Links - 1st December 2013

'Lesbians Explain: Sleeping With Men,' Is A New Video From Arielle Scarcella, Vlogger - "What does it mean to be a lesbian? What does it mean to be a lesbian that has sex with men? What does it mean to police the boundaries of the sexual orientation of others?... several women that identify as lesbian -- but that also enjoy having casual sex with men. Offering explanations such as, "I've sort of perfected the art of compartmentalizing sex from feelings," "I don't know enough lesbians who are willing to have casual sex," and "This isn't really something that I tell my lesbian friends -- I tell my queer friends because they get it," these women engage in an important discussion about what it means to embody a sense of fluidity in your sexual identit, and to live outside of solidified identity categories in terms of sexual orientation."
If we shouldn't "police" lesbians who sleep with men, why police Sarah Palin when she says she's a feminist?
Comments: "There are a lot of people who have relationships with only one gender, and publicly identify themselves as such, but have casual sex with the other one. Usually they go by such names as family values moralist, anti gay campaigners, or christian conservatives"

Now This Is How You Use A Go Pro at AWSM.com - "This is why the world needs unemployed brilliant people."

City pay culture has spread to charities, union says - "The leaders of Britain's charities face accusations that their six-figure pay packets are excessive and part of a culture of greed polluting the voluntary sector. Research seen by The Independent shows that more than 50 charity chief executives received between £100,000 and £210,000 last year. In one case, a charity paid its chief executive nearly £400,000. Unite, the union which represents 60,000 charity workers, said too many charity bosses were paying themselves more than the Prime Minister's salary of £197,000."

Feminisnt » In it for the money? The smart investment is in an anti-sex worker career - "Anti-sex work activists endlessly harp on the specter of the multi-billion dollar sex industry. They never want to talk about how individual sex workers only make fairly modest incomes, and for generally short periods of time. It's easier to set up all of us sinners as obscenely wealthy, because it makes it easier for average people to resent us. This contributes to a culture of disrespect for sex workers where the public thinks we're not only lazy and gauche, we also get a 6-figure check every time we disrobe. It's a tactic of othering sex workers to a country that has been struggling a lot financially since the recession. And it's a very successful one... Catherine MacKinnon's base salary (not including bonuses, insurance, speaking engagements, writing, and tours) was $273,000 for 9 months of work in 2009 (page 386, huge file) and $280,000 for 9 months of work in 2010 (page 394, huge file). The biggest winner is, of course, the Hunt Alternatives Fund, which took in a whopping $12,976,136 in 2012... Cite these figures when you're talking to people who think that our side is the only one with something financial to gain"
If you can't trust people connected with an industry because of financial considerations, you can't trust many activists either (in 2009 the salary of Greenpeace's chief executive was £65,000)

Angelina Jolie Lookalike Luminiţa Perijoc Rapes Male Cab Driver - "Some beautiful women are so accustomed to getting what they want that they have nearly forgotten the meaning of “no”... He found her not wearing the robe she'd worn on previous visits, but a top that barely covered her ample bosom. She was acting in a more uninhibited manner as well, which has gotten investigators to thinking she might have been under the influence. “She pulled me in by the hand, took out the knife from behind her back and said, 'You'll be my slave tonight',” Stan says of the kind of greeting he got... While locked in the bathroom, Stan called the cops. Asked why he didn't just wrestle his way out of apartment, he said he couldn't risk physically hurting Perijoc because he knew no one would believe him that she attacked him first. “I was scared. I was afraid she'd kill me,” he says. “If I had hit her with a chair in the head... would the cops have believed me – a Roma and a man – that I'd been raped?”"
What men should do if they're attacked by women: call for help and run away

Edmonton declared city of shenanigans, speed traps in sign prank - "Carefully constructed signs mounted with industrial glue and screws gave the city of Edmonton a cheeky re-brand this week in a prank that even had a member of the city's image and reputation task force laughing just a little bit, according to the CBC. "I saw a little bit of Edmonton tongue-in-cheek in it," Chris LaBossiere, the task force's co-chair, told the CBC. "I smiled at first." The signs that appeared overnight on Monday greeted drivers at several city entrances with new labels placed over the city's official slogan, which is "City of Champions." Now Edmonton is the city of ... "Suck it, Calgary." Other city welcome signs declared Edmonton "City of Speed Traps," "City of Shenanigans," and "Road Construction City""
This is why Singapore is not creative (sticker lady)

Steamy yet discreet: an e-book revolution - "There is an internet meme called Rule 34 which states: ''If you can think of it, there is a fetish for it.'' Rule 35 follows: ''If no such porn exists, it will be made.'' The publishers of the electronic-book arm of Harlequin, that grand dame of the paperback romance, understand these immutable laws better than most. Carina Press sells e-book romance in 11 categories and 17 spin-off niches - including Amish, dragon, angel and demons, space opera, paranormal, fantasy and time travel - reaching to the edges of cyberspace to corral a readership of the most eclectic kind... Romance is the biggest genre category of all. ''Women are the biggest consumers of romance fiction. In fact, women are the biggest buyers of fiction, full stop,'' he says. ''Because romance readers are voracious readers,'' James says, ''they'll read across genres, and they're willing to be adventurous and be early adopters in order to have access to a wide variety of content.''"

