Links - 24th August 2015

Straight A student commits suicide over O-level results, mum takes her own life months later - "Madam Ng said: "My son-in-law felt very sorry for his daughter. He used to approach me to help him talk to my daughter, to ask her not to push Xiao Mei too hard. He felt that they should let Xiao Mei be, as she was a good girl. "Whenever I tried to broach the issue with my daughter, she'd get angry and tell me not to interfere with the way she wanted to bring her child up. "She often compared Xiao Mei's results with those of her friends' children and would ask, 'How come so and so can do this and you cannot?'" Xiao Mei's mother wanted her to get into medical school."

Toddler is mauled to death and EATEN by a pig after crawling into its pen and the animal 'acted to protect its new litter' in China - "Village leader Cheng Yuan, 62, said: 'This is a horrible tragedy. We had to cut the pig open, not as an act of revenge but to prove to the authorities that it had indeed killed and eaten Keke.'"

Britons flee French island of Guadeloupe as rioters turn on white families - "Protesters were now targeting 'all white people', with the media in mainland France describing the situation as virtual civil war'."
As they say, you can't be racist against white people

What a can of Coca-Cola can do to your body - "45 minutes: Your body ups your dopamine production stimulating the pleasure centres of your brain. This is physically the same way heroin works, by the way."

Cops: Crystal Kinder kidnapped kids to show them how to be homeless - "A 32-year-old homeless woman was arrested on kidnapping charges Monday after she allegedly took two kids from a Lakeland park to show them how to steal and "live on the street" like her"

Viewing Sexual Stimuli Associated with Greater Sexual Responsiveness, Not Erectile Dysfunction - "More hours viewing VSS was related to stronger experienced sexual responses to VSS in the laboratory, was unrelated to erectile functioning with a partner, and was related to stronger desire for sex with a partner."
Porn doesn't harm your sexual performance but actually helps you with sex

What drives a prostitute - "Half of the prostitutes in a new survey say they became prostitutes because of sexual curiosity, and 68 percent consider their line of work as part of their sexuality. “While there’s no doubt that money is the primary reason for the women becoming prostitutes, it is very surprising that sexual motivation ranks so highly,” says Jens Kofod, who holds a PhD in anthropology and is a researcher at SFI – The Danish National Centre for Social Research... Child abuse is often regarded as a reason for prostitution by the media, politicians and general public, who feel the prostitutes need help to stop their work. But the survey produced no clear conclusion on this – some prostitutes were abused as children, others were not."

Tirullipa Show (Video) - "Vamos treinar galeraaaa, segunda feira dia de começar os exercícios !!!! Bom treino a todos vocês !!!! Kkkkkk"

Life in death - "“What’s the point of it all if it’s NOT going to end?”... Death gives life direction and urgency. Without an end, we’d all be walking aimlessly, counting on Little Orphan Annie’s never-ending tomorrow. Consider if you had a thousand years to live: Would you really make the most out of it? Read all the great books? Visit the seven continents? Try to make a difference?"

#AskELJames Twitter Q&A didn't go exactly as planned

MIT Hopes to Exorcise 'Phantom' Traffic Jams - "Phantom jams are born of a lot of cars using the road. No surprise there. But when traffic gets too heavy, it takes the smallest disturbance in the flow – a driver laying on the brakes, someone tailgating too closely or some moron picking pickles off his burger – to ripple through traffic and create a self-sustaining traffic jam... The mathematics of such traffic jams are strikingly similar to the equations that describe detonation waves produced by explosions, said Aslan Kasimov, a lecturer in MIT’s Department of Mathematics. Realizing this allowed the reseachers to solve traffic jam equations that were first theorized in the 1950s. The MIT researchers even came up with a name for this kind of gridlock – “jamiton.” It’s a riff on “soliton,” a term used in math and physics to desribe a self-sustaining wave that maintains its shape while moving. The equations MIT came up with are similar to those used to describe fluid mechanics, and they model traffic jams as a self-sustaining wave.

Teen's plight: From dating app to sex offender registry - "The girl told Zach she was 17, but she lied. She was only 14, and by having sex with her, Zach was committing a crime. He was arrested and convicted. He was given a 90-day jail sentence, five years probation and placed on both Indiana and Michigan's sex offender registry for the next 25 years... even if the sex was consensual and even if the girl did lie about her age, it is not a defense under current sex offender laws. In fact, Judge Dennis Wiley, who sentenced Zach, said he was angry that Zach had used the Internet to meet a girl. "That seems to be part of our culture now," he said, according to a transcript. "Meet, have sex, hook up, sayonara. Totally inappropriate behavior. There is no excuse for this whatsoever"... Buhl says the problem is that the registry is a one-size-fits-all list that treats everyone as if they pose the same threat, whether they are a predatory child molester or a teen who had sex with his girlfriend... Buhl, who says he has presided over dozens of sex offender cases, agrees that the states are wasting resources on people who are unlikely to re-offend. He says one solution would be to have a risk assessment registry, in which offenders are assessed in terms of their threat to society. But he believes change is unlikely, because few lawmakers would be willing to back a provision that lessens the severity of sex crime laws."
Moralising judges or strict liability laws aren't Uniquely Singapore

Samuel Price convicted of assault after biting Elizabeth Sandlin's bottom during ‘rough sex’ - "Miss Sandlin, who is hoping to start a creative writing degree at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, in September, said: ‘I trusted someone I should not have trusted. 'He was very drunk, blind drunk. He completely overstepped the mark. I was shocked.’"
Since she had sex with a man who was "blind drunk", didn't she rape him?

