Links - 18th April 2011

"There is no monument dedicated to the memory of a committee." - Lester J. Pourciau

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FBI "Hottel Memo" Reveals UFO Hoax - "News organizations across the world were taken in -- once again -- by a hoax that was perpetrated more than 50 years ago. The infamous "Hottel memo" was posted on several sites, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation's "vault." It was touted as "newly revealed" this week. The memo supposedly confirms that alien ships landed in the U.S. in the late 1940s and the information was covered up. But in fact the infamous memo has been making the rounds for several years. (It was never classified)"
"Oh come on, you obviously don't understand anything about proper conspiracy theory analysis. Obviously no further investigation was done because it was covered up. That fact alone (no further investigation) absolutely proves without a shadow of a doubt that the report was true and that aliens were found, taken to be autopsied, and that the autopsy findings were ultimately linked directly to the Kennedy assassination. Boy oh boy oh boy oh boy... what's become of the Slashdot commenters these days..."

Commenter Mistakenly Congratulates Woman On Death Of Boyfriend - "We've all done it: blindly responded to a status update, almost out of reflex, to offer our half-assed congratulations to someone we don't care about enough to actually call. But this can backfire spectacularly, as you can see with Jennifer, who clearly spotted this item in her news feed and threw in some obligatory well wishes without reading a single comment. Either that, or she's just kind of a bitch"

David Cameron measuring 'wrong type of happiness' - "As David Cameron's £2m plan to measure the nation's happiness gets under way this month, the American psychologist whose work inspired it has said he has changed his mind about the importance of being happy... we should be focusing less on people's happiness and more on their ability to "flourish". He said he was naive in the past to think wellbeing was based only on mood"

YouTube - How to trick people into thinking you're good looking - "If you're born really ugly like me, have no fear. There's steps you can take to be good looking. Kind of... Now it's time to do your eye makeup. I like to use colours like black, because it says 'I'm a whore'... Now it's time to abuse your hair"

Nutritional value of potatoes - "Potatoes are the most important source of vitamin C in the British diet"

Can alcohol help the brain remember? Repeated ethanol exposure enhances synaptic plasticity in key brain area, study finds

Lack of Sex Life Threatens Banana Crops - ""When Black Sigatoka strikes, farmers can do little more than watch their plants die. Increased hunger can swiftly follow." The sweet dessert bananas that all Westerners know are big business, but they only account for about 15 percent of the 95 million tons of bananas grown annually. The vast bulk of the banana family is made up of the starchy cooking bananas and plantains grown as a staple"

Gif du Jour #2 — ChoucrouteGarnie
Either French or modern cultural proficiency is required to appreciate this

Aussies grow world's hottest chilli - "The fiery Trinidad Scorpion Butch T registers 1,463,700 Scoville heat units, placing it ahead of the current leader recognised by Guinness World Records, the Naga Viper, which comes in at 1,382,118. Jalapenos measure about 2500-5000 and the hottest Tabasco is 30,000... The chilli is so scorching, that Marcel and his team have to wear protective gear when handling the new variety"

Great Airline Food on Air France (Yes, Really) | Serious Eats

How to Get a Real Education at College - "I pointed out that my friend... was tall, good-looking and so gifted at b.s. that he'd be the perfect leader... He went on to do a terrific job. That was the year I learned everything I know about management... if there's a loophole, someone's going to drive a truck through it, and the people in the truck will get paid better than the people under it."

