Links - 18th June 2011

"Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality." - Bertrand Russell

***

David Sedaris: Chicken toenails, anyone? | Eating in China - "Our only expensive meal was in Beijing... The place was located in an old warehouse and had been lavishly decorated. There was a wine expert and someone whose job it was to drop by every three minutes and refill your water glass. We had the Peking duck, which was expertly carved rather than hacked and was served with little pancakes. Towards the end of the meal, I stepped into the men's room to pee and there, disintegrating in the western-style toilet, was an unflushed turd, a little reminder saying, "See, you're still in China!""

Using sex surveys to calculate the extent of paternal discrepancy - "This paper uses the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal) in Great Britain to calculate PD among births in 1990 and 2000. It describes procedures adopted and the assumptions made to arrive at a PD rate in the UK of 1.4-1.7% in 1990, and 1.9-2.3% in 2000... Medical researchers around the world used serological techniques to investigate various conditions, and inadvertently identified significant levels of PD. Some reported especially high levels – from 10-30%"

‪Darwin Nightmare.mp4‬‏ - YouTube

Harvard grads turn gym business model on its head; fitness plan members pay more if they don’t work out - "[They] in return for a free membership agreed to work out at least four times per week. If they fail to follow the schedule in any one week, the participants pay $25. If they leave the program for any reason other than injury or illness, they will pay $75... “The interesting thing about these kinds of companies is that they could not have happened in Silicon Valley,’’ he said. “There, they think you solve problems with technology. But these companies that have innovative business models and are based off behavioral economics have proven to be extraordinarily successful.’’"

STOMP - Singapore Seen - Serving rabbit meat to usher in Year of the Rabbit is distasteful - "The House Rabbit Society (Singapore) HRSS, opposes the consumption of rabbit meat – be it in the Year of the Rabbit or at any other time. Animal welfare groups have uncovered the severe suffering and brutality involved in the rabbit meat industry... Rabbits are intelligent, social animals that enjoy interacting with people. They should be loved and treated as pets and companions instead of having to endure such torture. By purchasing rabbit meat, people are encouraging these cruel, inhumane acts. We urge all Singaporeans to boycott rabbit meat. When the buying stops, the suffering will."
Amusingly, ALL the displayed comments (as of the time of writing) showed a lot more sense and self-awareness than the original poster. Duh.

Only porn theater in Tohoku reopens after earthquake - "There have been very few upbeat stories emerging from the Tohoku area... "most towns with commercial areas had adult cinemas,” Kiyono says. “Now this cinema is the only one left in Tohoku. I have a sense of duty to continue operating”"

Why are there virtually no polyandrous societies? - "A comprehensive survey of traditional societies in the world shows that 83.39% of them practice polygyny, 16.14% practice monogamy, and .47% practice polyandry. Almost all of the few polyandrous societies practice what anthropologists call fraternal polyandry, where a group of brothers share a wife... the most successful type of polygyny is the sororal polygyny, where all the co-wives are sisters"

Zuckers! Facebook Has Secretly Been Giving User Info to Cops - "Neither Facebook nor law enforcement is obligated to tell people when their accounts have been legally compromised. But other tech companies, like Twitter and Google, have official policies that say they will alert users before allowing police to comb their profiles... Nathan Kuemmerle, a psychiatrist, was being accused of dealing prescription drugs when a police officer submitted comments he'd made on "Mafia Wars" as a reason he should be denied bail"

In China, 1.3 Million Websites Were Shut in 2010

Would You Fire Someone for Eating Company Party Leftovers? - "What happens when an employee disregards--or doesn't hear--a manager's instructions to save the company's Fourth of July barbecue hot dogs for a Labor Day soiree?"

