Interesting Links for 11-08-2014

[andrewducker]

• J.R.R. Tolkien's 10 Tips For Writers
  (tags: Tolkien writing advice )
• How a Basic Income would make it easier to work flexibly, and be a better fit for modern society
  (tags: GuaranteedIncome work )
• 11 Problems With The House Of Lords Explained Using Cats
  (tags: law houseoflords cats politics reform )
• Amazon opens up a new front in its war. This

Comments

hype lapse

[snarlish]

It is a pretty neat and awesome idea, although seems it would be easier/simpler to invest in a physical stabliser for the camera taking the footage.
(speaking of a camera attached securely: http://vimeo.com/101358524 )

Re: hype lapse

[andrewducker]

I think this is specifrically for situations where a stabiliser isn't possible - like a headmounted camera when you're rock climbing.

Here's What Happens When Your Joke Goes Massively Viral On Twitter

[drdoug]

I had a Twitter pic I posted go fairly-viral (thousands rather than millions). It was really cool when loads of people I know reacted positively and passed it on ... then it started to get a bit random when people I'd never heard of were responding. Then it got a bit weird when the foreign-languages-I-don't-speak messages started. I had to turn off notification emails from Twitter, since it was completely swamping my inbox. Then I stumbled across other people who'd nicked the picture and were claiming it as theirs, or not attributing it, which was slightly irksome. I realised that the wording of my Tweet was ambiguous and looked like I was passing it on unattributed, rather than saying that it was my own work inspired by someone else I'd retweeted. I'm pretty sure the picture then took on a life of its own that was harder to track

Re: Here's What Happens When Your Joke Goes Massively Viral On Twitter

[andrewducker]

I've had a couple of tweets go on for weeks, and that was bad enough - a couple of days of my feed being full of notifications, and then having them pop up again intermittently.

This one, from April, got retweeted again two days ago:
https://twitter.com/andrewducker/status/451296684438736896/photo/1

But it's now down to that level. And it's only been 300 retweets, not many thousands of them.

(And the pic was something I found on imgur)

11 Problems With The House Of Lords Explained Using Cats

[drdoug]

Very much in favour of radical Lords reform, but point 4 in that list (Lords can block popular legislation for up to a year by bouncing it back to the Commons) is a total ringer. It's part of the whole bloody point of a second/revising legislative chamber! And for all that they're an appalling and mostly-useless anachronism, they do play some of that important role, and this power is critical in doing so

Re: 11 Problems With The House Of Lords Explained Using Cats

[andrewducker]

Oh yes, it's definitely simplified. And it's a bit more slanted than I'd like.

But I don't think the problem is with them holding up acts of parliament - it's with them doing so without a way of democratically holding them to account.

[murasaki_1966]

Do what we do in Australia, and vote for the Upper House. It's not perfect (as the last election showed), but it mostly works.

[andrewducker]

I'd love to. If either of the main parties was interested in reform it might even happen...