Interesting Links for 05-11-2015

[andrewducker]

• UK now has one of the worst healthcare systems in the developed world
  • (tags: NHS healthcare UK )
• Homophobes are having real issues with Twitter changing "Favourite" to "Like"
  • (It was a star, it's now a heart.)
  • (tags: Twitter homophobia )

Comments

[naath]

ARGH we're living in a Mira Grant novel

[ggreig]

That article appears to be about the English NHS - there is no "UK" NHS, and never has been. Each country within the UK has had its own NHS ever since they were set up in the 1940s. Comparisons would be interesting, and might then justify the UK label, and obviously there are knock-on effects in funding, but without coverage of all the nations anything that refers to the "UK" NHS is wrong from the word go.

It was a surprise to me when I was employed by the NHS in Bristol in the early 1990s, and I think most people still don't know.

[newandrewhickey]

No, looking at the actual results (the UK-specific results can be seen at http://www.oecd.org/unitedkingdom/Health-at-a-Glance-2015-Key-Findings-UK.pdf ) it actually is lumping together the whole of the UK and looking at healthcare as a whole, not separating out the different systems

[ggreig]

I stand corrected, and thanks for looking at the original data. I went on what was in the article and any doubts I may have had about whether what I was saying applied (it's always a bit difficult to be entirely sure when terms are used so loosely) were assuaged by the map, which clearly was England-only.

[newandrewhickey]

Absolutely. The Independent's standards of journalism are no longer especially high, and the UK/England/Great Britain distinction is often one of the first to go.

Homophobes are having real issues with Twitter changing

[drdoug]

I wasn't totally convinced by the change myself but now I <3 it.

(Except I can't shake a worry that this is a spurious Thing that Twitter are trying to promote to stop people like me getting pissed off with it.)

Re: Homophobes are having real issues with Twitter changing

[fanf]

"Once again, I'd remind you that <3 is primarily indicative of numerical smallness and secondarily a cartoon of an incident of flatulence." - Conor McBride

https://twitter.com/pigworker/status/661690251564347392

RE: Re: Homophobes are having real issues with Twitter changing

[drdoug]

3

RE: Homophobes are having real issues with Twitter changing

[andrewducker]

It does annoy me that just as Facebook is changing from just "like" to allowing a range of responses, Twitter is saying "This button you use to acknowledge something is now going to indicate that you loooooooove it."

Man told by doctors he has 30 minutes to live

[drdoug]

Parasites are the worst. Also in the news today: Nits are just 'hair pets'. No.

To cheer us up, have this ancient joke. Man is seeing the doctor for test results:

- What's the news doc? It's not good, is it?
- I'm sorry, no. It is as bad as it could be. You really don't have much time left.
- How long have I got?
- Ten.
- Ten what? Months? Weeks? Days?
- [looks at watch] Nine.

RE: Man told by doctors he has 30 minutes to live

[andrewducker]

Ow, ow, ow.

I instantly told Julie. Who now shares our pain.

[alextfish]

Similar to the tweet quoted in the spying powers article, this image sums up pleasingly succinctly why metadata sharing is a problem. Not that you need convincing of that, but it's a nice memorable way of answering the question should it come up in conversation.

[andrewducker]

Thanks!