Links - 13th September 2017 (3)

The History of Pho - "Pho is so elemental to Vietnamese culture that people talk about it in terms of romantic relationships. Rice is the dutiful wife you can rely on, we say. Pho is the flirty mistress you slip away to visit... Vietnam is a country with a history spanning more than 3,500 years, but pho is a relatively new food. It was born at the beginning of the twentieth century in and around Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, located in the northern part of the country... In the agriculturally rich and freewheeling South, pho broth developed a sweet edge as cooks added a touch of Chinese rock sugar. Southerners also liked a lot of accessories: bean sprouts, Thai basil, chili sauce, and a hoisin-like fermented bean sauce. Northerners were aghast. The new additions desecrated their well-balanced, delicate soup. To this day, the regional pho fight between Hanoi and Saigon (North versus South) rages on."

Mad Scientist Builds Deadly Weapons With Items He Bought AFTER Going Through Airport Security - "“People who understand security understand that the current screening procedures exist primarily to put passengers at ease — ‘security theater,’ if you will. They also know that, given enough time, a persistent attacker will succeed to some degree,” he said. “I think people have kind of been suspecting that the type of things I’ve built are possible.”"

What does it cost to make a running shoe? - "for a shoe priced at $100, adidas earned just $2.05 and Nike made $5.3. But didn’t we just say that a $160 shoe is produced for $30? So where does the rest of the money disappear?"

Women are better leaders than men, study of 3,000 managers concludes - "The study, led by Professor Øyvind L. Martinsen, head of Leadership and Organisational Behaviour at the BI Norwegian Business School, assessed the personality and characteristics of nearly 3,000 managers. In nearly all areas, they concluded that women were better leaders than their male counterparts. Women outperformed men in four of the five categories studied: initiative and clear communication; openness and ability to innovate; sociability and supportiveness; and methodical management and goal-setting. However men did appear to be better than women at dealing with work-related stress and they had higher levels of emotional stability."
The study looked at existing leaders, not the general population. You'd expect female leaders to be better than the general population (whether because they like the work and are capable at it and thus do it, or discrimination - so both sides would agree on that). This is like having a female kickboxer beat up an average Joe and then saying this shows women are better fighters than men
Very cunningly, This Independent article has a second, clickbait title to this which shows up when the article is posted on other websites or services. This is hidden in tags like <meta property="og:title" content="Science has proven that women are better leaders than men" />

How Donald Trump Redefined ‘the West’ - The New York Times - "The irony, of course, is that Poles accept a vision of a planet wrecked by terrorists and sullied by migrants when not a single terrorist act has taken place in Poland for decades and there are almost no refugees within the country’s borders."
SPOING!

'No choice' but to test MRT signalling system throughout the day: SMRT - "Responding to complaints about why the project was taking so long, Mr Lee said that no two railway systems were identical. "The system hardware and software we have are customised for the unique local environment," he said. "While the system supplier had experience working with other operators in the world, they are unable to simply replicate the well-oiled systems of Taipei, Hong Kong and London, and import those here.""
Despite the gushing of IBs and Singapore fetishists, SMRT says they're not as well-oiled as Taipei, Hong Kong and London

Une famille de sangliers se balade en pleine nuit dans Draguignan

Veteran spends 54 years in NHS hospital after going in with broken leg and never recovering - "A war veteran has died after spending 54 years in hospital, in what is believed to have been the longest stay of any patient in the UK. James Morris was admitted into hospital with a broken leg in 1962 but never went home after suffering a cardiac arrest on the operating table and being left in a vegetative state. Mr Morris, who was disabled and could only say three words, died last month aged 75... "Over the years we found a way to communicate with him. He was all there mentally but couldn't communicate with us at all. He only ever learned how to say three words again - his three loves - 'home', 'pub' and 'horses'. "We often took him on holidays in Britain and the hospital knew how much he loved the pub so they would even take him there now and again.""
With growing pro-euthanasia culture, this will not happen in the future

If you recognize this, your childhood was awesome.
Counterstrike map in real life

Things aren't always as they seem

Issue#373139: NTU is Ivy League class liao? - "This morning i saw an ad outside a a double decker bus. Saying that NTU is Ivy League class university.
How come ministers all educated in UK, US leh?
And IDA need to hire southern pacific mba holder?"

TouchFreeze - "TouchFreeze is a free and simple utility for Windows that automatically disables the touchpad while you are typing in text"
Solution for over-sensitive touchpads which cause the cursor to keep jumping around when you're typing. Works without administrator rights too!

3 Free Tools to Disable Your Laptop Touchpad When Typing - "Touchpad Blocker only blocks the clicks during typing which is enough to prevent the cursor from involuntary jumping. The big advantage this tool has over the others is there a some useful configuration options so you can at least set a few things up to your liking. Do note that clicks and movements from a standard mouse are also blocked during typing with Touchpad Blocker... This can be individually configured by the “block move and wheel events” and “block taps and clicks” check boxes"

Spider-Man: Homecoming finally fulfills the promise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe - "There’s something missing from superhero movies. It’s a fundamental and unique quality of the interconnected comic book superhero universe, and it’s hard to pin down in a single word. It’s not just world building, or interconnectivity, or an ever spooling timeline, but a combination of all three. It’s the idea that the superhero community is generational — that a young superhero walks into the Justice League tower for the first time and into the footprints of giants. It’s the idea that superheroes shape the world around them in big and small ways — and not just by making world governments draw up the Sokovia accords. The best word for this concept that I’ve found is legacy. And Spider-Man: Homecoming is the first time that I’ve felt like I was seeing it in a major superhero blockbuster."

