Man jailed 3 months for attempting to pay for sex with minor - "Looking for a sugar daddy, a 16-year-old girl offered sexual services on online classified advertisement network Locanto and a contractor offered her $500 in exchange for sexual intercourse.The teenager did not agree to it as she was only willing to perform other acts such as oral sex.But Andy Kow Yong Wen, 42, continued to make the offer despite knowing the girl's age, and she refused to give in to his request. The Singaporean man was sentenced to three months' jail on Wednesday (April 10) for attempting to obtain commercial sex from a minor."
Given that he didn't even have sex with her...
Man used nude photos of sister-in-law and church friends for sexual fantasy stories on adult forum - "A man who secretly filmed his wife and her sister and church members in the shower would use screenshots from some of the recordings to accompany sexual fantasy stories he published on an adult forum.The 41-year-old did so as he enjoyed the attention and acceptance he received from the online community on Sammyboy forum. He also believed that his church community was a hypocrite... Deputy Public Prosecutor R Arvindren sought 30 weeks’ jail for the man, whom he said managed to escape detection until he started uploading photos which exposed the face of one of the victims."
People Who Earn More, Have More Sex, and Vice Versa - "There is an interdependent relationship among making money, having sex, and being physically healthy, according to new research published in the International Journal of Manpower."
Thomas Chatterton Williams on Twitter - "An important part of the way the discourse works right now is that Ta-Nehisi Coates must deny that he’s a millionaire just as Alison Roman must pretend she’s privileged in comparison to Marie Kondo and Chrissy Teigen. These are two sides of the same improbable narrative."
But then, liberals believe that poor whites benefit from "white privilege" still, unlike rich blacks
Fellow Passengers - "Reason does not separate us from other animals, not decisively. When we actually look at animals, and what they can do, we find that the only differences of reason between us and them are ones of degree rather than kind... When the animal on the bus looks at us, we must, with all our heart and sinew, try to look back, and see her for what she really is: a fellow passenger who is really not that different from us."
Does size matter: higher tax, happier countries? - "smaller countries, typically, have happier populations than larger ones. From a theoretical angle, that makes sense. If a country is smaller, it is more likely to have a more homogenous population, and people are more likely to feel close to each other. For instance, this would result in a better community life, one of the factors associated with happiness. A glance at the 2016 World Happiness Report shows that most of the top-ten countries are relatively small, with Denmark, Switzerland and Iceland in the top-three, and only Canada, Netherlands and Australia (numbers six, seven and nine) having a population above 10 million... a large amount of government spending – for instance by providing free or subsidised education or healthcare – could result in higher happiness levels.Indeed, the evidence assessed by Radcliff suggests this kind of link... “higher levels of taxation suggest higher levels of satisfaction with life”.
To libertarians, presumably it is more important to be "free" than to be happy
The Great British Intelligence Test - "the average 40 year old has similar problem solving abilities to the average 12 year old! And things went downhill from there. We found that working memory, spatial intelligence and attention all peaked in the 20s and fell off after that... The more time people spent playing computer games, the better they scored on tests of spatial working memory (your ability to remember where things are, like car keys!), attention and verbal reasoning... There was one other strong and disturbing link, and that was between those who used the internet excessively and obsessively (for example repeatedly checking smart phones in bed) and those who felt anxious and stressed. This was particularly true for younger age groups... Whereas all other cognitive skills declined with age, verbal ability increased dramatically - peaking in our 70s and 80s!"
Sebastián Ramírez on Twitter - "I saw a job post the other day. It required 4+ years of experience in FastAPI. 🤦 I couldn't apply as I only have 1.5+ years of experience since I created that thing. Maybe it's time to re-evaluate that "years of experience = skill level". ♻"
Foreigners keep Singapore ‘economically relevant’, but pay attention to the Singapore worker: Pritam Singh - "A wealth management firm on the watchlist was found to have almost three-quarters of its professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) of the same nationality, he noted.In another example of a bank, almost two-thirds of the PMETs are of the same nationality."
The Unexpected Tudors, With Sam Willis & James Daybell | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra - "‘Why do you think that Tudors are always a surefire hit, especially with, say the younger historians among us?’
