Links - 11th November 2016

Eye-tracking of men's preferences for waist-to-hip ratio and breast size of women. - "the initial visual fixation (occurring within 200 ms from the start of each 5 s test) involved either the breasts or the waist. Both these body areas received more first fixations than the face or the lower body (pubic area and legs). Men looked more often and for longer at the breasts, irrespective of the WHR of the images. However, men rated images with an hourglass shape and a slim waist (0.7 WHR) as most attractive, irrespective of breast size. These results provide quantitative data on eye movements that occur during male judgments of the attractiveness of female images, and indicate that assessments of the female hourglass figure probably occur very rapidly."

Provision shop runs on honesty of its customers - "In the void deck of a Housing Board block in Hougang is a provision shop but, unlike others, no one mans it. A handmade cash register at the front of the shop displays instructions on how to pay for items: check the price tag, show it to any one of the shop's eight closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras, and place the money into a slot."

Half of Heathrow's 25,000 noise complaints made by the same 10 people - "while 1,209 people complained just once about the noise from aircraft passing overhead, three people contacted the airport more than 1,280 times each - or nearly 14 times a day over three months... In January last year the airport unearthed a scheme whereby campaigners were using automated software to generate complaints against the airport. Officials caught out the set-up when the two anti-Heathrow enthusiasts forgot to take into account the hour going back in October, and began complaining about flights that had not yet taken off or arrived."

This Hawaiian Mushroom Makes Women Orgasm Just By Smelling It - "The orange mushroom smells orgasmic to women and literally caused nearly half of the volunteers for the study to climax. Unfortunately, it smells like week old horse shit to men"

Native English speakers are the world’s worst communicators - "It was just one word in one email, but it triggered huge financial losses for a multinational company. The message, written in English, was sent by a native speaker to a colleague for whom English was a second language. Unsure of the word, the recipient found two contradictory meanings in his dictionary. He acted on the wrong one... The non-native speakers, it turns out, speak more purposefully and carefully, typical of someone speaking a second or third language. Anglophones, on the other hand, often talk too fast for others to follow, and use jokes, slang and references specific to their own culture, says Chong. In emails, they use baffling abbreviations such as ‘OOO’, instead of simply saying that they will be out of the office... When a Brit reacts to a proposal by saying, “That’s interesting” a fellow Brit might recognise this as understatement for, “That’s rubbish.” But other nationalities would take the word “interesting” on face value, he says... “Too many non-Anglophones, especially the Asians and the French, are too concerned about not ‘losing face’ — and nod approvingly while not getting the message at all,” he says."

China's Alibaba in 'flying pig' controversy - "A Chinese Muslim's call for e-commerce giant Alibaba to rename one of its services because it uses the word "pig" has sparked a backlash in China. It all began when Alibaba changed the name of its popular travel booking app from Alitrip to one that means "Flying Pig" in Chinese. Its English name is Fliggy... "But now that Alitrip has changed its name to Flying Pig, I can only uninstall it, and maybe all my Muslim friends too, because the word "pig" is taboo to Muslims all over the world. Alibaba is an international corporation, could it take Muslim taboos into consideration?" he said. His post quickly sparked condemnation and ridicule from other Chinese online, with some asking if this meant China had to expunge all references to pigs in popular culture and literature... The visceral pushback stems from the fact that the pig occupies an important place in Chinese culture."
In other places, things would've gone quite differently

VR Headsets Blamed for Spread of Eye Herpes

Why this local poet doesn't want to be called Indian Singaporean - "I don’t like being called Indian Singaporean. Why do you need to qualify that I’m an Indian Singaporean? Why is Chinese the Times New Roman of what Singaporean means?"
But Chinese Singaporeans call themselves that all the time

Man charged with harassing female students - "Earlier this year, Fong Poh Kuen was charged in court with several offences, including harassing two girls near Saint Andrew's Junior College by videotaping them with his mobile phone... he went to a bus stop on Stevens Road near Raffles Girls' School (Secondary) and allegedly caused annoyance by taking pictures of female students there with his mobile phone. For allegedly doing so, Fong, who has six earlier charges, was charged yesterday with one count of being a public nuisance. He was charged in court earlier this year with one count each of criminal trespass, insulting a woman's modesty, trespassing into a school compound without a satisfactory excuse and causing annoyance. He is also accused of two counts of harassment."
Try charging a man who sexually assaults a boy under 377A and see what happens
Comment: "whoa,taking videos of the public is illegal?or is it just cos theyre females?"

