Links - 4th September 2010

"We have so much time and so little to do. Strike that, reverse it." - Roald Dahl

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Apples and PCs: Who innovates more, Apple or HP? | The Economist - "Apple adopts a new CPU before anyone else seven times, Toshiba does so 12 times, and HP does so 14 times. And while HP and Toshiba rarely keep using a CPU that is more than three months old, Apple at times has one that's seven months old. Broadly speaking, therefore, the average Mac available to buy at a randomly selected point in time would embody significantly older hardware technology than a corresponding PC... PC prices fall rapidly as the model ages, but Apple does not follow this model, keeping prices roughly constant"

Pourquoi faut-il détester Apple ? - "L’outsider qui devient star peut-être corrompu par le succès, auquel cas une nouvelle génération d’outsiders viendra prendre sa place, et il deviendra le has been. Le has been peut cependant revenir en grâce auprès des rockistes s’il fait pénitence à travers un album modeste genre « retour à mes racines ». C’est pas dur, Johnny Halliday l’a fait à peu près 50 fois... Qu’est-ce qu’on fait des Rolling Stones quand ils ont 70 ans ? Qu’est-ce qu’on fait quand on est devenu soi même l’establishment ? On se laisse bouffer ou bien on abandonne ses principes ? Pour ne pas avoir à répondre à ces questions, beaucoup des groupies de Steve Jobs et des Stones parviennent à se persuader contre toute évidence que l’establishment, ce n’est pas eux"

Congenitally Blind Men Prefer the Female Hourglass Figure (Literally). - "I can already hear the social constructivists coming up with the next argument: "OK, but the blind men were socialized auditorily." I see. I suppose that we should next conduct a study on men who are both blind and deaf, in the never-ending attempt to convince some folks that it is a rather banal truth that humans do exhibit biological-based mating preferences!"

Chichi Wo Moge! Boing Boing!
Damn Japs. NSFW. The original context of the song: Folgore's Chi chi opai. Sadly in English it became "Hey hey, let's dance all day", but at least he has an Italian accent(

Heidi Montag is 'desperate' to have her breast implants removed and 'go back to normal' - "The 23-year-old is desperate to remove the outrageous G size breast implants that she had fitted late last year... Montag says she is unable to hug her four dogs and is only able to wear special custom made clothing: 'I'm obsessed with fitness but it’s impossible to work out with these boobs' she says. 'It’s heartbreaking. I can’t live an everyday life.'"
HAHAHAHAHAHA

Japanese porn stars fight AIDS with 24-hour telethon - "Very few company presidents could sit in a conference room and casually explain why they’re about to allow the general public to enter their corporate headquarters and fondle the breasts of female staff for a modest donation to charity... "we wanted a more direct interaction with our viewers so that we can better distinguish ourselves"... This weekend, viewers are invited to the Shinjuku studio of Paradise TV to grasp the exposed chests of five female staffers who anchor the channel’s naked news programs (yes, the segments are exactly as revealing as that description implies). The suggested donation of 1,000 yen will be used to help prevent the spread of AIDS... the girls baring their bosoms are known as OKB24, a reference to mega-selling idol group AKB48. “OKB” is short for “oppai monde kansha kangeki bokin shite kurete arigato,” roughly “donate and take a satisfying breast squeeze"

Man unaware he had been shot in head five years ago

Woman who dumped cat in wheelie bin goes into hiding - "Britain’s most hated woman who was captured on CCTV dumping a cat into a wheelie bin went into hiding today – after she received hundreds of DEATH THREATS from around the WORLD... Police stepped in yesterday and informally offered the vilified woman protection... Adam ‘Riichie’ Richardson wrote: ‘’sum1 should fill the bin with petrol put the old fart init and light it. SHE SHOULD BE KILLED !!!” James Barratt wrote: ”Thinks we should spray her with BBQ sauce and throw her into a den of lions at a zoo and spend 15hours pointing and laughing as he sing soft kittie warm kittie tear her leg off.”... ”Coventry Police have not arrested the woman because she has not committed a criminal offence""
We used to lynch blacks. Today we lynch people who drop cats into bins (and then go back to eating ribs). This is called progress. Ironically the cat owners don't want her hurt

Minister told to save those in Malaysia death row | The Jakarta Post
Considering that Indonesia has the penalty too...