Microsoft Security Center Delivered Adult Content Links - "As far as website exploits go, returning adult content via the Microsoft Safety and Security Center search results scores obvious points for irony"

Zuckerberg closes off google+ account so he can't be tracked - "Interesting that Zuckerberg, the man so happy to gather and share so much of everyone else's data on Facebook, is suddenly so protective over his own"

‪Jayesslee in CHC 1 (on 9 Jul 2011)‬‏ - YouTube
Lyrics: "Money can't buy us happiness... It's not about the money money money... We don't need your money money money"
Comment: "I love how the irony is lost on all 20,000 of them."
Also they don't understand the meaning of "a cappella"

Rhymes With Rich - "Once they have the proverbial loudspeaker, how much social good do affluent, successful, powerful women really do (other than treating their wonderful full-time nannies like members of the family)? I didn’t notice any successful career women in the book mentioning specific campaigns they’re waging on behalf of the less fortunate, nor did I catch to what women’s or children’s charities proceeds from the book will be given... These days, I suppose, it is feminist enough an action to edit a women’s anthology, get on Oprah, sell a million copies, and make a pile of cash, all of which you keep, presumably so that your investment-banker husband can’t move the family again... Wealthy, powerful left-leaning women will never be able to admit that they have much more in common with wealthy, powerful men than they do with their poor, disenfranchised pseudo-sisters"
This is a good example of the "vacuum cleaner feminist"

Dog meat festival bites the dust - "A South Korean dog meat festival has been cancelled after outrage and protests from animal rights activists... The event at the market, well known for selling dogs for meat, would also have featured products such as cosmetics and spirits with canine ingredients... the festival would have displayed video clips and pictures of farms raising dogs under sanitary conditions, contrary to public perceptions"
Cultural Imperialism!

The Only Sci-Fi Explanation of Hominid Aliens that Makes Scientific Sense - ""

Lady Gaga's gay Gillard gaffe - "Lady Gaga was forced to re-shoot her response to a question about Julia Gillard's stance on gay marriage because the pop diva gave her first answer believing the prime minister was a lesbian... The singer was asked if she thought Gillard was a hypocrite for living with her "partner" while being an advocate for 'traditional' marriage, but not gay marriage. Thinking Gillard's 'partner' was a woman, Gaga responded passionately, called her a hypocrite"
FAIL!

Why Is a 70-Year-Old Woman Being Sued for Porn Piracy? - "The anonymous 70-year-old was named as part of a lawsuit against multiple users for illegally downloading adult material, but she believes that someone else was using her unsecured Wi-Fi to do so... 'If Sony can get hacked, if the Pentagon can get hacked, my goodness, what chance does an individual have?'"

Very, very expensive farmland (updated) - ""Urban farmland" would cost between $13 million and $43 million per acre. I don't know exactly how productive this super-duper advanced hydroponics system would be, but I doubt it's 4,000-14,000 times as productive as $3,000/acre farmland in Indiana. That locally-grown broccoli had better taste really, really good... The vertical farm people claim you can feed 50,000 people per year with just 13 million square feet of floor space. This extrapolates to 21 million square feet for 80,000 people. As best I can tell, they get there by assuming that hydroponic techniques will yield 10 to 100 times as much as dirt farming. (Someone should tell the farmers.) Fine. So we really need just 21 million square feet to feed 1% of NYC's population for one year. No sweat. That's just eight Empire State Buildings. And, for another 792 Empire State Buildings, we could feed the other 99% as well."

Straitjacketed cosmopolitanism - "Not only does Singapore want brain-cauterised Singaporeans, we want all foreigners coming here to contribute their skills and labour to our society and economy, to put on straitjackets on entering. We want them decontaminated of political impulses, and become, like Singaporeans, mere economic and consumerist automatons. Unless, of course, they support the single party that dominates this state. In that case, please speak up and laud our tremendous achievements."

Ready to Take a Faithful Leap - NYTimes.com - "She called me selfish. And it’s true. I was selfish for denying her the opportunity to be belle of the ball, at least in her fantasies. But more precisely, I was selfish because I aspired to a life outside her world"