Links - 26th June 2011

"Ethics are so annoying. I avoid them on principle." - Darby Conley

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Inspired by 'Sex and the City,' Woman Beds 1,000 Men - "She slept with at least one stranger a week, travelled the world hunting for men to bed, and took part in threesomes."

Under 1 Percent of Web Visits Comes from Social Media

Aware 'disappointed' with all-male Cabinet - "SINGAPORE'S women advocacy group Aware said yesterday it is heartened to see an increase in the number of women office-holders in Parliament. But the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) also registered its disappointment at the lack of a woman minister in the new Cabinet... Noting that several male newcomers have been appointed to political office, she said: 'I find it impossible to believe that, despite the track record the women MPs have, the Government cannot take an equal risk with the women.'"
Presumably AWARE would be OVERJOYED if Tin Pei Ling were made a minister. Maybe they should scold the Workers' Party for toppling Singapore's first woman minister

Cheating and God: Study ties willingness to cheat, viewpoint on what God is like - "In line with many previous studies, it found no difference between the ethical behavior of believers and nonbelievers. But those who believed in a loving, compassionate God were more likely to cheat than those who believed in an angry, punitive God"
It seems those who believed in a loving, compassionate God were more likely to cheat than nonbelievers

German salesmen rewarded with meticulously organised orgy - "The company's Ergo division decided it would be a nice gesture to whisk 100 "particularly successful salesmen" to a Budapest thermal baths and offer them the services of 20 prostitutes... A spokesman for the company admitted the event had indeed taken place, but stressed "it was not the usual way of rewarding their employees""

Messages From Match - "how to fail miserably at online dating. we couldn't make these up if we tried."
Perhaps they should also ponder why it isn't the girls who are proactively messaging the guys

How "Soul Calibur" Keeps Its Boobs Breast in Show - "It's not just "Soul Calibur," either. Breast physics are a THING in the fighting game category, for some odd reason. Just look at Tecmo's "Dead or Alive" games.) Maybe the ability to focus past the breast acrobatics separates men from the boys. Or, it's a way to show off how programmers implement the processing power of a particular platform. Shiny textures and dynamic lighting are one thing, but boobs that move like they're on a perpetual trampoline?! That's technical know-how!"

Eight million gallons of water drained from reservoir after man urinates in it

Some men swapping pants for dresses - "Yamamoto believes that in Japan, where men used to wear kimono in everyday life, the difference between men and women has been blurred and men nowadays are relatively free from dress standards based on gender stereotypes... Prejudice against long-haired men and those with pierced ears disappeared after more men adopted those styles and people became used to them, he added... many readers ask questions about how to treat leg hair when they wear a skirt"
Amusingly, even in Japan the men who wear skirts get strange looks

A gruesome experiment with ants proves they have built-in odometers - "Sometimes the scientists added tiny stilts to the ant legs, which had to have been a very fun assignment for an engineer and a frustrating task for a lab assistant. At other times, the scientists partially amputated the legs of the ant... If the ants' legs were lengthened, they overshot the nest. If the legs were, to put it euphemistically, shortened, they undershot it. However, if the ants were, to once again put it euphemistically, 'modified' before they set out on their journey, they made their way to the object and back with no trouble. To get around, ants literally count their steps"

soldiers are reluctant to kill - "Only 15 to 20 percent of the American riflemen in combat during World War II would fire at the enemy. ... The question is why. ... [The answer] is the simple and demonstrable fact that there is within most men an intense resistance to killing their fellow man. A resistance so strong that, in many circumstances, soldiers on the battlefield will die before they can overcome it"

Who says domestic helpers are overworked? - "My maid has more than enough time to rest daily, when the kids are napping or when my older one is in kindergarten. My maid is the one who goes to bed by nine every night and my husband and I are the ones who are still up way beyond nine to tuck in our children and catch up with school work. Are maids really that overworked? The many maids congregating and chatting away happily at my condominium on weekdays present a different picture... The slew of social problems that will result from a weekly day off is unthinkable"
People only think it's slack being a maid because they forget that working hours for a maid are essentially 24/6. So as a *proportion* of their working hours their job is slack.
Comment: "Why Singaporean woman like that? Teacher some more...what a disgrace. I gave up on this species a long time ago and am now happily married to a foreigner, from a nearby country; Home schooling for my child then."

