Links - 17th April 2017 (1)

Radiant Material: A Dialogue in Vietnamese Lacquer Painting | National Gallery Singapore - "This exhibition invites you to experience the beauty and versatility of Vietnamese lacquer painting through the work of two artists—one modern and one contemporary—who have each contributed strongly to the development of this unique art form. Nguyen Gia Tri was a Vietnamese artist known for his innovative use of lacquer in the 1930s as an expressive medium for modern painting. In a special commission for National Gallery Singapore, contemporary artist Phi Phi Oanh responds to Nguyen Gia Tri''s monumental 1936 painting Les Fées (The Fairies). She uses lacquer painting to explore the way we view images today, as fleeting, virtual and interactive"
So there's "modern" art and "contemporary" art. In 50 years will the latter become the former?

Human Ears Can Hear Better-Than-CD Quality (Just Barely) - "Listeners can tell the difference between CD-quality music and better-than-CD quality—but only if they train their ears first"

BLAIRE WHITE 💋 on Twitter: "No one will ever be able to defeat this level of virtue signalling https://t.co/7svaLIK4Sm" - "No one will ever be able to defeat this level of virtue signalling
Feminists. Atheist. Vegan. Naturist. Ecologist. Queer. Slut. Pansexual. Gender Non-Binary."

Forget maid cafes! Lift weights and get jacked with cute girls at a MAID GYM instead【Video】

In defence of Melania Trump - "She is the first First Lady to have been born in a communist country; only the second to have born abroad. She speaks six languages: Slovene, English, French, Serbo-Croat, German and Italian. Like Michelle Obama, she comes from a firmly working class background: she grew up in a housing block in Slovenia. As any woman would, she has smartened up her clothes since her husband started campaigning for high office. Melania did not choose this life: the President of the United States was not who she signed up to marry. She has, at times over the last twelve months, looked overwhelmed and frightened. She has publicly expressed her reservations about the new life being thrust upon her. She has even decided to stay on in New York, rather than move to Washington, so that her and Trump’s son, Barron, can continue his education uninterrupted. Clearly, then, she is a woman who values her child’s education and stability over her husband’s career. She has been nothing but gracious to the Obamas, yesterday presenting Michelle with a large gift box from Tiffany’s... If you march for women, you march for all women. Not just those whose husbands you agree with"

America, You Look Like an Arab Country Right Now - "During the campaign we were surprised to learn of the influence that the head of the American mukhabarat (state security, i.e. your FBI) can wield over the election process, simply by choosing to pursue a certain line of investigation. As you may know, this has been a constant feature of our politics since independence. Our surprise turned to astonishment when we started to witness the blossoming feud between the then-president-elect and the American mukhabarat, another important feature of Arab politics"

This Tweet From One Women’s March Organizer Shows How NUTS The Left's Worldview Is - ""10 weeks of PAID maternity leave in Saudi Arabia. Yes PAID. And ur worrying about women driving. Puts us to shame."
If you wonder why hundreds of thousands of women declared themselves “brave” for marching in favor of taxpayer-funded contraception while doing nothing for women abroad who live in abysmal circumstances, this would be it: a complete lack of perspective. Perhaps one reason that Saudi Arabia is happy to pay for “maternity leave” is because they bribe their citizens not to rebel against the autocratic regime through massive welfare payments; perhaps another reason is because the government wants to encourage women to stay home rather than working"

No woman will ever be truly satisfied on Valentines day because no man will ever have a chocolate penis that ejaculates money. | Valentine's Day Ecard

Migrant Gang Rapes Woman In Sweden And Broadcasts It On Facebook Live - "On the Internet forum Flashback identified a group of men with Middle Eastern background out of rape. The men filmed themselves before and during the assault and sent all of it live via the Facebook group “The largest group without rules”... Hultin says that those who carried out the rape is “new Swedes” while the woman they raped is Swedish. I got notified under document other that they are Armenians, so I do not know if they are Arabs. They were Christian Armenians but they are from such places and their strange views on women, he says."
Infowars says that one is called Emil Khodagholi

Turkish airport billboard warns of Sweden 'rape danger' - ""Travel warning! Do you know that Sweden has the highest rape rate worldwide?" read the large advert, which was put on display on Thursday next to a moving walkway in the departures section of Ataturk Airport's international terminal... Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters on Monday that Turkey had summoned Sweden's ambassador to protest comments from Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom regarding Turkish legislation on sexual abuse of children. "(The) Turkish decision to allow sex with children under 15 must be reversed. Children need more protection, not less, against violence, sex abuse," Wallstrom had written on Twitter."

Turkish woman dies after mother douses air-conditioning unit with bleach during clean - "when his wife was eventually released from hospital, he no longer recognised her"

Student changes his name by deed poll because it is cheaper than changing his Ryanair booking - "Adam Armstrong, 19, had booked a holiday to Ibiza with his girlfriend, India Lomas. The mistake came about when India’s step father accidentally booked the flight with the budget airline under the name ‘Adam West’. The teenager says that Ryanair asked him to fork out £220 to change his details- double the price of the actual flight... Changing his name was free and the new passport was just £103- a fraction of what Ryanair were charging. A spokesperson for Ryanair said: “Customers are asked to ensure that the details they enter at the time of booking are correct before completing their booking and we offer a 24 hour ‘grace period’ to correct minor booking errors. “A name change fee is charged in order to discourage and prevent unauthorised online travel agents from ‘screenscraping’ Ryanair’s cheapest fares and reselling them on to unwitting consumers at hugely inflated costs.”"

