Slot Cars

 An advert recently sent out by Rails of Sheffield...

Budget Day

 Political commentary has been full of budget speculation for the last few weeks.  Many people seem to have pointed out that Brexit has made everything worse. 

Today is budget day, and doubtless there will be a reaction, whatever is announced.  That will take a while.

But what will people talk about then?

Orange Gibbon Alerts #3

 

If you look into the matter, you realise:

In the last ten to fifteen years, the availability of halal meat in the UK has increased dramatically.

In the same time period, diagnoses of Asperger's syndrome in our land have dropped to zero.

We'd better tell the Orange Gibbon.

Orange Gibbon Alerts #2

 So the Orange Gibbon claims Climate Change is a scam on the very day the effects of it are being seen in Typhoon Ragasa.

Better show him the videos...

Orange Gibbon Alerts #1

 

Trump is sharing more rogue comments. Pretty much all of which are rubbish.

But, perhaps the most damaging one is that taking paracetamol during pregnancy causes Autism.  

Which is total rubbish...

Consider.  Autism was identified as a condition before the First World War.

Paracetamol was synthesized in the 1950s.

It is the safest painkiller we have, and not taking it - because of the reasons the Gibbon gives - when there is a real need to reduce pain or trauma, could cause harm to the mother and baby.

Ignore the Orange Gibbon speak!

See also this Guardian Opinion Piece.

Titchy

 So, it appears the Far Right are overjoyed that the demo organised by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (also known as Tiny Tommeee) attracted 100,000 people - or thereabouts.  
Now not all of them were violent racists.  Not all of them were thugs.  But a certain number were.
And there were people who had just become 'concerned' apparently - after reading a lot of far right rhetoric, in the press and social media.

So it seems worth noting that this wasn't a huge event.  In October 2019, the anti-Brexit march attracted between ten and twenty time that number (depending on estimates).  And none of the Remainers attacked the police.

So we know who the real patriots are, and they weren't those marching last weekend.

Reform and Vaccines Redux

 Further to our previous post on ReformUK (who we keep wanting to call REFUK) and Vaccines, this piece from the Guardian today:

The General Medical Council is examining comments by a controversial doctor who used a speech at Reform UK’s conference to link Covid vaccines to cancer in the royal family, amid mounting condemnation of him by senior medics.

The regulator, which is charged with upholding professional standards in UK medicine, is also progressing with an investigation into Aseem Malhotra, currently an adviser to Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy, over a previous claim. It may consider whether to stop or limit his ability to work as a doctor in the UK in the interests of protecting the public.

There have been warnings from medical bodies that his “pseudo-science” remarks could undermine trust in doctors.

Keir Starmer used prime minister’s questions on Wednesday to hit out at Reform UK and Malhotra, saying: “The man who wrote Reform’s health policy has made shocking and baseless claims that vaccines are linked to cancer and that has been endorsed by Reform.

“These dangerous conspiracies cost lives and it shows that Reform can’t be trusted with our NHS.”

While not a surprise, the idea of giving such an extreme conspiracy theorist a platform at the Reform conference is another proof, were one to be needed that they aren't fit to run a bath.

It will be contrails next.  Just watch.

The People Have Spoken

 Congratulations to Gary Linker, for winning TV Presenter of the Year at the National Television  Awards, ending the hegemony of Ant and Dec.

The People Have Spoken!

Thirty Years Ago Today...

So it appears that Windows 95 was launched thirty years ago today.  We remember it well, a big change from Win 3.1 and its variants.  

One of us was shown an early version at a show a few months before.  The conversation went something like:

'Look, this is the new beta test of Windows 95.'

'Great! Looks exciting.  What does you mean by "beta test"?'

'Well, it works fine unless you press the wrong thing at the wrong time.  Then it falls over.'

(We've used this defense for everything we've written ever since...)

The last PC running Win95 left this house last year.  We rather regret that now....

The BBC ran an article about Win95 on the National lunchtime news.  It spent some time with the NW Computer Museum.

Why didn't we know about this?

Letting off Steam

 Why is Steam so pushy?  Whenever I boot up, it pushes itself at me, as if the only thing I wanted to do was gaming.

Amazingly, I do have a life!

