Links - 20th January 2020 (2)

Dr Iona Italia on Twitter - "Has J.K. Rowling figured out a way to break our cancel culture?"
"I often hear "cancel culture doesn't exist because *these* people were cancelled & are still successful." The people cited are always exceptions shielded from consequences by money or by many fans. The real test is: what happens with ordinary people when they are publicly shamed?"

What you stand to lose by not having sex with people with HIV - "Todd stated on his profile that he’s HIV positive. And when he messaged Carl, he wasn’t rude, but he simply responded, “Sorry, not quite what I’m looking for.”  And with that, a relationship that would have changed both their lives disappeared into the ether. Mr Right was pushed right back out of the door."
Uhh
Good luck if the person's viral load suddenly surges

Christian banned from displaying banner proclaiming his beliefs vows to take his challenge to court - "For more than 20 years, he has displayed a banner proclaiming his Christian beliefs while preaching the Gospel at Speaker’s Corner.But last Sunday, at the nation’s historic home of free speech, two police officers told Roland Parsons he could no longer show his slogans and ordered him to remove them... He was told to take down his banner saying ‘The blood of Jesus Christ’ and a Biblical family tree going back to Adam and Eve.  ‘How can these words be a crime?’ he said. ‘There is nothing inflammatory or disrespectful about them.’  Mr Parsons – who travelled to London from his Gloucester home with his wife Frances, 74 – was told he was in breach of Royal Parks regulations banning the display of printed material. But he says the police ignored other large notices displayed nearby."

NY Man Arrested for Cutting Wires to Red Light Cameras, Exposing Revenue Scheme - "Stephen Ruth cut the wires to traffic cameras at intersections where yellow light duration times were shortened to generate money for the county.The shortened duration times at the traffic lights generate $32 million for Suffolk County, which is why the county allows the practice to continue despite their own study showing they lead to an increase in accidents with injuries... Ruth had already been arrested in August for using a painter’s extension rod to point the cameras towards the sky... “I did it in order to save lives.”  And after he cut the wires, he called the news to cover his act of civil disobedience, which resulted in his arrest after police received pressure from politicians... When he was in jail for his most recent arrest, a sheriff’s deputy even offered to bail him out. But after receiving attention from local residents and media, Ruth discovered a government entity mounted a camera outside of his home... Ruth said that a car tried to hit him head-on and narrowly missed his vehicle. Upon talking to neighbors, they described a similar vehicle with similar occupants staking out his house and lurking around his neighborhood. He said someone could be trying to kill him, although he said he could be wrong... If you think Ruth may be paranoid, consider the case of John Lang, a traffic-light scam whistleblower in Fresno, California who posted on Facebook that police were trying to kill him just days before he was found stabbed to death in his burned down house.  Police ruled his death a suicide... The video below, shot by Ruth, shows the duration of a yellow light at an intersection with no cameras to be five seconds compared to the duration of a yellow light at an intersection with a camera to be three seconds... some cameras that were put up have been taken down after they fell short of daily contract-quota with Xerox to produce 25 citations, per camera, between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., which costs Suffolk County $2,132 per day, according to the Xerox contract with the county... the vast majority of cameras were placed in lower to middle class neighborhoods... Another vexing problem for Ruth is the coverage the issue has gotten from local news, specifically News12, which is owned by CableVision who provides the internet service to the cameras at the lights. When victims of the lights went to News12 about the deaths of their family members due to the shortened lights, News12 interviewed them, but never ran the story. And while other local media outlets report from Ruth’s point of view and most of the public’s, News12 has painted Ruth a criminal."

Homebuyers in China greeted by plastic lake on ground touted as ‘park views’ by developer - "Having been sold the concept of “high vegetation cover” and “park lifestyle”, as promised by the real estate developer, the public area that awaited their discovery was in reality covered in a blue plastic material to look like a lake with a small wooden bridge... The promotional material, referring to an ancient fable, reportedly said: “The days pass slowly, as if you’ve fallen into Peach Blossom Land.”... The surface, instead of grass, was covered with yellow mud and turf that no longer looked alive... This phenomenon of largely getting things about right is called “chabuduo” in China."

