Links - 9th April 2012

Texting Is for Boys: Warn Your Daughters to Just Say No! - "Superior verbal skills give girls the home court advantage on the relationship front, yet they yield to the monosyllabic communication of texting, which boys love... Both sexes bond through language, but the brains of boys are not as attuned to language as those of girls. Girls are biologically superior at communication. Science confirms this"
Comments: "We can use this article as an example of how to marginalize and insult while at the same time say little of importance"
"The author's conception of my 'reluctance' to talk, (being biologically predisposed to inferiority and all), implies that I WANT to talk, I'm just incapable of doing so, whereas I would suggest my reluctance is a choice to avoid the mental and emotional fatigue of talking with people who value quantity of words over quality"
"Seriously? You're just saying that talking a lot is the same as communicating effectively. Well, how long did you spend making your point, and in that time has a single commenter been influenced? I wouldn't call that spectacular communication skills."
"This is the kind of nonsense that leads people to mistrust psychologists in general. You never hear a biologist or physicist say something as inane as "Science confirms this"--they give studies. And if you're going to make divisive statements, you really need to cite your sources."
I doubt this would even have been allowed on the Huffington Post (and she'd have been slammed even more) if she had written: "Boys are biologically superior at [whatever]. Science confirms this

A Blind Spot in the Gender Debate - "What makes everyone think women have a natural ability to communicate? I mean, if women are supposed to be better communicators than men, why don't we ever communicate?... she'll insist that not only is she a good communicator, but that her boyfriend is a bad listener. Actually, though, he's just a bad mind-reader because when he asks for clarification, he'll be listening intently as she declares, `If I have to explain it, never mind.' It's a double-whammy. First, she'll withhold conversation. Then she'll withhold sex. And if she has to explain it, never mind. You see, women feel that the best relationships are those that require the least amount of communication. A man should be able to tell what we mean, not by just what we say, but by our tone alone. Like if I say, `I'm so upset,' that means I've chipped a fingernail. But if I say, `I'm so upset,' obviously, my mother just called. I mean, who can't tell the difference. And if I have to explain it, never mind... The best-seller `He's Just Not That Into You" told women that men who don't communicate just aren't that into us. But since there's no companion book for men called "She's Just Not That Into You Unless You
have ESP," the innately challenged male can get into trouble"

An opinion survey on abortion in Mexico City - "Male respondents were more likely than female respondents to support a woman's abortion decision. Males in union, females not in union, respondents over thirty years of age, those with more than primary school education, those with fewer pregnancies, those with no history of child mortality, and those with a history of or experience with abortion, were also more likely to support an abortion decision."
This is quite counter-intuitive

Penang's famed food hawkers see tradition lose steam - "Char kway teow is considered a signature dish, typically kept moist, but not oily, by discreetly-added lard. The rice noodles of curry mee swim in a broth of curry, coconut milk and pig's blood, while various other rice and noodle dishes are packed with intestines and other organs proudly advertised on hawker signs as 'offal'... When celebrity television chef Anthony Bourdain visited recently for a piece on Penang, he asked Madam Soon if she spoke English, said Penang Global Tourism director Ooi Geok Ling. Madam Soon snapped in Hokkien, 'If I could speak English, I wouldn't be doing this, would I?'... His son Sabik Ahamed will take over the operation some day, calling it predestined. 'This came from God,' he said. But increasingly, sons and daughters demur, and the food suffers as secret homemade recipes are replaced by store-bought ingredients used by new hawkers, said Mr Lam. Hope for keeping traditions alive may lie in people like John Martin, who bought the hawker set-up and secret recipe of Ewe Chooi Guan in 2005... Mr Martin made plastic moulds in a previous job that earned about 3,000RM per month. He makes more now, he says, while declining to say how much"
Maybe they can survive by going Halal

Instagram For Android, Why Did We Even Need It? - "What Instagram did for the iPhone is something that has been done since Android first came out... Why hasn’t this been done on iPhone before, who knows. Doesn’t make sense if you ask me. But with the release of Instagram today, the Apple iPhone world seems to have been turned upside down and they don’t know how to react. There beloved and only true application that hasn’t been ported over to Android crossed that line today. iPhone users can’t brag about one of around 15 different Android apps that, that one name is the only one we don’t have"