Where can I meet young single women in Singapore? - Quora - "The older ones… esp if beautiful.. all taken if not they are complicated or have personality disorders…"

The ruthlessly effective rebranding of Europe’s new far right - "Finkielkraut, a 67-year-old Jewish liberal, is not an admirer of the Front National, but Marine Le Pen’s deliberate appeals to Jews and gay people have given political expression to an argument that he first made more than a decade ago – that the left, with its indulgence of Islam, poses a greater threat to France than the far right. After Chirac “saved” the republic from Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2002, Finkielkraut watched the celebrations in the streets and warned that the victors were the real danger: “The future of hate is in their camp and not in the camp of those nostalgic for Vichy,” he wrote, “ … in the camp of the multicultural society and not that of the ethnic nation – in the camp of respect, not that of rejection.” Fourteen years later, after the terrorist attacks on Charlie Hebdo, the Bataclan and Nice, Finkielkraut is even more certain he was correct. “Anti-racism today frequently serves as a pretext for not seeing the true danger that threatens us,” he told me when we met in his Paris apartment this summer. While he is still no fan of the FN, he believes it has changed and argues that it “should be resisted, but for what it is today and not what it was in the past, and not in the name of anti-fascism”. The French must, he insisted, “avoid simplistic analogies with the 1930s. We must not mistake what era we live in. Europe doesn’t only have demons; it also has enemies, and it needs to know how to fight those enemies.” He worries that integration has been such a failure that France will have to “reconquer” its “lost territories” – by which he means the suburbs surrounding Paris. “Integrating people is not telling them ‘You are how you are and we are how we are’ … Integration means making them an integral part of our civilisation.” And if that doesn’t happen, he warned darkly, “at best we’ll have secession and at worst civil war”. Continued immigration from Muslim countries, he argues, is nothing less than the “planned demise of Europe”... Whereas young Britons overwhelmingly voted to remain in the EU and the elderly voted to leave, in France it is the opposite... There are also many disappointed progressives – the people who saw the cultural victories of the 1960s and 1970s as major battles that had long since been won, making sexual freedom, feminism and gay rights an unquestioned part of Dutch society. Suddenly those old victories seem tenuous. “There is a sense that, ‘We are welcoming and then they do this,’ says Bas Heijne. “They have been terribly let down in their good intentions.” And in such an environment, traditionally leftist constituencies such as gay people and Jews feel threatened – and some have become reflexively suspicious of Muslims."
Calling them far right is like calling the PAP socialist because it started as a socialist party and subsidises healthcare
Branding non-liberals "far right" is one reason more and more people are supporting "far right" parties

Women could conceive at their desks thanks to new fertility pump that 'might be as successful as IVF'

Under attack | The Economist - "Intolerance among Western liberals also has wholly unintended consequences. Even despots know that locking up mouthy but non-violent dissidents is disreputable. Nearly all countries have laws that protect freedom of speech. So authoritarians are always looking out for respectable-sounding excuses to trample on it. National security is one. Russia recently sentenced Vadim Tyumentsev, a blogger, to five years in prison for promoting “extremism”, after he criticised Russian policy in Ukraine. “Hate speech” is another. China locks up campaigners for Tibetan independence for “inciting ethnic hatred”; Saudi Arabia flogs blasphemers; Indians can be jailed for up to three years for promoting disharmony “on grounds of religion, race...caste...or any other ground whatsoever”. The threat to free speech on Western campuses is very different from that faced by atheists in Afghanistan or democrats in China. But when progressive thinkers agree that offensive words should be censored, it helps authoritarian regimes to justify their own much harsher restrictions and intolerant religious groups their violence. When human-rights campaigners object to what is happening under oppressive regimes, despots can point out that liberal democracies such as France and Spain also criminalise those who “glorify” or “defend” terrorism, and that many Western countries make it a crime to insult a religion or to incite racial hatred."

