Links - 19th September 2014

How To Marry The Right Girl: A Mathematical Solution - "the best way to proceed is to interview (or date) the first 36.8 percent of the candidates. Don't hire (or marry) any of them, but as soon as you meet a candidate who's better than the best of that first group — that's the one you choose! Yes, the Very Best Candidate might show up in that first 36.8 percent — in which case you'll be stuck with second best, but still, if you like favorable odds, this is the best way to go."

Meet Swarm: Foursquare's ambitious plan to split its app in two - "Not only has Foursquare collected 6 billion check-ins, he says, but it has collected 6 billion signals to help it map out over 60 million places around the world. Each place is a shape that looks like a hot zone of check-ins — of times when people have said "I’m here." Foursquare’s "Pilgrim" location-guessing engine factors in everything from your GPS signal, to cell tower triangulation, to the number of bars you have, to the Wi-Fi networks nearby, in order to create these virtual shapes. Now that it has this data, Foursquare can make a very accurate guess at where you are when you stop moving, even without a check-in, a technology it hopes will allow it to keep its database of places fresh and accurate. Foursquare calls these implicit check-ins "p-check-ins," or Neighborhood Sharing. Take your phone into four or five different Japanese restaurants over the course of six months and without a single check-in Foursquare will learn that you like Japanese food and start making recommendations for you based on that data... "I walked into a restaurant and it told me what to order. I walked into a neighborhood and it told me three places to go to. My plane landed in a city I’ve never been to and it’s telling me that two friends are nearby. That’s stuff that we’re doing now, and I think what people will get is that it’s very clearly the future.""

Meet the Fokkens: Amsterdam's oldest prostitutes - "Amsterdam's oldest prostitutes have been thrust into the spotlight with the release of their memoirs and a documentary film about their lives. The film, Meet the Fokkens, follows 70-year-old identical twins Louise and Martine Fokken as they share secrets of selling sex in the city's famous red light district... Despite younger competition next door, there is still a market for Martine's services. She appears to specialise in bondage for older men. Targeting them with things they like to dress up in. Tempting them into her brothel with an array of dangerous looking whips and high-heeled shoes. It seems she has found a niche in the fetish market. "We know the tricks, we know what they want. We know how to talk to them and we know how to make them laugh too."

Howie Reith's answer to What does it feel like to be a male who pretends to be a female online? - Quora - "Every day I was getting over a hundred views of my profile. I would get between a dozen and a couple dozen messages. Most of them were "hi" or some pathetic attempt at flirting involving asking what I was getting my master's degree in. I don't think I would be exaggerating to say only 1% of the messages were anything remotely worth replying to. Some of the messages were truly bizarre. Some men would message me about wanting to satisfy their sexual fetishes with me. Some were borderline unreadable because of the grammatical issues. Others were just plane needy, telling me that I was the cutest girl they'd seen in their entire lives. It was funny, even though I wasn't the person in the picture, I still felt flattered. As I continued the experiment I found it curious how it was affecting me psychologically. I eventually started messaging guys I thought were interesting. They had witty profiles, were very good looking, or were successful business men. I would find myself getting frustrated when they wouldn't message me back. I would do all of the same sorts of things that consistently got me messages back from pretty girls - I would say something witty, show interest in what they talked about in their profile, etc. Nope. Guys wouldn't message me back. wtf? I'm hot god dammit."

The Scientific Secret Behind Batman's Hidden Identity Revealed - "We recognize Batman because we know he's Bruce Wayne/Christian Bale/whoever. So for us it's easy to make out his face's defining characteristics, even when obscured with the cow... however, research suggests that if we had no prior knowledge of who Batman was, we would find it difficult to recognize and remember his face. The Journal of Vision published a paper which explains that human facial recognition is all based in your temporal lobe. It remembers and recognizes faces not based on their overall appearance, but by analyzing the individual parts of a face and then constructing them into some kind of 'natural barcode'. This means when you see the face again, you can quickly scan it and figure out if you know the person."

