Interesting Links for 04-09-2025

[andrewducker]

1. Labour's weirdness over flags is deranged, not patriotic

(tags:Labour nationalism flags weird )

2. Why bans on smartphones or social media for teenagers could do more harm than good

(tags:phones internet children )

3. One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants

(tags:ants reproduction viaPatrickHadfield weird cloning )

4. DragonCon ejects AI 'artist', to approval of all

(tags:art ai conventions )

Comments

[nancylebov]

I'm such a huckster. I'm wonder who, if anyone, ended up using the empty space.

[bens_dad]

3. Given my aversion to the currently accepted meaning of "species"* it took me a while to get me head around this. It appears that ants can lay eggs which are not genetically related to them ! Another strike against the concept of species.

* Given that most non-African humans have >1% Neanderthal DNA, from interbreeding tens of thousands of years ago, I don't accept a definition of species that says that Humans and Neanderthals were different species.

[toothycat]

1. Now imagine if those politicians had said they don't own any flags when asked about flags, or even simply attempted to disengage with a terse "no comment". I feel like a hit piece pretty much writes itself either way.

[andrewducker]

It gives an example in the article of how to handle it well.

There's no reason to say you don't like flags. You can sound like a human while being vaguely positive.

[toothycat]

"Sometimes I hang it out the window, but often it lives in a drawer, folded up, fairly neatly. It’s my flag, it’s our flag, so I try to look after it."

Is that handling it well? I mean, no shame in owning a pet rock if that's your thing I suppose. I don't really see much of a difference, though, tbh; it all just sounds like "yay flag! please don't beat me up" from here. Just me, I guess.

[andrewducker]

Not just you. *I* don't own a flag. But I don't massively object to the UK flag, when it's not being used to be awful to immigrants (or people who might possibly have ancestors who were immigrants at some point in the last thousand years).

And I can understand that some people see it as a symbol of the country, and do care about it on that level.

[calimac]

1) What they sound like is Americans. A lot of Americans have that kind of weird love-love relationship with their flag. Have you seen DT hugging the thing as if it were his dearest friend? The article asks rhetorically if anyone hates the flag, as if they can't imagine such a thing. In the US, we have people who burn the flag in protest, and we go through occasional spasms of flag-lovers trying to ban this. DT is currently trying to launch another one. Actually, flag-burners do it because they know how much it upsets flag-lovers. There's no surer way of getting their goat. I've tried to explain this to people seeking a ban, but they don't get it.

[melchar]

Point #4 - I'd heard this happened and I'm glad of it. I very much enjoyed reading the full story. thanks!

[symbioid]

That ant thing is amazing and hella awesome

3

[channelpenguin]

That is fascinating. Bound to be many more (and possibly weirder) examples.

I feel this is a classic for material for the sci-fi "alien abduction/invasion/infiltration" sub-genre. Maybe someone will/ already has...

Re: 3

[bens_dad]

Probably less weird but I heard of a fish population that is all female but the eggs need sperm from a related species to develop into clones of the mother.
Carp family IIRC, possibly escaped goldfish.

[coth]

I met the cloned ants in the last chapter of the book I'm reading: Dave Goulson, The Garden Jungle. Then I read the next chapter and now I know how worms reproduce. Nature is weird!

[andrewducker]

It really is!