Is this really necessary?

From: Seduction Professionals

Subject: What Men Want: Learn The 4 Things Every Man Wants in a Woman

Body: Discover the mysterious "Campfire Effect" that draws men like a moth to a flame.


I didn't think women needed help with this...

Links - 5th May 2017 (2)

Four charged with kidnapping in case linked to insult of Islam - "Ng, 24, had been kidnapped on July 16 and assaulted after a provocative Ramadan greeting by bloggers Alvin Tan, 25, and his girlfriend Vivian Lee, 24 reportedly mocked fasting Muslims with a picture of a pork dish deemed taboo in Islam. The kidnap victim had allegedly been stripped and photographed with the words, “Saya hina agama Islam (I insulted the religion of Islam)” scribbled in black ink on his torso. The case, according to national police chief Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, had links to the duo’s Ramadan insult and was likely triggered by the widespread Muslim outrage over their tasteless post... Ng has since publicly denied the link that his kidnapping was related to Alvivi’s post, saying instead he had been taken to extort money from his family"

Tennis star Bouchard honours Super Bowl blind date bet - "Canadian tennis star Eugenie Bouchard has honoured her promise to join a 20-year-old student for a date, after he won their Twitter wager over the US Super Bowl."

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Democracy and discontent: South Africa and Germany - "The tabloid Bild, Germany's best-selling newspaper has positioned itself as the crusading champion of refugee rights.
Given that many stories of migrant crime that only are covered in English by Breitbart, the Sun, the Express and the Daily Mail refer to Bild, this is even more reason to trust them

The Men Who Started a Thinking Revolution - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "I think what they actually are doing is they’re laughing at stupid things people do. And Amos was asked once by somebody who said, “Does the work you and Danny do have any bearing on artificial intelligence?” And Amos said: “I’m much more interested in natural stupidity than I am in artificial intelligence”... The psychologist Richard Nisbett, after he got to know Amos, designed a one-line intelligent test, which gets repeated over and over. And it’s this: “The longer it takes you to figure it out that Amos Tversky is smarter than you, the stupider you are”...
DUBNER: But you know it seems to me at least that there is a little bit of Catch-22 in that in the modern era we talk a lot about equity and fairness and reparations of different sorts and therefore dwell even more on the defining characteristics that are different. And my concern is that by focusing on the differences, you essentially just continue to rebuild and re-create and magnify the stereotypes. Am I wrong?
LEWIS: I think you’re right. If you want to reduce the power of a stereotype, you eliminate the classifications. The more you reinforce the classifications, the more powerful the stereotype will be. That’s their work, I mean that’s not me speaking. That’s their work. And so it is, you’re absolutely right, the more we focus on race as a differentiator between people, the more stereotypes are going to be driving people’s judgments."

Trevor Noah Has a Lot to Say - Freakonomics Freakonomics - "DUBNER: So Midrashim are these informal but revered Jewish teachings by the sages, right? There’s one Midrash about what God prays for, which I thought was a fascinating idea, just because it flips it. And the question is asked, “What does God pray for?” and the answer is, “He prays that His mercy be greater than His anger.”

Man 'injured by harpoon' during riot on Corsica beach after tourist takes photo of woman in burkini

Can the DJ of Dakar stop people emigrating? - ""We Senegalese, we are the black Chinese," Amadou tells me, flicking his waist-length dreadlocks over his shoulder and tugging his baseball cap firmly down. "You give us one dollar, we make two!"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Drug Wars - "[On the Philippines] Meeting an assassin face to face for the first time is a disconcerting experience. Especially if she arrives in the form of a lightly built nervous woman with a baby in her arms... A woman is useful in the contract killing business, because she can get closer to a target without alarming him"

Trouble in Paradise - "She was here in 2008 when more than thirty years of corrupt autocracy finally gave way to democracy. A young progressive, Mohammed Nasheed, swept to power in the country's first free elections, while the former strongman, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, slunk away to scheme in the shadows. Olivia reported as President Nasheed rolled back repressive laws, bolstered democratic institutions and captured the world's imagination with an underwater cabinet meeting to highlight the risks of rising sea levels. The Maldives' brief moment as a model Islamic democracy was not to last, however. The water on the coral reefs may be crystal clear, but politics in the so-called "island paradise" has always been very murky."

Are Soas students right to ‘decolonise’ their minds from western philosophers? - "“Whiteness is not a useful category when talking of philosophy,” says Appiah. “When people speak, they speak ideas, not identity. The truth value of what you say is not indexed to your identity. If you’re making a bad argument, it’s a bad argument. It’s not bad because of the identity of the person making it”... “I don’t know where you’d get the powerful tools for criticising European colonialism if you did not have the Enlightenment”... That today so many should so easily dismiss the Enlightenment in the name of “decolonisation” tells us more about the shaky foundations of contemporary radicalism than it does about the Enlightenment."

There’s no significant connection between your personality as a teenager and a septuagenarian

George Takei Spoke Glowingly About Being Molested as Young Teen by Older Man - "Milo Yiannopoulos is getting blasted by almost everyone for giving his imprimatur to sexual relationships between teenage boys and adult men. But at least one Internet luminary has made similar comments in the past."

Why do a lot of South American and Central American countries have populations that are mixed ancestry between Native American and European people, but North America seems to have a very low mixed population? - Quora - "The Spanish incorporated Indians into their colonial system, albeit within a racial hierachy"
"The Spanish ended up conquering, among other regions, Middle America and the Andes, the two regions of the Americas with the largest and densest populations of people before the Spanish conquest"
"the Spanish migration gender ratio was different from that of the English migration. The Spanish population that migrated into South America was mainly male"
"Spanish were previously conquered by Arabs, and had other ethnias present in their population, therefore they had a background of a mixed society, this clearly made the idea of mixing with other cultures more acceptable"

Un site indiquant la meilleure période pour visiter chaque pays - "Vous saurez quand le climat est le plus agréable et verrez les températures minimales et maximales enregistrées sur ce territoire pour chacun des mois de l'année ainsi que la quantité de précipitations. Vous planifiez plutôt faire un voyage à un moment précis, mais n'avez pas de destinations en tête? Le site permet également de découvrir les pays agréables à visiter à cette période de l'année."

Attractive Students Get Higher Grades, Researchers Say - "Hernandez-Julian and Peters wrote that though discriminatory, instructors may not be giving favorable treatment to attractive students in grading but rather in teaching—instructors may simply pay more attention to attractive students, resulting in higher grades. “The more attractive students do earn higher grades, but these higher grades are actually a result of higher learning,” they wrote. “In this case, appearance does produce more learning.” Hernandez-Julian expands on that idea in an email to Newsweek: “Suppose that you have two students both going to office hours for help on an assignment. Because of unconscious biases, a professor may spend more time with the more attractive student. As a result, that student learns more and produces better work, earning a higher grade. If that is the case, the student's appearance is productive because it actually helps the student achieve a higher level of learning.” Hernandez-Julian compares the case to a salesperson who sells more products because customers find him or her more approachable. It’s not as if two students “produce identical assignments, and the better-looking one gets a higher grade,” he adds... The trends existed regardless of whether the instructor was male or female"

Martin Scorsese Breaks Down the Difference Between Story & Plot - "The plot it what happens. The story in a movie, on the other hand, is why it happens, and how"

Halo Wars 2 review: Spinning its Warthog wheels in a stagnant RTS genre - "by-and-large the genre’s faded in popularity commensurate with the rise of MOBAs like League of Legends, and it’s understandable for diehard fans to wonder why. Why did the once-dominant strategy genre die off? The answer: They’re all the same damn game."

