Interesting Links for 14-03-2024

[andrewducker]

1. Did you know there was an old rifle range under Edinburgh's Waverley Station? (6 minutes in to this video)

(tags:guns edinburgh history trains )

2. What's been going on with Boeing? (they seem to have forgotten that making planes requires attention to detail)

(tags:airplanes safety epicfail OhForFucksSake engineering manufacturing )

3. A global network of violent predators is hiding in plain sight, targeting children on major internet platforms, grooming them, and extorting them to commit horrific acts of abuse.

(tags:internet abuse crime )

4. Giant redwoods: The world's largest trees are thriving in the UK. (Except for not reproducing)

(tags:trees UK )

5. The economics of all-you-can-eat buffets

(tags:food business economics )

6. The Existential Relief of Having Children

(tags:philosophy anxiety stress parenting children life )

7. The Abyss 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray UK release | The BBFC comments on its cancellation

(tags:rats abuse animals movies jamescameron BluRay )

8. Do your pets help you make food? You ain't seen nothing yet!

(tags:food cows video funny )

9. LGBTQ+ Identification in U.S. Now at 7.6% (and dramatically higher in Gen Z)

(tags:demographics LGBT USA )

10. AI reveals prostate cancer has two distinct subtypes

(tags:ai cancer prostate )

11. The full version of Tenacious D's - ...Baby One More Time cover is out. And even more awesome than you'd expect

(tags:music video BritneySpears awesome panda )

12. Yes, the Tories are outrageously racist and sexist - but Labour is guilty too (writes Diane Abbott)

(tags:politics racism UK Labour conservatives )

13. Giant 'sand battery' holds a week's heat for a whole town

(tags:sand heat battery finland )

14. The only other mammals to go through the menopause live longer because of it

(tags:menstruation whales longevity )

15. New ONS figures show how Edinburgh's share of short term lets is massive by comparison to practically everywhere else in the UK

(tags:edinburgh rental holidays housing tourism )

16. New extremism definition unveiled by British government. Is very vague.

(tags:uk government language )

17. I see that J.K. Rowling is now engaging in anti-trans Holocaust denial

(tags:transgender Holocaust jkrowling OhForFucksSake bigotry lgbt )

18. Assisted dying in Canada is accepted - but the UK should tread carefully

(tags:euthanasia canada )

19. I was getting bored of running - then I found joggling

(tags:juggling running jogging exercise edinburgh )

Comments

[cmcmck]

4.There's a species of Redwood named Wellingtonia that people planted in numbers around our town (because Wellington, obviously) in the 19th century and they are thriving. They're huge but not as huge as the giants.

[andrewducker]

I'm glad they're doing well in any case.

Redwoods

[fanf]

There’s a great catalogue at http://www.redwoodworld.co.uk/

I contributed a couple of pictures of our nearest one http://www.redwoodworld.co.uk/picturepages/cambridge4.htm

Re: Redwoods

[andrewducker]

Thank you - I had no idea that Edinburgh had so many!

Re: Redwoods

[bens_dad]

Thanks.

That catalogue includes a picture of a tree I watched from my bedroom window as a teenager. Sadly that tree is no more, but as the text mentions, there is another Redwood next door. I will need to update it with a picture of the other Redwood and the history of the one in the picture.

Re: Redwoods

[bens_dad]

I have been back to look at the Redwood next door. Sadly it has died too.

[calimac]

2) John Oliver did a piece on Boeing in which he attributes its fall to the merger with McDonnell-Douglas. The latter's cut-throat corporate culture and disdain for safety standards (see the infamous DC-10) overtook Boeing's previous reputation for meticulous care.

[andrewducker]

Doesn't surprise me. It doesn't take much to totally destroy a culture.

[mountainkiss]

Why do you say this?

[andrewducker]

Because I've seen that all it took to take a culture of everyone doing their best and striving to make sure we could all take pride in what we were doing, and completely destroy it was the people at the top to stop showing an interest in this. It cascaded down, and while people carried on being professional, nobody was going to go above and beyond any more when it was quite clear that the organisation wasn't going to appreciate it.

