Interesting Links for 20-03-2015

[andrewducker]

• Writing about your emotional pain could make you feel worse, unless you do it with “self-compassion”
  (tags: emotions psychology happiness writing )
• Arctic sea ice extent hits record low for winter
  (tags: arctic ice globalwarming )
• How cyclists, not drivers, first fought to pave US roads
  (tags: bicycles history roads )
• An interview with Rafael

Comments

[momentsmusicaux]

The PureGym thing is stupid, but it's not really fair to say "Their archaic attitudes to women and blatant sexism really are second to none". My bet would be that the system was bought off the shelf, and some lone programmer somewhere decided to be clever and use the title to determine which changing rooms to use -- or possibly they had to add the allocation system to their existing data, which didn't include people's gender, and so somebody took a stupid shortcut.

[woodpijn]

Indeed; the article even says it was third-party software that they didn't build. Which means it won't be something they themselves can fix - they can only pester their suppliers for an update (or move everything over to a competitor's product, I guess).

The company who made their software are the ones who should be named and shamed for this, not the gym.

[cartesiandaemon]

Yeah, that makes sense. It's someone's archaic attitude, but maybe some anonymous programmer somewhere.

But OTOH, saying that, it's still indicative of how acceptable people think it is. If it had, say, categorised customers into "white" and "negro" no-one would be saying "oh well, nothing we can do, we'll shout at our suppliers". They'd pull the plug now even if they had to process applications by hand. But if they categorise customers into "people who can be doctors" and "women" they think "oh, well, it's an understandable mistake, everyone will know we didn't really mean it". And it's true, it's understandable, but it shouldn't be.

[andrewducker]

Yup. "A programmer did it" and "We bought it in" are good _reasons_, but they aren't excuses. Not for longer than it takes to tell your supplier "Fix it, or we switch suppliers".

[gonzo21]

I saw another report recently related to the arctic sea ice, that this winter was on average 0.5 degrees warmer than last.

Which was horrifying. 0.5 degree increase in one year, if that's a trend and not an anomaly then... we're looking at having decades left.

[a_pawson]

The Icelandic Independence Party is curiously named. Iceland gained independence from Denmark in 1944, yet they haven't changed their name.

[nancylebov]

One more point about self-compassion-- if you have self-compassion as a default, acquiring it can be (is typically?) a slow bootstrapping process.

A lack of self-compassion can be another stick to beat yourself with if you aren't careful.

[lilchiva]

That's true. There are many techniques that can help with 'cultivating self-compassion". It's too bad they aren't more widely publicized.

[nancylebov]

Typo-- I meant "If you don't have self-compassion as a default".

[lilchiva]

I knew whatcha meant!

[doubtingmichael]

I like a lot of what Rafael Albuquerque says in that interview.

[andrewducker]

It shows a lot of humanity and empathy.