Interesting Links for 07-11-2025

[andrewducker]

1. Researchers uncover AI bias against older working women

(tags:women age ai OhForFucksSake bias )

2. Britain Is Having the World's Most Extreme Immigration Debate

(tags:UK immigration OhForFucksSake )

3. What percentage of English derives from which languages?

(tags:language english uk history )

4. Australia has so much solar that it's offering everyone free electricity

(tags:australia electricity solarpower economics )

5. Rockstar Games Employee posts about recent union-busting efforts

(tags:rockstar gta unions OhForFucksSake )

6. Metformin reduces the benefits of exercise in people with diabetes

(tags:diabetes exercise drugs )

7. Labour spending billions on actually building social housing. Finally!

(tags:labour housing GoodNews )

8. The UK Personal Finance Flowchart (an excellent guide to help you think about your finances)

(tags:finances uk advice )

Comments

[juan_gandhi]

Oh. #1 is obvious: older women are invisible in this world. What can one do. Just quit, probably.
#6. I hate it, hate it, hate it. Now I have an explanation, how come I've been gradually losing my fitness. Metforming. What can I do, I wonder. Split the pills into two? Who knows.

[andrewducker]

I'm glad you have an explanation, but that sucks!

[juan_gandhi]

It does. Like, I stopped taking statin when I discovered that my memory is getting worse and worse due to it. I was feeling like I'm in Macondo, and have to attach labels to things.

[cmcmck]

3. It always amuses me how many Romani words have fetched up in English- often without people even realisinmg their origin.

[calimac]

3) The first survey adds up to only about 95%.

[andrewducker]

You're right! It's the same source as the pie chart, where "Other" adds up to 16%, but only 13% in the Loanwords section. So they've lost a few percent somewhere.

I've raised this in the Talk Page, so someone who has access to the original work the numbers are from can check it.

[channelpenguin]

1. Gah. Add it to the list. I don't care. My cat doesn't know I'm old. :-)
5. FFS. Not at ALL surprised at anything companies pull. Even in countries with great labour laws. Even in ones with better ones than the UK... The rich just resent having to pay their slaves, that's all it is. We are here to serve until we break or break down or just get too old. Then discard. Sadly, it seems human nature. At least of part of humanity. Sigh.

[conuly]

3. What percentage of English derives from which languages?

Depends on your dataset, but if you're not weighting by frequency then you're really giving people a seriously false impression.

[andrewducker]

Totally fair point.

I wonder if the categorisation is public. If so it would be pretty easy to break it down by commonality.

[yalovetz]

4. Is due in large part to the energy generated by household rooftop solar panels and the curtailment caused by not being able to store that energy in batteries for later use: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-10/renewable-energy-spilled-as-generation-outgrows-demand-/105929716

We are currently putting in solar panels, thanks to generous government rebates. We wanted to install solar batteries at the same time, which would make us effectively 80%+ independent of the grid, but they are considerably more expensive, despite more generous government rebates. So that'll have to wait another couple of years.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes, as danieldwilliam said to me in chat, this is basically a subsidy on batteries. If enough people can be persuaded to buy one then it shifts a bunch of demand by several hours and makes the first few hours of the evening a lot easier to deal with.

(You'd think that the power companies would also be buying a bunch of batteries, but it might be cheaper for them to let their customers do that!)