Interesting Links for 04-02-2016

[andrewducker]

• What has the European Union ever done for us?
  • Europe
• Great Fire: The grid system for London that never happened
  • London history design
• How Not To Deal With Activists, Courtesy the Britain Stronger in Europe Campaign
  • politics OhForFucksSake Europe activism
• National Geographic's top 20 photos of the year
  • nature photos
• Squirrel steals video camera,

Comments

[ggreig]

The EU paid for my conversion M.Sc. to Computer Science, after I'd graduated in Physics and Electronics, and knew only that that had been the wrong path and I needed to find something else. Twenty-five years later, I have a related doctorate and I'm still working as a software developer, so without the EU I might well not be in my preferred career.

I commented briefly about this on Twitter yesterday, so apologies for repeating myself here, but I think it's worth telling a personal story of what the EU has done for me, and expressing my gratitude.

[naath]

My uncle retired from the Police and moved to France and now has a small farm (with cute pigmy goats...). Without the EU "retiring to France" would be much harder for someone not mega-rich to achieve.

[steer]

In this spirit, the EU has paid for my research into the mathematics of networks for 12 of the last 20 years approximately.

[gonzo21]

Aye, if we vote to leave the EU, it will in large part be down to the sheer incompetency of the Stay-In Campaign, combined with the sheer incompetency of our Prime Minister. (Who seems quite determined still to destroy the Union.)

I can only assume the powers that be that want the UK to leave the EU (mostly so they can get rid of all that pesky human rights protection for workers) have somehow also been in charge of picking the people in charge of the stay-in campaign.

Scottish independence by 2017?

[andrewducker]

I'd say that incompetence was more likely than conspiracy. From my experience :-)

[gonzo21]

True, true, it is quite staggering just how stupid most even front rank politicians are these days.

GCHQ's Spam Problem

[cartesiandaemon]

DEAR SIR,

I, THE NIGERIAN CROWN PRINCE IN EXILE HAVE HEARD THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO TRY THESE PILLS BUT STEGANOGRAPHY BEGIN MY COUSIN SVEN SENDS HIS REGARDS, THE SECRETS WILL BE AT THE 39 STEPS AT SUNSET THE PLAN BEGINS ... HUMONGOUS BANK ACCOUNT.

YOURS,

SPY MCSPY

RE: GCHQ's Spam Problem

[andrewducker]

I was thinking that. A lot of effort has been put into making spam look like real email. Disguising real email as spam is an untapped field!

RE: GCHQ's Spam Problem

[cartesiandaemon]

Or maybe it isn't...? :)

[randomdreams]

My BMI puts me just over the line of overweight. I have less than 10% bodyfat, but a ton of muscle. Our local health people are beginning to take a waistline measurement as well as BMI to try to assess body shape as well as just height/weight, because the flaws in a strict BMI diagnostic are beginning to be widely recognized.

[agoodwinsmith]

Look; if my food can be produced by robots - and probably shipped to me by robots and sold to me by robots - where are my housekeeping robots?

Actually, more seriously, now that I have thought about it for a bit, the ability to have a beautiful home wherein one can hold soirees and salons and other select gatherings is probably soon the only thing that people with money will need to pay other people for. Yay says someone without money - isn't this the Edwardian cocktail hour again?

[danieldwilliam]

Robots doing many complex tasks in a changing environment and having to interact with humans is very very much harder than getting them to do a limited range of actions in a static environment with just robots.