Links - 16th April 2015

Vibrators now sold in Watsons stores - "They come in four different personalities, each designed with women in mind. The Tennis Coach, for instance, is "sculpted and fit" and promises to "take very specific aim". The Millionaire, on the other hand, is a "classic gentleman and an all-rounder" who is here to "pleasure you like the princess you are". They are "personal massagers" - also known as vibrators - for women. Each comes in a different colour and is represented by a simple cartoon character. Made by Swedish brand Smile Makers, which comes under the company Ramblin' Brands, these vibrators are the first to be sold by a major retail chain in Singapore. Launched on Wednesday, they are exclusively available in health and beauty care store Watsons Singapore island-wide and its online store."
S$64.95?! One could make a fortune selling sex toys given the markup
I hope they sell Tenga cups soon

Chaos. German style. - 9GAG

Using Mandated Speed Limits to Measure the Value of a Statistical Life - "We find that the 65 mph limit increased speeds by approximately 3.5% (i.e., 2 mph), and increased fatality rates by roughly 35%. In the 21 states that raised the speed limit and for whom we have complete data, the estimates suggest that about 125,000 hours were saved per lost life. Valuing the time saved at the average hourly wage implies that adopting states were willing to accept risks that resulted in a savings of $1.54 million (1997$) per fatality"

Femail goes inside the 'sugar daddy' dating world - "All of the women I talked with stressed that these arrangements weren't 'hook-ups', they were ongoing relationships with wealthy men – many of whom simply don't have the time or inclination to date in the standard fashion. For the most part, it seems that dating the sugar daddies almost entirely for financial support, means that few of these women ever get emotionally needy or attached. Some men are effectively buying their way out of the 'drama' that exists elsewhere... 'Honestly, I don't think it's any different than a marriage with a house wife,' Rachel explains to Daily Mail Online. 'If the wife is not working, she is being paid and supported by her husband, and of course they have sex. Does that make her a prostitute?'... One sugar baby revealed that she actually plans to marry her sugar daddy; Erin Oden, a 29-year-old magician's assistant from Dallas, Texas, who has dated 50 of them, says she 'fell in love' with her first sugar daddy, and the pair are now all-but engaged. 'He doesn't know I still have other sugar daddies,' she admits, adding that she earns around $60,000 annually, 'in addition to trips, clothing, dining out and gifts'... Gianna Phoenix, a 43-year-old Arizona widow and mother-of-two, had her home partially purchased for her by her sugar daddy, and makes $60,000 a year from her 'allowance'. 'Have you been out there in the conventional dating scene?' she asks. 'It’s a nightmare! I've had grown men asking to borrow money from me! Dirt bags.'"

"Hi dear, :)": A Case Of Harassment Between Daniella Sya And An Uber Driver - "everyone has different thresholds for what they consider to be harassment. And that is fine, and no one can judge you for it. In other words, regardless of whether you receive a text like “Hi dear, :)”, or a chain of messages asking about you, it is harassment as long as you are not comfortable with it."
It's harassment because I don't like the way someone is looking at me, or his body language

Allen Blasts Webb Novels For Sex Scenes - "Should the author of a fictional work who runs for office be personally held to account for the scenes in his books? "

