Links - 29th June 2018 (1)

Poll: Trump approval rating ticks up to 47 percent - "Trump's approval rating was lifted in part by a 10 point climb among Hispanic voters. His approval rating rose by 6 points among Republicans and by 4 points among Democrats compared to last month’s poll"
Looks like many Hispanics are self-hating racists

Why do people quit their jobs at dream companies like Facebook or Google? - "People without a firm sense of who they are, what they want, and where their interests and passions lie are vulnerable to this. They end up taking their cues from family, friends, and teachers because they don’t have an inner compass to guide them. Every person walking this earth is different, and changes from month to month and from year to year. Once you realize there is no “best” of anything, it becomes much easier to seek out what is “best for you” and make career decisions based on your own criteria, not based on any conventional wisdom about what success looks like."

Controversial assault ruling sparks debate in Sweden - "a Stockholm-based man had been acquitted of an alleged assault against his wife from 2015 because his guilt could not be proven. The ruling, pushed through by two lay judges on a divided court, argued it was "not uncommon for women to falsely claim they have been assaulted" in order to get an apartment. It also said the man appeared to come from a "good family, unlike hers". The judgment also said, apparently referring to the couple's foreign background, that the woman was less credible for having reported the assault to the police rather than attempting to resolve it within the family which it said would have been "the normal thing in 'these circles'"... Lay judges serve as part of the bench and are used instead of a jury in criminal cases in district courts, together with a professional judge... Roger Haddad, justice spokesman for the Liberal Party, along with the Centre Party a member of Sweden's four-party centre-right Alliance opposition, referred to controversial comments one of the lay judges had made on a previous occasion in support of in some instances creating separate laws for Muslims living in Sweden... "Most lay judges are of course good," commented lawyer Viktor Banke, who also criticized the ruling in an opinion piece in Sweden's largest tabloid Aftonbladet, adding that almost "all significant mistakes are committed by lay judges. Which is not that strange because the idea is that they are lay people.""

Parcel Santa gets delivery into condo residents' hands 24/7 - "These Federated Lockers, which are expected to be placed in public housing estates (after pilot tests in 2018) would help to solve a problem commonly faced by online shoppers and delivery companies - a parcel arrives for the customer but nobody is home to receive it."

Reddiporeans, do you return your trays and cutlery at coffee shops, hawker centres and fast food restaurants? Why or why not? : singapore - "I used to always return my trays. Then one day that cleaner granny told me "if you keep returning the tray they will fire me one day""
"My aunt's neighbour was a cleaner. She told us that the food court she worked at started to encourage tray returns, put stickers on tables, make the return area very visible, etc. 2 months later a few of the cleaners (about one quarter) were let go."
"Got scolded by cleaners for returning tray at hawker center. Never again."

Prove that returning trays reduce jobs - if you still can't tell. - "The Public Hygiene Council has been working closely with schools to roll out programmes aimed at instilling such social habits. But we need the help of parents to reinforce these efforts and be role models themselves. I hope that, over time, we will be able to do away with cleaners in the food centres"

Wedding caterer allegedly dumps leftover curry into Tampines river; sparks heated debate on race online - "These netizens excoriated Tan for not having enough proof that it was a wedding caterer who dumped the curry into the river. Others accused Tan of being a “cheap attention seeker” and of trying to create a “racial war”. Some others went as far as digging up Facebook photos of Tan with her friends and family, using personal pictures to attack her"
Being against pollution is racist

What would you do if a stranger hurls racial slurs at you? : singapore - "When we were going up the escalator, the man bumped into my father and asked my father "what do you want?" And my father said "no nothing", upon stepping out from the escalator he called my father "chinese pig" and then stomped off."
The muted reaction to this is amusing considering how much people on r/singapore rage against Chinese people when it's the other way around (or less)

Teenager disabled for life after eating slug as a dare at party - "A talented rugby player became paraplegic after swallowing a garden slug as a dare at a 19th birthday party. Sam Ballard, now 28, fell seriously ill within days of swallowing the slug whole at his friend’s house in Sydney, Australia. Doctors told him he had been infected with rat lungworm, which caused an infection on his brain."
Don't tell me not to swallow slugs. Tell others not to dare me to swallow them
Addendum: He ate a slug on a dare, became paralyzed and died - "Unlike in rats, the worm’s life cycle is not completed in a human. So instead of passing through the digestive tract, the worm larvae “can get lost, and it will go to the brain, and it’ll stay there,” said Heather Stockdale Walden, an assistant professor in the Department of Infectious Diseases and Pathology at the University of Florida"

