Interesting Links for 13-05-2025

[andrewducker]

1. How Gandalf Proved Mightiest: Spiritual Power in Tolkien

(tags:lotr Tolkien magic viaDanielDWilliam )

2. ScotRail trials wi-fi using Elon Musk's Starlink satellites

(tags:Scotland trains internet )

3. Continuous glucose monitors reveal variable glucose responses from the same people to the same meals

(tags:insulin sugar eating food )

4. The charts showing the big flaw in Starmer's immigration plan

(tags:migration economy uk doom )

5. Moderna's combo Covid and flu mRNA shot outperforms current vaccines in large trial

(tags:vaccine pandemic flu )

6. Despair at Starmer's divisive language as he channels Enoch Powell

(tags:bigotry immigration UK Labour OhForFucksSake )

7. US Copyright Office head fired after reporting AI training isn't always fair use

(tags:ai copyright USA politics )

8. Edinburgh traffic bans in city centre to be made permanent following trial

(tags:traffic transport Edinburgh )

9. Top UK Special Forces general oversaw blocking of Afghan war-crime witnesses to Britain

(tags:UK military crime war OhForFucksSake Afghanistan )

10. How the news feels right now

(tags:news satire doom )

11. Mass vote losses to Lib Dems and Greens would cost Labour twice as many seats as mass Reform switch

(tags:labour libdem green )

12. Getting to know 'Reform curious Labour voters'

(tags:Labour politics UK )

13. Zodiac Killer Revealed by His Love of Comic Books, Author Says

(tags:comics murder usa history )

14. London, Brighton, Birmingham and Manchester Prides suspend political parties from taking part (over trans rights)

(tags:lgbt transgender protest uk politics )

Comments

[channelpenguin]

3. not unexpected. so basically continuous glicose montitoring is probably useless for healthy people.
4. well, yes. Care is and will be hugely hit. I feel no countrty is prepared for a bigger and sicker elderly population.
5. good news!
11. power to the people!
13. Intriguing. Plausible.
14. ha!

[andrewducker]

Yeah. I think way too many people are in denial about the demographic shift.

[channelpenguin]

at least repeated bouts of covid will mean that we might all die off a decade sooner! Win!

[mountainkiss]

My main learning from wearing a CGM is how little the macronutrient balance of my diet affects my blood sugar level when compared to my sleep and stress levels.

[andrewducker]

That makes total sense. Although I would not have predicted it!

Mine is definitely affected by both, but I am sure that my insulin resistance is unusual.

[mountainkiss]

Unusual in what way?

[andrewducker]

I meant "Unusual for most people, because they don't have insulin resistance." not "Unusual for insulin resistance". Sorry for imprecise phrasing.

[mountainkiss]

Not sure this is true any longer.

[andrewducker]

That is higher than I was expecting! (Well, in Lebanon, and possibly other places.)

[mountainkiss]

This one has a pre-diabetes figure of just over one in ten for the UK.

[andrewducker]

As far as I can tell, I'm not pre-diabetic. I've been aware of being insulin resistant since I was 16 (even if I didn't have a name for it then), but despite doctors checking me out several times, no signs of diabetes.

[mountainkiss]

Yes but the causality is stronger in the other direction. Most people with pre-diabetes also have insulin resistance (just before reference 9). So perhaps the initial reading was more accurate - that it is less usual to have insulin resistance that doesn’t develop into pre-diabetes over a long period. But insulin resistance per se is not rare, I think.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes. Mostly insulin resistance is a sign of imminent diabetes (from my understanding). It's unusual to be in my situation. I didn't realise it was quite as common as it is though!

[calimac]

1) I'd like to endorse this reading of Tolkien. The author seems to me to have a good understanding of how Tolkien's created world works. The one note I would make is that the concentration on Gandalf's power tends to overshadow a point that's only emphasized near the end, that Gandalf mostly operates without expressing direct power on the enemy but by encouraging and boosting the Free Peoples. Thus, with Theoden he offers him a free choice between continuing to be lured by the webs of Grima or to shake himself free and come into the light. Theoden has to do this himself; Gandalf offers him the opportunity and the encouragement to do it.

That is why the scene is so wrong in Jackson's movie. There, Theoden is under a spell of Saruman's - he's forced into submission, not lured of his own will by words - and Gandalf breaks that spell by force, instead of giving Theoden the chance to free himself.

And then what does Theoden do? In the movie, the newly freed Theoden suddenly succumbs to fear and runs off to Helm's Deep to hide. Whereas Tolkien's Theoden also goes to Helm's Deep, but for the positive reason that it's the most defensible point to offer battle to the enemy. Jackson has completely distorted the story.

[andrewducker]

I'm currently re-reading the book for the first time in about 35 years. You'll be glad to hear that I'm thinking of all of the things you've said about it over the last few years.

[andrewducker]

Oh, and yes, the movies definitely suffer from the curse of "Everyone has to have an arc." - so you don't get people who just *are*. (Nearly) Everyone has to be one way and then pulled in a different direction.

[calimac]

This manifests itself as almost everyone in the movie suffering a failure of nerve which is completely out of character as well as uncanonical. Then they have to climb awkwardly out of it, with even less explanation, to get the story back on the rails. The prime example is Faramir, inexplicably deciding to seize the Ring, and then even more inexplicably changing his mind. But there are many others.

[andrewducker]

Leaving aside differenced between book and film, Movie Faramir's actions don't make sense themselves. The idea that Faramir would have his hands on the ring, be taking it to his father, and then change his mind *because Frodo tries to give the ring to a Nazgul*, leading to him sending Frodo off with the ring towards Mordor, seems ridiculous if one thinks about it even for a moment.

[calimac]

I think it's best to look at these as a combination of 'in themselves' and 'as an adaptation of the book.' Thus, the reason J-Faramir sends Frodo off is -because- Jackson needs to get the plot back on the rails for the story to continue. But he can't think of an internal, story-based reason for Faramir to do this, so that's why it's inexplicable and ridiculous.

What doesn't occur to Jackson is that everything he wants to do would result in a story entirely different from The Lord of the Rings if not forcibly stopped from doing so, so maybe he should stop thinking that he knows better than Tolkien how to tell Tolkien's story.

[movingfinger]

I was both unsurprised and disappointed that Peter Jackson's take on LotR missed out entirely on the deep underpinnings. I suppose it is predictable that he would go for the surface-level ripping adventure story, but the movies missed a huge part of the story by not picking up on the deeper worldbuilding callouts and callbacks that happen throughout the action of the Lord of the Rings narrative.

And, yes, strongly agree that Jackson's portrayal of Theoden would not make Jackson popular in Rohan!

[simont]

This notion of the LotR magic makes a lot of sense, but I was a little disappointed that it seemed slightly incompatible with "Frodo laid a geas" (previous link post, source material). This article reckons that the Rings of Power have to be commanded in the right language, whereas the other one reckons Frodo commanded the One Ring in whatever language he happened to feel like.