Millennials and myth of gender equality - "I recently ran into a former schoolmate around Raffles Place, and, after we exchanged the requisite pleasantries, he asked: "How come you're not wearing heels and makeup? Isn't it a work day?"... This was not some gentleman of advanced age from whom casual sexism might be almost expected"
Is it sexism to tell a male professional he should wear a long sleeved shirt and/or a tie?
Is it ageism to think that older men are sexist?

Archie D'Cruz's answer to What advertising agency did Donald Trump use for his Presidential campaign? - Quora - "The database had captured information on millions of Trump supporters, including email addresses and phone numbers. Had he lost, they would have used it to build an audience for a Trump TV network. In fact, barely three weeks prior to the election, the Financial Times reported that Kushner had approached LionTree Advisors chief executive Aryeh Bourkoff about the possibility of launching just such a network. The Trump operation was the ultimate “win-win” setup. Which win Donald Trump would have preferred is anybody’s guess."

5 Times ‘Transgender’ Men Abused Women And Children In Bathrooms - One conservative argument against the leftist push goes as follows: some men will abuse the bathrooms and locker-rooms open to gender identity rather than biology by falsely proclaiming womanhood in order to gain access to women and children for motives of malice. Such facilities could become easy-access breading grounds for predators. Thus, it would be common sense to keep the facilities separated based on biology rather than identity to protect women and children."

Who stole my pictures? - You can use this add-on to search for your own photos used without your permission, or to search for copies of the images in the best quality or without watermarks."
Or you can check if people are using fake pictures (e.g. catfishing)

University: Proper grammar can be racist - "The University of Washington is taking a stand against racism in the field of writing. According to the university, there “is no inherent ‘standard’ of English” and the center will aim that staff does not inadvertently embrace racist practices."

Turkmen leader closes hospitals - ""Why do we need such hospitals?" he said. "If people are ill, they can come to Ashgabat"... President Niyazov is well known for his idiosyncratic orders, but it is extraordinary for a head of state to take such a step. At the same time, the president has also ordered the closure of rural libraries, saying they are pointless because village Turkmens do not read."

A packet of Rice - Timeline - "Once it receives 15,000 "likes" before or by 8 Feb, our regular lunch supplier, Xiang Catering (a subsidiary of Jessie Catering Pte Ltd) will sponsor 330 packed of halal mixed lunch 菜饭 (consists of 4 dishes and rice) for one of our distributions in March!"
Top Comments: "I think xiang catering might want to consider the marketing strategies. The total amount of cost $4X330=$1320.00 Or less and this is clarity. They want 15000likes. U all a group of individuals who volunteered and elderly are needy before they consider sponsorship. 经商也有德。 I would boycott xiang catering personally."
"15,000 likes is a bit harsh, plus you have a deadline for it. Not a very sincere brand. By liking this post, doesn't mean I like your agenda behind this campaign."
"Want to show your sincere? Take money engage some jobless to help. More meaningful"
"I'd be happier to donate a bento personally than to be used as a marketing tool."

Dogs don't experience guilt — it's fear
This is on the "guilty" look dogs give

Schoolgirls report abuse by young asylum seekers - "three female students say they were assaulted and groped by the boys for months."
This is from Austria

Police name four North Koreans 'on the run after organising hit that killed Kim Jong-nam' - "Lee Dong-seop, a friend of Jong-nam who lives there, described him as a good-hearted man who cried at a sad movie. “He was an unfortunate prince,” he said."

Publishers are hiring 'sensitivity readers' to flag potentially offensive content - "a book may get an additional check from an unusual source: a sensitivity reader, a person who, for a nominal fee, will scan the book for racist, sexist or otherwise offensive content. These readers give feedback based on self-ascribed areas of expertise such as "dealing with terminal illness," "racial dynamics in Muslim communities within families" or "transgender issues"... Sensitivity readers have emerged in a climate - fueled in part by social media - in which writers are under increased scrutiny for their portrayals of people from marginalized groups, especially when the author is not a part of that group... Lee & Low Books has a companywide policy to use sensitivity readers. Stacy Whitman, publisher and editorial director of Lee & Low's middle-grade imprint Tu Books, said she will even request a sensitivity reader before she chooses to acquire a book to publish."
I miss the good old days when only Christian fundamentalists got offended by everything

When I Became A Mother, Feminism Let Me Down

Supreme Court pick Neil Gorsuch calls President Trump attacks 'demoralizing' - "Not everyone was deeply offended by Trump's words. Paul Cassell, a University of Utah law professor who served as a federal district judge from 2002 to 2007 and was nominated by President George W. Bush, said he believes Trump "stepped over the line" in his criticism of Robart. "But I would characterize it as a misdemeanor traffic ticket, not a felony," Cassell said. "Judges have thick-enough skins that they are used to being criticized. We live in a time in which strong language seems to be the order of the day." "The president certainly has a right to criticize the court," Cassell said. He said he thought then-President Barack Obama went further in his 2010 State of the Union criticism of the Supreme Court, which had just decided the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case. Cassell said Obama used "more elegant language," but also contends that Obama's analysis of the case was off-base."

Judy Garland molested on set of Wizard of Oz by munchkin actors, new book claims - "The former husband of screen legend Judy Garland claims that the actress was molested by some of the 'munchkins' on the set of her classic film The Wizard of Oz."

Prisons in the Netherlands

BBC World Service - Assignment , Prisons for Rent in the Netherlands

"Many are scratching their heads over the astonishing decline in Holland's prison population. It's a complex jigsaw... Drug addiction is treated more as a health issue than a crime. That cuts reoffending...

'What we try to do in the Dutch prison service is that we look at the individual. If you've got an aggression problem we try to give you an aggression regulation training. If you have a drug problem, we try to help you solve your drug problem. If you have debt we help try try and solve your debt. So if you take away the reasons for committing crime, there's a chance that someone will not need to commit crime. Over the last 10 years, we've improved that way of working more and more. One very important measure in the Netherlands is that you have those criminals that commit smaller crimes again and again and again and at some point we started to give them a choice. You can either change your lifestyle and accept help and we're going to help you change your lifestyle, or we're going to put you in prison for 2 years. And then again we help you change your life and I think that measure has been very effective'

'Fewer than 10% of the detainees on this scheme go back inside after their release. By way of comparison, more than half of the inmates released from prisons in England and Wales and the United States reoffend within 2 years'...

By international standards, prisoners here don't spend much of the day in their cells. They have 4 hours labouring in the fields or workshops and 4 hours to play, go to the library or hang out in the yard.