Belgian Man Convicted of ‘Sexism in the Public Space,’ a First - The New York Times - "For the first time, a Belgian criminal court has convicted a man of “sexism in the public space,” for verbally abusing a female police officer who tried to question him after he was seen jaywalking. The man, whose name was not disclosed, was convicted of sexism, slander and threatening a police officer, and fined 3,000 euros, or $3,725... During the arrest, the man claimed to be the victim of discrimination “because of his dark skin color”"
The feminist agenda proceeds apace

Canadian professor under investigation for promoting free speech in class - "Acadia University in Nova Scotia told Rick Mehta, who teaches psychology, that it had received a barrage of complaints from both campus members and others about his classroom content and social media comments... The petition does not include any quotes from Mehta’s speaking or writing that back up its claims about his views. It simply includes a screenshot of Mehta’s retweet of a tweet that says it is “statistically impossible” for all children educated in residential schools to have had a “negative experience.” One person wrote in the petition comments that Mehta’s supposed views on “trans issues, sexuality issues, gender politics” are dangerous and destructive"

Malaysians rudely mock musician Dua Lipa's birthday message to father causing her to change caption - "Babi is a diminutive way to say “father” in Albanian. Whilst Dua was born in London, both of her parents are ethnic Albanians who immigrated to the UK from Kosovo in the 1990s. Makes sense that she would refer to her father in her family’s native language. That’s nice, isn’t it? Great to keep traditions alive, and stay connected to your roots... No sooner had Dua posted it than Malaysians began mocking her family’s heritage, commenting that in Malaysian Bahasa, babi meant pig."

Yorkshire man who stuck finger in woman's bottom didn't assault her - "A jury of six men and six women took just two hours and one minute to unanimously acquit Scott Howard of assault by penetration. The 26-year-old had been accused of sexually assaulting his lover while she was on top of him during sex in March last year... During cross-examination, she said she did not orgasm during sex with the defendant and they had only been having intercourse for about five minutes when it happened... Mr Batchelor said that his client accepted having sex with her, but said that the offence never happened. There were cheers from the public gallery as the jury foreperson delivered the verdict"

William Freeman must register as sex offender - "An ex-company director has to register as a sex offender for putting his arm around a female friend and kissing her on the shoulder... She then pulled away from him, and he apologised for what he had done. The woman then reported the August 2016 incident to police and he was arrested. Freeman, of Barford, Warwick, originally denied a charge of sexual assault, but changed his plea to guilty on the first day of his trial. Judge Sylvia de Bertodano, said: 'I am glad you have accepted today your responsibility for this, rather than putting this lady through a trial. 'It is difficult to know what to say to someone like you. 'I don't know what was going through your mind, and I don't suppose you do either. 'This was an impulsive act. You have had a very serious lesson taught to you - you do not make advances towards women who don't want you to."
If women complain that men aren't spontaneous enough, they know why

Kosovo-Serbia row makes Europe clocks go slow - "bedside clocks had slowed down by up to six minutes since mid-January. Central heating timers and oven clocks are also affected - but not computers or smart phones. Countries from Spain to Turkey and from Poland to the Netherlands are part of a large area in Europe linked together into an electricity grid that operates at a synchronised frequency. This frequency regulates time-keeping in certain devices. The UK and some Nordic countries are not affected... This failure to act on time forced the frequency to "deviate" - and the drop affected the clocks"

The girl who stopped her own marriage - "What is so striking about Rajasthan is how girls like Monika are taking the fight against child marriage into their own hands, in a culture where their voices are often not heard. The education these girls receive, though it’s often limited, is teaching them that they should not be married off before 18"

Civil liberties: Mario Vargas Llosa: “Political correctness is the enemy of freedom” - "Mario Vargas Llosa is in good form. The Peruvian Nobel Laureate laughs easily as he expounds on his theories of freedom and the individual and talks about his new book, La llamada de la tribu, or, The Call of the Tribe, which argues in favor of liberal thought in reference to seven influential authors: Adam Smith, José Ortega y Gasset, Friedrich von Hayek, Karl Popper, Raymond Aron, Isaiah Berlin and Jean-François Revel. These men belong to a school of thought that believes in the individual as an autonomous and responsible being, and freedom as the supreme asset. They defend democracy and the separation of powers as the best system available to reconcile society’s contradictory values. They espouse a doctrine that rejects the “tribal spirit” that has historically fueled fascism, communism, nationalism and religious fanaticism. The Call of the Tribe is also an intellectual autobiography that takes the reader from Vargas Lllosa’s Marxist and existentialist beginnings through to his endorsement of liberalism... Isaiah Berlin says that economic freedom can’t be unrestricted because that was what led to children being stuck in the mines in the 19th century. Hayek, on the other hand, had such extraordinary confidence in the market that he believed it could solve all problems if it was allowed to work. Berlin was much more realistic. He believed that, in effect, the market was what brought economic progress but if progress meant the creation of such huge inequality, it put the essence of democracy at risk... the use of the label “progressive” is very significant; in Spain it is used to describe forces defending the dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela. I believe unfortunately that this is the intellectuals’ contribution to the distortion of language. They have infused Marxism and communism with prestige as was done earlier with Nazism and fascism. Blindly, intellectuals have always seen democracy as a mediocre system that lacked the beauty, perfection and coherence of the big ideologies... Political correctness is the enemy of freedom because it rejects honesty and authenticity. We have to tackle it as the distortion of the truth."
Now even Nobel Prize winners are Nazis

