Interesting Links for 16-02-2024

[andrewducker]

1. All of the parties have shared their proposed budgets for Edinburgh

(tags:edinburgh politics money )

2. UK MPs will be helped to spot conspiracy theories

(tags:research conspiracy uk politics )

3. Neil Gaiman is in disagreement with half of his fans of the genre of Good Omens

(tags:neilgaiman comedy TV genre funny )

4. The 2023 Hugo Fraud and Where We Go From Here

(tags:Hugo awards scifi fraud )

5. What it takes to scam someone out of $50,000

(tags:money fraud )

6. Service change from Sunday 24 March - Lothian Buses

(tags:Edinburgh buses transport )

7. Scientists aghast at bizarre AI rat with huge genitals in peer-reviewed article

(tags:ai rats genitals penis wtf )

8. Greece legalizes same-sex marriage in a first for an Orthodox Christian nation

(tags:greece lgbt marriage christianity )

9. Solar & Battery Storage to Make Up 81% of New U.S. Electric-Generating Capacity in 2024

(tags:solarpower GoodNews usa batteries )

10. The Fraud of Plastic Recycling (and the companies that have covered it up for 50 years)

(tags:recycling plastic fraud doom )

Comments

[autopope]

Having worked with rats in the lab, I assure you that the testicles on that hallucination are, in fact, roughly correct. Rat nuts are huge.

The penis is another matter ...

[nineveh_uk]

I am also struck that the rat appears to have more than the usual number of testicles.

[nancylebov]

Further discussion of scams and vulnerability to them.

https://www.metafilter.com/202550/A-financial-advice-columnist-falls-for-an-elaborate-scam#8521950

[andrewducker]

Thank you. Some great examples there.

[rhythmaning]

The rat thing: utterly bizarre that those images passed peer review! The reviewers should be ashamed.

The Hugos thing: despite not being overly interested in SF/F, I find the situation fascinating. I read the detailed report Sclazi discusses, and I'm not sure I entirely agree with his conclusions: the opacity of the Chinese part of the award admin means one can't exclude external interference. But I'm surprised the rest of the committee went along with it. Part of me can't help thinking "what did they expect when holding WorldCon in China?" And then thinking that *not* holding it there would have been racist!

[andrewducker]

Yeah. I can understand the people defending it going there, on the grounds that we shouldn't automatically assume malfeasance, and that there would be long-term Hugo organisers working to protect the running of the con.

To be fair, the convention itself seems to have gone well, and the fraud on the award seems to have been perpretated *by* the long term Hugo organisers!

[calimac]

It was pointed out in comments that the report is based on Dave McCarty's e-mails to the people working for him, and not on any discussion he may have had with his superiors, which he did allude to in those e-mails but did not pass on their exact contents.

I don't see how not holding the Worldcon in China would be racist unless you'd be equally suspicious of people of Chinese ancestry running it in the US or Singapore or wherever. The prejudice here is against the authoritarian government of the country, not against Chinese people.

[autopope]

I don't see how not holding the Worldcon in China would be racist unless you'd be equally suspicious of people of Chinese ancestry running it in the US or Singapore or wherever.

We'll get a chance to put this to the test during site selection for the 2027 worldcon, where the existing Tel Aviv bid (on the rocks thanks to October 6th and the Israeli reaction to it) runs up against the emergency bid from Montreal, which is led by Terry Fong (note the name: Terry is Canadian, lives in Montreal, and is of Chinese descent). Terry has a worldcon track record from previous Canadian worldcons so if there's anti-Chinese racism in play, as opposed to anti-Chinese government skepticism, it will be glaringly visible.

(I have reservations about Terry, because he led Programming at a couple of previous worldcons where the program was spectacularly FUBAR'd, but committee chair is a completely different job from head of programming: and also he has getting on for 20 years' more experience since then.)

[rhythmaning]

I was thinking it would be racist if the process ignored those votes from China that wanted the WorldCon to go to China.

But as I think I said, I have little knowledge of how these things work.

[ninetydegrees]

8) \o/ thanks for reporting the good news!

[andrewducker]

My pleasure!

Hugos

[cellio]

I haven't read the detailed report, but I've heard a lot about this -- what a terrible thing to do to the authors who were unfairly excluded and the ones who won. As Scalzi says, they will forever have asterisks next to their names, even if they would have won in a fair contest, and that sucks.

In addition to the other changes WSFS needs to make, they also need to make whatever rules changes are needed to allow the disqualified works to compete -- whether that's "Hugo 2023'" (but don't screw the people who won, please), or adding those works to the 2024 contest and coming up with some way to make that fair for the 2024 competitors, or... something. But don't just ignore it. Too often, gross misconduct leads to "we'll do better next time" but doesn't redress the wrongs. They should at least try. I don't know what that looks like, but they should be having those conversations.

Re: Hugos

[andrewducker]

I hope they do re-run it. It might take a while, depending on the process. I know that WorldCon rules take two years to change (by design, so no one con can hijack things). Hugo rules may be changeable faster.

Greece legalizes same-sex marriage in a first for an Orthodox Christian nation

[anef]

I was pleased to see this and then looked at the map and realised that Italy hasn't. Which was a surprise. I suppose I assumed that all countries in the EU would have a progressive policy. Silly me!

Mm, country where the Pope lives. I can see that might be difficult.

Re: Greece legalizes same-sex marriage in a first for an Orthodox Christian nation

[andrewducker]

Italy recently elected a far right government that's stripping away gay rights https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/07/24/italys-mounting-attack-lesbian-parents