'So now we're in a big sort of quadrangle with grass and trees in the middle. There're picnic tables, there's a voleyball net, there's a little tennis court. Could look a bit like a college campus. And you walk past these magnificent oak trees'...

The open space aids rehabilitation...

The Netherlands now imprisons 57 people per 100,000 of the population, Europe's lowest incarceration rate bar Finland. But just a decade ago, the Netherlands had the second highest proportion of inmates on the continent. In the more distant past, the country locked up even more of its citizens...

'The groceries are cheaper in the Netherlands than in Norway'...

Today the lingua franca at Norgerhaven is English. Working in a foreign language was tricky at first, says Frank, one of the guards. But that's not all.

'Our toughest problem is now prisoners brewing their own alcohol... they were actually very creative with it and we also learned a lot from it... fruit which are provided here... you let it stay for a while with a certain temperature. There will be a very bad smelling and ugly tasting liquor'...

'Lawyers are making our investigations very difficult when it comes to procedures, when it comes to forms. All kinds of regulation, that we need about 2 times more time for an investigation than in the past... you have the same amount of policemen'...

Ministry of Justice figures showing that 12,000 people who have already been sentenced have yet to go to prison. A special police unit set up to look for those with 4 months or more to serve only managed to track down 1 in 6 of the criminals on its hitlist. A few have fled abroad while others disappeared or rather failed to report to prison when summoned"


Norway sends prisoners to Dutch jail because its own are too full - "At Norgerhaven, inmates serving long sentences can plant vegetables in the garden, raise chickens, cook and enjoy the pastoral surroundings from their cells. “It’s a very cushy prison, a pleasant prison,” Kenneth Vimme, who is serving a 17-year sentence for murder and who volunteered for a transfer, told Norwegian public television NRK. But he complained that inmates transferring would get fewer TV channels... The Netherlands has also rented out prison space to Belgium"

Netherlands doesn't have enough criminals to fill its prisons as crime to drop - Telegraph - "Karl Hillesland, Dutch prisons' director, told the country's broadcaster RTV Drenthe last month that there is even a “small waiting list”, partly due to the success of promotional films shown in Norway. Everything happens in English, and Mr Hillesland added: “I think the basic values and what we mean about how a sentence should be served is about the same”... The drop in prison sentences is attributed to an older population – less likely to commit crime – and steep fall in violent offences that lead to prison sentences. There are shock exceptions such as the decapitation of Nabil Amzieb two weeks ago in suspected gang violence in Amsterdam, but figures from the Dutch statistics office, the CBS, show a dramatic 10-year drop in crime victim rates. Recently there has also been a focus on not prosecuting victimless crime and on rehabilitation: shorter sentences, more electronic tagging, programmes on job skills and re-entering the community. One notorious Dutch prison, Het Arresthuis in Roermond, near the German border, has found a new life as a luxury hotel... Frans Carbo, head of FNV, said there was another story. “The ministry puts everything down to a decrease in crime in the Netherlands, partly related to the ageing population,” he said. “Actually, the ministry of security and justice is already cutting back and reorganising the whole chain. This starts with police, where reorganisation is failing, so they are not as good at detection and a lower percentage of crime is solved than ever before"

Dutch jail popular with Norwegian prisoners: less work, more phone time - "Among the differences with the Norwegian regime: the prisoners get more time outside and work less. They also get more telephone time with their families and can keep contact via Skype... Prison personnel, who are Dutch, are also happy with the behaviour of their charges and describe the Norwegians as being better mannered than their Dutch counterparts"

TIL Sangeetha Thanapal comes from North Korea

"Been thinking a lot about the romanticization of wilderness, the outdoors and the usual judgement that comes with saying you'd rather not be there.

This idea that we are princesses with no reslience or ability to tough it out just because we don't like the outdoors is so fucked up.

I grew up in poverty with a single mother in one of the world's most classist & racist dictatorships.

I'd like to see y'all survive that with half the equanimity I have.

The ability to enjoy and be in nature actually requires a fair amount of wealth. Access to equipment, training that teaches you to survive the outdoors and the right kind of clothing (which can be highly expensive) etc just requires a whole lot of capital.

A lot of women, POC, queer people etc already live incredibly hard lives. Our everyday lives involve us having to face & survive a whole host of structures that are specifically designed to harm us.

It is a privilege to choose to make your life more difficult by going into the outdoors because you think it's build character and resilience and shit like that.

I'm resilient enough as it is-from just living my life.

For so many people, their lives are that of privilege & wealth. They don't have character or depth and they will in all probability die if they had to live the lives that POC, women and queer pple live. So for them, a few days of roughing it out is probably the closest they will ever be to having anything tough happen to them.

The rest of us don't have that luxury and we shouldn't be judged when we choose to try to make our lives a little easier instead.

I like cities. I like brunch. I like coffee. I also like nature, but in small amounts. And if you're gonna judge me as somehow less than you because I don't want to strap on some boots and be in the freezing cold as some experiment for my character, you can go fuck off."

(Emphasis mine)

Links - 5th May 2017 (1)

OQLF Investigates RDP Hospital After Two Workers Speak In Creole - "Two Montreal hospital workers have caught the attention of the Office québécoisde la languefrançaise for speaking to each other in Creole."

Quebec language police try to ban 'pasta' from Italian restaurant menu - "The outcry has forced the Quebec government to rein in its language inspectors, ensure exceptions to the rules are made for ethnic food and restaurant menus and order a review of how it handles public complaints... Lecas's decision to go public with the letter from the language inspector has prompted other restaurateurs to come forward. One told how he was ordered to cover his microwave's on/off switch and the redial button on a telephone with tape because they were in English. The chef's grocery list, which was written on a kitchen chalkboard, was also found to have broken the law: steak frites may be a staple of Parisian bistros but, according to Quebec law, biftek is the only acceptable term... Others have also come forward to describe their encounters with a government department that conducts its business like a spy agency and wields the powers of a top-court judge."

If Beautiful People Have Daughters, Why Do Posh and Becks Have Three Sons? - "two evolutionary psychology megasuperstars, Steven W. Gangestad and Jeffry A. Simpson, have discovered 20 years ago that actresses are more likely to have sons compared to women in other occupations. This is probably because actresses are more likely to be extraverted and sexually promiscuous than women in other occupations."

The Psychology of Liberalism - "the Catholic reactionary Andy Nowicki has published a short book called The Psychology of Liberalism: Character Study of a Movement... One thing that puzzles the writer is how liberals can persist in believing that they are an oppressed minority who speak “truth to power” when they are the status quo in the media, academia, public policy, etc. But as he correctly notes, progressives have to believe this or be faced with the uncomfortable fact that they are not fighting power but exercising it. And that their demands for tolerance are not demands for justice but commands to conform. Nowicki observes that liberals reject the doctrine of “Original Sin,” but only to resuscitate the doctrine in a secular and highly selective manner, where it seeks to induce guilt in people who belong to a certain groups (males, individuals of European descent, etc.) and place other groups beyond all criticism."