‘It's a perennial question, actually. What is it about the 16th century in Britain that is so interesting to everyone, not just kids, but to everyone? And I think part of it is about the the big personalities of the monarchs that you have. Who can fail to be interested in somebody like Henry the Eighth, who is a, you know, he's a, he's a really interesting character. He's always, he’s a sort of an enigma, in some ways. He's a, he's either a sort of puppet ruler or a psycho killer. And I verge towards the psycho killer, you know, view on him. This is somebody who had six wives, executed two of them, had very close people and friendships working with him and then seem to be able to destroy people afterwards. But then you've got somebody like Elizabeth the First who again, is a fascinating character, a sort of almost larger than life character. And also you've got some of the great transitions in the 16th century that are happening. You've got the, the rise of Parliament, you've got the expansion of the realm. You know, the sort of unification of the country in many ways, the expansion of the state, you've got exploration and trade. So it's absolutely fascinating. It's also a cultural melting pot. You know, this is the time of Shakespeare and, and other writers like that. So it's a, it's a really fascinating period to get your teeth into and it's also something that has captured the imagination of so many popular biographers and also people who write historical fiction. You know, a character like Anne Boleyn has had dozens and dozens of articles and books written about her. So much ink spilt on her. So there's something that has really captured people's imagination, I think.’...
There are all these covert practices to communicate. And so various ingenious techniques have been invented. It's a time when we see all sorts of complicated cipher systems, we've got Mary Queen of Scots communicating secretly in ciphered letters carried in beer barrels. And then we've got these two examples. One is hiding a letter inside an egg. And the other is about writing in invisible ink, in orange juice. And this is famously described in a man called John Gerard’s Latin autobiography. And Gerard was a, was a Jesuit priest, and he describes how his female sustainers outside of the prison have smuggled into the prison gifts of oranges for him and the orange was wrapped in a sheet of paper. And he then uses the orange in really interesting ways. Firstly, he uses the peel of the orange to form rosaries and crosses, which are part of his Catholic practice, the kinds of things that he would have ordinarily had are not allowed in prison. So he improvises these. He then uses part of the flesh of the orange to bribe the illiterate jailer to smuggle in and out messages. And then he uses the orange juice itself, he retains a bit of that, and uses that to write secret messages on the sheet of paper in which the orange was wrapped, and then has them smuggled out...
One of the things that surprised me recently was doing some work on cannibalism. And actually, you know, eating the remains of people was, you know, was, was part and parcel of Tudor medicine. So I think that was probably one of the most weird things that I'd come across. And there's, there's an example of people eating bits of Egyptian mummies, for example. So I always found that rather bizarre"
Saturday lecture: Medieval religion and faith from History Extra podcast on Podbay - "[On clerics] There are around 60,000 of them, which would mean that the clergy comprised around 4% of the entire national population. But considering the majority were men, that's something like 8% of the entire male population. So this is a vast presence...
Some churches even possessed, claimed to possess Christ’s foreskin, which was known as the holy prepuce. However, rival foreskins soon began to pop up all across Europe. In fact, all told, there were 21 different churches claiming to have had, possessing the Holy Foreskin, often at the same time. And some medieval theologians argued that all the Holy Foreskins had to be frauds since the actual foreskin had, they asserted, ascended into heaven with Christ, and had thus become the rings around Saturn."
Everything You Wanted To Know About British Battlefields, With Julian Humphrys | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra - "‘I think that the traditional site [of the Battle of Hastings] is the, is the actual site. I think there's been a number of suggestions over the years you know about where it was including Time Team, who rather disingenuously suggested it was fought at a mini roundabout, quite famously. The papers had a field day with that. Although I have to say had they turned their cameras round 180 degrees, they would have seen the Abbey, which is the traditional site about 200 yards away. So that's quite interesting the way they chose to portray that. But no, I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure that the battle was fought on the site where the abbey is. The sources at the time say this. You wonder why on earth you would build an abbey in such a daft location if it wasn't to mark something. And it's interesting that, that all the other suggestions, they have to ignore that point, and they tend to sort of cherry pick bits of information out of the sources to support whatever conclusion they’ve come to’...
