Interesting Links for 04-11-2024

[andrewducker]

1. Starmer's Brexit reset is stalling - and insiders in Brussels are worried

(tags:UK Europe doom Labour OhForFucksSake )

2. 70% of the land in Britain is still owned by 1% of the population, largely descended from William the Conqueror's army

(tags:uk inequality land )

3. The Mystery of How Agatha Christie Could Afford a Maid and a Nanny but Not a Car

(tags:history economics )

4. PETA's Animal "Shelter" Continues as a Leader in Animal Death

(tags:PETA pets death )

5. AI overwhelmingly prefers white and male job candidates in new test of resume-screening bias

(tags:ai racism sexism names jobs )

6. 60% of Britain's Brexit pain is still to come, admits Treasury minister

(tags:uk europe trade doom )

7. The 'light sabre' wielding photographer creating colourful light paintings

(tags:light art photography )

8. When you visualise spacetime curving you're probably doing it wrong.

(tags:physics visualisation )

Comments

PETA

[fanf]

Really weird cult. I gather they think captivity is so unethical that death is better.

Re: PETA

[andrewducker]

Yeah. They really don't seem like great people.

Re: PETA

[jack]

PETA are really, really screwed up, and I think people probably do think that, but I get the impression the mess with their shelters is more from complete lack of organisation than from deliberate decisions.

The Mystery of How Agatha Christie Could Afford a Maid and a Nanny but Not a Car

[jack]

It a really good, interesting description, but I kept getting annoyed by the way it led into things.

Like, people have cars because they got a lot cheaper. That's not the part that's a big mystery.

I don't think "where did all the maids go" is THAT big a mystery either. They're working in car factories (or checkout counters, or cleaning services, etc, etc, etc).

Also, like, at most half of people can logically have full time servants. The article does work round to a framing of, "well, maybe it ISN'T a bad thing if the majority of people have better options than they used to", but I resented the assumption that the "default" view is one of "how good things are for the bottom of the 10%".

Whereas, are things better or worse for average white-collar people (or for that matter, for monarchs), is a difficult question. All sorts of goods got massively better. But some things did get less luxurious.

And it seems there is some real question about "cost disease", of some things that got more expensive without being clear why. But things where the main cost is labour, I thought it was generally the case that the more advanced the economy, the better things were on average, but the more expensive labour was.

Agatha Christie article

[calimac]

There's a lot more going on here than the article intimates. There is a note that cars in 1919 were dangerous and unreliable in a way unimaginable today. But there's also this huge difference: that a mid-income family in America today needs a car to get around; a family living in a flat in central London, especially back then, didn't. And if they had one, where would they keep it anyway? Garages and parking spaces are still at a premium in London today.

The argument that a string quartet was no more productive in 1965 than in 1865 ignores the fact that in 1965 they could make a hi-fi stereophonic LP and play all the time for no additional effort whatever, whereas in 1865 they could make no recording at all. That may seem the same point as a machine that makes coffee, but the article points out that, because of this, human baristas have become a luxury good. Highbrow home music-making was an everyday mid-income thing in 1865; these days we play a recording. Live music concerts of all sorts, not just classical, are now also a luxury good. As a classical reviewer I'm constantly aware of that.

[hilarita]

1. :-(
2. Not entirely surprised.
3. Quite good article, and I did like that it made the point that the set of things that one wanted changed over time.
4. I know that PETA went for publicity over usefulness in the 90s; it's very very sad that they are actively harmful to animals.
5. Not surprised; ML and other automated CV screening systems have had this problem for at least two decades now, and since "AI" is just badly applied statistics, of course you're going to get out the problem that playing lacrosse (in the US, AIUI, the preserve of rich white boys at East Coast schools and universities) is still the best thing to have on your CV.
6. *loud screaming noise*
7. :-)
8. the 3D visualisations are quite helpful, but fundamentally, I find it very hard to imagine at all and am much happier just working with the abstract maths that does abstract mathsy things in my head. (Which is in fact some kind of weird flow/tactile synaesthesia for me, which doesn't "look" like anything, and doesn't feel like the 2D/3D visualisations.) Malcolm Longair has had some very cool large glass lenses made that he uses to illustrate gravitational path wierdnesses (like a galaxy you see four times because of gravitational lensing, whose light is distorted by an intervening large mass).

[andrewducker]

The glasses sound very cool!

I think that I was becoming grumpier and grumpier about the normal images you see and so went looking for a better way of thinking about it. Thankfully the internet is full of people happy to explain physics to you!

[hilarita]

I think Malcolm was inspired by Maxwell's physical machines to demonstrate aspects of electromagnetism. I believe that one of those machines is now being exhibited in the Whipple Museum in Cambridge.

Agatha Christie and the middle class

[poshmerchant]

I think the phrase "middle class" can mean different things. Is it the class that's categorically in the middle between the enormous lower class and the infinitesimally tiny upper class, or is it the median income household? When Marx wrote about the petit bourgeoisie, he wasn't referring to the median income household. When we talk about the 1920s middle class, we aren't either, but when we talk about the contemporary middle class we might mean something entirely different.

Re: Agatha Christie and the middle class

[andrewducker]

Depends whether you're in the UK or the USA. And even then it's all somewhat nebulous.

To me, vaguely:
Working Class - rents, lives month to month, has (at best) minimal savings. Probably on a salary, but may have to piece things together.
Middle class - mortgage, has some savings, but still needs a job. May be salaried, or may have enough income from contract work to do well out of that.
Upper class - descended from the associates of William the Conqueror.

Obviously there are lots of exceptions in all directions.

Re: Agatha Christie and the middle class

[poshmerchant]

For sure! Yeah, the perk of living in North America is spending very little time thinking about descendants of William the Conqueror

[bens_dad]

I don't have much third-hand knowledge; would I be right in thinking a nanny would expect use of a car as part of the job ? Outside of city centres, would that be a car of her own ?

If so, is that an improvement on 1919, or a loss since she would be expected to drive herself and the children ?

One way of looking at inflation would be to compare the price of the Model T with a current car.

[andrewducker]

I'm not sure what a nanny would require nowadays!