Sex and Propaganda - "Both the Axis and the Allies printed aerial propaganda leaflets using sexual themes in an attempt to demoralize enemy soldiers at the front. Did these leaflets work? Did the finders become emotionally crippled and unable to carry on their duties and responsibilities? Just the opposite occurred. The "pin-up" pictures became collectors items sought after by the troops who greedily collected and swapped them. If anything, the leaflets raised morale. There is no doubt that they were the most heartily appreciated propaganda leaflets used in World War 2. We can probably state that they were the most widely read and circulated enemy documents of any war...
One of the more attractive ones disseminated in February 1945 shows a beautiful blond being kissed on the shoulder by a man with slicked-back dark hair. The text is:
Gentlemen prefer blondes.
The back of the leaflet shows a one-legged soldier on crutches and the text:
but blondes don’t like cripples...
This is one of the strangest Japanese sex leaflets that I have seen. It depicts a naked woman looking at a banana and apparently about to use it as a sex toy. The text is:
HERE I AM IN PERSON!
Honey, look in the back for my love call
The back shows two hands holding the leaflet. Notice that on the front there is a blank space around the vaginal area (a white square). On the back the lower hand has placed a finger through that blank space. Apparently the soldier is expected to cut that blank space out and then have sex with the picture with his finger. Oh, those tricky Japanese!...
One of the most intriguing and insidious insults to Adolf Hitler was a propaganda postcard code numbered H.789 produced by Director Sefton Delmer of the British Political Warfare Executive (PWE) that showed the Führer with his penis in his hand. The postcard chosen to caricature was originally a product of Foto Hoffman of Munich. Hitler stands on what appears to be balcony with his left hand on the rail and his right hand on his waist. In the parody, his right hand is depicted holding a circumcised penis. This probably was designed to feed the rumor that Hitler was indeed a self-hating Jew...
along a distant tree line his men saw a group of naked Russian women. His men gathered to look at the women with binoculars and were suddenly hit by a Russian artillery barrage, killing several of them. It sounds like a fake story, but he was an SS Major so I have to think that it could be true."

Manfred Clynes - Wikipedia - "According to Clynes’s experimental research these time forms (“sentic forms”), as embodied in the central nervous system, are primary to the varied modes in which they find expression, such as sound, touch, and gesture. Clynes was able to prove this by systematically deriving sounds from subjects’ expressions of emotions through touch, and then playing those sounds to hearers culturally remote from the original subjects. In one trial, for example, Aborigines in Central Australia were able to correctly identify the specific emotional qualities of sounds derived from the touch of white urban Americans. (This experiment was featured on Nova, What Is Music? in 1988). Clynes found in this a confirmation of the existence of biologically fixed, universal, primary dynamic forms that determine expressions of emotion that give rise to much of the experience within human societies"

Evolve Mixed Martial Arts boss takes all employees on Maldives holiday - "Evolve Mixed Martial Arts founder and chairman Chatri Sityodtong decided that his 100 staff members could do with a slice of paradise after his company saw a 30% year-on-year growth"

Bigger penises make female fish evolve larger brains

Universities Without Ideological Diversity - "Universities everywhere are not as balanced as the general population but New England is like another country."

Watch the rapid evolution of the American diet over 40 years, in one GIF

D'ailleurs / Par ailleurs - "À l’origine, « par ailleurs » et « d’ailleurs » ont des significations relatives au lieu. Ainsi, au sens propre, « par ailleurs » signifie « par un autre chemin » alors que « d’ailleurs » signifie « d’un autre endroit, d’autres endroits »"

Why Do People Become Islamic Extremists? - "if poverty and ignorance don't drive people to extremism, what does? One is a desire for meaning and for order... Another is a desire for change... Then throw in a strong sense of victimhood -- we are not responsible for the sorry state of our country; others have brought us down -- and you have a toxic brew that many willingly imbibe. These, of course, are the same easy answers that tyrants and demagogues -- from Lenin to Mussolini to Hitler to bin Laden -- have always offered their followers... So what to do about this extremism? The first step is to get off this false narrative that this is first and foremost a poverty or education issue... the media have to stop treating extremists as freedom fighters, a narrative that is all too common in places like Pakistan... Islamic religious figures have to stop looking the other way, or worse, glorifying so-called "martyrs" -- Muslims who murder innocent people -- almost always other Muslims -- in the name of Islam"

Rejecting Men, Embracing Children - "the researchers concluded that the majority of children born to lone mothers could not correctly be deemed “unplanned.” Rather, many were planned or actively sought. And the majority were somewhere in the middle between planned and unplanned. In other words, many of these very young couples (it was not uncommon for the mothers to be 14 or 15 years old) explicitly or implicitly wanted a baby in their lives... Financially and educationally, the prospects for the women who became lone mothers seemed paltry to nonexistent. Their experiences at the local public schools were described as “chaotic.” Their own single parents did not have the margins of time or money to make up for this serious deficiency. In this setting, the “opportunity costs” of having a baby are very small. And in the girls’ eyes, the advantages of having a baby loomed large: the possession (they spoke often in “ownership” terms) of a person who could be trusted to love them for the long run. There was also the opportunity to achieve a version of success well-accepted in their community: triumphing over terrible odds to raise a child well and to show yourself to be a good mother.
In other words, those who claim that most people are single parents because of accidents (i.e. it's not their fault/they don't choose to be single moms) are wrong

China has its own horrors to atone for - "Mao, who outdid even Hitler and Stalin in mass murder, once contrasted the performance of the Communist Party with that of an emperor infamous in Chinese history for his savagery: “What’s so unusual about Emperor Shih Huang of the Chin Dynasty? He had buried alive 460 scholars only, but we have buried alive 46,000 scholars!” Burial alive is only one of the countless terrors China’s rulers have visited upon China’s people. “Mutilation was carried out everywhere,” writes historian Frank Dikötter in “Mao’s Great Famine,” his gripping 2010 chronicle of life during the Great Leap Forward. “Hair was ripped out. Ears and noses were lopped off.” He recounts how a man named Wang Ziyou was penalized by party bosses in Hunan Province: “One of his ears chopped off, his legs were tied up with wire, a 10-kilo stone was dropped on his back, and he was branded with a hot iron — as punishment for digging up a potato.”"

First shots of my Lana Beniko photoshoot! I love...

Word of the Day: Jeopardize | Merriam-Webster - "It may be hard to believe that jeopardize was once controversial, but in 1870 a grammarian called it "a foolish and intolerable word," a view shared by many 19th-century critics. The preferred word was jeopard, which first appeared in print in the 14th century. (The upstart jeopardize turned up in 1582.) In 1828, Noah Webster himself declared jeopardize to be "a modern word, used by respectable writers in America, but synonymous with 'jeopard,' and therefore useless." Unfortunately for the champions of jeopard, jeopardize is now much more popular.
One day modern purists will look as silly

The Naked Truth: The Face and Body Sensitive N170 Response Is Enhanced for Nude Bodies - "the early visual processing of human bodies is sensitive to the visibility of the sex-related features of human bodies and that the visual processing of other people's nude bodies is enhanced in the brain. This enhancement is likely to reflect affective arousal elicited by nude bodies. Such facilitated visual processing of other people's nude bodies is possibly beneficial in identifying potential mating partners and competitors, and for triggering sexual behavior."

