Interesting Links for 22-02-2012

[andrewducker]

• Scotland, independence and the EU - what are the possibilities?
  (tags: eu scotland independence )
• 10 radical solutions to binge drinking. I like #10 the best.
  (tags: alcohol uk )
• Anticipating the medical care needed by vulnerable people brings benefits to patients and saves money
  (tags: healthcare )
• Ways the singularity could fail to happen

Comments

[andrewducker]

I really should have made it clear that what I meant by "I like #10 the best" was "I only really like #10".

[spacelem]

One of the suggestions to improve drinking behaviour is "Raise the legal drinking age".

Really? That seems to be a terrible idea in America, where people first get to experience alcohol (legally) at university, and go nuts. I'd have thought "lower it, and encourage children to drink with their parents from an early age" would be a much better idea (as in most of Europe). Demystify it, make it routine. That pretty much rules out "Not in front of the children" too.

Here's a novel idea: "stop charging the fuck out of people who want to drink softies" Really, sometimes it can cost more to have a non-alcoholic drink, and there isn't even the excuse of tax!

[spacelem]

Oh yes, "make alcohol more expensive". So now poor people who want to drink still get drunk, only they have less money. Brilliant.

[danieldwilliam]

I agree about the cost of soft drinks.

I once had a conversation with the manager of a cafe my mates and I used to hang out in when we were underage. We'd head down and sit and drink coffee. We asked the manager if he minded. He didn't mind. He made more money selling us coffed than he did selling beer.

As for the age limit - I think it depends on what policy objective we have. Do we want to stop people getting very drunk in public and being violent? Do we want to stop people getting acute alcohol damage from binge drinking at home? Do we want to stop people getting liver damage or just fat from drinking steadily slightly too much than is good for them.

Tricky.

[danieldwilliam]

That Tesla battery issue sounds like a company killer to me.

I think for electric cars to be widely adopted they need to be better or at least as good as petrol cars on all attributes and not ever significantly worse on any attribute.

Having a car that just stops working if you leave it alone sounds like a significantly worse attribute than a petrol car.

[andrewducker]

Naaah. It's reasonable to want to outweigh fake/malicious reviews with real ones.

[alitheapipkin]

You sounded perfectly reasonable - hurt by the inaccurate review but understandably so.

I keep meaning to put up more reviews on Amazon because it was pointed out to me the other day that if you give someone's self published book a glowing review but don't have any other reviews on the site, lots of people will assume you are a family member or close friend bigging them up and not being honest. As it happens the author I've given glowing reviews to is a friend of mine but that doesn't change the fact that the review was honest and I think lots of people would enjoy her writing.

[channelpenguin]

Tesla batteries - exactly what happens to motorbikes if you leave them parked up (due to alarms/imobiliser/etc), except you *can* push them. Also applies to boat batteries. A small solar panel works wonders there. Still, those sorts of batteries don't cost $40k!

Point is, ANY battery which is allowed to become fully-discharged is fucked. Maybe most people don't know that, (though they *should*....)