Women want better work-life balance: Survey - "WOMEN in the accounting and finance sector want a better work-life balance and a more level playing field with men when it comes to promotions... Almost 60 per cent cited work-life balance as their top priority, outweighing other concerns such as opportunities for advancement, job security and skills upgrading. And of that 60 per cent, 61 per cent were under 35 years old. About 53 per cent of those polled said they would leave their current job for one that offered a better work-life balance, even if it meant less pay... 39 per cent of companies do not have any female directors. Robert Half managing director Tim Hird said this shortfall indicates that the glass ceiling still exists in the local workplace"
Somehow they don't add 2 and 2 to get 4

Cut the working week to a maximum of 20 hours, urge top economists - "A thinktank, the New Economics Foundation (NEF), which has organised the event with the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics, argues that if everyone worked fewer hours – say, 20 or so a week – there would be more jobs to go round, employees could spend more time with their families and energy-hungry excess consumption would be curbed"
"The New Economics Foundation is to economics what Trofim Lysenko was to agriculture. If these are 'top economics' we are all doomed. Fortuantely, they are not."

The War Against Youth - "The youth vote still supports Obama, but in a chastened, conditional way. In hindsight, Obama's 2008 campaign looks like an indulgent fantasy in which the major conflicts in life simply don't exist. There may be no white America and no black America, no blue-state America and no red-state America, but one thing is clear: There is a young America and there is an old America, and they don't form a community of interest. One takes from the other. The federal government spends $480 billion on Medicare and $68 billion on education. Prescription drugs: $62 billion. Head Start: $8 billion. Across the board, the money flows not to helping the young grow up, but helping the old die comfortably. According to a 2009 Brookings Institution study, "The United States spends 2.4 times as much on the elderly as on children, measured on a per capita basis, with the ratio rising to 7 to 1 if looking just at the federal budget"... Both political parties have agreed to this arrangement: The Boomers and older will be taken care of. Everybody younger will be on their own... From every corner of the institutional spectrum, the whole of American society has been rearranged so that the limits of vision coincide exactly with the death of the Boomers."

Comedian's sex case under review - "The court was told then that the man went to bed with his partner after returning home drunk from a Christmas work party in December 2009. After he fell asleep, his daughter got into bed with them. According to the police summary of facts, the man laid his daughter on her back, pulled down her pyjama pants and nappie and kissed her. The man's partner woke up and asked him what he was doing. He replied: "I thought it was you.'' He later told police that he remembered nothing of the incident. Judge Cunningham said a report from a forensic psychiatrist found the man had previous episodes of "unusual behaviour'' after going to bed drunk. The report said it was possible he was "not fully awake'' when he performed the indecent act"
Since one is unable to consent to sex or make legally binding contracts when drunk, why is one still criminally responsible? One suggestion is that the law takes the point of view of harm rather than responsibility, but then intent (mens reas) is held to be an important component making someone criminally responsible (which is why when you drive and knock someone down you're not liable for attempted or actual murder but reckless driving). Perhaps looking at it from the POV of not taking advantage of someone (with sex and contracts, someone else is involved) is more enlightening. So basically I should hope that if I'm drunk, someone takes advantage of me before I can do anything wrong!

France's autism treatment 'shame' - "For decades France turned its back on the latest scientific thinking, and treated autism as a form of psychosis. How, as a result, tens of thousands of children were misdiagnosed - or not diagnosed at all - and consigned to lives of misery... The blame - Fasquelle and autism associations argue - lies with a medical establishment that remains fixated with Freud... From the 1950s to the 1970s, autism was frequently attributed to emotional frigidity on the part of the mother"

60 men may be charged for having sex with underaged C-cup sexy teen model marketed on porn site « THE TEMASEK TIMES - ""She probably earn thousands of dollars from the sixty men, some of whom would probably end up in jail while she continues offering her ‘services’ to other unsuspecting men without any fear since her identity cannot be revealed because she is a minor."

Local university undergraduate earns $7,000 a month as a freelance prostitute « THE TEMASEK TIMES - "‘Alicia’ said she became a freelance prostitute during her junior college days to seek ‘revenge’ on her ex-boyfriend who cheated on her, but subsequently became ‘addicted’ to selling her body for sex because it is so easy to make money from men. She admitted that she ‘loves’ her job because of the ‘high’ she gets from manipulating men: “I love the power I have to manipulate men whether they are rich or smart. The power of control is simply irresistable.”"

Mediocrities of the World Take Heart: Even Warhol Made Some Duds - "few of even the most diehard cinephiles know that Andy Warhol also adapted ‘A Clockwork Orange,’ in the black-and-white 1965 experimental film, Vinyl"

Legend of Zelda Movie Trailer Debut (April Fools') - IGN Originals Video - IGN

'Batman' pulled over by police in Maryland