Interesting Links for 27-06-2025
Jun. 27th, 2025 12:00 pm- 1. The first non-opioid painkiller (for acute pain) has taken 27 years to produce.
- (tags:pain research medicine )
- 2. UK asylum plans shows post-Brexit Britain is 'in very dark place', Albanian PM warns
- (tags:uk migration OhForFucksSake )
- 3. Reading one book on a subject will put you ahead of the vast majority of people
- (tags:experts learning )
- 4. One in four LGBTQ+ pupils may drop out before finishing secondary school
- (tags:lgbt school bullying )
- 5. India High Court rules trans women are women
- (tags:India transgender LGBT GoodNews )
- 6. A newspaper reported that Arthur Conan Doyle went to a local pub. Turns out to be completely made up (but the history is fascinating)
- (tags:journalism fraud Edinburgh history )
- 7. The transfers between parties in yesterday's Edinburgh council election are fascinating!
- (tags:edinburgh elections voting politics scotland )
- 8. You can now buy The Hobbit in 5 different Celtic languages. (I'm sure people will have great fun comparing them)
- (tags:languages uk ireland TheHobbit )
- 9. Make AI Mediocre Again
- (tags:satire ai video advertising )
Interesting Links for 26-06-2025
Jun. 26th, 2025 12:00 pm- 1. Holyrood Committee seek views and experiences as part of new inquiry into ADHD and autism
- (tags:scotland autism adhd )
- 2. How would Britain vote, a year since the 2024 election (broken down in a wide variety of ways)
- (tags:uk voting polls )
- 3. Ooh Dark City has a 4k release. I'm quite tempted
- (tags:movies scifi )
- 4. Poll: 82% of Israelis want to expel Palestinians from Gaza; 47% want to kill every man, woman, child
- (tags:polls genocide Israel )
- 5. Poll: Americans' support for Israel at record low, backing for Palestinians at all-time high (46:33)
- (tags:USA polls Israel Palestine )
- 6. Why I'm glad the NHS has rejected two Alzheimer's 'wonder drugs'
- (tags:alzheimers medicine NHS )
- 7. Warwickshire County Council leader resigns, leaving 18-year-old in charge (Reform, unsurprisingly)
- (tags:politics UK )
- 8. Games run faster on SteamOS than Windows 11
- (tags:games linux windows )
- 9. How disability benefits are paid across the world - and how UK compares
- (tags:welfare disability international )
- 10. Harming children: the effects of the UK puberty blocker ban
- (tags:UK bigotry children transgender LGBT )
Interesting Links for 06-06-2025
Jun. 6th, 2025 12:00 pm- 1. First case on AI and copyright referred to the CJEU
- (tags:europe law copyright ai )
- 2. Therapy Chatbot Tells Recovering Addict to Have a Little Meth as a Treat
- (tags:ai drugs )
- 3. What it's like being made responsible for the behaviour of Conservative MPs
- (tags:Conservatives chaos politics UK )
- 4. Reform leads in voting intentions - but where does their vote come from?
- (tags:voting polls uk politics )
- 5. The Universal Tech Tree
- (tags:Technology history visualisation )
Interesting Links for 06-05-2025
May. 6th, 2025 12:00 pm- 1. Co-op's chief executive has reaffirmed her commitment to "protect trans people to the end"
- (tags:shopping UK transgender LGBT )
- 2. UK 'green' hydrogen buses to run on fuel shipped 3,000 miles from controversial Saudi megacity
- (tags:saudiarabia hydrogen UK buses OhForFucksSake )
- 3. Autism: Myth Vs. Fact (The Onion)
- (tags:funny autism myths )
- 4. Israel to scale-up offensive in plans to seize all of Gaza
- (tags:gaza Israel )
- 5. Guess what the lowest winning vote share was in the council elections
- (tags:elections voting OhForFucksSake )
Interesting Links for 07-04-2025
Apr. 7th, 2025 12:00 pm- 1. Self-Driving Teslas Are Fatally Rear-Ending Motorcyclists More Than Any Other Brand
- (tags:Tesla crash motorcycle OhForFucksSake )
- 2. Petition To Hold a Royal Commission on reform of the Westminster voting system
- (tags:UK voting reform )
- 3. Remind me, how well does telling investors not to panic work?
