Interesting Links for 17-09-2013

[andrewducker]

• Europe's largest tidal power project is approved (between Orkney and mainland Scotland)
  (tags: scotland renewables electricity tidal )
• Netflix studies piracy sites to decide what to buy
  (tags: tv netflix copyright piracy )
• On the banality of systemic evil
  (tags: systems organisation secrecy evil viafanf )
• Richard Dawkins's Existence Poses a Real

Comments

Trams

[danieldwilliam]

The opening paragraph of the tram story is hilarious.

On Tuesday, the City of Edinburgh Council announced passengers would be able to use the service by the end of May 2014, *two months ahead of schedule*.

Re: Trams

[andrewducker]

Well, current schedule. Obviously not the original "Trams will happen in 2011" schedule, from before they got into an argument with the contractors and suspensed work from March 2009 until May 2011!

Re: Trams

[danieldwilliam]

2011.

*bitter laugh*

I've gotten so used to the airport express taking a massive detour at Haymarket that I genuinely fear I shan't be able to change my habit of getting off at Haymarket.

I wonder what they are doing between October when the street works finish and May when the trams start running.

Re: Trams

[andrewducker]

October -> December is getting the wiring through the whole system of ducts and tested.

December is when the test runs start. And I strongly suspect that their "best case" scenario has the service up and running in March, but that they're leaving a good bit of leeway for concrete being relaid, bits of the line not connecting properly, and other things going wrong. The council are clearly being _very_ cautious at this point at not oversetting expectations.

[bart_calendar]

I don't think it's as gendered as she is making it out to be.

When I get hit on by women or men that I'm not interested in I say "I have a girlfriend" - not as something to do with the patriarchy but simply as a polite way to reject the person without hurting their feelings.

It leaves the person's ego intact - whether they are male or female. And dealing with social interactions in a way that hurts people's feelings as little as possible is a good thing.

I don't think most men interpret "I have a boyfriend" as meaning she's "taken by a man" I think they just take it as a polite form of saying "no" - which is what it is.

[andrewducker]

In comments on FB I saw women say that they had had men who had hit on them apologise _to their boyfriend_ when their boyfriend showed up.

And numerous examples of men who wouldn't take "No" for an answer, unless there was a "good reason" - and said good reason basically had to be "I've got a boyfriend".

[bart_calendar]

I'm sure that happens and I've had drunk women and drunk gay men continue to hit on me after I've said "I have a girlfriend."

That doesn't mean that "I have a boyfriend/girlfriend" isn't the polite way out of the situation, it just means that some people are drunk assholes.

And apologizing to the boyfriend is a different issue. That translates into "Shit, I really don't want to get into a bar fight so can we pretend this didn't happen."

About a month ago I was flirting with a woman at the bar (who seemed to be flirting back, but you can never be sure) at which point a guy who looked like he lifted weights five hours a day came up and she introduced him to me as her boyfriend. Since he was giving me a look indicating that he could tell I'd been flirting with his girlfriend you can be damn sure that I said, "I'm sorry if I was out of order" - because, you know, I don't like hospitals.

[supergee]

There is an interpersonal strategy that I believe est promoted:
1. Always take No for an answer.
2. Never take anything else for No.

Midwives

[woodpijn]

Definitely agree that it's better to have the same midwife all the way through.
With Bethany, I had the same person for all the antenatal and post-natal checkups, but a different one for the actual birth. That wasn't too bad, although it would have been better still if it were the same person.
This time, I'm at a different surgery, and they have a huge team of midwives. I've seen a different one for every antenatal checkup so far, and spoken to yet more on the phone. There's no continuity whatsoever, and I have to explain my history to each new one from scratch, which is tedious and a bit stressful, and wastes their time too.

[erratio]

okay, what show is the VIKING thing from? Anyone? I feel compelled to watch some of it now

[andrewducker]

Horrible Histories. It's a genius history show aimed at kids. It won lots of awards over here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horrible_Histories_%282009_TV_series%29

(_Not_ the 2001 series of the same name.)

[erratio]

Oh man, and here I was lamenting the lack of Pythonesque humour in my TV life (not my actual life, that would be a bit *too* surreal)

[doubtingmichael]

I think for once Horrible Histories is erring on the non-horrible side. Yes, the Northmen had courts, and a good legal process as well, but they often were quite bonkers/violent. I read Egil's Saga a couple of years ago; at one point Egil gouges a farmer's eye out for not getting the good booze out when he came to visit. You know, just a random farmer he met on his way somewhere else - I think he was off to raid Sweden or something. He only didn't kill the farmer because his wife was polite.

To be fair, I think part of the point of Egil's Saga is that Egil was a bit of a bastard, even for a Northman. It was a very interesting read - the mindset is more alien than most SF or F written today.