Best Pictures from Russian Dating Sites

WTF Should I Do Today?

Bread maker who had sex with colleague's underage daughter jailed three years - "The victim told the accused that she "wanted to do it", which the accused understood to mean that she wanted to have sex. Initially, he refused but relented when she kept pleading with him, the court heard. The pair had sex again in July last year after the girl and her father had moved to another flat. She reported to police that she had been raped."

How progressive culture resists critique: The impasse of NGO Studies - "This article addresses the distinctive dilemmas that arise from this lack of distance between ethnographers and research subjects and particularly the difficulty of critically examining the moral sentiments of progressive actors. I tell the story of a first fieldwork project in which I struggled to objectify the social power of professional education reformers who already analyzed themselves and whose efforts to combat race and class inequalities seemed to be beyond reproach"
This is not limited to NGOs - progressive culture in general is resistant to critique. This is a good example of how activism interferes with scholarship

'Power Rangers' Movie News: Walter Jones Unsure On Cameo In New Film, But Is Excited To See It Regardless - ""It's a reboot so they're re-casting the whole entire film and there's a lot of excitement about it"... The script is being worked on by X-Men: First Class writers Zack Stenz and Ashley Miller with Roberto Orci producing. The film is set to open in theaters on July 22, 2016."

Dear Gays, Stop Being Offended by Hilarious Jokes! - "even when comedians who are outspoken advocates and allies of the LGBTQ community, there is a public outcry following every edgy joke that is made... should all art be void of gay material? Would it be better for the LGBTQ community for actors, comedians, celebrities, and artists to completely skirt around the issue of homosexuality? Or instead, should you ask yourself why you were offended by something? What is the fear in people making gay jokes? That through comedy, we are somehow setting our people back? Or perhaps, what is more likely, is that a certain joke touched on an insecurity of yours, and that is why you became offended. Isn’t making people laugh the impetus behind telling jokes? Perhaps sometimes the mechanism for doing so is being somewhat shocking or offensive, but the ultimate goal is laughter. And perhaps a particular joke isn’t your cup of tea, but does that mean that nobody should be able to tell that joke or even appreciate that joke because it hurt your feelings?... I would personally feel terrible if someone in my life felt that they had to walk on egg shells so as not to offend me. I want to hear funny jokes, including the gay ones, and I want people to feel comfortable saying them. Rather than responding to buzz words, I would encourage people to look at jokes within context, assess the intention behind the telling of the joke, and give people a break. I can’t imagine being offended by a gay joke, but I will absolutely be offended by those who vote homophobic leaders into office"

SEX & GOD: A New and Fascinating Book by Darrel Ray - "Darrel Ray, a psychologist and the author of SEX & GOD, provides a vast amount of evidence from former fundamentalist believers that sexual performance and happiness increased after they left their religions. His book systematically examines why religion is so interested in sex, the benefits to fundamentalist preachers who espouse arbitrary rules about sexuality, and how hundreds of thousands of former believers have found happiness outside of religion. In addition, SEX & GOD shows how sexual restrictions are used by major religions and why it works so well, especially in subjugating women and children. It also shows how one can combat religious programming about sexuality. The book further explores how to identify and avoid religion’s psychological traps that inhibit or condemn sexuality and offers an alternative view of healthy sexuality, free of guilt, deleterious restrictions, and illogical prohibitions."

Rainbow Cake Recipe Online Leads To Hilariously Absurd Comment War - "A colorful rainbow cake seems innocent enough, right? It's just some flour, sugar, an egg or two, correct? It turns out, that is not the case. This past week, a certain rainbow cake that is tie dyed on the outside and filled in the middle with the number five set off an epic comment war that has to be seen be believed."

