*quality

Mildly terrifying too, but this is the future people.

genetic algorithm *engineering

Eating more vegetables and less meat is undoubtedly good for you.

But if people want to make a real difference to climate change, there's one really simple thing they can do and it will make more difference than any amount of dietary or transport decisions:

Have one less kid (preferably one less than one).

*related=https://videosift.com/video/Americapox-The-Missing-Plague
*related=https://videosift.com/video/Zebra-vs-Horses-Americapox-Part-2

Just to be clear, the officer who made the remark (Carri Weber) was not the one giving the seminar.

The presenter (in the red shirt) gives the statistic.
Angry White Dude questions it.
Weber remarks about privilege.
Angry White Dude gets annoyed.

Sorry, re-reading that, it is badly worded. I meant I don't understand what upset him so much that he was disciplined for it.

But that leads back to my whole point about lack of context.

We don't know (from this video) WHY she talked about white male privilege and whether it was warranted, and equally, I don't understand why he reacted the way he did.

So, doing some research on this, it turns out that, when presented with the statistic that transgender people are 3.32 times more likely to experience police violence, he said "My wife has never been part of police violence, Most of the people that I know have never accused the police of violence. So I guess I don't get where that statistic comes from."

Ok, let's put the white privilege thing aside for a second. Can we all agree that that is a fucking dumb arse response? "People in Africa are starving." "Nonsense, I just had a cheeseburger". FFS.

It's at that point that Weber says "it's because of your white male privilege".

Now whether that response was merited is debatable. Personally, I feel like it's probably uncalled for, but I can also see where she's coming from.

Either way, it certainly doesn't merit Weber being put on administrative leave. As for the response, it was definitely unnecessary, but it was also not THAT bad.

I fail to see why the whole thing needed to go to disciplinary proceedings at all, when it could have been sorted out by making them both sit down and talk like grown-ups.

I feel like we’re not getting the whole story here.

Out of context, it’s hard to know why she said anything about white male privilege (and no, that’s not a racist statement, it’s a sociological fact).

It’s equally hard to see why he got so upset he was disciplined.

Agreed, but it's also going to be necessary due to automation.

*quality discussion from Kurzgesagt as always

Jesus.... Louis CK without a beard... the horror.

*quality analysis of a great show.

Sorry, but this is simply not true. Earthquakes are caused by activity under the earth's surface. It has never been demonstrated that there is a causal relationship between solar flares and earthquakes.

In the civilised world, "doing taxes" is one of those weird things you are aware of because of American TV.

In my entire working life, my interaction with tax amounts to looking at my payslip whenever my salary changes and ... that's it.

My tax comes off my pay automatically, I pay a flat Goods and Services Tax of 15% on everything I buy, and there are various other duties, levies, etc., all of which are pre-calculated and included in the listed price.

There are a few "tax refund" companies around that will try and recoup a tax gain, but most of the time it amounts to so little money it's not worth it.

I would have said this is why we build things off diagrams (plans, schematics, etc) rather than words.

I'm in the process of designing/building* a house and I very nearly made pretty much the exact same mistake (essentially assuming a 0 thickness of the walls).

* well, I am paying for other people to build it, but I am sending my very bad drawings to an architect who helpfully points out things like "the house will collapse if you remove that wall".

Jesus, and it's in Excel too.

A little part of me just died.