Voodoo dolls of bosses improve staff morale, study finds - ""It may not have to be a voodoo doll per se: theoretically anything that serves as a symbolic act of retaliation, like throwing darts at a picture of your boss, might work"... Although voodoo dolls are often linked to Africa and the Americas in popular fiction, early records suggest they have their origins in the British medieval period, when people would make rag dolls or sculptures of witches - called poppetts - and pierce them with pins to inflict harm or break an enchantment."

The Verdict Is In: AI Outperforms Human Lawyers in Reviewing Legal Documents

Study: Most people can tell if you're rich from your face - "The effect is "likely due to emotion patterns becoming etched into their faces over time," says Bjornsdottir. The chronic contraction of certain muscles can actually lead to changes in the structure of your face that others can pick up on, even if they aren't aware of it. When the researchers showed the undergrads photos of people looking visibly happy, they could not discern socioeconomic status any better than chance. The expressions needed to be neutral for the subtle cues to have an effect."

Illegal immigrants with sex, robbery convictions among those who evaded capture after Dem mayor's warning - "Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf tweeted out an impending warning of the four-day raid last week, alerting targeted individuals to the imminent arrests, and infuriating Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, who say that many more could have been caught if they hadn't been warned. The raid led to the arrest of 232 illegal immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area, 180 of which ICE said “were either convicted criminals, had been issued a final order of removal and failed to depart the United States, or had been previously removed” from the country and had come back illegally... "I did what I believe was right for my community as well as to protect public safety," Schaaf said Friday, according to NBC Bay Area. "People should be able to live without fear or panic and know their rights and responsibilities as well as their recourses.""
Crime is okay if committed by illegal immigrants

YouTube Hiring for Some Positions Excluded White and Asian Men, Lawsuit Says - WSJ - "YouTube last year stopped hiring white and Asian males for technical positions because they didn’t help the world’s largest video site achieve its goals for improving diversity... YouTube recruiters were allegedly instructed to cancel interviews with applicants who weren’t female, black or Hispanic, and to “purge entirely” the applications of people who didn’t fit those categories, the lawsuit claims... People familiar with YouTube’s and Google’s hiring practices in interviews corroborated some of the lawsuit’s allegations, including the hiring freeze of white and Asian technical employees, and YouTube’s use of quotas. Mr. Wilberg’s lawsuit, filed in January in California’s San Mateo County Superior Court, alleges that Google discriminated against him for his sex and race, retaliated by firing him when he complained, and in the process violated antidiscrimination laws"
Diversity is discrimination

Sohrab Ahmari: How to Fight the Campus Speech Police: Get a Good Lawyer - WSJ - "Mr. Mael says he decided to hold his political opponent accountable by challenging him in the university’s marketplace of ideas, including by publishing articles and circulating petitions. Mr. Philip interpreted this as harassment, and in a Dec. 9, 2013, complaint to Brandeis administrators, he presented charges under the university code of conduct"

Single Ladies, It’s Time to Pony Up When the Check Comes - WSJ - " In a survey published in 2015 of 17,000 men and women ages 18 to 65 (conducted by researchers at California State University, Wellesley College and Chapman University), 84% of men and 58% of women reported that men paid for most expenses, even after dating for a while. A 2013 survey of 2,000 men and women by the financial planning company LearnVest found that a majority of men, and an even larger majority of women, think that the man should pay on a first date... from the point of view of women’s progress. Just as we’re supposed to dress for the job we want, so too should we act for the reality we want. Historically speaking, a man paying for a date isn’t merely an act of courtship, or a way to be gentlemanly. It’s also a way to show dominance and the ability to fulfill the role of breadwinner... Men seem willing to give up that show. In the Cal State study, nearly two-thirds of them believed that women should contribute to paying for a date, and half said that they would stop dating a woman who never paid. Still, they’re conflicted: 76% reported feeling guilty in accepting women’s money. For women, though, the mentality has been harder to shake. While more than half claimed to offer to help pay, 39% hoped that their offer would be rejected... nearly half of women say that they’re bothered if men expect them to help pay for a date, regardless of who makes more. Even millennials, progressive as they are, are not bucking this trend"
So men are actually more feminist than women