[mountainkiss]

I understand that this can sometimes - perhaps even often - be so. But your statement implied (I think) that it’s invariably so. Is that what you intended?

[andrewducker]

I'm not saying that a culture of thoughtfulness, caring, and attention to detail can't exist even if management are telling people that they don't care about any of that.

But I'd be very curious as to what would keep it going long-term.

(Individuals and pockets of it could continue, obviously. But as an overall culture? I'm sceptical.)

[mountainkiss]

I think you’re saying something much more specific than “it’s easy to destroy a culture” - i.e., something a bit like “ a culture of high ownership requires a particular kind of leadership if it is to be sustained”. But there are many kinds of culture.

[andrewducker]

I think that when I think of a place having a singular culture (as opposed to a mishmash of individual chunks with no single culture bringing them together) then I think that applies.

A place that's just a bunch of people with lots of different cultures all pulling in their own directions doesn't feel like it has a culture at all, to me.

If that makes sense?

I can see how that isn't clear though.

[mountainkiss]

It’s not unclear. I don’t agree that it’s a universal truth, though I am sure that it is sometimes true. I don’t think your example is widely generalisable, though - I’ve seen lots of examples of cultures that have survived even strenuous management efforts to change them.

[andrewducker]

I would be very interested in understanding your experiences!

[mountainkiss]

I’ll need to think. We’re talking about thirty-two years of being in large organisations and / or having them as my clients.

[andrewducker]

That sounds like a lot of thinking. No rush, obviously.

[mountainkiss]

That’s not code for “therefore I must be right”. It’s code for “lots of data to sift through”.

Boeing boing boing

[lsanderson]

For those of us too lazy to read, ColdFusion has done two quite good episodes on Boeing, with the first being longer and more detailed, and the second a catch-up:

1. https://youtu.be/vqgTcb8DqfY?si=RnEUvjF5AoC90Nza
(Boeing's Downfall [Greed Over Safety] feat. Mentour Pilot)

2. https://youtu.be/a32RLgqNfGs?si=Tw9Z2WxdpmezaWhf
(The Boeing Scandal Just Got A LOT Worse)

The John Oliver piece, Boeing: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), is also on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Q8oCilY4szc?si=I59ccKKGVmWrQ_QN

Other than the first two being less humorous, there's not much disagreement amongst them.

[redbird]

4) There is something about that article talking at length about how maybe Britain is a place redwoods could survive if they lose their California habitats, and then mentioning at the very end that in the 150 years the trees have been growing in Britain, none of them have produced seeds--and phrasing that as a reassurance that they won't displace native trees.

[andrewducker]

Yes, it looks like they would definitely need help.

I spent a bunch of time looking into why they don't reproduce in the UK, and this is the best discussion I could find.

[lilysea]

I have heard first hand stories from (not terminally ill) Disabled people who I know in Canada

where they asked government agencies for help they needed

because they couldn't find or couldn't afford

accessible accommodation

mobility equipment

physical rehabilitation therapy

or because the Canadian Disability pension couldn't cover their basic needs

and government agencies responding

"have you considered assisted dying?"

I have serious concerns about assisted dying for people without terminal illnesses being used as a way to shrug off the needs of disabled/chronically ill people.

(I'm not talking about people with terminal cancer or late stage Alzheimer's, that's very different.)

[andrewducker]

I totally share your concerns. And I would like to see it restricted to people with very terminal diseases, not just those inconvenient to the state.

[lilysea]

Did you hear about the multiple cases (several years before COVID)

of Disabled people who went in for routine surgeries

and woke up from anesthetic to discover that one of the hospital staff

had put Do Not Resuscitate bracelets on their wrists without their consent while they were unconcious?

Highly illegal - there's paperwork you need to fill in and sign - but also I don't believe hospital staff would have done this nonconsenually to able bodied patients

[andrewducker]

I've heard about this kind of thing. And people should be charged for it.