Victorian mother horrified after school tells son to write a suicide note - "her 16-year-old son had to write the note as a creative writing exercise in an English class this week.“They read a book, Jasper Jones,” she said.“They had to write a suicide letter to Jasper Jones regarding how they were going to die, why they were dying and what the reasons where; why they wanted to die and no longer live.”"
No wonder home schooling is so big nowadays

Prince Andrew: I didn’t have sex with teenager, I was home after Pizza Express in Woking - "The Duke of York claimed on Saturday night that he could not have had sex with a teenage girl in the London home of British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell because he was at home after attending a children’s party at Pizza Express in Woking... In a sometimes rambling and contradictory account of their friendship, which drew accusations of arrogance from viewers, the prince insisted he had not had sex with any women trafficked by Epstein in any of his properties... “If you’re a man it is a positive act to have sex with somebody,” the prince explained. “You have to … take some sort of positive action and so therefore if you try to forget it’s very difficult to try and forget a positive action and I do not remember anything.”... A photograph of the prince with his arm around Roberts’s waist has been widely circulated, but the prince repeatedly said in his Newsnight interview he had “no recollection of that photograph ever being taken”. He said the picture appeared to have been taken upstairs in Maxwell’s house, somewhere “I don’t think I ever went”. He suggested that, as a member of the royal family, he was “not one to, as it were, hug, and public displays of affection are not something that I do.” Photographs of the prince in embraces with various women swiftly emerged on Twitter... He explained that the reason why he hadn’t noticed young girls at Epstein’s house was that, as a member of the royal family, he was used to “members of staff walking around all the time” and so hadn’t interacted in a meaningful way with anyone he considered to be staff."

Prince Andrew says sex claims against him can't be true as 'he can't sweat' - "Prince Andrew has sensationally claimed he suffered from a medical condition which stopped him sweating.The Duke of York revealed the condition – which is known as anhidrosis – in a Newsnight interview with presenter Emily Maitlis, who questioned him over claims he slept with a 17-year-old girl in 2001.Virginia Giuffre, formerly known as Virginia Roberts, claims she was sex trafficked by billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and forced to have sex with the prince three times between 2001 and 2002.Ms Maitlis said Mrs Guiffre had been ‘very specific’ about meeting Andrew at the Tramp nightclub on March 10, 2001 – when she was 17 – claiming the duke was ‘profusely sweating’.But the duke said there was a ‘slight problem’ with that story as he was allegedly unable to perspire at the time... ‘…I didn’t sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War when I was shot at and I simply… it was almost impossible for me to sweat.’ He said it was only because he had ‘done a number of things in the recent past’ that he was able to sweat again... GP Jon Hall-Jones, who specialises in dermatology, said adrenaline is more likely to cause sweating, not stop it.He told Metro.co.uk: ‘Adrenaline is a hormone that stimulates the body as part of the fight or flight response.‘Sweating is part of this response that occurs because the sweat glands are responsive to adrenaline.’Professor John Hawk, a dermatologist at London’s King’s College and St Thomas’ Hospital, said trauma is ‘not a known cause’ of the condition after Andrew said it was brought on after being shot at during the Falklands War.He told the Express: ‘Most cases are inherited, which does not seem to be the case here.‘Other causes include heat stroke – which seems unlikely in the Falklands, severe dehydration, and certain medications including morphine could also cause it, but these are not likely.‘Maybe there was a supplementary event that happened which he cannot remember. Trauma is not a known cause of this condition.’"

Gilead Resembles an Islamic Theocracy, not Trump’s America - "Handmaid is about many things: Extreme misogyny, woman’s Inhumanity to woman (at which Atwood excels), and post-Orwellian totalitarianism. But it is also quintessentially about commercial surrogacy, a practice which has already been legalized in at least 20 American states, a transaction which is seen as “progressive.” Many feminists favor altruistic and commercial surrogacy. They, their daughters, their friends, including their gay male friends, may be infertile, unable to maintain a pregnancy, or are womb-less and may need the services of a birthmother surrogate. Such feminists are Gilead’s Serena Joy/Mrs. Waterford, a high-ranking Commander’s wife, just as much as they are Offred, their enslaved, fertile Handmaid.The real handmaids in America today are the birthmother-surrogates who, out of economic desperation, or in a psychological fugue state, agree to carry a child for an “intended” parent or parents. Their diets and medical care is as closely supervised as in Gilead and they are sometimes forbidden to even see the babies in the delivery room. Breastfeeding is not an option. In one case, armed guards prevented the birthmother from meeting her triplets in the NICU... Many feminists believe that a woman’s right to an abortion is dependent upon her right to sell or altruistically give away a baby she has borne; that doing so is not dangerous to the birthmother’s or the baby’s physical and mental health.  However, viewing a woman as merely a vessel for property that contractually belongs to “intentional parents” is in direct conflict with the grounds for a woman’s right to an abortion. The embryo/fetus/developing child is part of the woman, it belongs to her because it is in her body. This fact gives her the right to terminate a pregnancy. If others claim this right, then what may stop the sperm donor, the state, the church, or the Wives and Commanders of Gilead from claiming custody and adoption rights?... I once lived in a harem in Afghanistan... When we landed in Kabul, officials smoothly removed my American passport—which I never saw again... Many Afghan women have mothers-in-law who beat them and treat them as despised servants. Mine never hit me or ordered me to cook or clean, but she tried to convert me to Islam every single day and tried to kill me by telling the servants to stop boiling my water and washing my fruits and vegetables. I got deathly ill... Forever after, I understood that barbaric customs are indigenous, not caused by foreign intervention; and that, like the West, Islam was also an imperial and colonial power, owned slaves, and engaged in gender and religious apartheid.  I owe Afghanistan a great deal for teaching me this."

