Interesting Links for 11-10-2016

[andrewducker]

Great British Bake Off an example of the legal challenges in protecting TV formats (tags: tv copyright trademark intellectual_property ) Leaked Files Reveal RBS Systematically Crushed British Businesses For Profit (tags: banking scotland OhForFucksSake ) Training men to judge women’s sexual interest more accurately (tags: sex psychology ) How

Comments

[bart_calendar]

I tried writing the Miss Peregine movie review sober but just couldn't do it. I needed to be drunk to get my total feelings out.

What really worries me now that I think about it is that parents are goings to see this movie, which is aimed at 5 to 8 year olds and think that the books are appropriate for children, when they are seriously not.

I imagine someone buying this series for their 10 year old and suddenly have to explain what sex trafficking is or exactly what Jacob is referencing when he says "It took a woman to teach me there are monsters with human faces." Or the large graphic sub plot about drug addiction. Or the inventive ways the peculiars have for killing people. At one point they use a million bees to sting two Nazis to death slowly over the course of an evening.

That said the books will expose kids to a very strong female hero shooting fireballs at a monster while screaming "I'm 66 fucking years old and can kick your ass."

[andrewducker]

Yeah, it looks like they changed the genre and age-range dramatically between the book and the film. Such a shame.

[bart_calendar]

I just hope that there dont' end up being a ton of really freaked out nine year olds reading it.

I wonder if what happened is that Hollywood decided anything with the word "Children" in the title has to be targeted at children.

[brixtonbrood]

The movie does actually have a 12+ certificate in the U.K., the same as James Bond and most of the Marvel movies.

The official certificate advice is "We think that this film should be fine for most 12 year olds. If you reeealllly want to bring your 9 year old then you can but don't come running to us when they have nightmares. Definitely don't bring any child under 8." That hasn't stopped a bunch of people taking their five years olds of course.

Inheritance should go directly to grandchildren to help

[drdoug]

I'm not desperately keen to defend the Tories, but I do think this story is being spun a little unfairly. It's hard to see the full context, but it looks like Gavin Barwell was saying what his mother was planning to do and, on being asked directly if he was Ok with it, said that he was fine with that (which is the source of the "I have a nice house" comment). He was then asked whether other people should consider transferring their wealth in the same way. What else should he have said but yes there? The question implicitly supposes that we're talking about other people who have wealth to transfer. He wasn't saying they should do it, or that young people should expect it to happen. Or indeed that this was a good thing.

The Telegraph version of the story gives little bit more context from the interview, including him saying "There is a profound inter-generational unfairness that has been created by this policy over a number of years" and "I don’t want to live in a country where you have to have a wealthy grandparent to have a chance of

RE: Inheritance should go directly to grandchildren to help

[drdoug]

PS Thanks for the link love on my post!

RE: Inheritance should go directly to grandchildren to help

[andrewducker]

Thanks - that does sound a lot more reasonable.

(Although I also agree that it's unlikely that their policies will do much to actually help.)

Re: Inheritance should go directly to grandchildren to help

[naath]

I guess that makes sense. It's not a good policy position, but if you are a rich grandparent it makes sense as a personal choice, and saves on IHT :)

But I have neither grandparents nor children so not applicable to my life.

[andrewducker]

Unfortunately it looks like 48% of the population want Hard Brexit, and the government are taking that as their mandate to pull the trigger.

[bart_calendar]

And 100% of the EU leaders they are negotiating with want a hard brexit so that France doesn't try this shit in Marine wins in the spring.

[danieldwilliam]

Where do you get the 48% figure from?

[kalimac]

I had a lesson in saying the opposite when I was doing local arrangements for a science-fiction convention, and boasted in the progress report of the number and variety of restaurants to be found within a kilometer, which some took as meaning there weren't any much closer than that, i.e. easy walking distance. That wasn't true: I was merely trying to rope in as many as I could within maximum reasonable walking distance.

[andrewducker]

Yeah. Trying to be clear and concise at the same time is really really hard. I've ended up with people misreading me in similar ways numerous times.

[gonzo21]

On the plus side we'll all be too busy fighting a horrible civil war to worry about the Hard Brexit job losses right away.

And isn't it astonishing how much magical thinking seems to affect Brexiteers? Oh it doesn't matter that Sterling has crashed and will crash further, that will just make our exports better.

Doesn't matter that we import far more than we export.

I actually saw one of these numpties on tv last night saying oh well if the world stops buying our cars, we'll just stop buying EU flowers. We'll buy our own English flowers!

~headdesk~