- (tags:investment doom )
- 4. 2025 Hugo final ballot: Goodreads / LibraryThing stats
- (tags:hugo awards scifi )
- 5. Dietary fructose enhances tumour growth
- (tags:sugar fructose cancer )
- 6. Neurotoxic worms growing up to 3ft long are in Ontario and you should kill them on sight
- (tags:worm Canada aieeee! )
- 7. Trust in the USA Is Dead. Trump Keeps Selling the Corpse.
- (tags:USA politics trade doom )
- 8. Russia's secret war in UK waters
- (tags:russia uk navy war viaDanielDWilliam )
Interesting Links for 04-02-2025
Feb. 4th, 2025 12:00 pm- 1. The Scottish flag in the style of other flags. Love the Canada one!
- (tags:Scotland flags viaDanielDWilliam )
- 2. Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer are being taken to court
- (tags:neilgaiman rape AmandaPalmer law USA )
- 3. Marvel Has No Plans To Publish Neil Gaiman's Miracleman: The Dark Age
- (tags:neilgaiman Miracleman )
- 4. 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' Reboot With Sarah Michelle Gellar At Hulu Moves To Pilot
- (tags:buffy TV )
- 5. What does the polling show on Proportional Representation?
- (tags:UK polls proportional_representation voting )
- 6. Some suggestions for God
- (tags:religion funny comic )
Interesting Links for 26-01-2025
Jan. 26th, 2025 12:00 pm- 1. Why Northern England is poor.
- (tags:UK organisation politics history )
- 2. To make electricity cheaper and greener, connect the world's grids
- (tags:electricity )
- 3. Giant, Mysterious Spires Ruled the Earth Long Before Trees Did. What Exactly Are These Odd-Looking Fossils? (fungi 8m tall)
- (tags:fungus fossils )
- 4. Scientists Recreate the Conditions That Sparked Complex Life (bacteria becoming part of an existing lifeform)
- (tags:bacteria life cell )
- 5. The Less People Know About AI, the More They Like It
- (tags:ai education )
- 6. Lib Dem MPs Push for More Time to Debate Voting Reform
- (tags:libdem voting reform )
Interesting Links for 04-12-2024
Dec. 4th, 2024 12:00 pm- 1. The (English) NHS advised people to get their ADHD diagnosis privately. Now they're refusing to treat the people who did.
- (tags:nhs ADHD OhForFucksSake )
- 2. Why Does the UK have a Strategic Wine Reserve?
- (tags:wine alcohol uk government viaSwampers )
- 3. Apparently the answer to ChatGPT making up nonsense about people is to forbid it to mention their specific names. This plan has no drawbacks.
- (tags:ai names )
- 4. Head Like a Holy Night (Nine Inch Nails songs performed as Christmas carols. "Hurt" is amazing). You may also like his "Last Christmas Love Tore Us Apart".
- (tags:music christmas industrial funny )
- 5. Tori Amos breaks silence on allegations against longtime friend Neil Gaiman
- (tags:neilgaiman abuse women )
- 6. Lib Dem PR Bill wins surprise Commons vote
- (tags:uk proportional_representation voting government )
Interesting Links for 14-11-2024
Nov. 14th, 2024 12:00 pm- 1. I no longer trust opinion polls
- (tags:polls fail )
- 2. Secret Level - an anthology TV series based around various computer games
- (tags:games TV animation viaSwampers )
- 3. The First Virtual Meeting Was in 1916
- (tags:communication history USA engineering )
- 4. AOC Shares Reasons Why Her Supporters Voted for Trump
- (tags:voting usa doom )
- 5. Sure, I Voted for Someone Whose Policies Might Kill You, but Now's the Time to Put Aside Our Differences
- (tags:politics satire funny doom )
- 6. Baby red panda dies from firework stress, says Edinburgh Zoo
- (tags:panda fireworks death )
Interesting Links for 10-10-2024
Oct. 10th, 2024 12:00 pm- 1. The future of mining is giant autonomous electric trucks
- (tags:automation mining australia viaElfy )
- 2. Consultation on the Visitor Levy (tourist tax) for Edinburgh
- (tags:edinburgh tourism tax )
- 3. Ants learned to farm fungi during a mass extinction
- (tags:extinction ants fungus )
- 4. Entirely New Ecosystem Discovered Beneath The Ocean Floor
- (tags:ocean lava life )
- 5. Elon Musk is piling onto all the hurricane disinformation, hampering relief efforts
- (tags:ElonMusk disinformation disaster OhForFucksSake )
- 6. Wealth distribution in the United States
- (tags:usa wealth inequality )
- 7. Cards Against Humanity Is Paying People To Come Out Against Trump
- (tags:games voting usa )
Interesting Links for 08-09-2024
Sep. 8th, 2024 12:00 pm- 1. UK solar power wins record backing in latest auction
- (tags:solarpower UK )
- 2. UK's biggest solar farm given go-ahead in Government's anti-Nimby drive
- (tags:UK solarpower GoodNews )
- 3. AI worse than humans at summarising information, trial finds
- (tags:ai fail )
- 4. First of Edinburgh's fully electric double deck buses hit the road
- (tags:electricity Edinburgh buses transport )
- 5. Why are Remainers so weak in post-Brexit Britain?
