Interesting Links for 24-07-2014

[andrewducker]

• So, a Guy Walks Into a Bar
  (tags: jokes funny )
• You can _have_ sex at 16, but send a photo of it to your partner and you're off to jail!
  (tags: crime sex porn age UK stupidity )
• America’s Favorite ‘Star Wars’ Movies (And Least Favorite Characters)
  (tags: starwars )
• Terminator 2 and the world’s biggest spoiler
  (tags: terminator movies spoilers )
• I'

Comments

[lil_shepherd]

I've seen 68 or the so-called 'Best Sci-Fi movies, so very close to your score, but there are a lot on that list that I have activly avoided and others that I just plain think are overrated.

[snarlish]

86 for me, with recent films like Her, Under The Skin and Attack The Block I'll probably see. A couple not sure if I've seen, like Soylent Green. Does it count if you think you watched a half hour or so on a telly sometime? Or fell asleep when on in a Gaming Con's movie room?

There a lot of dreck on this list, and I've seen them.

[lil_shepherd]

I really must get the DVD of 'Attack the Block' but I'm not sure, from the reviews, that I'd call it SF...

[andrewducker]

It's about an alien attack on London! How much more SF do you want?

[philmophlegm]

Aren't UKIP voters generally older? Aren't LibDem voters generally younger?

Aren't younger people generally more pro-homosexuality? Aren't older people generally more anti?

That correlation itself probably explains the statistics in the seventh link.

[andrewducker]

"Ukip voters are also likely to be much older, with 59 per cent aged 65 or over, compared to 49 per cent of Tories, 40 per cent of Lib Dems and 28 per cent of Labour voters." says a quote I just bumped into.

Also, we have the urban/rural split, which I think also has a pro/anti effect.

And a bunch of people abandoned the Conservatives for UKIP over the Marriage (same sex couples) Act. Probably older people in that case.

(My explanation may be...lacking.)

[quirkytizzy]

I was obsessed with T2 as a teenager. Had scrawled quotes from it all over my school materials. I agree with the review posted. It's one of the few sci fi movies that to this day satisfies both the nerd and the overweening philosopher in me.

Though older I get,the more Edward's acting grates me. It's the pubescent screech. Not his fault, though.

[andrewducker]

He can't really help being a kid :->

But yeah, it's an awesome movie. So glad I saw it in the cinema.

[octopoid_horror]

We watched the fancy definitive/ultimate editions of Terminator and T2 the other weekend. While it's great having a remastered version of Terminator, T2 really is almost the perfect 90s action film. It's just paced -incredibly- well, and the action scenes are so well put-together. It's held up really well.

[major_clanger]

Technically there is an exception in English law that provides that what would otherwise be indecent photographs of someone aged 16 or 17 are lawful if the person who took the photograph and the person featured in it (under 18) were married or "lived together as partners in an enduring family relationship"

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/45

This, of course, does not cover randy teenagers having a fling.

(The redefinition in 2003 of indecent images of children as applying to under-18s rather than under-16s also had the unintended effect of classifying many back issues of The Sun and The News of the World as child pornography, because they contained pictures of Page 3 starlets taken when 16 or 17.)

[andrewducker]

"This, of course, does not cover randy teenagers having a fling."

Yeah, this is the problem I see, that basically weve criminalised something that seems to be fairly common behaviour that isn't going to change because of the law.

[bohemiancoast]

Yes. I assume this is one of these things where we've been put under pressure by the US government to facilitate international child porn sweeps.

Because otherwise it's very difficult to see why there's any issue with people over the age of consent freely taking or sharing personal photos that would not be considered indecent if they were over 18.

[artkouros]

The next Carrington event may well be the end of civilization, if we don't prepare for it. Voltage induced on the power grid will destroy the many thousands of large power transformers that connect everything together. The world wide production capacity of these large transformers is only some hundreds a year. Without electricity there's no food, gas, or water, and civilization quickly collapses.
Luckily with NASA's early warning satellites we'll have plenty of time to shut down the power grid and open all the relays. If power companies have the sense and will to plunge their customers into darkness for a few hours.

[asher63]

Yeah this is scary stuff. I was reading that and thinking, "12 percent probability in the next ten years ... not good."

Which reminds me, I've got to get back to reading 'The Knowledge' today ...

http://www.amazon.com/The-Knowledge-Rebuild-World-Scratch/dp/159420523X/

[drainboy]

I was trying to figure out if just turning everything off, ducking, covering, then turning everything back on again would work. Have you any idea if there'd be any residual effect that could cause damage on turning things back on again?

[artkouros]

The energetic particles in the solar wind have two effects - they bring a large magnetic field that can induce voltages in wiring and they are actually energized protons which can cause damage to silicon electronics. The amount of voltage depends on the "loop area" of the wiring. Nothing an individual has is large enough to see much voltage, but anything with semiconductors in it is vulnerable to the proton radiation. Fortunately electronics are completely immune as long as they are not powered. Once the event is over you can turn them back on and there won't be any issue.

The real problem is that we have electrical lines thousands of miles long and these may develop very large voltages. If they are electrically disconnected then the voltage does no harm. If they are connected to transformers and other equipment the large voltages can damage the equipment. In large national networks the voltages can cause a fault that can propagate for miles and miles.