[lilysea]

I've heard about this kind of thing. And people should be charged for it.

I 100% agree.

Of course (assuming no CCTV) it's hard to charge people when no one admits to having done it, and no one admits to having seen their coworkers do it :(

[haggis]

I followed a blogger Mel Baggs who was autistic and multiple disabled. They had gastroparesis, which caused multiple, severe problems with lungs, because food was getting into them. Untreated, the chest problems gave them an 6-12 month life expectancy but a permanent feeding tube would fix the issue. Despite, this fairly obvious choice, they had multiple meetings with doctors and surgeons trying to talk them out of getting this life saving surgery.

I think euthanasia could be a positive thing for some people but we have to radically improve the way disabled people are treated FIRST.

[foms]

I'm still here and still following and still close to the topic. I'd like discussion but I'm not sure that I could do it asynchronously.
Coincidentally, I used to watch Coren's television show, occasionally, when it was quasilocal (next city over) and participants were relatively familiar figures.

[danieldwilliam]

Article 1 surely solves article 15.

[andrewducker]

Are we housing people under Waverley Station or shooting homeless people?

[danieldwilliam]

Whatever the city votes for - I'm merely pointing out that there is some under utilised space.

Re: 19

[andrewducker]

I used to walk into uni practicing my juggling. But I never managed while running!

[simont]

Not strictly juggling, but one of my favourite circus-skills moments from university involved the archway at the entrance to the site where all the first-year lecture rooms were located, which contained a sign "DO NOT BICYCLE THROUGH THIS ARCHWAY".

Naturally, one day, I was passed by somebody unicycling through it.

[andrewducker]

*FuturamaTechnicallyCorrect.Gif*

Re: 19

[danieldwilliam]

I didn't know you juggled.

Appear to have deleted a comment by me by accident saying that the Joggling guy ran past me on the way to the gym on Friday.

Re: 19

[andrewducker]

Oh! I don't think I did that. If I did, I'm sorry!

I don't juggle now. Except for up to 5 seconds at a time to amuse the kids. I wasn't very good at the time either, but I managed to teach myself (in an unorthodox manner that I've not seen anyone else use for teaching!)

Re: 19

[danieldwilliam]

No, it was definately me.

15

[danieldwilliam]

If Edinburgh has 1.2m guest nights - then that implies somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000 properties being used as short term lets I think. 1.2m / 365 (i.e. full occupancy is 3,280. At 150 night occupancy per year that's 8,0000.

(This may be wrong if two adults sharing a two-bed short term let counts are 2 stays and not one.

Re: 15

[andrewducker]

It does feel like we could do with a bunch more hotels.

14.

[channelpenguin]

Chimps go through menopause too. Same reasons I assume.

https://news.arizona.edu/story/researchers-find-first-proof-menopause-wild-chimpanzees#:~:text=The%20hormone%20data%20showed%20that,chimpanzees%20to%20live%20past%2050.

I wonder about elephants...

Re: 14.

[redbird]

And of course the first articles about whale menopause were "we thought only humans went through menopause, and are surprised by this." Yet another case of "only humans do this/can do this" that turns out to be "well, we hadn't actually looked for other examples," or at best "well, none of our domesticated animals can do this, and neither do the wild animals that are eating your garden."

[conuly]

Geez, JKR, maybe you should check your sources? This is internet rebuttal 101 - don't tell somebody to check their sources until you've done a cursory examination of the facts! FFS.

[andrewducker]

Aaah, but she then came back with a thread from her noted friend who doesn't believe in that kind of thing. Because once you're that far in, you don't accept what people in general are saying any more.

[conuly]

Also, I read that Washington Post article on the internet trolls before you posted it, and you do not have enough content warnings on that link. It is so much more horrific than the headline promises.

[myka]

Nice to see people over here appreciating the redwoods. I miss the redwood forests, but realize a few years ago there are redwoods in Leeds, including a big one not far from the university.

I got an orca tattoo last year to celebrate post menopausal life.