- (tags:UK Europe voting )
- 6. Automation Bias - when people don't double check computers properly
- (tags:psychology bias automation )
- 7. What they're getting wrong about the Minecraft movie
- (tags:movies games )
- 8. 10+ Things to Know about The Great Wave
- (tags:art Japan history )
- 9. Startup Alarmed When Its AI Starts Rickrolling Clients
- (tags:ai funny video music )
Interesting Links for 03-09-2024
Sep. 3rd, 2024 12:00 pm- 1. Jeremy Corbyn forms Independent Alliance group of five pro-Gaza MPs
- (tags:politics USA Palestine )
- 2. Global most played board games over time from 2000 to 2023
- (tags:games boardgames video visualisation )
- 3. Everyone In Restaurant Jealous Of Toddler Who Gets To Wear Pajamas And Watch iPad
- (tags:satire society restaurant children )
- 4. How similar do Britons think the main parties are?
- (tags:politics uk )
- 5. Former Labour Cabinet Secretary warns against PFI 'accounting games'
- (tags:labour economy accounting )
- 6. Where is the most religious place in the world? (And the least)
- (tags:religion uk )
- 7. How Britain voted and why: A very-detailed 2024 post-vote poll
- (tags:voting elections uk politics )
Interesting Links for 11-07-2024
Jul. 11th, 2024 12:00 pm- 1. Can someone explain why train companies use overtime so much, rather than employing enough drivers?
- (tags:trains scotland )
- 2. How would the election have gone if Reform hadn't stood?
- (tags:UK elections politics )
- 3. What Labour's strategy was in the election, and how it depended not just on how many votes it got, but what kind
- (tags:voting UK Labour Conservatives politics )
- 4. China's Batteries Are Now Cheap Enough to Power Huge Shifts
- (tags:batteries china )
- 5. These rats could be the future of search and rescue
- (tags:rats disaster )
Interesting Links for 08-07-2024
Jul. 8th, 2024 12:00 pm- 1. Election 2024: This could be the birth of a powerful new electoral reform movement
- (tags:voting reform uk viaPatrickHadfield )
- 2. Minister rejects Blair's call for ID cards to control migration
- (tags:IDCards tonyblair Labour )
- 3. The children have been singing "Elephants Have Wrinkles" for the last twenty minutes. No one knows why.
- (tags:elephants singing video children )
- 4. Were some Reform candidates virtual?
- (tags:UK politics wtf )
- 5. The Insidious World of Fake Mobile Game Ads
- (tags:advertising games gambling fraud )
- 6. Best toddler drummer
- (tags:drums children video )
- 7. Germany set to overhaul subsidy regime for renewable energy
- (tags:germany renewables subsidies economics )
- 8. Gamification needs to be specific to its subject and absolutely minimal, in order to be effective
- (tags:games activity behaviour running )
Interesting Links for 06-07-2024
Jul. 6th, 2024 12:00 pm- 1. What a Labour government means for taxes (mostly good things, although obviously doesn't go far enough)
- (tags:tax labour )
- 2. Nobody has ever won a British election on a smaller vote share than Labour just did. This will cause them big problems in the future.