Ancient and active: are older staff in the workplace to stay? | Financial Times - "As people live longer so they will work longer. This is in part because governments cannot afford to pay pensions over extended lifespans and workers need to save more to fund their retirement. As mandatory retirement is phased out, many people will stay in work not just for money, but for social interaction and purpose. Over-50s in the US are predicted to make up 35.4 per cent of the workforce in 2022, up from 24.6 per cent in 2002... The influx of older workers could bring benefits: research suggests that mixed-generation teams are more effective than those made up of one generation. It also means that employers can retain skills... The company has found that over-50s want shifts that fit with their set lifestyle, while younger workers like the freedom to choose when they work. McDonald’s offers both and finds the generations’ work patterns are complementary. Generally, older workers are more steady and stay for longer, whereas younger people work for the summer and return to education in the autumn. The carmakers Porsche and BMW have adapted their production lines to the needs of older workers. At Porsche, employees can wear exoskeletons to help them with repetitive tasks and prevent strains. One of the greatest challenges older workers face is ageism, according to a report by the Milken Institute, a California think-tank. It found that older employees tend to be characterised as “slow, unmotivated and out of date”.In part, this is the legacy of the past. “When most jobs required brute strength, young people did outperform their older counterparts. But the physicality of work decreased with the transition from agricultural to service economies, and with it the importance of physical might.”One reason older workers tend to be self-employed is to avoid pervasive ageism... those leading training on a computer task had lower expectations for older workers and so provided lower quality training, compared with how they responded to younger trainees... Different experiences stop groupthink and encourage creativity. “The diversity of thought from mixing the fresh perspectives of youth, combined with the experience of age, can be quite powerful”... “It’s this ageing of our workforce, much more than the future risks of automation, that policymakers and employers should focus on.”"

Garth Leggatt on Twitter - "The fact that Gender Studies graduates cannot land a decent job after college is a testimony to how much of a failure of a system that capitalism is."
"Maybe - just maybe - someone who studies gender for four long years and STILL can’t tell the difference between men and women doesn’t inspire confidence in potential employers?"

How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did - "What Target discovered fairly quickly is that it creeped people out that the company knew about their pregnancies in advance... So Target got sneakier about sending the coupons. The company can create personalized booklets; instead of sending people with high pregnancy scores books o' coupons solely for diapers, rattles, strollers, and the "Go the F*** to Sleep" book, they more subtly spread them about...
'we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn’t been spied on, she’ll use the coupons. She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don’t spook her, it works'...
Those people chilled by stores' tracking and profiling them may want to consider going the way of the common criminal -- and paying for far more of their purchases in cash."

For the past 30 years, my job was to censor Channel 5 shows. It was stressful.

Heartbroken M’sian man, 81, closes free museum after customers keep stealing his antiques - "The owner of private mini-museum “Rumahku Muziumku” (My House, My Museum) in Melaka was forced to shut down his free museum after visitors kept stealing his antiques... two of the items stolen in September, a copper manicure bowl and an antique iron were being sold online... both he and his wife, Maznah Ali, 60, are not fully capable of spotting or catching some of these thieves due to various health issues... He made entry to his museum free as his intention is to showcase the antiques, not make money out of them.  According to Nordin, he was not sad because of how much money he had lost.  Instead, he was saddened to lose valuable antiques he had worked very hard, and long, to collect.  Nordin said the antiques are almost irreplaceable and will be hard to find again"