Links - 11th September 2011

"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." - Ken Olsen, President, Digital Equipment, 1977

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China performer says S'pore men are short, arrogant workaholics - "She has no qualms about telling you she came to Singapore with a single-minded purpose: To snare a Singapore man... why is she, like all her China-born friends, after The Singapore Male? Because she believes they offer a better life. But there could be another reason. A recent new ruling by the China's Supreme Court makes it difficult for wives to claim a share of assets paid for by their husbands. Lawyers and observers here say this new law has made smarter Chinese women more motivated to look for mates here. If their marriages end in a divorce in Singapore, these Chinese women would be protected by the Women's Charter. They would be eligible to claim a share of their matrimonial assets even if they had made no direct monetary contributions to them... "My friend said that Singapore men are good in taking care of their families. They never allow their women to pay for any thing. (But) after I came here and dated a few of them, I find them arrogant and chauvinistic. They are short and they are not as good-looking as the Chinese men back home. But I think they make good husbands and yes, I want to marry one." Miss Zhang shares the HDB flat with two other Chinese singers. She said that her flatmates, too, are hoping to find a husband here... "Many of my friends are trying to get a job here. They, too, are hoping to marry here"... she has noticed a surge in divorce cases here, where the third-named parties are Chinese women. Now, with the new court ruling, Ms Wong expects to see more Chinese women marrying and divorcing here... Citing the divorce cases he has handled involving Singapore men and China women, Mr Lam said: "Singapore men tend to think with their hearts, not their minds"... The New Paper on Sunday asked five Singaporean women from different walks of lives about their views on competition from Chinese women pursuing marriage with Singapore men. All five conceded defeat."
Apparently it's better for men to get married in China than Singapore. And it's not their hearts they're thinking with... Amusingly some of the local women interviewed acknowledged you can't just blame the men or Chinese women

PRC woman forces marriage on sec 3 boy - "Three to four months later, the woman initiated sex with the boy. After the two became intimate, she began to pressure him to marry her... This case was cited by a counsellor as an example of another tactic used by Chinese national women to snag Singaporean husbands... These women, sometimes girls as young as 17, may get pregnant with a Singaporean boyfriend and insist on marriage. According to the counsellor, some of these women marry to acquire Singaporean citizenship, then using this as a stepping board to go to US or Australia"
For some reason she couldn't be charged with underaged sex?!

Be open, not defensive, in tackling health-care issues - "I was disappointed to read the Ministry of Health's reply to a query in the article. Instead of acknowledging the serious gap in the health-care funding or promising to address the problem, the ministry spokesman offered a standard response that means-tested subsidies for hospice home medical and nursing services are available to patients who require financial assistance. The reply gave me the impression that the ministry is a faceless organisation without a heart. Many patients, like my late father, cannot obtain access to subsidised medical care in restructured hospitals because the system is rigid"
Economics 101, not 401, again. But then people are meant to serve economic growth, and not vice versa...

Female Orgasm Remains an Evolutionary Mystery - "A survey of orgasmic function in thousands of twins found none of the statistical patterns expected if female orgasm is just a coincidental byproduct of natural selection on its male counterpart, as has been suggested."

Prominent Singapore Landmarks that should have been Conserved

SlutWalk Singapore x Kuala Lumpur
Can you be charged under Section 509 of the Penal Code (Insulting the modesty of a woman) for heckling SlutWalk Singapore?

What Happens to All the Asian-American Overachievers When the Test-Taking Ends? - "It is a part of the bitter undercurrent of Asian-American life that so many Asian graduates of elite universities find that meritocracy as they have understood it comes to an abrupt end after graduation... Hokoyama argued that it was not sufficient to rail at these unjust perceptions. In the end, Asian people themselves would have to assume responsibility for unmaking them. This was both a practical matter, he argued, and, in its own way, fair... One of the first exercises she encountered involved the group instructor asking for a list of some qualities that they identify with Asians. The students responded: upholding family honor, filial piety, self-­restraint. Then the instructor solicited a list of the qualities the members identify with leadership, and invited the students to notice how little overlap there is between the two lists... How do you undo eighteen years of a Chinese upbringing? This is the implicit question that J. T. Tran has posed to a roomful of Yale undergraduates at a master’s tea at Silliman College. His answer is typically Asian: practice. Tran is a pickup artist who goes by the handle Asian Playboy... You don’t, by the way, have to be a Silicon Valley hotshot to break through the Bamboo Ceiling. You can also be a chef like Eddie Huang... “I don’t believe anybody agrees with what I say or supports what I do because they truly want to love Asian people. They like my fucking pork buns, and I don’t get it twisted”... A child of Asian immigrants born into the suburbs of New Jersey and educated at Rutgers cannot be a law unto himself. The only way to approximate this is to refuse employment, because you will not be bossed around by people beneath you, and shave your expenses to the bone, because you cannot afford more, and move into a decaying Victorian mansion in Jersey City, so that your sense of eccentric distinction can be preserved in the midst of poverty, and cut yourself free of every form of bourgeois discipline, because these are precisely the habits that will keep you chained to the mediocre fate you consider worse than death.... Chua’s Chinese education had gotten her through an elite schooling, but it left her unprepared for the real world"
In a less emotionally charged context, this points to reasons discrimination appears to exist in other areas