THE THREE LAWS OF FUTURE EMPLOYMENT - "Let’s start with the three Laws of Future Employment. Law #1: People will get jobs doing things that computers can’t do. Law #2: A global market place will result in lower pay and fewer opportunities for many careers. (But also in cheaper and better products and a higher standard of living for American consumers.) Law #3: Professional people will more likely be freelancers and less likely to have a steady job. Usually taken for granted is that future jobs depend on STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and math)... Tabarrok and much of the conventional wisdom are wrong. The job that electrical engineers did 25 years ago has almost nothing to do with the job they do today. Computers now do much of the work that people used to do - computers design circuits, do all the drafting, plan the manufacturing, etc. It used to be that an electrical engineer designed the electronics in your car. To some extent they still do, but today even the smallest components come with operating systems - in other words, your car is programmed rather than designed. Electrical engineering is a career that follows Law #1: much of it has been (and will continue to be) computerized out of existence. Computer science careers illustrate Law #2. Computer science services are among the most tradable in the world. It is literally a global job market... Laws #1 & 2 predict that there will likely be fewer STEM jobs in the future – they are both easily computerized and tradable... Because of his novel my student becomes expert in many skills that can translate into a wonderful career"

Want a Job? Go to College, and Don’t Major in Architecturemany of the majors that produced low unemployment rates also pay pretty well. That makes sense, when you consider that graduates of some fields are in high demand, which forces employers to offer them higher salaries. That’s not true across the board, however. People who majored in education, psychology and social work, for example, have low unemployment rates, but don’t make much money. Their earnings also don’t improve a lot when they gain more experience or postgraduate schooling. “Some majors offer both high security and high earnings, while other majors trade off earnings for job security”"

Why Students Leave the Engineering Track - "The time spent studying has fallen across the board, but especially in non-engineering majors... STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) have also had less grade inflation than the humanities and social sciences have in the last several decades. Given the study habits shown above, this probably isn’t surprising; courses with higher grading standards will often require students to study harder to get an A... Perhaps the higher wages earned by engineers reflect not only what they learn but also which students are likely to choose those majors in the first place and stay with them. Generally speaking, the students who study engineering are willing to work hard and abide by higher standards — traits that are useful in the labor market. Additionally, because these students worked harder in college, they also learned more, about engineering or any other subject. That would imply that humanities majors could have similar earnings potential if only they studied more, which may or may not be true."

Terrible real estate agent photographs

9GAG - Let me get that for you

Outside the 'four floors of whores' - ""I get bored staying at home... I like to come here because I find this to be one of the most honest places in Singapore," he says in Malay, his tanned face creasing in an amiable smile. "There is no pretending here," he continues after a pause, looking around as if to survey the people congregating at Orchard Towers. "People come here to either get drunk or find a woman. That's why I enjoy coming here to talk to my friends and people-watch""

Any Animal That Touches This Lethal Lake Turns to Stone - "The water has an extremely high soda and salt content, so high that it would strip the ink off my Kodak film boxes within a few seconds. The soda and salt causes the creatures to calcify, perfectly preserved, as they dry."

Race not an issue in Singapore, study finds - "eight out of 10 Malays and Indians do not feel they are treated worse than other races in the workplace... Fewer than 10 per cent say they are often upset by incidents that insult their religious beliefs or racial customs"
If so few are often upset by active racial-religious offence, is the spectre of racial riots really still relevant?

deuterostome | - "dear reader, if you are human, you began life as a humble anus, afloat in a vast sea of mommy juice, without a care in the world. As you can see, the asshole is one of the first distinct, multi-cellular traits we develop. Enjoy and take pride in your asshole, wonder of nature!"
"at one point you were nothing but an asshole"

Let Me Take You Down - Harvard Business Review - "If individuals voluntarily surround themselves with motivational products they find inspiring, there may be a mildly positive influence. The products remind them of values or principles they find important. But when a company surrounds employees with “inspiring” thoughts and ideals, it sends a message that it expects them to live up to those ideals. Employees, in turn, expect their managers to meet the same standards. Because many managers don’t, employees tend to become cynical and critical. We’ve heard this from customers who use our products as a form of subtle rebellion against institutional hypocrisy. Where motivational products don’t breed cynicism, they often breed indifference. Either way, it’s not pretty... Some applications of positive psychology have degenerated into a simplistic agenda to learn to think positive thoughts. To the degree that this happens, it's just a repackaging of the human potential movement with an updated, quasiscientific rationale. I know that’s not how Martin Seligman intended positive psychology to be interpreted, but that’s how some people apply it... the agenda of positive psychology involves a healthy dose of hubris. Proponents believe they can replace religion and philosophy with an articulation of “the good life” rooted in experimental psychology. But their thinking is too ambiguous, the nature of human striving and aspiration is too various, and social scientific methods are inadequate to meaningfully handle concepts like wisdom and meaning. I think the movement should set its sights on less ambitious goals. "