Links - 5th May 2010

"I think it is good that books still exist, but they do make me sleepy." - Frank Zappa

***

Music industry spokesman loves child porn - "A music-industry speaker at an American Chamber of Commerce event in Stockholm waxed enthusiastic about child porn, because it serves as the perfect excuse for network censorship, and once you've got a child-porn filter, you can censor anything"

Facebook's Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline - "To help illustrate Facebook's shift away from privacy, we have highlighted some excerpts from Facebook's privacy policies over the years. Watch closely as your privacy disappears, one small change at a time!... Facebook originally earned its core base of users by offering them simple and powerful controls over their personal information. As Facebook grew larger and became more important, it could have chosen to maintain or improve those controls. Instead, it's slowly but surely helped itself — and its advertising and business partners — to more and more of its users' information, while limiting the users' options to control their own information."

Belgian bid to ban 'racist' Tintin in the Congo - "Now UK editions are generally found alongside more adult books and are sold with a band of paper around the outside, warning the content is offensive"

YouTube - George Carlin - Saving the Planet - "I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists; these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths... Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked... The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles; hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors; worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages... And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet... the planet... the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!"

Singapore Homelessness - "In order to be eligible for the government’s Public Rental Scheme, applicants also must not have sold two units bought directly from the government. Joshua Chiang who helps homeless and displaced Singaporeans says it is very easy to be rendered ineligible. “For a couple married for 15 years and with kids, your first flat is the one you bought when you were married. Then when you upgrade (to a bigger flat), that’s your second flat. Let’s say you’re divorced, then you sell your second flat. That’s it. There’s your two bites of the cherry”... Some weeks ago, Al- Jazeera, intending to cover this story, called and emailed the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports to get a response on this stance. Their request was denied"

BANGLADESH hospital bans the burqa to prevent stealing « Bare Naked Islam's Weblog - "Bangladesh’s largest state-run hospital has banned staff from wearing full-face burqas after an increase in thefts of mobile phones and wallets from wards... some burqa-wearing staff had also been secretly sending unqualified “proxy workers” to cover shifts for them... “Doctors have also said burqa-clad women who travel to work on crowded public buses then do not change into regulation uniform could carry diseases into the hospital”"
Islamophobia!

Colorado Man Calls Biblical Ark Find Claim a “Hoax” - "For decades, there have been claims the ark has been found in the Middle East... Since the late 1980s, Cornuke, a former crime-scene investigator, has made his own expeditions to Mount Ararat and Iran’s Mount Suleiman in search of the ark. Upon examining photographs by Wing-cheung’s team, he notes cobwebs in one of the pictures, which would not exist at 14,000 feet. And, the floor in one of the pictures shows concrete between stones, which Cornuke says wouldn’t have been found in Noah’s time. He also claims to have a network of informants in Turkey who say people have been carrying old wood up the mountain for two years to assemble it into something resembling a wrecked ark"

Suntanned women to be arrested under Islamic dress code

The incomparable economist - "I’ve compiled a list of some of Samuelson’s big ideas... here are eight – eight! – seminal insights, each of which gave rise to a vast and continuing research literature:
1. Revealed preference
2. Welfare economics
3. Gains from trade
4. Public goods
5. Factor-proportions trade theory
6. Exchange rates and the balance of payments
7. Overlapping generations
8. Random-walk finance"

Rape of woman in skinny jeans 'not possible' - "''I'm suggesting it's difficult for skinny jeans to be taken off by someone else unless the wearer's assisting, collaborating, consenting,'' Mr Hogan said. ''I would disagree,'' she replied"

Journal of Economic Psychology : Are people more risk-taking in the presence of the opposite sex? - "Both males and females viewing opposite sex photos displayed a significant increase in risk tolerance, whereas the control subjects exhibited no significant change. Surprisingly, the attractiveness of the photo had no effect"
One factor contributing to the latest financial crisis. But you won't hear anyone advocating a return to the single-sex banks of the past, but just calling (contrary to this important evidence) for more "diversity"

Son fined for beating mum - "Bu had admitted to slapping his mother, Madam Lim Swee Kim, 60, once, punching and squeezing her on the left arm, and using a waist belt to hit her once on her right shin"
I'm very sure nothing would have happened if a parent had done the same to a child.

The mystery of the mega-selling floppy disk - "Sony has said it will stop making floppy disks, after nearly three decades. Yet millions of them are still being bought every year"

The Lost Languages, Found in New York - "The chances of overhearing a conversation in Vlashki, a variant of Istro-Romanian, are greater in Queens than in the remote mountain villages in Croatia that immigrants now living in New York left years ago... These are not just some of the languages that make New York the most linguistically diverse city in the world. They are part of a remarkable trove of endangered tongues that have taken root in New York — languages born in every corner of the globe and now more commonly heard in various corners of New York than anywhere else"

Baby boy survives for two days after botched late-term abortion - "The mother, pregnant for the first time, had opted for an abortion after pre-natal scans suggested her baby was disabled. But the infant survived the termination, carried out on Saturday in the Rossano Calabria hospital, and was left by doctors to die. He was discovered alive the following day - some 20 hours after the operation - by Father Antonio Martello, the hospital chaplain who had gone to pray beside his body... Italian police are investigating the case for 'homicide', as the law in Italy imposes an obligation on doctors to try to preserve the life of a child if he or she survives an abortion... Most abortions at 22 weeks involve the induction of the birth, normally resulting in the death of a foetus... The legal upper limit for abortion in the UK is 24 weeks"
Get your rosaries off our ovaries!

Why it's difficult to call a professor by his first name - "“It’s difficult for students to call somebody who’s old and grey by their first name”... Bowes calls men “Mr.,” but says the women present “a real quagmire.” There are just too many options... Sarah Thornley, 23, says none really work for her. “Miss” makes her feel young and immature. She hates “ma’am” and “Ms.” makes her feel like a spinster. “Just call me Sarah, that’s all,” she says.

Traveller couple terrorised vulnerable families out of £2m pretending they were dangerous IRA members

Why Job Hoppers Make the Best Employees - "1. Job hoppers have more
intellectually rewarding careers.
2. Job hoppers have more stable careers.
3. Job hoppers are higher performers.
4. Job hoppers are more loyal.
5. Job hoppers are more emotionally mature."

Man in Sichuan dies after friends insert eel up his arse as a joke - "Though dead, the eel had apparently already wrought havoc on his innards, biting its way through his intestines prior to dying. Internal bleeding and infection rapidly set in... he had apparently been drinking with friends, and had passed out. His friends had decided it would be amusing to insert a live eel into his anus whilst he was comatose"
Actually he didn't die, but still; From the Chinese article: "黄鳝进入肛门后，犹如“孙悟空”钻进“铁扇公主”肚中"

Best sandwich? 'Fat Darrell' - "What do you call a sandwich made of chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks and french fries? Around here, it's called a Fat Darrell — and you also can call it a winning combo. The "Fat Darrell" has been crowned the best sandwich in the country by Maxim magazine"

Dearly departed – on Disneyland rides! - "Disneyland visitors have routinely scattered cremated human remains throughout the haunted house ride since the late 1990s"

STEPHEN HAWKING: How to build a time machine

Chocolate lovers 'are more depressive', say experts - "Research in Archives of Internal Medicine shows those who eat at least a bar every week are more glum than those who only eat chocolate now and again... they cannot rule out that chocolate may be a cause rather than the cure for being depressed"

Scott Gairdner: Travis' Wish - "'Dad? Am I gonna die of cancer?'
'I'm not gonna let you. I love you too much'...
The Make A Wish Foundation presents: The Boy Who Everyone Loved And Who Never Died"