NC State: America 'Land of Opportunity' Is Microaggression - "A “microaggression tool” published by North Carolina State University’s faculty ombuds informs the school’s employees that phrases such as “America is a land of opportunity” or “I believe the most qualified person should get the job,” are “microaggressions” and shouldn’t be used... The phrase “America is a melting pot” is another example microaggression, listed under the theme of “color blindness.” So too is the phrase “There is only one race, the human race.” According to the tool, these microaggressions contain the hidden “message” of “Denying the significance of a person of color’s racial/ethnic experience and history.” The tool was adapted from Derald Wing Sue’s 2010 book “Microaggressions in Everyday Life.” In the book, Sue claimed that a hypothetical “friendly neighbor” wishing a Jewish woman “Merry Christmas” would be a clear microaggression. Sue also called it ironic that “hate crimes are illegal, but microaggressions are not!”"

Groom shocked to find out that his 'pregnant bride' was actually a man - "He revealed to police that in more than a year he had managed to defraud a total of 11 boyfriends out of hundreds of thousands of RMB with only one reporting him to police."

The Islamic State feeds off Western Islamophobia - "“The Islamic State brand is empowering. It tells you you’re a victim and offers a license for revenge. And, through social media, it offers you celebrity, a chance to be somebody rather than nobody. Anyone who thinks a theological argument could counter this is simply naive.” "
Maybe the better moral is that identity politics and the politics of grievance are driving IS - so obsessing about "Islamophobia" is the problem

The horrors of hiring: Asia agency bosses on interviews gone wrong - "Interviewer: Well, what is important to you… when you think of your life what things do you want most or what values do you hold most important?
Candidate: I never do it on the first date.
Interviewer (after a bewildered pause): Sorry? What?
Candidate: But I do do it on the second date."

Beijing urges couples not to wear shorts when applying for marriage licenses, because it could lead to divorce

Newlywed couple spends wedding night copying Communist constitution, netizens' suspicions aroused

For a happier life, give up Facebook, study says - "After a week, those people who hadn't been on Facebook said they were more satisfied with their lives, with 88 percent of them describing themselves as "happy" compared with 81 percent from the second group."

The Triumphant Rise of the Shitpic - "Shitpics happen when an image is put through some diabolical combination of uploading, screencapping, filtering, cropping, and reuploading. They are particularly popular on Instagram"

Meet The Woman With The Best Bum In Brazil - "Cortez said she put a lot of effort into training her body before the BumBum parade, which has been happening for the past five years"

Guy Goes To Mexico To Kill Himself, Spends Week Doing Coke And Banging Hookers, Decides To Keep Living

Turned on by images of vomit and faeces, man tricked 13 young boys to take laxative pills

Why We Are Attracted to Deviant Personalities - "both males and females who were pathologically reckless and impetuous attracted more short-term partners than participants with average personalities. And obsessive-compulsive males—but not females—were successful at securing long-lasting mates, an outcome strongly associated with this group’s high income (obsessive-compulsives made nearly twice as much as the less obsessive study participants), Gutiérrez says. The study results also revealed that neurotic females were more likely to be in lasting relationships. The most neurotic female participants had 34 percent more long-term mates and 73 percent more children than average despite exhibiting a trait typically associated with instability, anxiousness and insecurity, he explains. According to Gutiérrez their results provide the first solid evidence that some personality disorders, rather than illnesses, could be sexually selected evolutionary strategies... Gutiérrez says he once asked a patient why he married a neurotic woman. The man responded: “Me gusta por que es muy mujer” (I like her because she is “very woman”), an answer that may reveal a link between gender differences and stereotypes, says Löckenhoff. “The literature on gender differences suggests that, on average, women are slightly higher in neuroticism than men. Thus, some men could interpret high levels of negative emotionality in a mate as a sign of femininity”

Free Hugs? Let's Try Free Slaps Instead!

The Roots Of Infidelity: Surprising Genetic And Financial Factors Link To Cheating - "Does cheating run in families? Is infidelity, in fact, genetic? A recent study of 7,378 Finnish people between the ages of 18 and 49 uncovered a genetic component to bed-hopping. Surprisingly, the researchers found a link between specific mutations of a receptor gene for vasopressin and infidelity in women... but not men... While dependence breeds fidelity in women, the opposite is true for men. Stay-at-home dads and other men who are completely dependent on their wives’ income are a whopping five times more likely to cheat than men who contribute an equal amount of money to the shared kitty. At the same time, men earning significantly more than their partners also are more likely to stray from the marriage bed."