Gender Differences in Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism in 37 Nations - "Mean gender differences on Eysenck's three personality traits of extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism were collated for 37 nations. Women obtained higher means than men on neuroticism in all countries, and men obtained higher means than women on psychoticism in 34 countries and on extraversion in 30 countries. The relation between the magnitude of the gender differences and per capita incomes was not significant for any of the three traits."
Long live socialisation

The Defense of Computers, the Internet and Our Brains - "The evidence critics use to attack the Web could be used to argue that we shouldn’t even walk down a city street as the cognitive load is far too great for our brains to handle... walking led the brain to see a “dramatic decreases in working memory, self-control, visual attention and positive affect”... our brains were never actually designed to read... It could be argued that the Web, which is the ultimate library of words, video, images, interactivity, sharing and conversation, is the quintessential place to learn"
More on the fashionable trope that the internet makes us stupid

Why Parents of Girls Divorce More - "A conclusion we might draw is that wives with daughters are less likely to stay with their husbands because they know that with a girl, they'll never be lonely or without help. Thus, they may be less willing to tolerate any bad behaviors from their husbands (and less willing to stay married) because they don't need their husbands as much. This idea could even explain why couples expecting a girl are less likely to marry: A woman carrying a girl anticipates that she won't need a husband"
The other theories: "Maybe boys grow up to be better economic providers for their parents' old age. (This would explain why the preference for boys is stronger in countries where men hold more economic power.) Maybe boys are just more fun to have around. Maybe parents want a child who can carry on the family name. Or maybe there's something deep in our psyches that tells us a family just isn't a family without a son"; interestingly, "in the US... 73% of divorces involve wives leaving their husbands". Most people would explain this as being the men's fault - just as the fact that more men than women cheat would be explained as being the men's fault

Muslim Playing Card

Christian Right Bigots Are Hiding the Truth -- Early Christians Condoned Gay Marriage | Tea Party and the Right - "An icon from St. Catherine’s monastery on Mount Sinai illustrates this point. It shows two robed Christian saints getting married. Their pronubus (official witness, or “best man”) is none other than Jesus Christ. It is a standard Roman portrayal of a wedding. The difference: the two saints are both male, Fourth Century Christian martyrs, Saint Serge and Saint Bacchus"
A bigot is anybody who is winning an argument with a liberal; I love historical revisionism: "We can even get a “new” history like the recently released Constantine’s Sword, which maintains that Christianity’s primary aim since the death of Christ has been the oppression and persecution of Jews"

Multiculturalism and Its Discontents - "Professors of religious and multicultural studies... have even suggested that dissidents like Hirsi Ali and Salman Rushdie have exaggerated the threats against them in order to promote their books. Such slanderous statements are invariably followed by, “This is off the record, you understand”... Panderers to the multicultural gods, in foundations and academia, often assert that religiously sanctioned violence against women and other human rights violations are matters of “tribe and culture, not religion.” But what is more central than religion to most of the world's cultures?"

Cynthia Ann Parker - Wikipedia - "Kidnapped at the age of nine by a Native American raiding party... She was later re-kidnapped at age 34 by the Texas Rangers and subsequently spent the remaining ten years of her life trying to escape back to the Comanche people."
Why we must respect autonomy even in the face of false consciousness: "She was not only unrepentant. She was actively, and incessantly hostile to her captors. She
tried repeatedly to escape with her daughter, sometimes making it far into the woods
and requiring a search party to find her. She was so intent on leaving that [her relatives] had to lock her in the house when they were away... She refused to stop her pagan devotions... She often slashed her arms and breasts with a knife, drawing blood. This was probably an act of mourning for the death of her husband."

If You Were Gay Starring Bert And Ernie

Strangest Wiki category: Characters Who Have Had Body Parts Removed

Heavy Drinkers Outlive Nondrinkers, Study Finds - "Even after controlling for nearly all imaginable variables — socioeconomic status, level of physical activity, number of close friends, quality of social support and so on... mortality rates were highest for those who had never been drinkers, second-highest for heavy drinkers and lowest for moderate drinkers... One important reason is that alcohol lubricates so many social interactions, and social interactions are vital for maintaining mental and physical health. As I pointed out last year, nondrinkers show greater signs of depression than those who allow themselves to join the party"

£190k bill for bridges over road for DORMICE footed by taxpayer

Switzerland Confidential: Behold the Legal Sex Drive-Thru

The King Of The Ferret Leggers: The Classic Tale Of Sportsmen Who Put Carnivores Down Their Pants - "Another ferret legger told me that a ferret that had almost dislodged his left thumb let go only after the ferret and the man's thumb were held under scalding tap water — for ten minutes."
@acidflask: "That ferret legging is a sport lends credence to my theory of sport as the invention of bored pre-internet peoples"

Young, Single Women Earn More Than Male Peers - "The greatest disparity is in Atlanta, where young, childless women were paid 121% the level of their male counterparts"

YouTube - Glenn Beck puts a Frog into HOT Boiling Water

Mirrorcreator - Uploading files to multiple file sharing sites - "Mirrorcreator.com helps in uploading your files simultaneously to various free file hosting providers. All you have to do is to upload your file to our server once and then it gets automatically uploaded to file hosting sites like Rapidshare, Megaupload, Sendspace, Filefactory etc"