Links - 16th October 2013

Cricket Australia Allows Ahmed to Drop Beer Logo from Shirt - "Cricket Australia (CA) have agreed to let Muslim leg spinner Fawad Ahmed compete without the logo of a sponsor’s beer brand on his shirt out of respect for his “personal beliefs”... South Africa’s Muslim batsman Hashim Amla has also been excused from wearing a beer brand logo on his shirts."
Cricket Australia is also sponsored by Commonwealth Bank. If I support Occupy Wall Street, can I not have their logo on my jersey?

What Did Karl Popper Really Say About Evolution? - "'I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation'... the creationists were never correct in stating that Popper believed that evolution was not falsifiable (and hence not scientific), nor are they now correct in citing him as an authority for the claim that natural selection is tautological and not falsifiable!"

Welcome back to school, girls. And mind those breasts! - "On night two of the new school year, my daughters' high school principal sent out the following email: "kids" were not to show "the three Bs: No bellies. No buns. No breasts." Lucky me. The educational authorities were on the clothing case. Our collective parenting failure to enforce proper dress fobbed off on the public school system. And yet, something was missing. Oh right, male body parts."
I am pleased that the staff selected this comment (among other things obviating the need for me to make a similar one): "If male and female fashion showed similar amounts of skin, this would be a valid article. But really, boys these days do not saunter into school in short skirts, leggings, undone shirts or package-hugging trousers. Men have to cover up far more skin and have way less liberty in fashion choice in a formal environment than girls. This is a simple fact, enforced by the stereotype of males being uncreative. You think us girls have it bad because we're not allowed to wear belly tops and hotpants? I have more sympathy for my mates stuck in a 30° classroom in black trousers and formal shoes when I'm wearing a knee-length skirt and pumps."

Wurst luck – how Zeppelins hit German sausage-eaters - "the quantity of cow intestines used in manufacturing the airships was so enormous – and the military appetite for the dirigibles so strong – that the making of sausages was temporarily outlawed in Germany and allied or occupied parts of Austria, Poland and northern France"... "The most interesting thing is that you would have thought that a big bag of hydrogen would be easy to shoot down and set light to," he said. "But for the best part of a year and a half, it was impossible to shoot Zeppelins down. They built 140 of these enormous airships over that period and it was only at the very end of that – towards the end of the war in 1917 – that we finally worked out how to shoot them down.""

Should I choose my mother or my lesbian partner? - "On telling my mother about my new relationship she said she would never accept it and that my behaviour is more devastating to her than my father leaving us via an affair when I was a baby. Now, two years on, she says that if I continue with the relationship, she will sever all contact with me"

A Response To #SlaneGirl - "what struck me was how people assumed the culprits behind the incriminating photographs were male, evincing the ubiquitous paradigm of men as soulless sexual predators. Unfortunately, for the female species at least, the person responsible for uploading at least one of the pictures is a woman"

Who comes first, your partner or your kids? - "If your marriage goes tits-up, your children are unlikely to benefit, so tending your relationship is, indirectly, a way of tending your children. On the other hand, there are some serious taboos in this area... children are just passing through, while marriage should be for ever... Look out for your children but do not micromanage them. If you put all your energy into raising the next generation, you risk identifying so closely with your children that their success is your success and their failure is yours, and this will put them under unnecessary pressure... it is easy to hide behind the comfortable intimacy of being Mum and Dad together, and forget the problems of being husband and wife."

Is it a good idea to go on holiday with your ex? - "It is not surprising that so many divorced couples choose to go on holiday together, seek each other out in times of crisis or that some will even nurse their terminally- ill former partner. This is partly because about one third of people who divorce regret the decision five years later, but mainly because we fall in love for a reason and that reason is probably still valid – even if events showed that we couldn't actually live together."

Wurst policy ever? 'Veggie Day' plan leaves Greens trailing - "A dramatic fall in the polls for the Green party has been blamed in no small part on their Veggie Day proposal, in which canteens would be obliged to offer only vegetarian food once a week, with Germans (among the most enthusiastic carnivores in Europe) encouraged to follow suit at home."

Aliens Power Loader Baby Costume - Halloween 2012 - YouTube

Liberal attitudes on gay lifestyles not prevalent here - "A middle ground of close to 30 per cent of respondents across age groups and education levels were neutral on the issue of gay lifestyles, which IPS Faculty Associate Tan Ern Ser said should be seen as “neither for nor against, or it could be an unwillingness to choose”. Dr Leong concurred: “Many Singaporeans are just indifferent to this issue, and the large percentage of ‘neutral’ corroborated that. “The implicit compact between the mainstream and homosexuals is that of a mutually respectful and non-confrontational engagement. Singaporeans are not upset as long as gays do not advocate making alternative lifestyles a part of the mainstream.” Using the analogy of left- and right-handers, he said: “It doesn’t matter if a person is left-handed, even if the majority belong to the latter. However, if left-handed people insist that we put in place an alternative left-handed device for every gadget, then, of course, there will be tension between the two groups.”"