Reform and Vaccines

 According to the Guardian newspaper, "Half of Reform voters have 'little or no' confidence in the Covid vaccine'.  If that is true, it is somewhat astonishing.  (And to be fair, that was a few months ago, and the number of Reform voters has increased, recently.
Now, we at the Trees don't actually believe that nearly half of Reform voters are as thick as mince, tempting as that may be.
Rather, they have been gaslit by social media posts, often on X and FaceBook.  
But how did this happen?  Of course there are nefarious people building the popular Far Right who love to deploy these myths.  
But perhaps also, scientists have become over-complacent and stopped explaining things as well and as often as they should, the results proving efficacy have been somewhat inaccessible to the lay reader, and there has been a lack of Government investment combating the lies of the Far Right.
Where are the people organising a response on the conspiracy sites like X?
We need to respond to Farage, Putin, Trump and Tufton Street with the truth.
Every time.

Some Biology

 Rebecca Helm, a biologist and an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, US writes:

Friendly neighborhood biologist here. I see a lot of people talking about biological sexes and gender right now. Lots of folks make biological sex sex seem really simple. Well, since it’s so simple, let’s find the biological roots, shall we? Let’s talk about sex...[a thread]

If you know a bit about biology, you will probably say that biological sex is caused by chromosomes, XX, and you’re female, XY, and you’re male. This is “chromosomal sex” but is it “biological sex”? Well...

Turns out there is only ONE GENE on the Y chromosome that really matters to sex. It’s called the SRY gene. During human embryonic development, the SRY protein turns on male-associated genes. Having an SRY gene makes you “genetically male”. But is this “biological sex”?

Sometimes, that SRY gene pops off the Y chromosome and over to an X chromosome. Surprise! So now you’ve got an X with an SRY and a Y without an SRY. What does this mean?

A Y with no SRY means physically you’re female, chromosomally you’re male (XY), and genetically you’re female (no SRY). An X with an SRY means you’re physically male, chromsomally female (XX), and genetically male (SRY). But biological sex is simple! There must be another answer...

Sex-related genes ultimately turn on hormones in specific areas on the body and reception of those hormones by cells throughout the body. Is this the root of “biological sex”??

“Hormonal male” means you produce ‘normal’ levels of male-associated hormones. Except some percentage of females will have higher levels of ‘male’ hormones than some percentage of males. Ditto ditto ‘female’ hormones. And...

...if you’re developing, your body may not produce enough hormones for your genetic sex. Leading you to be genetically male or female, chromosomally male or female, hormonally non-binary, and physically non-binary. Well, except cells have something to say about this...

Maybe cells are the answer to “biological sex”?? Right?? Cells have receptors that “hear” the signal from sex hormones. But sometimes, those receptors don’t work. Like a mobile phone that’s on “do not disturb’. Call and cell, they will not answer.

What does this all mean?

It means you may be genetically male or female, chromosomally male or female, hormonally male/female/non-binary, with cells that may or may not hear the male/female/non-binary call, and all this leading to a body that can be male/non-binary/female.

Try out some combinations for yourself. Notice how confusing it gets? Can you point to what the absolute cause of biological sex is? Is it fair to judge people by it?

Of course, you could try appealing to the numbers. “Most people are either male or female” you say. Except that as a biologist professor, I will tell you...

The reason I don’t have my students look at their own chromosome in class is because people could learn that their chromosomal sex doesn’t match their physical sex, and learning that in the middle of a 10-point assignment is JUST NOT THE TIME.

Biological sex is complicated. Before you discriminate against someone on the basis of “biological sex” & identity, ask yourself: have you seen YOUR chromosomes? Do you know the genes of the people you love? The hormones of the people you work with? The state of their cells?

Since the answer will obviously be no, please be kind, respect people’s right to tell you who they are, and remember that you don’t have all the answers. Again: biology is complicated. Kindness and respect don’t have to be.

Note: Biological classifications exist. XX, XY, XXY XXYY, and all manner of variation, which is why sex isn't classified as binary. You can't have a binary classification system with more than two configurations even if two of those configurations are more common than others.

Biology is a shitshow. Be kind to people.

Massed Capital Marches on London

 

Microsoft Annoyances

 So, we at the Trees have invested in a new computer.  

As we are too old to switch, it is another Microsoft Windows box.  

It is fast and powerful.

But it has taken days to set it up.  Mostly spent switching off all of the 'features' Microsoft now ships, from news feeds from providers we have no interest in, Bing and Edge, Copilot, in fact all AI, prompts in all the wrong places, encouragement to use their version of the cloud (aka someone else's computer) for our files.

And on and on.

Fry on AI

 This Substack article by Stephen Fry is rather good...

AI: A Means to an End or a Means to Our End?

A Radical Teatowel

 

Dear UK Government...

 

Anti-Fascist Chener

The display window in Chener books is currently wonderful.

I wonder what prompted it?

Gary and George, outside the BBC.

 

Venn Diagram of Horrors