Chances of a Malay president dimmer - "Singapore has had only one Malay president - the late Yusof Ishak, our first head of state. There is also a paucity of Malay Cabinet ministers... On the other hand, Indian Singaporeans, whose population is about two-thirds that of Malay Singaporeans, have four Cabinet ministers"
Does this mean that Singapore is racist against Malays but not Indians?

The meaning of 9/11's most controversial photo

Starbucks CEO takes political crusade to public - "Last month, Schultz made headlines when he called on business leaders to pledge to withhold campaign contributions to the president and members of Congress until they reached a "fair, bipartisan deal" on the national debt, revenues and spending"

White Goblin Games :: Spiel - "Singapore the Game: In 1861 Sir Raffles is ordered by the East Indian Company to build an outpost on the island of Singapore. Rich merchants are ordered to develop the area in exchange for free land. The small outpost thus develops into a metropolis. The legal trade flourishes, but the opium trade increases as well. In this game the players assume the role of merchants who intend to develop the land and conduct trade in goods such as stone, textile and tea. And when the opportunity arises to participate in illegal, profitable activities, they will certainly take it. However, the risk of being caught increases as more illegal activities take place."
Maybe this is like Pirates of the Caribbean Singapore

The mismeasure of morals: Antisocial personality traits predict utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas - "We question the close identification of utilitarian responses with optimal moral judgment by demonstrating that the endorsement of utilitarian solutions to a set of commonly-used moral dilemmas correlates with a set of psychological traits that can be characterized as emotionally callous and manipulative—traits that most would perceive as not only psychologically unhealthy, but also morally undesirable"

Pope Gives Anti-Gay Speech; Angry God Blows His Hat Off, Stage Down

Study links religious fasting to headaches - "A painkilling, anti-inflammatory drug may help prevent headaches in Muslims fasting from dawn to dusk for Ramadan, according to a study from Israel – where a "Yom Kippur headache" is also known... "The religious edict to fast really is not a command to suffer""

Another Beer: Corporate Power, Deregulation, and Why German Brew Is (On Average) Better Than American - "I posted on what I think of as the beer paradox: that the industry is dominated by two swill-producing giants, and yet excellent craft beer proliferates"

Vietnamese gang's shoplifting spree foiled - "To beat shoplifting alarm systems, a gang of four Vietnamese lined handbags with aluminium foil"
How many people are doing this now?

Researchers Detect ‘Disappearing’ Words That Are Falling Out of Usage

Oxford Vault Contains Millions of Rejected Dictionary Words

America's serious crime rate is plunging, but why? - "There are even those who believe the election of Barack Obama has inspired young black men to steer away from a life of crime, although that only works for the past two years and falls flat when trying to explain the past two decades. Some theories have had to be binned outright. A favourite of some sociologists was that economic hard times result in increased robbery and associated violence on the grounds that crime is a rational act prompted by particular circumstances. Yet, through the past three years of financial depression in the US, crime rates have not only continued to fall but the drop has accelerated in many cities... "You can make the case that mass incarceration hastened the end of the crime wave. You would have a much more difficult time making the case that a continuation of that mass incarceration is necessary""

“Probability neglect”: why policy-makers are constitutionally incapable of formulating evidence-based anti-terrorism policy - "Counterterrorism policy fails to address real terrorist threats because politicians and bureaucrats perceive more risk from being punished by voters if they preside over an attack than they do in attacks arising from actual, probable sources"

La femme moderne selon les magazines féminins - "Nymphomane, superficielle, ultra-consommatrice, la femme vantée par la presse féminine fait peur à voir"