Interesting Links for 14-02-2016

[andrewducker]

• Clark Kent is a master of improv
  • superman comics
• Before You Get Too Excited About That GitHub Study On Sexism In Technology
  • technology sexism research
• What if we changed "pandering to [group]" to "being enjoyable for people who are not me."
  • funny society games
• Write code that is easy to delete, not easy to extend
  • programming advice
• Supporting a

Comments

[gonzo21]

Super Delegates assigned by Distinguished Party Leaders, presumably of good standing... it all sounds a bit Communist State really. :)

Not sure we can call Diablo 3 a prime example of focussing on quality though...

[andrewducker]

Diablo 3, once they ditched the Real-World Auction House nonsense, is an _amazing_ game. I've played it three times now, all the way through, and it's been different (and good) every time.

The superdelegates thing isn't very different from how Labour chose its leaders until recently. Nowadays it's nomination by MPs, and then FPTP from their membership.

Conservatives narrow things down to 2 people before sending out the pair for the general membership to vote on.

Lib-Dems require 200 nominations from members, and then use AV amongst the general membership.

Dunno about any of the other parties.

[gonzo21]

Oh? I guess all the reviews and feedback I heard was from when the auction house system was in place.

Heh. One can only imagine what horrors are unleashed in the UKIP HQ when it is time to discuss leadership. FETCH THE DEAD KIPPERS!

[andrewducker]

Oh yes. When it was first launched it had all sorts of problems because the gameplay was limited by the enforced difficulty of finding good loot (so that you'd need the auction house). Once they took that out, it was a hell of a lot more fun.

There's a free demo of the first section of the game. I highly recommend giving it a go.

Clark Kent is a master of improv

[cartesiandaemon]

I still can't get past that the first panel is the Joker wielding a giant mallet, screaming "Stop--" and the second panel isnt "Hammertime". Does the Joker prepare as many punchlines as possible that all start with the same thing to keep them fresh? :)

Lesbians earn more than straight women. Married straigh

[cartesiandaemon]

Did they control for "it's easier to get high-paying jobs if you have a partner who has a job with less responsibilities and does all the work at home, which is disproportionately often women not men in het relationships?"

Re: Lesbians earn more than straight women. Married straigh

[andrewducker]

Personally, I was taking that as the conclusion...

RE: Re: Lesbians earn more than straight women. Married straigh

[cartesiandaemon]

Yeah, I think they did cover that in the last paragraph, I skimmed it the first time and thought that was talking about something slightly different. And I'm certainly not sure, it's the sort of thing that could have a lot of overlapping causes. But this jumped out at me as the "obvious" one, since its an effect I already think exists, and they didn't seem to privilege it over other ideas like "lesbians feel they need to work harder".

RE: Lesbians earn more than straight women. Married straigh

[steer]

"it's easier to get high-paying jobs if you have a partner who has a job with less responsibilities

Wouldn't that kind of naturally be its own control? I mean if one partner gets a low status job and the other gets a high status job on average they get an average status job.

I'm not sure why you think that statement would apply to lesbians and not to (say) gay men though who suffer a penalty compared with straight men. In lesbian couples tend to be more equal in the hours they work than het couples (so there's no evidence that lesbian couples split into "X stays home, Y has high powered job") and also that they tend to work longer hours than het couples.

The report is a meta study so it does not itself bring in controls but relies on the controls of the other studies -- you can read it here.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/irel.12075/abstract

Two Australian birds have learned to use fire, picking

[cartesiandaemon]

Didn't Iain Banks write about that in player of games?

I'm also just imagining a phone call from a tourist board, "Yes, ok, all the insects are deadly, and the snakes, and the spiders. And the fish. And the sharks. And the climate. But at least the flying dinosaurs haven't overtaken humanity's first and greatest weapon against-- What? Say that again? OK, never mind."

RE: Two Australian birds have learned to use fire, picking

[andrewducker]

My first thought was "Only in Australia, home of the venomous shark".

Re: Two Australian birds have learned to use fire, picking

[murasaki_1966]

As if we don't have enough trouble with the human firebugs....

Port Jackson sharks are rather shy and retiring. Like most of the poisonous wildlife around here.

RE: Two Australian birds have learned to use fire, picking

[a_pawson]

In Australia, even the plants can kill you.
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2009/06/gympie-gympie-once-stung,-never-forgotten/

If Republicans block Obama’s Supreme Court nomination,

[cartesiandaemon]

That is interesting, although presumably the republican party hopes to stall all those things and hope for a republican president to appoint a 9th justice to overturn them all?

And yes, the partisanship of a lot of other parts of government like the court are really blatant. I don't know if we DON'T have that, or if we DO but it's so entrenched no-one even bothers to complain about it. I guess it's also the case we don't have a written constitution, so there's less reason for new laws passed by parliament to also need to pass a test of the court system.

I also don't know, how you avoid important things being politicized. It's like, maybe, everyone agrees it would be better not to, but then someone gives in to temptation that it would be so useful to appoint someone a _bit_ more on their side of the political spectrum to the police/electoral boundaries commission/court/etc/etc, and then the other side say "well, they did it", and then...

Re: If Republicans block Obama’s Supreme Court nomination,

[andrewducker]

Well, we don't have political appointments to the judiciary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_Kingdom#Appointment_process

And also our supreme court can't get rid of primary legislation.

RE: If Republicans block Obama’s Supreme Court nomination,

[skington]

We also don't have a politicised civil service, whereas each new US administration is expected to hire and fire thousands of people, all appointed on a partisan basis.

Re: If Republicans block Obama’s Supreme Court nomination,

[murasaki_1966]

Having a more Westminster approach would go a LONG way to fixing the US administrative mess, as would having a non-partisan Electoral Commission like we have here.