Low Triglycerides But High LDL - "The LDL measurement is typically considered the most important aspect of your cholesterol profile when it comes to assessing risk. Before you panic about your results, it's crucial to know that the traditional cholesterol test does not directly measure LDL. The fasting cholesterol test calculates your LDL using a formula called the Friedewald equation. It takes into account your total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein and triglycerides to make an estimate. Because of this limitation, results can be misleading under certain circumstances. The Friedewald equation is not always accurate at estimating LDL, according to a study in the May 2008 issue of the journal "Archives of Iranian Medicine." Researchers found that when triglyceride is less than 100 milligrams per deciliter, the Friedewald equation "significantly" overestimates LDL. When triglyceride is 150 to 300 milligrams per deciliter, however, the Friedewald equation accurately estimates LDL measurement. This data suggests having low triglyceride may have skewed your LDL results."

How Manspreading Arrests Highlight What's 'F**ked Up' About Broken Windows Policing - "And now, the practice is enough get you cuffed by New York City Police Department officers hungry to make low-level arrests, according to a new report from the Police Reform Organizing Project. The New York-focused advocacy group’s report, titled “That’s How They Get You,” is a series of 117 vignettes highlighting how primarily black and Latino people get swept up in the criminal justice system for committing minor infractions — like manspreading
Apparently feminism is racist

SSU Singapore School Uniforms - "SSU is here to index, showcase the different school uniforms in Singapore"

Britain’s Democratic Failure by Kenneth Rogoff - "The idea that somehow any decision reached anytime by majority rule is necessarily “democratic” is a perversion of the term. Modern democracies have evolved systems of checks and balances to protect the interests of minorities and to avoid making uninformed decisions with catastrophic consequences. The greater and more lasting the decision, the higher the hurdles. That’s why enacting, say, a constitutional amendment generally requires clearing far higher hurdles than passing a spending bill. Yet the current international standard for breaking up a country is arguably less demanding than a vote for lowering the drinking age."

The Buddhist Soldier - "the Buddha in a past life killed a man who was going to kill 500 people on his ship. This clearly violated the first precept of not killing, yet the Buddha cited this as an example of compassion and skill in means. How so? Much like a soldier, the Buddha as Captain Great Compassionate killed the man who would murder to not only save the lives of the merchants on the ship, but also to spare them from the unwholesome karma of having to kill this man. While it is “ideal” not to kill, to be extreme with “not killing” can also lead to catastrophic unwholesome karma. The Buddha in this story accepted the unwholesome karma his action would have upon him out of pure compassion for others. How many of us would sacrifice in that way?"

Pokemon and the dangers of mob justice - ""Stop the witch-hunts," said former Nominated MP Calvin Cheng. "The more you give in to witch-hunters the more you embolden them to go after their next victim because they feel empowered. Draw a line"... "Today, Singapore forced (Cheung) to make a good call for 99.co, but a bad call for society," said IT professional Eric Tachibana in a widely shared LinkedIn blog post. "I'm uncomfortable every time we allow free, albeit stupid, speech on social media to have such dire ramifications in real life, where people have real-world families, financial obligations and lifelong careers," he said... Witch-hunts might also lead to an Internet where self-censorship is the norm, for fear of losing your job. "If that happens, we end up with a watered-down Internet, and we empower politically correct 'mobs' of (sometimes) unreasonable trolls who are mean-spirited and shallow in their own hearts and minds, to run the show""

4 things Mark Zuckerberg created before Facebook. - "11 year old Zuckerberg came up with the idea of an intranet that allowed anyone to login from any computer in the house and send a message. This served as an instant chat system, that was exclusive just to the Zuckerberg family."

Is There A Link Between Job Interview Performance And Job Performance? - "I would suspect 90% of hired candidates have between a 3.1 to 3.3 average. Thus, when you say there's no correlation between interview performance and job performance, we're really saying that a 3.1 candidate doesn't do much worse in their job than a 3.3 candidate. That's a tiny range."

Controversy surrounds hijab during Swedish visit to Iran - "The Iranian government was not alone in coming under attack over the wearing of the hijab. The Swedish government also took fire at home, but conversely, because officials did wear hijabs during the visit. Eleven of the 15 members of the Swedish delegation were women. Jan Bjorklund, the leader of the opposition Liberals, called the hijab a “symbol of oppression for women in Iran,” and alongside other critical voices, said that the Swedish delegation should have demanded exemptions from Iranian law."
This is what a feminist (foreign policy) looks like

Links - 4th May 2017 (2)

The myth of self-control - "“Our prototypical model of self-control is angel on one side and devil on the other, and they battle it out,” Fujita says. “We tend to think of people with strong willpower as people who are able to fight this battle effectively. Actually, the people who are really good at self-control never have these battles in the first place”... People who are better at self-control actually enjoy the activities some of us resist — like eating healthy, studying, or exercising... Our dispositions are determined in part by our genetics. Some people are hungrier than others. Some people love gambling and shopping. People high in conscientiousness — a personality trait largely set by genetics — tend to be more vigilant students and tend to be healthier. When it comes to self-control, they won the genetic lottery... Another intriguing idea is called “temptation bundling,” in which people make activities more enjoyable by adding a fun component to them. One paper showed that participants were more likely to work out when they could listen to an audio copy of The Hunger Games while at the gym"

Expedition Ecstasy: Sniffing Out The Truth About Hawai‘i's Orgasm-Inducing Mushroom - "“I have had over a thousand inquiries over the last week,” said Holliday, clearly agitated. It had been eight days since the science news aggregator IFLS had drudged up the abstract on orgasm-inducing mushrooms, putting millions of pairs of eyes on Holliday & Soule’s abstract"

It's official: Getting married really DOES cause you to put on weight - ""couples reported buying more regional and unprocessed products and less convenience food. Moreover, married men were more likely than single men to buy organic and fair trade food. 'That indicates that particularly men in long-term relationships are more likely to eat more consciously and, in turn, probably more healthily,' says Jutta Mata, lead author of the study and Assistant Professor of Health Psychology at the University of Basel. But it does not mean that they are generally healthier: The study also shows that married men do less sport than singles."

No, Putin didn’t hack the power grid; journalists need to take a breath and get it right - "the Post’s entire story about Russian hacking into America’s electrical grid ended being unprovable at best and completely false at worst. The episode is amusing in a sense, but is also destructive to American-Russian relations and to the credibility of the news media, which was already at record-low levels. In a September Gallup poll, just 32 percent of the public said they had a “fair” or “great deal” of trust in the mainstream media. Despite their skepticism about the media in general, however, many members of the public continue to believe false theories about the recent hacks of the Democratic National Committee. According to a survey conducted by the Economist and YouGov, 52 percent of self-identified Democrats believe that Russian hackers altered election results to help Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton. No government officials or prominent Democrats, Clinton included, have made such an allegation. President Obama and other officials have explicitly denied it."

