Links - 12th July 2010

"Literature is news that stays news." - Ezra Pound

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jing quek SUPERHYPERREAL photography
I had a hard time finding this site, which I thought was called zingapore. It's the guy who lines up Filipino maids, grasscutters/grass cutters, construction workers, old folks/old people, the 501st Legion, fan-wielding taichi practitioners and trishaw riders up in striking poses. And more amusingly, poses some Singaporean schoolboy fantasies: SCGS girls throwing sports bras in the air on what looks like the ACJC track, 4 schoolgirls (from 4 premium schools) squirting/spraying a schoolboy with Coke, uncles pouring soya bean milk/tao huay zhwee on a girl in a bikini. Oh, and who runs around Singapore with red balloons and in red underwear/briefs. As you can tell, I will never be able to lose this site again.

Wealthier is not necessarily healthier: UK study - "In some cases the health of a population has worsened even as the country's national income was rising. This was because issues of poverty and inequality were ignored by policymakers more worried about economic growth, a strategy that may ultimately cost lives"

Election Strategy and Ethnic Politics in Singapore - "Logistic regression of the 1968-2006 parliamentary election results by constituency indicates that the PAP government did create Group Representation Constituencies in 1988 so as to eliminate districts that had voted disproportionately for the opposition in 1984. Analysis using Gary King’s method of ecological inference suggests that ethic polarization between Chinese and Malays was moderately high in the 1976 election, peaked in 1988, and was minimal in 2006. Indians, meanwhile, appear to have voted with the Chinese in all three elections... These empirical results thus cast doubt on the extent to which Singapore’s elections have been truly free, fair, and devoid of ethnic tension. The findings also suggest that young, middle-class, highly educated Chinese have replaced working-class Malays as the greatest challenge to continued PAP dominance"

A Web Site the Size of Belgium - "Q1) What do you call an area the size of 25,000 golf courses?
Q2) How big was the largest iceberg ever recorded?
Q3) How much of our planet would be destroyed if we were hit by a 1-kilometre asteroid?
The answer to all of these is: A "Belgium".
Have you ever noticed that when there is a need to describe how large a piece of land is, Belgium is often chosen as the comparative measure? (Especially when the reference is to an area of rain forest that has been destroyed.)"

Nanny, 30, died from sexual arousal while watching pornography - "Children's nanny Nichola Paginton was found dead in bed naked from the waist down last October with pornographic material running on her laptop. A sex toy was discovered next to her."

The Bad Webcomics Wiki - "The cold war on bad webcomics commences.
Every day, you and your family could be subjected to bad webcomic radiation. Find out what to do about it.
Your guide to finding the right webcomic."
xkcd is listed here?!

'Hollywood Accounting' Losing In The Courts - "Hollywood sets up a separate corporation for each movie with the intent that this corporation will take on losses. The studio then charges the "film corporation" a huge fee (which creates a large part of the "expense" that leads to the loss). The end result is that the studio still rakes in the cash, but for accounting purposes the film is a money "loser" -- which matters quite a bit for anyone who is supposed to get a cut of any profits... it's a fun glimpse into yet another way that Hollywood lies with numbers to avoid paying people what they owe (while at the same sanctimoniously insisting in the press and to politicians that they're all about getting content creators paid what they're due)"

Homework Makes The Grade - "The heaviest copiers were male, and although most of the students in the classes were freshmen and had yet to declare a major, subsequent analyses turned up an interesting trend: “Copying homework is a leading indicator of becoming a business major”"

Time to kick the gender gap into touch - "If football were to become more caring and sharing it wouldn’t be any fun to watch and the clubs would all go bust. Furthermore, football managers are already showing rather too much of their female side as it is – at least as far as their hairdos are concerned... Part of the reason why women are relatively gaffe-free may be that most slips are made in unguarded moments. Women are most likely to be off-guard when with their own sex, and powerful women are nearly always surrounded by men. It’s also because women don’t go around noisily asserting the first thing that comes into their heads. This may be a bad characteristic when it comes to landing a top job but, given that gaffes are now the number one way of ending a high-profile career, it is a pretty useful trait for survival"

Top 10 des meilleurs vu depuis les toilettes

Scientists Cite Fastest Case of Human Evolution - "Comparing the genomes of Tibetans and Han Chinese, the majority ethnic group in China, the biologists found that at least 30 genes had undergone evolutionary change in the Tibetans as they adapted to life on the high plateau. Tibetans and Han Chinese split apart as recently as 3,000 years ago, say the biologists... Until now, the most recent such change was the spread of lactose tolerance — the ability to digest milk in adulthood — among northern Europeans about 7,500 years ago"

Why You Don't Need to Love Your Job - On Careers - "Most people who merely like, rather than love, their jobs are leading happy and fulfilled lives. Yes, you can get satisfaction and even pride out of doing a decent job well and competently. You can find enjoyment in facets of your work—your colleagues, your geographical location, your schedule—not strictly central to the job but still very important. And you can feed your inner passions in ways other than on the job... Maybe the insistence that it’s essential to adore your job is more distressing and depressing than working at a job that is just OK... every job is temporary. Moreover, it’s not necessary or even possible to be thrilled with what you’re doing every single minute of every single day"

Down for everyone or just me? - "Is [website] down for everyone or just me?"
Besides being useful this is a smart marketing ploy

Snake bursts after gobbling gator - "An unusual clash between a 6-foot (1.8m) alligator and a 13-foot (3.9m) python has left two of the deadliest predators dead in Florida's swamps. The Burmese python tried to swallow its fearsome rival whole but then exploded."
People's misguided ideas of "kindness" towards animals = ecological disaster

Need a Flyer for Your Lost Cat? Don’t Ask This Guy. - "This is a supposed email exchange between co-workers, one of whom (David) is a designer. Shannon is a distraught cat owner who makes the mistake of asking David’s pro bono assistance in creating a Lost Cat flyer."

A Guide To Evil Dictator Facial Hair
Supporting my theory that men with facial hair are evil

Starting school day half-hour later shows big gains for tired teens in Rhode Island study - "Giving teens 30 extra minutes to start their school day leads to more alertness in class, better moods, less tardiness, and even healthier breakfasts... Teens tend to be in their deepest sleep around dawn — when they typically need to arise for school. Interrupting that sleep can leave them groggy, especially since they also tend to have trouble falling asleep before 11 p.m... Starting times were shifted from 8 to 8:30. All class times were cut 5 to 10 minutes to avoid a longer school day that would interfere with after-school activities. Moss said improvements in student alertness made up for that lost instruction time"
And starting half an hour even earlier... No wonder we need Teach Less, Learn More

Why men are attracted to women with small feet - "Women with smaller feet have prettier faces, at least according to the men who took part in this study. So do women with longer thigh bones and narrower hips, as well as women who are taller overall. And the contest isn't even a close one... Atkinson thinks men find these features attractive because they serve as markers of a healthy childhood"

DNA Evidence Frees Man After 15 Years Of Marriage - "Henry "Hank" Doswell, 42, was released from his marriage Wednesday, after DNA tests conclusively proved his innocence in the July 1991 fathering of Spencer Doswell, the solitary charge that has kept him committed for 15 years... "I always said they'd made a terrible mistake, that I did not deserve to be put away in the prime of my life, but no one believed me. If it hadn't been for this DNA test, I might have died in that monogamous relationship... after wasting almost half my life on baptisms and birthday parties meant for some other man, I'm not about to take my single life for granted anymore""