Interesting Links for 02-05-2025

[andrewducker]

1. The Summerisle Arcana - Wicker Man Inspired Tarot

(tags:tarot horror movies )

2. Seattle Worldcon science fiction convention vets panelists with ChatGPT

(tags:ai conventions scifi OhForFucksSake )

3. No One Knows What's Inside the Smallpox Vaccine

(tags:disease history vaccines cows horses )

4. The White House's Plan For Reversing The Declining Birth Rate

(tags:satire children usa politics )

5. For Women Scotland: a legal critique of the recent judgment on transgender rights

(tags:LGBT transgender rights law UK )

6. US abandons $350bn debt claim in Ukraine minerals deal - but Trump hasn't noticed

(tags:usa ukraine war trade )

7. AI extends the career of a porn actress. Also Jack Nicklaus, Snoop Dog, and KISS

(tags:ai celebrity business )

8. 100 Men vs. 1 Gorilla: Primatologists Explain Who Would Win

(tags:gorillas violence funny internet ViaDrCross )

9. How the UK Establishment Crushed Trans Rights

(tags:LGBT transgender guardian DailyMail journalism UK politics bigotry )

10. How would zonal energy pricing work? (And why it would lower *everyone'ss* prices)

(tags:electricity uk economics )

11. Rector wins appeal over St Andrews University Gaza row

(tags:Scotland Israel gaza Palestine genocide university StAndrews freespeech )

12. Waymo automated taxies make the roads safer for bikes and pedestrians

(tags:driving automation safety )

13. I finally understand why all those Soulslike bosses hated me so much, thanks to The Dark Queen of Mortholme, which pits you up against some plucky upstart who just keeps coming back

(tags:games review )

14. Don't watermark your legal PDFs with purple dragons in suits

(tags:headline dragons law EpicWTF )

15. Do any of you like puzzles?

(tags:puzzles )

Comments

[symbioid]

When I saw 15, I was like "I wonder if that's going to link to Tatham's Puzzles" LOL. yep.

I have to admit I still haven't done much with them, but I hear they're pretty great!

I bet that dragon image was an NFT (considering the lawyer brags about "AI" usage).

15. Addictive

[bens_dad]

I find it terribly easy to keep playing some of Tatham's Puzzles - hour after hour.

Re: 15. Addictive

[mtbc]

Definitely shows the value of somebody putting some care and thought into their work!

[bens_dad]

10. Thanks.

If everyone's bill goes down, then there is less money in the system for building new renewable capacity.
I had started wondering why that would not be a problem.

I now see that is isn't a problem because that money is currently being spent on unusable capacity.

I suppose the other question is that if we need more investment in wires, would there be any sense in creating a market for *transport* of electricity (or would that be gamed like most other big systems so that the money is siphoned off somewhere, instead of being invested in building something useful) ?

[andrewducker]

So long as you can produce electricity for less than it sells for, it's worth doing it.

There are definite limits to how far you can reduce people's bills. I would hope we wouldn't push things that far, or we'll be in real trouble!

Oh, and yes, definitely a need for transferring cheap electricity about. See https://octopus.energy/blog/how-would-a-zonal-pricing-system-actually-work/#inframarginal_rents

[cellio]

Seriously, Worldcon? FFS... they have an "expert" who's worked with LLMs "since the 90s" (uh, I don't think so!), but they don't have a single person available who can write them a script to parallelize and speed up web searches? I don't think it was about time, at least if we believe their claim that they're reviewing the ChatGPT output (which they will do without searches, how?); I think it was about playing with the shiny toy regardless of the impact.

[andrewducker]

Same

Well!

[lsanderson]

I just think somebody dropped the large fan fishbowl that they usually use to pull names out of for panels and they figure nobody will notice after this kerfuffle.