Interesting Links for 06-12-2013

[andrewducker]

• Why You Can't Build a Smartphone
  (tags: mobile_phones )
• Forget Winning the Hunger Games - One of the Best YA Series Is a Story of Failure
  (tags: fiction scifi )
• An Obituary for the Letter E
  (tags: language )
• UK government to pave way for driverless cars
  (tags: cars robots )
• Yes Scotland have a bunch of answers to frequently asked questions. Is

Comments

[rhythmaning]

Have you seen Five Million Questions?

Not an FAQ, but a library of resources, and they are promoting impartial debate.

[ggreig]

The chair of the steering committee also chaired the inaugural meeting of Better Together in Dundee.

Five Million Questions may succeed in being impartial - academics are supposed to be good at that, right? - but it's as well to be aware.

[andrewducker]

The problem with a library of resources is that you end up with a load of partial resources, and no way for me to tell whether they're accurate or not!

[bart_calendar]

While the Republicans can be blamed for many, many, many bad things in history, slavery is not one of them.

They were the party that fought against slavery. The democrats were the pro-slave people.

[andrewducker]

The article didn't say that the Republicans were pro-slavery. It said that when you're tone-deaf enough to hold a minority outreach session in an ex-slave-plantation you are not going to be very successful.

[bart_calendar]

Except --- that they were making the argument that "we freed the slaves" which makes the location perfect.

The problem is that most people don't know that it was the Republicans who did that.

(Again, I almost never defend the Republicans, but they are right on this one.)

[ckd]

It was the Republicans, but it sure as hell wasn't these Republicans.

[bart_calendar]

I guess this is my grumpy comment day. I reject that article's premise that women have a "vested interest in keeping sex infrequent."

As for the YA thing, if you think about it, Narnia, the most well known YA book that is not Harry Potter is a story of failure as well.

[channelpenguin]

I'd agree with you on women and sex - for me. I have a vested interest in quite the opposite! But many women do have that viewpoint/attitude - it's where that all-too-common bitchy slut-shaming attitude comes from. They want/need/try to enforce restriction/abstinence on us sex-keen women so that their 'currency' retains its 'value'.

Seems nuts if, like me (and as I gather, you), you think that sex is about the person not about the sex itself, and it's not purely a 'commodity' that everyone will get everywhere if it's available.

The sad truth

[cartesiandaemon]

"Soon they will be pure commodities. Just as I wouldn’t suggest anyone build a new line of PCs or cars, smartphones are becoming a rich man’s game."

Yeah, except that when we've solved all the major outstanding problems in a field and the technology is cheap, reliable, and ubiquitous, I don't think "Oh no, we've run out of problems to solve" I think "Woohoo! We've won! OK, let's go home and revolutionise something else next."

Re: The sad truth

[andrewducker]

Well, there is the issue of ending up in a local maxima, where you've got something good enough that nobody can easily compete with it without setting up a huge amount of infrastructure, but it's not actually as good as it could be.

But seeing as Android allows you to replace large chunks of the interface, I don't see why new UIs shouldn't be able to evolve in situ.

Re: The sad truth

[cartesiandaemon]

Oh yes, that certainly is often be a problem.

Eg. many people were stuck with Windows for decades because it was "good enough" and hard for anyone else to enter the market. And I suspect cars are often in a similar rut, that a completely new-designed car might be quite different, but none of the existing manufacturers have a lot to gain by trying it.

But if it's a side effect of mass-production making things cheap and ubiquitous, it seems more like "a step forward, with further steps increasingly difficult to take", not "a step back".

seeing as Android allows you to replace large chunks of the interface, I don't see why new UIs shouldn't be able to evolve in situ.An independent app-store might be a good thing to have if someone could build one, so we're less locked in to having one per OS-manufacturer

Re: The sad truth

[andrewducker]

There are multiple app stores for Android. https://f-droid.org/ for instance has lots of open-source apps. Amazon run their own one too, for their Android fork.

I do like how the feedback cycle works. Swype got picked up by a lot of people because you can replace the keyboard software in Android, and now that functionality has made it into the standard one.

[channelpenguin]

are there any solid links on the 'hang mandela' poster being 'faked'? Havign shared the link I am now being challenged on that...

[andrewducker]

Dunno - you could ask over there?

[ajr]

Not heard of them having been faked, but have heard that they weren't in wide circulation at the time. Saw an article earlier which said it was just a group at Coventry that made them (can't find a link), and just Googling now found an article that said it was just a group at Oxford that had the image on badges (unclear from reading it if that means they originated it or if just that some who were aware of it from Coventry were trying to spread it).

The main thing that seems to be 'faked', though, is linking it to Cameron. No evidence points to him having played a part in creating it, or actively supporting it. Rather, those publishing it appear to be following the argument "Conservatives of this era created this -> Cameron was a Conservative of this era -> therefore he must have played a part in it"

(Disclaimer: despite the fact the above could be taken to be a defence of Cameron, I'm no fan of him at all.)