Comments | andrewducker: Interesting Links for 03-04-2013

andrewducker

Interesting Links for 03-04-2013

Apr 03, 2013 12:00

skills, viafanf, computers, education, astronomy, independence, politeness, dailymail, language, scotland, freespeech, conservatives, class, batteries, drwho, pollution, usa, zen, edinburgh, transport, weight, forgiveness, links, healthcare, airplanes, authentication, government, ohforfuckssake, currency, uk, nuclearpower, park, oauth, reading, cancer, meteor, lgbt, politics, iainbanks

Comments 56

Link? lsanderson April 3 2013, 11:25:34 UTC

Ian Banks link is not working for me.

ajr April 3 2013, 11:35:40 UTC

The website is suffering from heavy traffic at the moment, understandably. The statement is mirrored here: http://www.orbitbooks.net/2013/04/03/a-personal-statement-from-iain-banks/ and there's also a story on the BBC News website, so probably others too by now.

Re: Link? abigail_n April 3 2013, 11:35:42 UTC

It seems to have been overwhelmed by traffic. The basic gist is in the summary above. According to the message from Banks, he's considering with his doctors whether to undergo life-prologing chemotherapy, but it looks like he has only a few months left.

ajr April 3 2013, 11:30:44 UTC

Doctor Who with Moffat as a showrunner has been really disappointing. There's something of a diminishing return when you're introducing a new companion for a third time, and this time it had added 'creepy stalker' vibes too.

I'm an "Emergent service worker", apparently, largely down to crap finances. I think it translates to "fucked", basically.

Saw the news about Banks earlier this morning. Am still sad about it :(

andrewducker April 3 2013, 11:35:47 UTC

Yup. I was really hopeful with the first season, which had lots of interesting bits, with an overarching plot that (mostly) worked. Didn't explain _why_ or _how_ The Tardis was taken over, but I was hopeful that would lead into Season two.

Season two, with the whole assassination thing, was just rubbish though. Lots of stretching things out for numerous episodes, and no payoff.

Season three has, so far, been largely bland. After putting up with the hamfisted Silence storyline, I was at least hoping we'd find out what was going on there. Instead it all got dropped, we lost the companions it seemed to be tied to, and instead we're moving on as if all of that never happened.

I'd love to ask Moffat what on earth he's playing at.

ajr April 3 2013, 12:05:06 UTC

Your views are more or less along the same lines as mine there - flawed but promising start, then downhill ever since ( ... )

danieldwilliam April 3 2013, 13:02:17 UTC

Aye.

And the bit about having to watch everything in case it's important but then it turns out not to be.

And, yes, yes, indeed, what the actual living fuck happened to the Silence?

Thread 5

nancylebov April 3 2013, 11:43:23 UTC

Things for fat people to say at the doctor's office.

andrewducker April 3 2013, 11:54:51 UTC

That's fantastic, and hopefully very useful!

If nothing else, letting people know it's ok to have those conversations has to be a good thing.

Airline to charge passengers by the kilo. cartesiandaemon April 3 2013, 11:57:12 UTC

Hm. I've heard this often before, usually as a joke. On the one hand, it does make sense that when providing a service, to charge what it actually costs -- that ought to set the incentives in the right places, and ought to be possible without being nasty to people.

On the other hand, no-one ever seems to propose this on a well-thought-out basis, just assuming that yelling "you're useless and society hates you" will magically make people who are over or underweight magically healthier.

I also wonder, people strongly imply that the passenger is the largest component of weight. But wikipedia suggests that a 747 weighs at least 200 tonnes and can carry 500 passengers, so each seat bought would constitute 400kgs of plane, plus ~100kgs of passenger. So are they really worried about that 20% variation? Or are they just using that as an excuse to bully people?

Re: Airline to charge passengers by the kilo. andrewducker April 3 2013, 12:00:55 UTC

That aircraft is _not_ a 747. The weight ratio is going to be significantly different for a light prop plane, I'd think.

Re: Airline to charge passengers by the kilo. cartesiandaemon April 3 2013, 12:08:07 UTC

True, but I assumed a smaller plane would weigh more per passenger (else why build big planes?) Um, I may have that backward though.

Admittedly, you may need to worry more about variance -- presumably a single-pilot plane would weigh more than four times the weight of a pilot, but could conceivably be designed only for a small-to-average pilot.

Re: Airline to charge passengers by the kilo. andrewducker April 3 2013, 12:19:01 UTC

Picking a random one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATR_72
That works out at 180kg/passenger - so a 50kg difference in passenger weight would be rather larger.

Samoa Air fly BN-2A (3000kg/9 passengers - 333kg/passenger) and Cessna 172 (1,100kg, 3 passengers - 350kg/passenger). Which is in-between.

Thread 18

artkouros April 3 2013, 12:28:50 UTC

I've always rather enjoyed my Texas country ebonics. It's the language I use at home and with my grandchildren. Roy Blount, Jr. has a book, "Long Time Leaving: Dispatches from Up South", in which he discusses language, among other things. He says the finest thing he ever heard was from a young black man to two black children at a bus stop, "y'all like y'all never road a bus before."