Trailer Spotting

1. China's 450km/h bullet train is the fastest ever built

(tags:trains speed china )

2. Two Major Studies, 125,000 Kids: The Social Media Panic Doesn't Hold Up

(tags:children socialmedia )

3. AI-generated art can't be copyrighted after Supreme Court declines to review the rule

(tags:art ai copyright law usa )

4. Beyond Oil: The Strait Of Hormuz And The Global Food Risk

(tags:food trade middle_east doom USA Iran war )

5. This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won't (check the date)

(tags:politics USA middle_east history )

6. The Siege of Cuba

(tags:cuba usa oil )

1 photo every year
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

1. Behold the wonder of The Naked Mole Rat!

(tags:rats nature comic )

2. Earth's heat to produce electricity for homes in UK clean energy first

(tags:heat electricity UK )

3. AI and Dreamwidth

(tags:dreamwidth ai )

4. "Pretty Lethal" Trailer (captured ballet dancers kick arse. Blood and quips, looks like a lot of fun)

(tags:movies trailer video ballet viaLilysea )

5. What is going on with Britain (and the US) on the Chagos Islands?

(tags:UK USA diplomacy )

6. Liberal Jews denounce bill to ban non-Orthodox prayers at Western Wall

(tags:Israel Judaism religion OhForFucksSake )

A bit of context - A safe Labour seat switched to a seat where Labour came third (Greens 40%, Reform 28%, Labour 25%).

1) That wasn't as close as polls made it out to be. The polls had Green 7% above or tied with Labour, who were either 3% ahead of or tied with Reform. Instead, Greens walked it by 12%. If we're going to be stuck with making decisions about tactical voting based on the polls then we need polls that are more accurate than that!

2) This is the worst possible result for Labour. If people are going to vote tactically against Reform (which they really want to do), then you *really* want to be able to place yourself as the best alternative to beat them. And now we've had two by-elections where that wasn't the case. One in Wales, which Plaid Cymru won and one in *Manchester*, a Labour heartland, which the Greens won. This makes it look like even where Labour are historically strong they aren't going to beat Reform.

3) What does this do for the Greens in the council elections? Well, presumably it sets them up to claim that they're a strong contender to beat Reform, everywhere where Labour is currently the lead. They might be! They might not be! But it really doesn't look good for Labour any way around.

4) What does it do for the Lib Dems in the council elections? It probably locks them out from any of the Labour heartlands - they'll focus on the Conservative areas of the country. Which, frankly, appears to be their strategy anyway.

5) I have no idea who a bunch of people actually wanted to vote for. It seems likely that at least 28% wanted to vote for each of Labour, Greens, and Reform, but if the polls had shown that Labout was on 30% and Greens were on 28%, who would that extra 12% who voted for the Greens have turned out for?

6) This is a bloody stupid way to run an election system. "I'll vote for whoever has the best chance of beating the party I don't like" is such a fragile way of voting for anything. It "works" in a 2 (or 2.5) party system, as England has been stuck in for decades. It completely fails in a 5 party system (6 in Wales and Scotland).

7) What does this mean for Keir Starmer? Well, I reckon nobody else wants to be PM for the council elections. So I'm not expecting him to resign until the 8th of May.

8) What does this mean for Labour's "Tack rightward to gain votes from fascists" strategy? Your guess is as good as mine, but I really hope it's dead now.

1. Probably Hans Zimmer's finest work

(tags:music movies Disney video funny )

1. Manchester Women's Institute to fold after members quit over new transgender ban

(tags:women transgender LGBT UK OhForFucksSake bigotry )

2. Israeli ExecuƟons of Palestinian Aid Workers and Efforts to Conceal Evidence

(tags:israel gaza murder )

1. AIs can generate near-verbatim copies of novels from training data

(tags:copyright ai books )

2. We should make it easier for people to vaccinate their children

(tags:austerity poverty vaccination UK )

3. Green light for World Cup opening hours in Edinburgh (until 7am in some cases)

(tags:football alcohol edinburgh )

4. RFK Jr's Nutrition Chatbot Recommends Best Foods to Insert Into Your Rectum

(tags:food ai OhForFucksSake )

Spent the afternoon at Hugh and Meredith's, where Hugh showed Sophia how his 3d printer works (and how he makes 3d dungeons out of foam). Very cool stuff, and they both enjoyed their souvenirs.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

1. Full scan of 1 cubic millimeter of brain tissue took 1.4 petabytes of data, equivalent to 14,000 4K movies

(tags:brain scanning )

2. The political effects of X's feed algorithm (a swing to the right of nearly 5%)

(tags:politics socialmedia USA twitter )

3. What happens when you don't proofread your emails

(tags:language epicfail funny )