Anthropologist Jane Goodall: China is pillaging Africa like an old colonial power

Everyone who can now see your entire internet history, including the taxman, DWP and Food Standards Agency

Penis Size: It May Be Written in the Length of His Fingers - "those with a lower ratio, whose index finger (or second finger, 2D) was shorter than the ring finger (or fourth finger, 4D), had a longer stretched penis length, which is well correlated with erect size."

An economics professor explains how the Empire built the Death Star - "the Galactic Empire was destroyed because Emperor Palpatine did not understand basic macroeconomics and either was incorruptible or surrounded himself with incompetent lackeys. Ergo it was economics that brought down the Empire, not the return of the Jedi!"

Olentzero - Wikipedia - "According to Basque traditions Olentzero comes to town late at night on the 24th of December to drop off presents for children... if the children did not want to go to bed, a sickle would be thrown down the chimney and the children told that Olentzero would come to cut their throats if they didn't go to bed."

Sinterklaas - Wikipedia - "During the German occupation of the Netherlands (1940–1945) many of the traditional Sinterklaas rhymes were rewritten to reflect current events. The Royal Air Force (RAF) was often celebrated. In 1941, for instance, the RAF dropped boxes of candy over the occupied Netherlands"

Japanese Twitter seems to have no problems with Karlie Kloss’ “geisha” photo shoot - "'Japanese people: “Wow! You respect Japanese culture! You’re our friend! We’re happy!”
People overseas: “She’s stealing Japanese culture!”
People overseas: “She’s making fun of Japanese people!”
Japanese people: “Huh?”'
As of this writing, Japanese Twitter users have been overwhelmingly supportive of the photos. Many have voiced bewilderment or exasperation at other parties becoming, to their minds, indignant on their behalf.
'“What makes me angry is people getting upset and shouting that this is racist even as they ignore the sensibilities of people in Japan. It’s easy to see that they’re trying to use the situation to drum up business, and in the end, they don’t really care about what the people from the culture in question actually think.”
“They’re psychopaths who get a sense of superiority by calling anything and everything racist until the other party bows its heads in shame.”'...
'They may have big bodies, but foreigners sure are narrow-mindedly hung up on small things'"

BP is to blame for Deepwater Horizon, but its mistake was actually years of small mistakes. - "After every big disaster we naturally assume some reckless decision by a manager or a massive equipment breakdown must have been the cause. In the words of accident investigator Dekker, we look for “bad people, bad decisions, broken parts.” But in studying large industrial failures (including the BP spill), Dekker came to a very different conclusion about what causes such problems. Large accidents are more often the result of dozens of tiny contributing factors: misguided assumptions on the part of workers and managers; small, subtly flawed decisions; routine mechanical or digital glitches. Individually, none of these seem particularly noteworthy to the people on the front line—just another day on the job. It’s only after the accident that we see how this particular row of dominos toppled"

‘Motherless babies!’ How to create a tabloid science headline in five easy steps

Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone - "Sci-Hub users are not limited to the developing world. Some critics of Sci-Hub have complained that many users can access the same papers through their libraries but turn to Sci-Hub instead—for convenience rather than necessity. The data provide some support for that claim. The United States is the fifth largest downloader after Russia, and a quarter of the Sci-Hub requests for papers came from the 34 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the wealthiest nations with, supposedly, the best journal access. In fact, some of the most intense use of Sci-Hub appears to be happening on the campuses of U.S. and European universities."

Traditional Chinese medicine origins: Mao invented it but didn’t believe in it. - "In 1923, Lu Xun, China’s most famous man of letters, reflected critically on his father’s visits to a Chinese doctor, visits that bankrupted the family and failed to produce results. “I still remember the doctor’s discussion and prescription,” Lu wrote, “and if I compare them with my knowledge now, I slowly realize that Chinese doctors are no more than a type of swindler, either intentional or unintentional, and I sympathize with deceived sick people and their families”... The reason so many people take Chinese medicine seriously, at least in part, is that it was reinvented by one of the most powerful propaganda machines of all time and then consciously marketed to a West disillusioned by its own spiritual traditions. The timing couldn’t have been better. Postmodernism was sweeping the academy, its valuable insights quickly degrading into naïve relativism"

What REALLY goes into a jar of Nutella

Cheapest hawker food: how stall holders keep prices down - ""Singaporeans are very sensitive to price increase of food; even with an additional 10 cents or 20 cents, they will stop patronising a stall""

Forgotten foods and mealtime memories - "Over the years, plenty of foods have disappeared for various reasons. Take pig's blood pudding for instance. It used to be cooked in a clear Teochew-style soup, together with minced pork and lavish handfuls of Chinese celery. Pig's blood, coagulated and cut into squares, was freely sold at markets back in the 1950s. My Teochew father would buy and cook it in a clear soup on Sundays (he belonged to a family where the men took up the ladles on weekends while the womenfolk prepped and cleared up afterwards). Sadly, this soup is no more to be found at home and at hawker centres. Pig's blood is no longer sold, following the outbreak of Japanese encephalitis at pig farms in Malaysia in 1999."

How Ikea uses food to trick you into spending more - "the whole purpose of the quick-service restaurants is to “reinforce their low price profile” on items in the rest of the store, even if it means selling food at a loss."

26 Traditional Indian Foods That Will Change Your Life Forever

21 Pictures That Prove Hipsters Should Be Banned From Food Forever

Why do Brits and Americans swear so differently? - "The influence of American films and television on British culture is strong. Any British person who hasn’t visited America could be forgiven for assuming that America is one giant cluster-cuss, its citizens dropping F-bombs like Eliza Doolittle dropped her Hs. But this isn’t necessarily so. There is a real puritanical streak in America that is much discussed — but little understood — by the British. It manifests itself in unpredictable ways, like an unwillingness to use seemingly innocuous words (the word ‘toilet’, for example) and a certain gentility when it comes to swearing... there are some words the British use casually that are considered more offensive or insulting by Americans. As Margolis notes, for example, in Britain one might plausibly tease a friend of either sex by calling them a twat (rhymes with cat) or the four-letter c-word, which is all but unsayable in the United States — and which linguist John McWhorter (while not at all against swearing in principle) has lumped in with the n-word as one of Americans’ most taboo. Americans find it really shocking to hear it used carelessly."

Malcolm Gladwell got it wrong: ‘Deliberate practice’ — not 10,000 hours — key to achievement, psychologist says

Does it take 10,000 hours to become world class at golf? - "A few years ago I came across a guy who decided to test the 10,000 rule in a way no one had ever done before. He quit his job and decided to spend 10,000 hours practising to be good enough to compete on the PGA Tour. If you think that sounds ambitious, I should probably also mention that he’d never even played golf before. The Dan Plan was born. That guy was Dan McLaughlin. I got in touch with Dan, arranged an interview, and pitched the idea to a few golf magazines. I ended up writing the feature for Today’s Golfer. I recently discovered that Dan has given up on The Dan Plan. He hasn’t said much about it but, as far as I can gather, injury and financial issues seem to be the main factors."
Now he's selling soda

Are Men Just Not Interested in Clever Women? - "our hypothetical woman with a 6 out of 10 score for attractiveness will do best with men at a speed-dating event if she scores around a 7 for intelligence. Men will be less interested in her if she is any less or any more intelligent than this. By the way, this isn’t only true for women who are of average physical attractiveness. The same pattern holds true for very attractive and very unattractive women... A paper published in late 2015 suggested that men are less attracted to intelligent women because the comparison with their own intelligence damages their egos... Karbowski and colleagues offer another possibility:
“Perhaps women’s mating demands (of the physical attractiveness and intelligence of a potential partner) can…be effectively met by more pairs of the levels of [attractiveness and intelligence].""