The Dancing Man and the cult of well-intentioned idiots. - "No time for facts, we need to run to the rescue of this grown man, apparently. Rather than allowing this man to have the dignity of an autonomous adult, we're treating him like a toddler who needs coddling. This isn't about him, this is about the people who created this narrative... You want to feel good about yourselves without actually doing anything. These people are literally congratulating themselves for not getting up off the couch... A much more nefarious case of well-intentioned idiocy played out on the pages of Rolling Stone recently, when they published a graphic account of a gang rape of a University of Virginia student. In an effort to be sensitive to her, they honored her request to not contact the alleged assailants. The story recounts a brutal rape that left her bloodied and injured from a punch to the face. Rolling Stone was commended for their in-depth journalism. The only problem? The story wasn't true... When Jon Stewart from The Daily Show announced that he was stepping down, a cacophony of well-intentioned idiots flooded social networks imploring Comedy Central to hire a "minority" or a woman to replace him, preferably both. Because if we've learned nothing from Martin Luther King Jr., and we haven't, true diversity comes not from the content of our character, but the color of our skin. And which genitals we have. One candidate in particular, Jessica Williams, stood out from the pack because she's talented, funny and was already a Daily Show correspondent. The only problem? She didn't want the job. Or at the very least, she felt under-qualified for it. In her own words, she said, "I'm not hosting. Thank you but I am extremely under-qualified for the job!" So there you have it, a strong, funny, self-reliant woman evaluated a job opportunity and made a choice for herself and decided not to pursue it. End of story, right? Wrong. That's where things would have ended, if it weren't for some well-intentioned blowhard rushing to protect poor Jessica Williams from herself... Williams responded personally to this article and told her to "Lean the Fuck away"... the best way to avoid this kind of grief and embarrassment is to simply try not to be such a well-intentioned idiot. People don't need to be coddled. Humanity has survived holocausts, wars, natural disasters, plagues and reality television. We don't need our hands held when life gets tough. And the people who do—or think they do—will ask for it. There's no shortage of them in this world. Don't look for victims and don't be a victim."

“Lean the f*** away from me”: Jessica Williams, “impostor syndrome” and the many ways we serially doubt women - "'Are you unaware, how insulting that can be for a fully functioning person to hear that her choices are invalid? Because you have personally decided, that I DON’T know myself- as a WOMAN you are saying that I need to lean in. Because of my choice, you have diagnosed me with something without knowing me at all. For the world to see'. And this is the problem with “lean in” applied as a universal feminist ethos. Like most supposedly universal narratives, it’s incredibly limiting. Sheryl Sandberg acknowledged in the book that she didn’t believe that women “should all have the same objectives” or face the same obstacles, but much of the advice is still presented as inclusive when it’s actually narrowly tailored to a certain kind of woman (namely, white, upwardly mobile and married to, or interested in marrying, a man who is likely the same), working to achieve a certain kind of power while maintaining a certain kind of family life. The book is undoubtedly useful and resonates for some, but, as Roxane Gay pointed out in her thoughtful review, a lot of Sandberg’s wisdom reads something like, “If you want to succeed, be an asshole.” I’d also say that “lean in,” particularly as it’s often rendered in media shorthand, has come to mean that women should ignore their instincts in favor of aggressively pursuing a specific career goal or opportunity at all costs. In a culture that already serially doubts women, this is, in its own way, just another way we doubt women... Such a one-size-fits-all narrative, whether it’s lean in or impostor syndrome, erases women’s agency and is its own form of erasure"

The Petrie Multiplier: Why an Attack on Sexism in Tech is NOT an Attack on Men - "The wonderful thing about the Petrie Multiplier is that there is nothing in it about men being worse people or more sexist than women. And still we get women experiencing dramatically more sexism than men. It's because of the gender disparity in Tech, and the fact that this multiplies up to the detriment of the minority group. The Petrie Multiplier is the amazing effect that the amount of sexism experienced by women compared to men goes as the square of the gender ratio in Tech. And this is assuming that women are equally sexist towards men as men are towards women."
Keywords: stem paradox sexism fewer, level of sexism same experience more paradox, as sexist

Wit and Wisdom of Mark Rippetoe - Starting Strength Wiki - "When asked to "explain how deep squats won't screw up your femur/hips," so the person posting could explain it to his friend who believes that deep squats are harmful:
"Just because some jackass asserts a thing does not mean that it is worthy of refutation. If the same guy tells you that every space shuttle launch perturbs the Earth's orbit, and that the cumulative effects are just about to start the process of the loss of the atmosphere into space, thus creating a vacuum that will destroy all life on the planet in approximately 36 hours, would you deem this necessary to refute? How much time would you spend explaining to him why this cannot happen? Would not your time be spent better doing other things? And if you devise a concise explanation, why would you assume he would understand?""

