Interesting Links for 08-02-2024

[andrewducker]

1. What does it mean that BlueSky is designed to be more open?

(tags:socialnetworking design computers )

2. Rishi Sunak Refusing To Apologise For Trans Jibe In Front Of Murdered Trans Teen's Mum

(tags:transgender Conservatives bigotry OhForFucksSake )

3. Man from Dildo takes photo of iceberg shaped like a penis. In Conception Bay

(tags:penis Canada photos iceberg names )

4. Lothian bus journeys increased by over 17% from 94 million in 2022 to 110 million last year (I wonder what it was in 2019)

(tags:buses transport Edinburgh GoodNews )

5. EU sets maximum bank transfer time to 10 seconds

(tags:Europe banking regulation time )

6. After Libs of TikTok posted, at least 21 bomb threats followed

(tags:terrorism USA )

7. Beard-seconds, Chains, Pirate-Ninjas, and other Units of Measure

(tags:measurement viaSwampers )

8. Mimas' surprise: Saturn's tiny moon hides a young ocean beneath its icy shell

(tags:moon saturn ocean water )

9. 13 Worst Bike Lanes in the World (Edinburgh is #1! Woohoo!)

(tags:edinburgh cycling epicfail )

10. Poll Shows 74 Percent of Republicans Like Donald Trump's Dictator Plan

(tags:usa dictators doom )

11. Apple releases an AI to help you edit images

(tags:apple ai images editing )

Comments

[lilysea]

EU sets maximum bank transfer time to 10 seconds

That's great!

When I do an electronic withdrawal from my savings account with Bank A

to my credit card with Bank B, it takes 3 to 4 business DAYS for the funds to appear with Bank B!

[andrewducker]

Weirdly, transfers to my credit card also take days to arrive. But I think they get away with that because a credit card isn't a bank account.

[channelpenguin]

Commzerbank is/was the worst. Transfers take 3 working days. The workaround I had was to use (Transfer)Wise with payment via Sofort ... never tried it with the CC account. It would take 3 days from Commerzbank current account to Commerzbank CC account! As it is a prepay account that was ... not convenient.

[jducoeur]

When I do an electronic withdrawal from my savings account with Bank A to my credit card with Bank B, it takes 3 to 4 business DAYS for the funds to appear with Bank B!

That's mainly because they can do so, and by going slow they get to carry the float interest during that time. (Which adds up to serious money.)

The previous rules mostly date back to, literally, the pony-express days, when a bank transfer consisted of somebody having to physically travel from Bank A to Bank B, so governments cut them a lot of slack in terms of how much time they had to make it happen. But that no longer makes any sense at all, so it's good to see lawmakers catching up to the 21st century.

[cmcmck]

2.It just demonstrates what an utter piece of scum Sunak really is and it isn't like he doesn't have form on this- but this demonstrates a new low!

2

[danieldwilliam]

I doubt that Sunak's comments will make much different electorally - not directly. With the "culture wars" stuff, small boats and trans-rights, I think he's fishing for Conservative-Labour swing voters who are economically left-ish but social conservative. I doubt large numbers of those voters are going to offended at what happened at Prime Minister's Questions.

And not many people pay that much attention to PMQS or are avid followers of trans-rights in any direction.

That said, whatever one's views on trans-right British people like to think they are tactful and polite and it's a poor look to be that cruel to someone in public. I suspect many people who agree with the Conservative Party on trans-rights would be upset that Sunak was rude to a grieving mother, and so thoughtlessly.

I think the effect they've had electorally is that the furure over what he said drowned out Labour's change in tone and policy on the green investment funding and he was hoping to use that policy as a multi-pronged stick to hit Labour with - but now they've re-positioned themselves and he's lost a bit of the potentcy of that attack line.

Which he wouldn't have done if he'd been an astute enough tactical or stratigic politicion to think to himself is today the day I want to say nasty things about transfolk in front of the grieving mother of a trans kid who was murdered?

I see him as cruel, inauthentic muppet.

Re: 2

[andrewducker]

Yeah, that sounds like a pretty accurate summary.

Re: 2

[cmcmck]

I find it hard to deal with his nastiness when I keep having to think 'that's me he's talking about'. After fifty years of it , it wears just a little thin. :o(

Re: 2

[danieldwilliam]

I do see that this is going to feel very very personal for some folks.

4

[danieldwilliam]

If you can't get an AirBnB perhaps a night-but ticket might suffice?

Pleased to see passenger numbers are up for the buses.

Re: 4

[andrewducker]

Possibly :-)

And it looks like Princes Street is transitioning to become more and more hotel-based. Which will help replace some of the AirBnBs we're losing.

I'm also pleased to see the numbers are up for the buses. I'd love to know how it compares to 2019.

[hilarita]

9. The video of good practice at the end was nice. It looked like nearly all of that route was comfortably wide enough and flat enough to use a trike on, without sitting at an awkward angle.

[andrewducker]

Yes. If all British cycle lanes were properly segregated like that then I'd cycle to work.

[bens_dad]

5. 10 seconds isn't a lot of time to catch fraud. I've heard that this is the EU catching up with the UK on instant transfers, which have apparently assisted with a dramatic rise in fraud.

It would have been nice if you could check with the recipient that the money had arrived *before* it was too late to recall it if it had gone to the wrong account (though I can see problems for the recipient wth that).

I don't see whether the banks are liable for fraudulent payment, which has been a big fight here.

[andrewducker]

The UK at least checks account names when you set a new one up.

For anything where I'm uncertain I send a pound over and check that, then send the rest.

7 weird measurements

[snippy]

I have many times typed a legal description of a piece of land that included references to chains. Typing legal descriptions is also where I learned about seconds of arc, so I was able to impress my trig professor when I took it as an adult (for fun).

[reverancepavane]

I am disappointed by the lack of the milli-Helens (sufficient beauty to launch one ship). Although perhaps the dispute between whether the unit should be conisderedf in the term of displsacement of a Standard greek bireme or as a unitary measure clouds the issue. Using the first definition, the launching of Icon of the Seas required an expenditure of roughly 9.5 Helens, wherea under the second it was 1 milli-Helen.

Since a centi-Helen is also the amount of beauty required to burn a tower, this offers a convenient conversion between ship ddisplacement and Mrs O'Leary's Cows via the Great Fire of Chicago.

[It also ignores all those wonderful units created when the world ran on steam, like BTU and footpoundals, etc. This is completely underdtandable. Sometimes I wish I could ignore those too.]

[danieldwilliam]

There must be some sort of conversion between Helens & the sparkling wine industry.