Shelter call psychologist on violent rabbit Jack in Cornwall

Psychology, Anthropology, and a Science of Human Beings - "As for anthropology, ever since the Vietnam War, the two no-no’s have been research on universals and collusion with power, these being conflated by the belief that hidden in the West’s hegemonic designs on the world is a “logocentric” attempt to reduce the rest of the world to manipulatable proportions... much of cultural anthropology is so preoccupied with irreducible “diversity” (on down to glorification of some obscure person on a subway ruminating on her “cosita”—seriously) that the science of human beings is being left almost wholly to psychology... Oxford University Press, which was the first to regularly publish anthropology as science, has stopped doing so"

Will We Ever Notice Boys' Struggles? - "If you do see an article or book in support of boys or men, it is usually by someone known to be a conservative or it is on a conservative website. Consider the first well-known book on this issue, The War Against Boys, in 2000, by Christina Hoff Sommers (now with the American Enterprise Institute). Or a 2015 article in the National Review, titled “Why Do More Women Than Men Go to College?” My fellow liberals continue to focus almost exclusively on women and girls."

7 Psychotic Pieces of Relationship Advice from Cosmo

Political Diversity in Social and Personality Psychology by Yoel Inbar, Joris Lammers - "A lack of political diversity in psychology is said to lead to a number of pernicious outcomes, including biased research and active discrimination against conservatives. The authors surveyed a large number (combined N = 800) of social and personality psychologists and discovered several interesting facts. First, although only 6% described themselves as conservative "overall," there was more diversity of political opinion on economic issues and foreign policy. Second, respondents significantly underestimated the proportion of conservatives among their colleagues. Third, conservatives fear negative consequences of revealing their political beliefs to their colleagues. Finally, conservatives are right to do so: In decisions ranging from paper reviews to hiring, many social and personality psychologists said that they would discriminate against openly conservative colleagues. The more liberal respondents were, the more they said they would discriminate."
Addendum: So much for that left wing meme mocking the idea of bias in academia, claiming that if people who had spent decades studying a subject were on the left, that showed that was the truth

New blog picture - 4th May 2017

Meesa gonna kill you!

Links - 4th May 2017 (1)

Mom Angry That Teacher Won't Serve Her Vagina Cookies to Second Graders

If you speak Mandarin, your brain is different

'Chalk and talk' teaching might be the best way after all - "there is increasing evidence that these new-age education techniques, where teachers facilitate instead of teach and praise students on the basis that all must be winners, in open classrooms where what children learn is based on their immediate interests, lead to under-performance... 'The psychological evidence is clear that there are no benefits for learning from trying to present information to learners in their preferred learning style.'... Overly praising students, especially those who under-perform, is especially counterproductive. It conveys the message that teachers have low expectations and reinforces the belief that near enough is good enough, instead of aiming high and expecting strong results."

‘Frozen’ might be everything that’s wrong with the U.S. economy - The Washington Post - "Toy companies have concluded that they can appeal more powerfully to young customers if they appeal to them as boys or girls, rather than as kids. This is a really big trend, it’s clearly a commercial success story... the nuances and complexities of movie characters are not easily transferred to toys. Figurines of Merida, the Disney princess in 2012’s “Brave,” generally are sold in a shiny blue dress the strong-minded movie princess hated to wear."

In Singapore, your private data is being sold without your permission - at one cent apiece - "Asian consumers, it seems, aren’t as concerned about data privacy as their Western counterparts, who have been recently rocked by the NSA surveillance revelations. Saiyai Sakawee, Tech in Asia’s Thailand correspondent, tells me that people in Thailand tend to overshare about their lives. “They even post credit card information on Facebook sometimes,” she adds."

The Singapore Consensus
This is a collection of Tey Tsun Hang's research papers on the Singapore judiciary

Penis size: Researchers provide the long and short of it - "What is an "average" size for a penis? The enduring question now has a scientific answer: 13.12 cm in length when erect, and 11.66 cm around, according to an analysis of more than 15,000 appendages around the world."

Pandas aren't cute, they're death-loving oxygen-thieves. Let's just eat the idiot-bears - "Incidentally, keeping each of the 150-odd pandas currently in captivity costs around £1.5 million a year. How many of our own species could we feed and house for that? We should turn the podgy oxygen-thieves out on their stupid furry ears and see how long they last on the streets with the foxes."

At least five Americans accidentally shot off their penises since 2010

Death as a Foodborne Illness Curable by Veganism - "“If only you would watch this video”
I hear that all the time from people who have been overwhelmed by the information presented in a video that supports their beliefs. They assume that the evidence presented is incontrovertible, and that anyone who agreed to watch it would necessarily be converted to their beliefs. These videos tend to fall into an easily recognizable pattern. They feature a charismatic scientist with an agenda who makes sweeping statements that go beyond the evidence, makes unwarranted assumptions about the meaning of studies, and omits any reference to contradictory evidence"

Scalia's Grave-Dancers Deserve a Harsh Verdict - "When Marshall, his health broken, at last stepped down in 1991, with a year and a half to live, there were only encomiums, even from conservatives. True, Twitter didn’t exist. If it had, perhaps the gleeful right would have been dancing in public. Instead, whatever champagne was drunk was poured in private. And that makes all the difference. To mute those cheers shows respect not only for the dead, but also for the institution... Nowadays we burn too much energy evaluating people based on whether we agree with them or not. It’s a pardonable vice, and in the worst case perhaps a necessary one, but it can get out of hand. There’s a vast difference between “He’s wrong” and “He’s a worthless bag of flesh who deserved to die.” Sadly, we live in an era when every case is the worst. The late Christopher Hitchens once wrote: “One test of un homme sérieux is that it is possible to learn from him even when one radically disagrees with him.” He was right. Those with whom we disagree will often have things to teach us, if we’ll let them. Scalia was un homme sérieux in the classic sense"

For Believers, Talking to Atheists Is Like Confronting Death - "The researchers believe that “anti-atheist prejudices stem, in part, from the existential threat posed by conflicting worldview beliefs.”"

Indonesia's highest Islamic clerical body issues fatwa proposing death penalty for people caught having gay sex

Humans will be kept between life and death in the first suspended animation trials

Sex pigs halt traffic after laser attack on Pokémon teens - "Tiny Insjön in central Sweden isn't known for pig mask-wearing couples shooting lasers at Pokémon hunters before having sex by a waterwheel. But that could be about to change."