We need to bear in mind actually that up until the Boer War and including the Boer War, many more soldiers died of sickness than anything else. Many more died of sickness than wounds in, in battle. And for the reason that, you know, there were no loos. So where do you go? And you know, if you think about it, if you've got an army of maybe 15, 20,000 men camped out somewhere, you know, I start thinking about Glastonbury without the toilets, to be honest, that's the way I think of it. So whenever an army gets together and it stays together, there's always that risk of tummy bugs and worse, you know, and let's, let's think, you know, Henry the Fifth our, perhaps our greatest warrior king, died not in battle, but he died of dysentery. John died of dysentery. William the Conqueror, his army after after Hastings was hit by dysentery"
Everything You Wanted To Know About The Scottish Wars Of Independence | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra - "‘The Franco Scottish Alliance made in 1295 does very little practically to aid the Scots and indeed it was only potentially useful for the French up until the point that they themselves made peace with England. And indeed they did so in such a way as to allow the English to then fully turn their attentions on Scotland, so really not, not much help for the Scots at all in the short term. However, in later years, the French did look to aid the Scots. I think this is because with the King of England still possessing territories in France, antagonism between the two kingdoms was an ongoing issue and war breaks out between England and France at various points, so the Scots were of potential future value. The French would also useful for the Scots diplomatically, and they do aid the Scots at times in ensuring that they are able to get a hearing, for example, with the papacy when the English are trying quite successfully to deny the Scots access... The French during the Hundred Years War refused to make any treaties of treaties with England, that did not include Scotland... perhaps the most active period of Franco Scottish cooperation was in the 15th century, when around 10,000 Scots traveled to France to fight for the French in the hour of perhaps greatest need after the defeat at the Battle of Agincourt. The Scots helped the French, the French win their first victory since Agincourt, Baugé in 1421, but we're also involved in defeat at Cravant in 1423 and were largely wiped out at Verneuil a year later. But the Scots still continue to fight in France throughout the war, just in smaller numbers.'"
Artist Adds Dark Humor To His Comics That Look Innocent At First (30 Pics) - "Berkeley Mews' creator calls it a dark humor comic series that exposes the seedy underbelly of everything wholesome and pure. "It takes fairy tales and Disney movies and fond remembrances of childhood and turns them into horrible nightmares - but, like, in a fun way," Ben Zaehringer told Bored Panda."
Felching among men who engage in barebacking (unprotected anal sex) - "Felching (sucking or eating semen out of someone's anus) is a sexual behavior about which virtually nothing has been written in the scholarly literature, despite the fact that it appears to be a not-uncommon practice among certain subpopulations of men who have sex with men (MSM). This study examined three broad research questions: (1) How common is felching? (2) How does a desire for felching relate to other HIV risk practices and risk behavior preferences? (3) What factors are associated with the desire to engage in felching? The data were from a content analysis study of one of the largest Internet websites specifically targeting MSM looking for partners for unprotected sex. A total of 1,316 profiles on the site were analyzed and selected randomly based on users' ZIP codes. Felching was mentioned as a sought-after practice in approximately one-sixth of the men's profiles. Men who wanted to find felching partners were significantly more likely than those not searching for felching partners to seek other types of risky sex, including unprotected oral and unprotected anal sex, and various enhanced risk preferences (e.g., having sex while high, multiple-partner sex, unwillingness to withdraw the penis prior to internal ejaculation). Multivariate analysis revealed several factors that were related to an interest in identifying partners online for felching, including race/ethnicity, indifference to sex partners' HIV serostatus, several sensation-seeking measures (e.g., wanting "wild" or "uninhibited" sex, self-identification as a "bug chaser"), and eroticizing ejaculatory fluids."
How to offend everyone in Europe - *flags* (the Netherlands is underwater)
Maxim Shannon - "When The Mandalorian first started I joined a Baby Yoda FB group. It was mostly just people discussing the show and sharing funny/cute Baby Yoda/Star Wars memes, but since the end of the first series it's kinda devolved into mainly 25-30+ year old women all pretending they're baby yoda's mother. They call themselves "momalorians" & have baby yoda dolls which they dress up & cook food for. Probably the worst thing is they all talk like they're 5 years old. I find it really weird and disturbing. Check the photos. Proper mad! 🤨"
Lisa Britton on Twitter - *The Future Is Female* "Imagine if these men wore these shirts in front of their young, impressionable sons. “Daddy thinks I don’t have a future” What a great way to set up your son’s mentality for the rest of his life It boggles my mind how people don’t see something wrong with this."