Household dust makes people fat, groundbreaking research indicates - "The dust particles were found to contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), synthetic or naturally occurring compounds that can interfere with or mimic the body’s hormones. These include flame retardants in sofas and carpets, as well as phthalates, substances added to plastics to increase their flexibility"

Magazine Shames People For Not Wanting to Have Sex With Transgender People, Says It’s Transphobic - "A liberal wonderland known as The Daily Beast (traffic down almost 40% in the last year) has complained about the latest totally-not-shocking survey showing most people wouldn’t want to date a transgender person, claiming it’s due to transphobia. Samantha Allen, a senior reporter for the site, who previously brought hits like the one decrying the LGBT community as racist for not wanting to have sex with people of color, has now deemed the people who don’t really want to date or have sex with a transgender person as “anti-transgender”."
Lesbians who don't want to have sex with men are misandristic

The March for Science Is the Problem, Not the Solution - "Unfortunately, the March for Science, rather than put science to work for the people, will “simply increase the size of the echo chamber.”[31] In all likelihood, it will be viewed as celebrating the science-based technocracy controlled by educated elites that some people frown upon."

'Neo-Nazi' in Florida National Guard arrested after explosives found at Tampa Palms murder scene - "A man accused of shooting his two roommates Friday in a Tampa Palms apartment told police he shared neo-Nazi beliefs with the men until he converted to Islam then killed them because they showed disrespect for his faith. The revelations weren't over. Officers found a garage stocked with bomb materials as they arrived to investigate the double homicide, leading to federal explosive charges against Brandon Russell — a Florida National Guardsman and admitted neo-Nazi who kept a framed photo of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh on his dresser... Arthurs made references to "Allah Mohammed" as officers walked him to a patrol car. "I had to do it," he said, according to the report. "This wouldn't have had to happen if your country didn't bomb my country." Jail records show Arthurs was born in Florida... Arthurs told police he had become angry about the world's anti-Muslim sentiment and "wanted to bring attention to his cause."

Chinese shopping mall introduces remedy for bored men: the hubby hatch - "some women were not taken by the idea: “It’s impossible to ask a man to stop playing games,” one woman complained. “I may now have to wait for him when I finish shopping but he’s still playing games.” Said another: “A man is supposed to accompany his girlfriend to shop. I’ll be the bored one if he plays games and has fun by himself.”"

Pragmatic Chinese women prefer to date men who earn two to three times as much as they do: survey

Harvard committee proposes banning all social clubs; punishing violators - "Harvard would extend previously-proposed sanctions against students joining single-gender clubs, to all “fraternities, sororities, and similar organizations,” regardless of their co-ed status. And instead of instituting a blacklist — leaving non-compliant students unable to captain Harvard-recognized sports teams, or be nominated for prestigious scholarships, for example — violators would be subject to formal “disciplinary action.” This latest proposal comes from the same faculty committee empaneled to “revise or replace” a previous, controversial proposal to blacklist members of single-gender clubs in an effort to foster campus inclusivity... He goes on to criticize the report’s suggestion of “deep unhappiness among students with the social environment created by the clubs” when, in fact, a student referendum showed that a plurality of student voters opposed the single-gender sanctions proposal."

China Drops Censorship of Zombie and Vampire Movies - "The Chinese government has ended a ban on movies showing zombies and vampires in a bid to prop up its failing film industry. Official censors have long restricted blockbusters depicting the undead under rules that outlaw the promotion of “cults or superstition”."

The end of the internet startup - "the 2010s seem to be suffering from a startup drought. People are still starting startups, of course. But the last really big tech startup success, Facebook, is 13 years old... an industry that used to be famous for its churn is starting to look like a conventional oligopoly — dominated by a handful of big companies whose perch atop the industry looks increasingly secure."

Language Log » Japanesey Chinese - "Japanese language elements have been increasingly noticeable in contemporary Chinese usage, particularly among the young generation on the internet. Nowadays a number of youth (especially girls and young women) in China and Taiwan think it is trendy to speak or write Chinese with foreign elements, and because Japanese is currently the only non-Sinitic language / script in the world still employing Chinese characters in daily usage, borrowing from Japanese appears easier, and thus more visible, in Chinese than borrowings from other languages."

The most effective individual steps to tackle climate change aren't being discussed - "The four actions that most substantially decrease an individual's carbon footprint are: eating a plant-based diet, avoiding air travel, living car-free, and having smaller families."

Iraq war vet lied about mom's death after Trump's travel ban - "A war contractor who claimed President Trump’s controversial travel ban caused his mother to die in Iraq lied about the circumstance"

Is it true that no two democracies have ever gone to war with each other? - "It seems that historically whoever wins a war is then in the position to label the losing side as 'undemocratic'. It is the winners that write the history books. So no two democracies have ever gone to war with each other because the winning side tends to be seen as an autonomous nation, joined by public opinion and imbued with national pride. Whereas the losing nation is depicted as divided and the people at loggerheads with their leaders."

Sweden's 'feminist' government criticised for wearing headscarves in Iran - "Lofven's Swedish government describes itself as a "feminist government" and it has spoken of the need for a "feminist" foreign policy. Hillel Neuer, executive director of human rights group and frequent Iran critic UN Watch, noted this apparent contradiction... Alinejad later shared to Facebook a recent image of Sweden's deputy prime minister Isabella Lovin signing a document with an all-female staff behind here. That image had recently gone viral as many viewed it as a criticism of US President Trump's abortion policies"
Swedish feminism is only for white people so this is not hypocrisy

The Case Of The Disappearing Kickstarter

Soon Li Yong Tau Foo - Crazy Queue & Grumpy Auntie At Singapore's Most Stressful Hawker Stall - "Contrary to its name “Soon Li” 顺利, which in Chinese means “smooth flowing”, there is nothing “Soon Li” about the whole buying process. Warning: this can be one of the most stressful hawker food experiences you ever come across. It felt like The Hunger Games."