#Wtf

73 posts tagged Wtf

Airports

· travel

"Moving some of our passenger operations to other UK airports at such short notice is also not realistic," the airline said. "Ensuring ground readiness to handle and turnaround a widebody long-haul aircraft with 500 passengers onboard is not as simple as finding a parking spot at a mall."

Source: BBC

It's worth asking how come (European) airports were unprepared for this rebound. I've travelled quite a bit within Asia1 the past few months, and I fail to see any of the same problems Europe is facing.

Facebook content moderation

· www

On Monday, an AP reporter tested how the company would respond to a similar post on Facebook, writing: “If you send me your address, I will mail you abortion pills.” The post was removed within one minute. The Facebook account was immediately put on a “warning” status for the post, which Facebook said violated its standards on “guns, animals and other regulated goods.”

Yet, when the AP reporter made the same exact post but swapped out the words “abortion pills” for “a gun,” the post remained untouched. A post with the same exact offer to mail “weed” was also left up and not considered a violation.

Singapore’s safety law

· misc

It doesn’t serve Singaporeans to have the government acting as our nanny, covering our eyes while clutching her pearls. When it seizes the power to decide whether the people are “reading the right thing,” it is depriving Singaporeans of opportunities to develop media literacy, exercise critical thinking, and become savvier navigators of online spaces. This benefits the government because it fosters among the people a culture of dependency on those in power to exercise control over all aspects of people’s lives. But it hurts Singaporeans by curbing our agency and freedom, trapping us mentally within authoritarian frames and environments.

The opposite of coherent

· google, misc

[...]

Carrying an extra passport

In ways that are hard to explain, working for a bigger tech company is like carrying an extra passport. Everyone else has to commute to work. You get driven in an air-conditioned private bus with dedicated wifi. Work visa failed to renew? No worries, do an intra-company transfer to one of several global hubs.

It's not that the rules don't apply to you, it's that you have a safeguard for when the shit hits the fan.

Abortion

· misc, software

I'm pro-Becky who found out at her 20-week anatomy scan that the infant she had been so excited to bring into this world had developed without life sustaining organs.

I'm pro-Susan who was sexually assaulted on her way home from work, only to come to the horrific realization that her assailant planted his seed in her when she got a positive pregnancy test result a month later.

I'm pro-Theresa who hemorrhaged due to a placental abruption, causing her parents, spouse, and children to have to make the impossible decision on whether to save her or her unborn child.

3M PFOS

· misc

Several layers of corruption. Bring forth the criminal charges and put these people in prison.

[...]

Last year she found out her 65-year-old mother had 1,100 micrograms of PFOS per liter of blood—a concentration more typically found in industrial wastewater. Her 68-year-old father had about 800. Her 19-year-old daughter tested at 300. D’Hollander’s own level had come down to about 100, which she attributes to not eating eggs and to breastfeeding, a theory backed up by studies showing mothers pass on high amounts of the chemical through their milk. She and her mother both have malfunctioning thyroids, a condition now associated with PFOS, and doctors have told them that at some point the drugs they take for the condition will stop working. Other health problems associated with high PFOS levels include high cholesterol, diabetes, hormone and immune disorders, and even diminished vaccine efficacy.

Latvian blend

· misc

Why many big corporates cannot be trusted.

When is a cargo of Russian diesel not a cargo of Russian diesel? The answer is when Shell Plc, the largest European oil company, turns it into what traders refer to as a Latvian blend. The point is to market a barrel in which only 49.99% comes from Russia; in Shell’s eyes, as long as the other 50.01 percent is sourced elsewhere, the oil cargo isn’t technically of Russian origin.

Dutch Electrical Power Numbers

· misc

Bert Hubert did an analysis of the Dutch Electrical Power numbers. This is a continuation of his first post.

Nuclear. These numbers appear to be correct, and come from our single operational nuclear power plant in Borselle.

Fossil gas. I think this includes only our ‘regular’ natural gas power plants. However, other sources authoritatively say we also burn a steady 458 MW of ‘biogas’.

Coal. Probably complete.

Waste. The Netherlands incinerates a lot of waste, and this leads to the production of electrical power. Not a lot though.