- (tags:labour politics voting uk )
- 3. Royal College of Psychiatry International Congress: Questions about trans health suppressed
- (tags:LGBT psychiatry bigotry transgender OhForFucksSake )
- 4. Vending machines that are powered by artificial intelligence are selling ammunition for guns in grocery stores in Alabama and Oklahoma
- (tags:ai guns shopping USA )
- 5. Gaza, housing, and trans issues: The reasons young Labour voters turned Green
- (tags:Labour GreenParty Gaza transgender housing politics UK )
- 6. James Timpson has been appointed Minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation. Which is frankly amazing
- (tags:prison Labour GoodNews epicwin )
- 7. Vatican excommunicates Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano for schism
- (tags:catholicism conspiracy )
Interesting Links for 02-07-2024
Jul. 2nd, 2024 12:00 pm- 1. The UK's taxes are too low to pay for the kind of society people want
- (tags:uk tax society nhs )
- 2. AI and the Meaning of Life
- (tags:life meaning computers comic funny )
- 3. People seem to have forgotten that it was Johnson who began the steep decline of the Tories
- (tags:conservatives BorisJohnson viaDanielDWilliam )
- 4. Why tactical voting in this election could change the nature of the UK's political debate
- (tags:voting uk politics libdem viaDanielDWilliam )
- 5. How the Git version control software came to be
- (tags:git history )
Interesting Links for 28-06-2024
Jun. 28th, 2024 12:00 pm- 1. Scotland's census reveals LGBT numbers for first time
- (tags:LGBT Scotland census )
- 2. In case you were still hoping for any meaningful voting reform from Labour
- (tags:reform voting Labour OhForFucksSake )
- 3. We've here is Keir Starmer defending electoral reform. That was before he was elected, of course
- (tags:Labour elections voting reform OhForFucksSake )
- 4. But how many countries are there really?
- (tags:maps countries video )
Interesting Links for 17-06-2024
Jun. 17th, 2024 12:00 pm- 1. Welsh Labour councillor quits party after learning it hid evidence that cleared him of complaint
- (tags:Labour corruption OhForFucksSake )
- 2. On Wikipedia and how it works
- (tags:Wikipedia )
- 3. Why some cities (including Edinburgh) are banning fossil fuel advertisements
- (tags:Edinburgh Scotland advertising oil )
- 4. Frankly, Labour are going to stomp this election, so vote for whoever you like. But if you want tactical voting advice for your constituency here it is
- (tags:voting advice conservatives )
- 5. Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to incite fear of China vaccines
- (tags:USA military propaganda vaccine OhForFucksSake )
- 6. What is Box Breathing? (This helped me sleep when I was stressed)
- (tags:sleep stress )
- 7. Australia and New Zealand explicitly reject Cass review (joining USA and Canada)
- (tags:healthcare transgender Canada USA Australia newzealand LGBT )
- 8. Greek coastguard threw migrants overboard to their deaths
- (tags:greece migration murder )
- 9. Small modular nuclear reactors are over-budget, taking years longer to build, and are never getting built.
- (tags:nuclearpower epicfail viaDanielDWilliam )
- 10. £130m Dundee Eden Project set for approval
- (tags:scotland nature architecture tourism )
I really wish that reporting of elections that used Proportional Representation didn't refer to the biggest party as having "won". It makes absolutely no sense to refer to a party which got 24 of 150 seats (16%) as having "won", and yet I've seen multiple headlines refer to Belgian's right-wing "New Flemish Alliance" as having won the election.
In fact, looking at the election results from Belgium, it's incredibly balanced:
Which, if you lump in the Greens on the Left (which they are in Belgium) means that you have 75 on the Right, 74 on the Left, and 1 in the middle. Or 66 in the centre-ish, with their pick of other parties to form a coalition with.
I mean, sure, I'd rather that the deeply unpleasant far right party "Vlamms Belang" *hadn't* won 20 seats. But that still leaves 130 seats that they didn't get.
So when you see scare stories about "The Far Right Is Winning Elections In Europe!" - go and check *how much* of that election they actually won.
If you'd like some sensible coverage you can find it here
In fact, looking at the election results from Belgium, it's incredibly balanced:
Right | 44 |
Centre Right | 31 |
Centre | 1 |
Centre Left | 34 |
Left | 31 |
Green | 9 |
Which, if you lump in the Greens on the Left (which they are in Belgium) means that you have 75 on the Right, 74 on the Left, and 1 in the middle. Or 66 in the centre-ish, with their pick of other parties to form a coalition with.
I mean, sure, I'd rather that the deeply unpleasant far right party "Vlamms Belang" *hadn't* won 20 seats. But that still leaves 130 seats that they didn't get.
So when you see scare stories about "The Far Right Is Winning Elections In Europe!" - go and check *how much* of that election they actually won.
If you'd like some sensible coverage you can find it here