Orgasms more frequent for women partnered with attractive, manly men: study - "Researchers say the study needs to be replicated, but that “they are consistent with the hypothesis that female orgasm is a copulatory mate choice mechanism, perhaps for selecting high-quality genes for offspring.” Further, a mate’s masculinity or attractiveness “did not predict women’s orgasms achieved through masturbation or non-coital sexual activity with a partner. This suggests that male sire quality increases female orgasm specifically during sexual behaviors that could result in conception."

Attractive Female Romantic Partners Provide a Proxy for Unobservable Male Qualities - "Previous research indicates that women find men more desirable when they appear to be desired by other women than in the absence of such cues—an effect referred to as female mate choice copying. Female mate choice copying is believed to emerge from a process whereby women use the presence of a man’s mate as a cue to his own quality. Here, we test this hypothesis explicitly by examining whether the desirability enhancement effect conferred on men by the presumed interest of an attractive female (a) emerges only when the female is described as being a man’s current romantic partner"

STUDY: Women Are More Likely to Be Bisexual Than Men - "women who didn’t have children at a young age, were conventionally attractive, or had higher education were less likely to be bisexual. McClintock suggested this is due to having “more romantic opportunities with male partners.”"

Tinder Takeover » DTR » Podcast » Podtail - "If you can't handle me at my D&D, you don't deserve me at my DTF"

Autopsy reveals Florida man who died after winning cockroach-eating contest choked to death and didn't have an allergic reaction - "None of the other 30 competitors fell ill after the contest and store manager Ben Siegel's attorney said the roaches were all raised in sterile conditions and were perfectly safe to eat"

Uroko Onoja death: Husband 'raped to death' by 5 wives, because he was paying too much attention to the sixth - "His youngest spouse is quoted as saying her five fellow wives ran into the forest when they realised their husband was dead."

Fossil fuels are far deadlier than nuclear power - "The agency examined the life cycle of each fuel from extraction to post-use and included deaths from accidents as well as long-term exposure to emissions or radiation. Nuclear came out best, and coal was the deadliest energy source. The explanation lies in the large number of deaths caused by pollution. “It’s the whole life cycle that leads to a trail of injuries, illness and death,” says Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. Fine particles from coal power plants kill an estimated 13,200 people each year in the US alone, according to the Boston-based Clean Air Task Force (The Toll from Coal, 2010). Additional fatalities come from mining and transporting coal, and other forms of pollution associated with coal. In contrast, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN estimate that the death toll from cancer following the 1986 meltdown at Chernobyl will reach around 9000."

How Nuclear Power Can Stop Global Warming - "The low-carbon electricity produced by such reactors provides 20 percent of the nation's power and, by the estimates of climate scientist James Hansen of Columbia University, avoided 64 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution. They also avoided spewing soot and other air pollution like coal-fired power plants do and thus have saved some 1.8 million lives... "Environmentalists need to recognize that attempts to force all-renewable policies on all of the world will only assure that fossil fuels continue to reign for base-load electric power, making it unlikely that abundant affordable power will exist and implausible that fossil fuels will be phased out.""

Can Bondage Play Reduce Anxiety? - "“I do a lot of yoga and meditation,” she said. “I think rope can have the same effect. When you’re tied up it’s like you’re not responsible for anything else that happens and there’s a sense of freedom in that. It’s one of the few moments where I don’t have to worry about all of my responsibilities”... Practitioners of bondage reported less neuroticism, a trait similar to anxiety, and more security in their relationships than people strictly into vanilla sex"

The Science of Cohabitation: A Step Toward Marriage, Not a Rebellion - "Other researchers who had been exploring the link between cohabitation and divorce failed to take into account the age at which couples took that plunge. Kuperberg wondered if once she controlled for age, the link between cohabitation and divorce might disappear."

Airline passengers in developing countries face 13 times crash risk as US - "Prof. Barnett questioned why the economically-advancing countries in the Developing World did not have safety records closer to those in the First World, given that they approach First-World standards in life expectancy and per capita income. He cites research that indicates that, in terms of deference to authority and "individualism," the economically advancing Developing-World countries are on average far from those in the First World but almost identical to other Developing-World countries. Prof. Barnett concedes that he should "not get too caught up in speculation," but notes that one possible explanation for why the economically-advancing countries did not fare better is that "their economic shift towards the First World has not been accompanied by a corresponding cultural shift.""

Why Does the Muslim World Lag in Science?

30 minute ice-packs could be key to burning away body fat, say scientists - "Simply strapping an ice-pack to a fatty area like the thighs or stomach for just 30 minutes can burn away hard-to-shift calories. The cold compress works by triggering the body into turning flabby white fat into calorie burning ‘beige’ fat... The researchers also found that obese people could not convert their white fat to beige fat as well as slim people... It follows previous studies which have suggested you can ‘shiver yourself slim’ by turning the heating down a few degrees."

Natural selection making 'education genes' rarer, says Icelandic study

11 key findings from one of the most comprehensive reports ever on the health effects of marijuana

Google DeepMind : pourquoi le futur de l'IA passe par StarCraft II

God made Eve from Adam's PENIS and not his rib, claims religious academic - "Professor Zevit said this explains why man has no baculum, unlike most mammals, and why men don't have an uneven number of ribs compared to women. To support his theory, Professor Zevit from the American Jewish University in Maryland said the Hebrew word 'tsela', taken from the Old Testament, does not translate as 'rib' and instead 'refers to limbs sticking out sideways from an upright human body.'"

A review of intelligence GWAS hits: Their relationship to country IQ and the issue of spatial autocorrelation - "Published Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS), reporting the presence of alleles exhibiting significant and replicable associations with IQ, are reviewed. The average between-population frequency (polygenic score) of nine alleles positively and significantly associated with intelligence is strongly correlated to country-level IQ (r = .91)."

Facebook's bizarre and secretive 'graphic content' policy revealed in leaked document - "An aggrieved Moroccan worker who was paid a mere $1 an hour by oDesk - a third-party content-moderation firm used by Facebook - revealed it tells staff to delete all forms of sexual activity, even simulated activity where there was nothing explicit on show. Yet deep wounds, excessive blood and 'crushed heads, limbs etc' are allowed - 'as long as no insides are showing'... Urine, faeces, vomit, semen and - strangely - ear wax are not allowed."

Caesarean births 'affecting human evolution' - "More mothers now need surgery to deliver a baby due to their narrow pelvis size"

Norwegian researchers win Ig Nobel Prize - "After 3 weeks of excellent weather conditions, the researchers had done most of the planned field work, which included 50 observations on reindeer responses to humans approaching. Leaving time for creative ideas while waiting to be picked up by the helicopter. “It was a spontaneous idea after having observed polar bears in the inner parts of Edgeøya where we had seen reindeer earlier. On one occasion we also observed a polar bear clearly interested in the reindeer.” Using whatever they had of white clothing, Reimers was dressed up as a bear"

Study suggests London Underground may be 'too fast' - "If Tube journeys are too fast, relative to going by road, then the model predicts an increase in the overall level of congestion. This is because key locations outside the city centre, where people switch transport modes, become bottlenecks"