Swedish group seeks sex education expansion - "The Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (Riksförbundet för Sexuell Upplysning, RFSU) has called for sex education to be included in all school subjects including religious studies, a move mirrored by a Christian group seeking to have 'walking on water' explained in physics classes. "

Censorship, Sex, and the Bo Xilai Trial - "It’s so interesting. A full circuit of Shanghai judges routinely visiting brothels on public funds gets not a word of mention,” she mused, “but the travails of a small-time businessman is getting around-the-clock coverage on Central China Television! The Chinese government must truly be devoted to the lives of its most ordinary citizens”

Filipino Food Sucks - "Pancit refers to one of what seems like thousands of different noodle dishes. Some noodles are skinny. Some noodles are fat. They all taste like crap. Go to any Filipino party, and you will likely see at least three iterations of this dish sitting right next to one another. I can all but promise you the noodles will be dry and there will be random pieces of overcooked Grade F- beef, imitation crab, and hard boiled egg littering the mess. Even Filipinos who supposedly love this dish usually squeeze lemon on it - either to kill off the bacteria (aka: noodle cooties) they know have accumulated or to give the dish some sort of flavor (albeit the flavor of a NYC taxicab air-freshener)... all lumpia is stale and gross. Vietnamese goi cuon and the also-fried-but-much-lighter Thai version of spring rolls are far superior in flavor and freshness, and I much rather snack on those then the awful Filipino fried tubes of crap called lumpia."
" I give all foods at least a couple tries. Everyone has to give beer a couple tries at least before it tastes good. Filipino food, never tastes good. Cheap, salty, preservative laden ingredients that they insist on buying are what make the stuff taste so terrible. Adobo... where the fk do you even begin? Could the meat be saltier, fattier? W.T.F. "

Claiming that all men are sexist (image)

When Homework is a Waste of Time - "“Spaced repetition” is one example of the kind of evidence-based technique that researchers have found has a positive impact on students’ learning. Here’s how it works: instead of concentrating the study of information in large one-shot doses, as many homework assignments currently do—reading about, say, the Civil War one evening, and Reconstruction the next—learners encounter the same material in briefer sessions spread out over a longer period of time. With this approach, students would be re-exposed to information about the Civil War and Reconstruction in their homework a number of times during the semester"

How To See Ryan Gosling on Every Web Page You Visit - "“We had a curriculum challenge that involved manipulating webpage elements live using Javascript,” she told Mashable, “and my programming pair and I were having fun changing all of his Dev Bootcamp profile information to make him appear as if he were Channing Tatum.” Eventually, Ryan Gosling replaced Channing Tatum, which makes sense, since the Internet just loves Ryan Gosling."

Singapore library uses analytics to forecast demand - "The National Library Board (NLB) used analytics to improve accuracy in forecasting patrons’ demand by 60 per cent, reducing waiting time for popular books and frequency of patrons not being able to find the book they want."

Navy Hovercraft Gives Sunbathers a Fright During 'Normal' Training Exercise (Video) - "In a scene straight from an apocalyptic film, hundreds of sunbathers basking on a beach in the Kaliningrad region were startled by giant waves and a shattering crash as a Russian Navy hovercraft rolled ashore. Several witnesses captured the Zubr's landing on their cell phones while Russian marine soldiers from the Baltic Fleet jumped onto the beach, put up a barricade, and tried to shoo onlookers away from the ship... "Good, it's not a German U-boat," one man joked, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported."

Harmful psychological effects from bullying are serious - "Victims of bullying have been found to be over six times more likely to be diagnosed with serious illness, smoke regularly, or to develop a psychiatric disorder in comparison to those not involved in bullying. The study revealed very few ill effects of actually being the bully."
Very few people are giving the "correlation is not causation" platitude here. Let me give it a shot: weird kids are more likely to be bullied, and many people with problems are weird

Family history of psychiatric disorders shapes intellectual interests, study suggests - "Students interested in pursuing a major in the humanities or social sciences were twice as likely to report that a family member had a mood disorder or a problem with substance abuse. Students with an interest in science and technical majors, on the other hand, were three times more likely to report a sibling with an ASD, a range of developmental disorders that includes autism and Asperger syndrome."

Dog 'Donates' Blood to Save a Cat's Life