Drunk sex on campus: Universities are struggling to determine when intoxicated sex becomes sexual assault. - "According to Occidental’s sexual misconduct standard, Jane was too drunk to consent to sex because she lacked “awareness of consequences,” the “ability to make informed judgments,” and the “capacity to appreciate the nature and the quality of the act.” Meanwhile, John was held responsible because he “knew or should have known” Jane was incapacitated—a calculation that’s based on what a sober person would have known in his circumstances. In order to resolve those contradictions, some people are comfortable assuming that the man is at fault. In a 2004 article on common legal approaches to intoxicated sexual encounters, the California Western Law Review’s Valerie Ryan noted that “the justification for demanding that men assume the greater legal burden and be held responsible when there is an allegation of rape may be that, in almost all cases of rape, women are the victims and men are the perpetrators”... When a male student who had been expelled by Duke University for violating its sexual misconduct policy sued the university last year, Duke dean Sue Wasiolek testified that in cases where both parties are drunk, “assuming it is a male and female, it is the responsibility in the case of the male to gain consent before proceeding with sex”... Assigning blame based exclusively on who inserted the penis, or which party was on top, risks reframing the most common heterosexual sexual position as an inherent violation. And it’s worth noting that it’s not just intercourse that’s regulated on most campuses. “Sexual misconduct” often covers nonconsensual kissing, groping, or digital penetration, too. So any number of “initiations”—some instigated by Janes, others by Johns—could be framed as assaults... The colleges that outlaw sex between students who are simply “drunk” or “intoxicated” are setting an impossible standard that pathologizes many normal, healthy, consensual sexual encounters. Those policies risk denying a huge number of students a college education, and they do nothing to helpfully instruct young people on what meaningful consent really looks like"

In Zimbabwe, We Don’t Cry for Lions - The New York Times - "In my village in Zimbabwe, surrounded by wildlife conservation areas, no lion has ever been beloved, or granted an affectionate nickname. They are objects of terror... When the lion was finally killed, no one cared whether its murderer was a local person or a white trophy hunter, whether it was poached or killed legally. We danced and sang about the vanquishing of the fearsome beast and our escape from serious harm... The killing of Cecil hasn’t garnered much more sympathy from urban Zimbabweans, although they live with no such danger... The American tendency to romanticize animals that have been given actual names and to jump onto a hashtag train has turned an ordinary situation — there were 800 lions legally killed over a decade by well-heeled foreigners who shelled out serious money to prove their prowess — into what seems to my Zimbabwean eyes an absurdist circus... We Zimbabweans are left shaking our heads, wondering why Americans care more about African animals than about African people."

Chilly at Work? Office Formula Was Devised for Men - The New York Times - "“In a lot of buildings, you see energy consumption is a lot higher because the standard is calibrated for men’s body heat production”... The authors also note that the model is not always calibrated accurately for women’s summer wardrobes. Dr. van Hoof, who wrote a commentary about the study, observed that many men still wear suits and ties in the summer but many women wear skirts, sandals and other lighter, more skin-baring clothes. “The cleavage is closer to the core of the body, so the temperature difference between the air temperature and the body temperature there is higher when it’s cold,” he said."
Even air-conditioning is "sexist" huh?
Comments: "I'd be fine with this if men were allowed to "show a little leg" too and wear shorts to work. Until then, if we're sweating it out in suits, keep it cool please!"
"There's really only two choices ... deal with the cooler temps, or the smell of men sweating ... I'd rather have the cooler temps ..."
"Its the men who are discriminated against, as we are required to wear heavy shirts, shoes and socks and long pants. Women get away with t-shirts and flip flops, literally. I mean some of these women come to work in their pajamas! Luckily in my office we don't have to wear a tie, while women have thin cotton shirts open practically to their nipples, complaining of the cold all the way. Put some ties and oxford button downs on these women, as well as some socks and shoes, and they won't be cold, I assure you."
"As a perennial warm person, I must take offense at this article. To all of the scantily dressed women who are so cold, I invite them to sit in an uncomfortably hot area and try to cool off - go ahead remove clothing, I dare you. All this so that you can NOT wear something appropriate - I think not."
"It seems silly and unfair to call this a gender issue rather than a problem with the range of human metabolisms and preferences. There are plenty of menopausal women who need fans to stay cool, as well as older people who are more sensitive to cold. There are ethnic groups that favor cooler or warmer temperatures."

Contrary to popular myth, 'the pill' prevents womb cancer, study finds

This Wedding Hall In Japan Will Loan You An Alpaca To Act As The Witness At Your Wedding