Never again, PinkDot The Independent Singapore News - "My activist friends reported the organisers lecturing that this event is not for them, not for the benefit of the LGBTQI community, but for the benefit of appearing safe and unthreatening to mainstream Singapore and their straight allies. And so: a complete gag on safe sex. Straight people will freak out if you give out condoms and safe sex brochures and talk about safe sex! Please say as little about activism on this day itself. It’s too confrontational! No one really needs to hear the plight of transsexual sex workers, much less their rights. It’s too alternative! And please give us all your brochures to vet. We demand it... PinkDot plays up the so-called attacks, fosters a siege mentality, all to justify the wasteful, immodest, and immoral hiring of mercenary thugs at today’s event. Because in their bizarro universe, PinkDot’s cheerful and peaceful picnic atmosphere either doesn’t exist or is so fragile (despite a turnout of 3000 people on average) that a few protestors would create a riot. What does this say about the PinkDot organisers’ perception of the LGBTQI community? That they can be prodded into violence? That they could never react to opposition in a Gandhian manner? What does this say about PinkDot’s liberal credentials?"

Alex Coppen's answer to Why do some men hate feminists? - Quora - "men are largely egalitarian, i.e. they inherently believe in the equality of merit, as opposed to focusing on gender. Feminism, by contrast, is defined as the one-sided advocacy of one gender. Fairness and respect are the core of masculinity. Advocating one group over another isn't a level playing field, and it's not egalitarian. Personal value in masculinity arguably comes from prowess or stature; whereas you could say value in femininity comes from being valued for oneself (or beauty/motherhood etc). Ergo, the idea that women with the same capabilities, skills, or prowess should somehow be paid less, or valued less, actually goes against traditional masculinity. You'd be hard pressed to find a man in the Western world who would advocate paying anyone less for the same skillset, for example, even though it (wrongly) happens... I don't "hate" feminists. I just find the vast majority of self-described "feminists" utterly obnoxious - their gender is actually irrelevant. I don't like anyone on any side of anything when they're dogmatic and/or fundamentalist. That will never wash though, as any criticism will be almost certainly be met with the label "prejudice" because its leveled at perpetrators whose entire agenda is to claim prejudice... As with every issue that concerns dogmatism, it's often a case of having to fight through a jungle of crap to find the diamond hidden away at its core. The point(s) raised are valid. The people making them are some of the most difficult to discuss anything with, unless you agree completely and validate them completely. Sexism is a problem, as is a certain degree of misogyny. However, we never get to an honest discussion about it - let alone an action plan with equal support - because of the chorus of BS. If i wanted to put it honestly, this is what i'd probably say: "what you're talking about is important, but you're a dick, which is why i'm not listening"... But i'd say the biggest issue that stirs the feeling of "hate" amongst men towards these people is the feeling of being accused, attacked, and wronged, when they don't hold these views or beliefs, and actually would agree with the feminist point of view if it were presented with a bit more dignity and fairness. Insulting, attacking, criticising, or maligning men - or victimising your gender - never gets anyone anything but a very bad reaction. But a more far-reaching thought is in how neo-feminists claim they think of men in a positive way and just want equality, when they have nothing good to say about men at all - and patronisingly presume that men themselves are not perceptive enough to realise that they actually just don't like men... We can sense your feelings underneath, and there's no hiding it with equality-talk... When an advocacy group refuses to acknowledge data, you are not in a discussion - you are dealing with dogma. Men don't "hate" feminists per se. They can just be more perceptive to what's going on underneath the external arguments than these activists expect, and get extremely defensive when wrongly accused on a personal level."

mepersoner: Tsk Tsk - "The Female Privilege Checklist
8) If he doesn't orgasm when we have sex, it's his fault.
9) If I don't orgasm when we have sex, it's his fault.
14) Anytime I do well in business, the media will look at me as some messiah because I'm a woman. Everyone will be impressed.
24) If a crime is commited against me, the punishment will always be worse than it would be for commiting it against a man."