a week.

6. Local knowledge

[channelpenguin]

Halle is, I guess, the comparison town for Cambridge - big university there. My ex company has offices there. Nice place, some fancy houses!

I've lived in (Former East) Germany for 10 years now. Not sure what the UK is like now, but here was definitely better than the UK when I moved, in my experience. Maybe some things here have got better and some worse (complaining about Deutsche Bahn is a national pastime .. but this year we got the Deutschland Ticket - valid on all ALL public transport in all of Germany - for €49 per month! I guess it will go up, but even at double it would be cheaper than the all Berlin used to be). Berlin has an awesome tram network in the East, buses and trains in the west. Most cities I've been to have good bus/tram/local trains.

I used to work for a hospital chain in the logistics IT. I visited a big local hospital for 2 days. It was INSANELY modern compared to the UK. The ICU was space age. But the hospitals are in decline even here and huge staffing and overwork issues, esp in mental health (I have a friend who is a visiting psych nurse). Most hospitals are privately owned, mostly by the Church (various denominations). There's an automatic income tax deduction from everyone that's been baptised/christened in the Church, and you have to prove you have formally left the Church to get out of it. I don't know how it works if you are Muslim or Jewish etc.

You can see doctors pretty easily all over. Seeing a specialist is quick in the country, but months long wait in Berlin. You have to find them and phone and make the appointments yourself, the GP just gives you a referral ticket. On the other hand, you can see dentists easily in the city but in the country they are over full and not taking new patients!

The internet and mobile phone network is not awesome and much more expensive than in the UK.

The roads have declined over the last 12 years I feel, and there's still lots of cobbled city / town streets and concrete block roads in the country. Street lighting is famously much worse than in the West and we don't have cats eyes or reflective road marking paint.

I haven't a clue about libraries -though there was one 10 mins from my apartment in Berlin, the opening hours were not super friendly to working people. Only one late night a week.

Re: 6. Local knowledge

[andrewducker]

Thank you, good to know!

[ninetydegrees]

7) Glad to have this confirmed. A shorter commute was one of the big reasons I decided to work at a different school. I could no longer stand spending at least two hours a day in public transport. It was too tiring and stressful.

[calimac]

2) I'm gathering that the film-makers who are falsely denying that their films use CGI are filming live and then pasting CGI over it. So the movements are all real, the vehicles just look snazzier than in real life. That's a big difference from the all-CGI effects with physically impossible events and unrealistic movements. We need an inbetween category.