A theorem, a crank, and a duel to the death - "A debate over mathematics took a sinister turn earlier this month when philosopher Li Ming, working out of his field, challenged science activist Fang Zhouzi to a deadly wager over the results of his purported proof of the four color problem. The loser, should Fang accept the terms, would be bound to commit suicide. So is this the most significant scientific result derived from Chinese philosophy since Phuntsok Wanggyal proved dialectically that liquid water exists on all celestial bodies in the universe in his seminal treatise Liquid Water Does Exist on the Moon"

Lies, damn lies and Chinese science - "The peer-reviewed international journal Acta Crystallographica Section E announced the retraction of more than 70 papers by Chinese scientists who had falsified data. Three months later, the same publication announced the removal of another 39 articles “as a result of problems with the data sets or incorrect atom assignments”, 37 of which were entirely produced in Chinese universities. The New Jersey-based Centenary College closed its affiliated Chinese business school programme in July after a review “revealed evidence of widespread plagiarism, among other issues, at a level that ordinarily would have resulted in students’ immediate dismissal from the college.” A government study, cited by Nature, found that about one-third of over 6,000 scientists surveyed at six top Chinese institutions had practised “plagiarism, falsification or fabrication”... One systematic review of acupuncture studies from 1998, published in Controlled Clinical Trials, found that every single clinical trial originating in China was positive – in other words, no trial published in China had found a treatment to be ineffective. Moreover, a nationalistic and defensive approach to discredited methods keeps superstition alive in the academies and government"
Cultural Imperialism!

Ristorante: Italy's most popular pizza manufactured in Lancashire by Dr. Oetker - "Its next nearest rival in Italy is Buitoni Bella Napoli pizza, owned by the Swiss conglomerate Nestle"
This is why I pooh-pooh people who claim that you can only get the best/most-authentic food in its supposed place of origin

What to Say to Someone Who’s Sick - "WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP? Most patients I know grow to hate this ubiquitous, if heartfelt question because it puts the burden back on them. As Doug Ulman, the chief executive of Livestrong and a three-time cancer survivor, explained: “The patient is never going to tell you. They don’t want to feel vulnerable.” Instead, just do something for the patient. And the more mundane the better, because those are the tasks that add up. Want to be really helpful? Clean out my fridge, replace my light bulbs, unpot my dead plants, change my oil"

The Live Action trailer for Mass Effect 3. An unsuspecting Earth is attacked by sentient spaceships from beyond the stars. News reports cannot believe what is happening. Husks attack

Zhou’s cryptic caution lost in translation - "The impact of the French Revolution? “Too early to say”... The trouble is that Zhou was not referring to the 1789 storming of the Bastille [but] the 1968 students’ riots in Paris, according to Nixon’s interpreter at the time... Zhou’s quote fitted with the widespread western view of an “oriental obliquity” that thought far into the future and was “somehow profound”. “Whereas, in China, you mostly hear that the leadership is short-sighted, radically pragmatic and anything but subtle”... Deng Xiaoping, who launched the country’s market reforms, is credited with saying, “To get rich is glorious”, although there is no record that he said it. The oft-quoted Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times”, does not exist in China itself, scholars say"

Everything You Think You Know About the Collapse of the Soviet Union Is Wrong - "LIKE VIRTUALLY ALL modern revolutions, the latest Russian one was started by a hesitant liberalization "from above" -- and its rationale extended well beyond the necessity to correct the economy or make the international environment more benign"

Outcry in America as pregnant women who lose babies face murder charges

WASTED SG - "do u like making out to the sound of ‘wfhaaaaauughhh!!’?? (that’s a puking sound)"
Photos of wasted people outside Singaporean clubs. I hope this person is female so she doesn't get in trouble
Addendum: New Subtitle - "Not all singaporean girls like to post pictures of cupcakes. ;-P"

YouTube - How to avoid getting hit by a train

Blogger jailed over critical restaurant review - "The High Court found that Liu’s criticism about cockroaches in the restaurant to be a narration of facts, not intentional slander. However, the judge also ruled that Liu should not have criticized all the restaurant’s food as too salty because she only had one dish on her single visit. Health officials who inspected the restaurant did not find conditions to be as unsanitary as Liu had described, so the High Court also ruled that Liu must pay NT$200,000 to the owner for revenues lost as a result of her blog post... Huang Cheng-lee (黃呈利), a lawyer in Taichung, said that bloggers who post food reviews should... supplement their comments with photographs to protect themselves"