Interesting Links for 08-04-2026

[andrewducker]

1. If you're wondering when the oil shortages are going to bite, ths map on this page is very helpful

(tags:oil trade shipping iran doom )

2. German rollout of renewables is decoupling the price from that of gas.

(tags:germany renewables GoodNews )

3. Record wind and solar saved UK from gas imports worth £1bn in March 2026

(tags:uk renewables GoodNews solarpower windpower electricity )

4. Native Americans had dice and games of probability before other cultures (about 12,000 years ago)

(tags:dice America prehistory )

5. Longwell Green Women's Institute closes after 62 years because of transgender ban

(tags:LGBT transgender bigotry OhForFucksSake women UK )

6. The Image Boards of Hayao Miyazaki

(tags:ghibli art history )

7. Intelligent people are better judges of the intelligence of others

(tags:Intelligence )

Comments

[juan_gandhi]

#7 must be obvious (Dunning and Krueger told us so)
#2 strangely sounds like a good news (but if they had nuclear power stations, like France...)

[andrewducker]

UK is currently building new nuclear. Estimated cost is £133/kWh.

Compared to solar+storage, which starts at half that, and even at the expensive end only matches it (and is getting cheaper all the time).

If we didn't have solar+wind+storage then I'd agree that we needed nuclear.

[channelpenguin]

Wow. I mean if the famously not sunny and pretty far north UK finds solar+storage cheaper than nuclear, anywhere further south or sunny saves even more.

Though I did read this week that researchers are working on solar panels that also can generate power from rain (but small, for street signs, street cameras etc)

[andrewducker]

I think it's mostly that nuclear is so incredibly expensive. And storage has been getting massively cheaper over time. Fingers crossed those trends continue!

[channelpenguin]

indeed

[bens_dad]

To be fair; our safety regs are reported to be making nuclear much more expensive.
On of the systems under construction is/was the same as a French station in operation, but where the French say essentially "it must be safe in these circumstances", we basically micro-manage the safety, so they have to follow rules that our safety regulators make up as they go along, so struggle to plan a cost-effective order of construction. Or something like that.

[bens_dad]

We are however very well placed for wind - lots of Atlantic for it to get up to speed before it hits us.

[calimac]

4) "The dig was funded by the Institute of Harmful Stereotypes" - SNL Weekend Update.

[darkoshi]

Re #5, and also after reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Institute
I am not understanding why the National Federation of Women’s Institutes felt compelled to change their rules because of the UK Supreme Court Ruling. If it isn't a government-run organization, why is it affected? The article mentions "in order to maintain its single-sex status", which must be something legal... does it involve getting funding from the government which they would no longer get if they decided to not call themselves a single-sex organization anymore? If it pains them to exclude trans women, why wouldn't they just decide to not call themselves single-sex anymore; why can't they say we'll allow women and trans women? Are organizations not even allowed to use the word "Woman" in their name if they allow non-legally-defined-women as members? Even that Wikipedia page says the organization allowed one man and a dog as members early on.

[andrewducker]

There are rules about operating entirely "single sex". Those rules don't seem to be flexible enough to allow you to include trans people. It's a mess.

[darkoshi]

I still don't understand why they have to remain single sex. If it is some legal category they included in their charter, is there not a way to change their charter to no longer be single sex rather than keeping it and causing the whole (or much of the) organization to shut down? Or is it that enough people in their leadership want to keep it single sex that they don't have enough internal support to change the organization's charter either?

[andrewducker]

Ah, sorry. I believe there are rules about discriminating against people based on gender unless you are following specific rules. So excluding "trans men and cis men" would not be a legal thing to do.

[darkoshi]

I was thinking more along the lines of allowing anyone who wants, to join. I didn't see anything mentioned on that Wikipedia page of what the groups do, which would be adversely affected if male-identified people were able to join too.

[andrewducker]

Then it wouldn't be a women's group, which I believe they still want to be.

[bens_dad]

I think the issue was not so much about prosecution or even what is legal, but more that the lawyers felt that TERFs would sue them and the costs would be exorbitant.

[andrewducker]

Excellent point.