Prostitution reform has little effect - "The number of sex workers in New Zealand does not appear to have increased since legislation decriminalising prostitution became law... Around 93 per cent of sex workers cited money as the reason for getting into and staying in the sex industry. "The most significant barriers to exiting are loss of income, reluctance to lose the flexible working hours available in the sex industry and the camaraderie and sense of belonging that some sex workers describe"... more than 90 per cent felt they had legal rights under the act. More than 60 per cent felt they were more able to refuse to provide commercial sexual services to a particular client... Research indicated there had been "some improvement" in employment conditions "but this is by no means universal""
The research on legalising prostitution seems to have mixed results. I suspect the comparison of Denmark and Sweden is problematic - as many Swedes just drive to Denmark; random tidbit: "The prostitution industry accounts for 5% of the GDP of the Netherlands, between 1 and 3% of Japanese GDP and in 1998, the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimated that prostitution accounted for between 2 and 14% of the total economic activity in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines"

10 Reasons Why Non-Sex Workers Should Not Write Papers About Sex Work - "7. By denying sex workers the right to have their voices heard in the political arena, and attempting to limit their sexual and financial independence, anti-sex work feminists make a mockery of the fundamental principles of feminism"

The Gandhi Nobody Knows - "To present the Gandhi of 1893, a conventional caste Hindu, fresh from caste-ridden India where a Paraiyan could pollute at 64 feet, as the champion of interracial equalitarianism is one of the most brazen hypocrisies I have ever encountered in a serious movie"

the mrbrown show: one party (music video) - "Cry father, cry mother, the sky will fall
Chosen Ones must have back door
We should let them win it all
One Party, can't mati, rule Singapore"

Bill Maher On UN Murders: Islam Is Only Religion That Kills When You Disagree With Them - "He was "very disturbed" at how people like General Petraeus only condemned the Koran burning but not the over-the-top riots that followed it... "It's like if dad is a violent drunk and beats his kids. You don't blame the kid because he set dad off. You blame dad because he's a violent drunk""
Singapore pioneered this approach 40 years earlier

Unborn child threatened with Asbo - "A pregnant Lincoln woman was shocked when police threatened her unborn child with an Asbo... "I would love to know how a 36-week-old foetus has managed to go to the park and cause trouble without me noticing""

Man drove dodgems on busy road - "Police officers monitoring CCTV in a Chinese city were stunned to see a man trying to drive two bumper cars along a busy road... Officer Xiao Hu told Zhang it was illegal to drive one bumper car, let alone two, as it wasn't a roadworthy vehicle. However, it was unclear what the correct punishment should be under Chinese law so he let Zhang off with a verbal caution"

Most Catholic women use birth control banned by church - "Some 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women have used contraceptive methods banned by the church... only 2 percent of Catholic women, even those who regularly attend church, rely on natural family planning.

What's Your Price? Website exchanges dollars for dates - "It’s called “WhatsYourPrice.com” and it promises dates for the beautiful and the generous at a price. “I came up with this concept that perhaps if you pay them they might be willing to go out with you”... Generous members (typically males) make offers to attractive members (typically females)"
This isn't that different from normal dating

Authors Sign eBooks Electronically - "The image immediately appears on the author’s iPad... Then the author uses a stylus to scrawl a digital message below the photo. When finished, the author taps a button on the iPad that sends the fan an e-mail with a link to the image, which can then be downloaded into the eBook... soldiers opt for Kindles because they fit perfectly into the pants pocket of their uniforms"

One-Night Stands Explained: Men Prefer Hot Bods to Pretty Faces - "Only men, not women, showed a significant preference for body vs. face when seeking short- vs. long-term partners. Women were more interested in a man's face for both short- or long-term relationships. That makes sense since men's fertility doesn't decline rapidly like women's"

Spain: Candidate receives complaint for getting naked for the campaign (photos) - "The Esquerra de Menorca party (EM-EU, left-winged) filed a complaint at the Institut de la Dona (Institute of Women) for the “sexist use” Sanchez gives her body to favor her campaign... "No one is more feminist than I. Each person is free to express themselves as they please, and I use my breasts and my body as I want. If the only thing they can do is watch, that is their problem""

YouTube - Chee Soon Juan delivers SDP's election message in Hokkien

What is minimum and maximum processor state in power management
Setting the maximum processor state to 50% was why my computer was so slow