LKY is right after all - "LKY is quite right after all when he said that Islam does not promote integration. This appears to be the consensus two days ago among a group of my Malay contemporaries from the Bukit Timah campus after a series of rapid SMS exchanges through What App. No one seems to disagree. An excerpt:
AS: LKY clip on integration. It seems true that Islam does not promote integration. Some would even say Islam is divisive, not only between Muslims and non-Muslims but also among Muslims. Just look at Malaysia between UMNO and PAS, in the Middle East between the Wahhabis and the Syiahs, the Sunnis and the Sufis... So was LKY wrong to suggest that it would be easier to integrate the Singapore Muslims if they were less strict in their religious observances. He did not say Muslims should not observe the basic tenets of Islam.
Remember what Mohd. Abduh said decades ago: In France I saw Islam but no Muslims, but in Egypt, I saw Muslims but no Islam. Can we now say that there is more Islam in Singapore than in Kota Baru or Kuala Lumpur?
IK (playing the devil’s advocate): Islam as practised today has become a divisive force. It is something that our Prophet (PBUH) never imagined, not even in his wildest dream...
AS: I think we will always remain divided. Everyone will say that his Islam is the right and true one and no compromise is possible. So how! Islam could not unite Ali and Aisyah (the Prophet’s son in law and his favourite wife). They even slaughter each other in the battlefield."

Arizona jury foreman says believed Jodi Arias was abused - "Arias, a former waitress from California, was found guilty this month of murdering Travis Alexander, whose body was found slumped in the shower of his Phoenix-area home in June 2008. He had been stabbed 27 times, had his throat slashed and been shot in the face... "I'm very sure in my own mind that she was mentally and verbally abused," jury foreman William Zervakos told the ABC News "Good Morning America" program... Juries only rarely sentence women to death in the United States. While women account for about one in eight murder arrests, less than 2 percent of U.S. death row inmates are women, according to the Death Penalty Information Center... Prosecutor Juan Martinez poked holes in her testimony, noting there were no police or medical reports documenting abuse, and confronted her with lies she told after the killing to deflect suspicion that she had been involved."

Billionairess' Fortune Goes to Charity, Lover Goes to Prison - "According to Chan's statement in court, the two met in 1992 when Wang sought out fengshui masters to help her find her missing husband. The relationship had begun in 1993 when Wang, then 55, asked the Chan, then 32, to give her a head massage and later turned into a body massage. Wang then asked Chan to cuddle her naked to sleep before they had their first sex in front of a statue of Buddha. "During our time together, I would massage her, and we would then engage in loving, passionate sex," Chan said in his statement. "Nina very much took the initiative in this respect. I was captivated by her. She aroused great desire in me and we shared immense satisfaction in our sexual relationship... Several weeks before his criminal trial began, Chan converted to Christianity and renounced fengshui, calling it "a work of evil", according to the South China Morning Post. "Without the lawsuits, I would not have gone to church and would not have experienced God," Chan told the newspaper in an earlier interview. "I have no regrets.""

The Relationship of Age and Gender Subcultures to the Consumption of Rational and Arational Experiences - "It was found that age is inversely related to the consumption of rational experiences and unrelated to the consumption of arational experiences. Female gender was found positively related to the consumption of arational experiences... research suggests that a gross dichotomy of experience may exist. First is the form of experience said to characterize the left hemisphere. Such experience is described as semantic, sequential, ordered, logico-deductive.analytical, and decompositional (Ornstein 1977). It consists of cause and effect comprehension and categorical reasoning--in brief, it is rational. In contrast is the form of experience said to be characteristic of the right hemisphere. Such experience is sensorial. intuitive, holistic, communal, and integrative (Ornstein 1977). It consists of feelings of union, and is mystical rather than scientific. In short, it is arational... [The results] support a subtle and insightful thesis advanced by Bowers and Bowers (1972). After reviewing the literature on primary and secondary process thinking (which are similar in several respects to arational and rational experiences), they concluded that men consumed arational experiences via impulsive and emotional acts upon the external environment. Conversely, women consumed arational experiences via receptive involvement with their own thoughts or by letting certain kinds of external events happen to them."
This suggests that men (and younger people) prefer rationality compared to women (and older people). Even if this isn't evidence that men are more rational than women, it seems to suggest that men have a stronger preference for rationality than women do