Penis size does matter - in the locker room at least - "penis size matters to athletes in the locker room, who he argues idolise teammates with bigger penises. However, if a teammate’s member is considered too large it arouses suspicion from others over whether it could actually be used sexually... Penis size also provided the basis for jokes and nicknames among teammates, he said, who would continue this banter outside of the locker room and into social situations... Dr Morriss-Roberts wrote: "In the thesis I argue that a large penis is now an essential component of hegemonic masculinity, and should be considered a new tenet of masculine capital - taking into account the significance it has on social hierarchy in the sporting environment. I have called this cock-supremacy.""

People who post their fitness routine to Facebook have psychological problems, study claims - "People who are always keen on documenting their gym activities (or every time you simply go for a good, old-fashioned run) tend to be narcissists. According to the researchers, the primary goal is to boast about how much time you invest in your looks. Apparently, these status updates also earn more Facebook likes than other kinds of posts... "although our results suggest that narcissists' bragging pays off because they receive more likes and comments to their status updates, it could be that their Facebook friends politely offer support while secretly disliking such egotistical displays.""

Vida Rz - An actual exchange b/w my friend, a psychology... - "An actual exchange b/w my friend, a psychology professor, and his post modern-marxist-feminist student:
Student to prof: “ Female egg cells are larger and fewer than male sperm because of the patriarchy.”
Prof: “Then why is it the case in virtually every animal?”
Student: “Because sexual dimorphism is entirely the result of discrimination.”
Prof: “What about the fact that females in most cultures around the world prefer males with resources?”
Student: “Patriarchy”"

A Princeton psychology professor has posted his CV of failures online - "Johannes Haushofer, a princeton professor of Psychology and Public Affairs, posted a CV of failures in an attempt to “balance the record” and “provide some perspective”... Our setbacks are “invisible” but they happen much more often than our successes, he argues... “This darn CV of failures has received way more attention than my entire body of academic work”"

Why can't a man be more like a woman? Sex differences in Big Five personality traits across 55 cultures. - "Previous research suggested that sex differences in personality traits are larger in prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities equal with those of men. In this article, the authors report cross-cultural findings in which this unintuitive result was replicated across samples from 55 nations (N = 17,637). On responses to the Big Five Inventory, women reported higher levels of neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness than did men across most nations. These findings converge with previous studies in which different Big Five measures and more limited samples of nations were used. Overall, higher levels of human development--including long and healthy life, equal access to knowledge and education, and economic wealth--were the main nation-level predictors of larger sex differences in personality. Changes in men's personality traits appeared to be the primary cause of sex difference variation across cultures. It is proposed that heightened levels of sexual dimorphism result from personality traits of men and women being less constrained and more able to naturally diverge in developed nations. In less fortunate social and economic conditions, innate personality differences between men and women may be attenuated"
Building on the finding that more gender equality leads to men and women being more different, this finding that men's personality traits change more across cultures suggests that contrary to feminist claims, women aren't actually very oppressed by "patriarchy"

Kenji Wardenclyffe closes business after photographing Safe Schools’ Roz Ward harassing bystander - "A PHOTOGRAPHER who snapped controversial Safe Schools founder Roz Ward harassing a bystander at an anti-Donald Trump rally in Melbourne earlier this month has been forced to shut down his business after receiving “threats”... The La Trobe academic is the architect of the controversial Safe Schools anti-bullying program, which has come under fire from politicians and parents for promoting radical gender theory. The federal government announced sweeping changes to the program earlier this year after an independent review found some of the lessons and content inappropriate for children. The Victorian government refused to comply with the changes... "I cannot take sides or censor, it goes against my journalist ethics (to remain impartial at all costs)""
Apparently it's okay to bully Trump supporters and those who document such bullying

Millennials, ignore career advice to find 'truly energising and satisfying' work - "His first tip is to choose “something you find truly energising and satisfying”. This sounds okay, but there are three things wrong with it. It is vapid — no one would recommend a job that was enervating and frustrating. Second, it is unhelpful, as when you are in your twenties, it is hard to know if you are going to find a job satisfying until you have tried it. Third, it sets expectations far too high. Even the best jobs are only intermittently energising or satisfying. For a lot of the time, they are boring or frustrating, or both. The gap between expectation and reality is the biggest problem for millennials, and Mr Lesser ought not to widen it... In deciding to go for P&G and then BCG, Mr Lesser drew up spreadsheets — only, in the end, to go with his heart. I did no such thing. I went for JPMorgan and later for the FT because they were the only companies offering me a job. It seemed a great reason to pick them then. It is still a great reason today.“

Deconstructed coffee latest Melbourne hipster trend - "MELBOURNE has taken hipsterism too far. We know it’s part of the city’s DNA. We can handle the beards and the smashed avo on sourdough but the latest cafe trend is pushing it. Cafes are starting to sell deconstructed coffee. Yes, you heard that correctly. It is served on a paddle (of course), in three separate cups — one with espresso, one with milk and one with water."

Police constable shows judge “how grenade works” inside courtroom, three injured – Daily Pakistan - "A hand grenade exploded inside courtroom in Karachi’s Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) after a judge asked a police constable if he knew how grenades worked. The constable, instead of explaining his expertise in weapons and grenade handling to the judge, opted to demonstrate practically by promptly pulling out the pin from the grenade"

Man shielding wife with shumagh makes waves on social media - Saudi Gazette - "The man took off his headscarf and covered the window glass where his wife was sitting to shield her view from other male diners... Others looked at the matter from a different angle and said the photo was the evidence of a bigger problem from which Saudi society suffers from. They said photographing people in their intimate moments is a violation of their privacy."

Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB) - Timeline - " "What an utter disgrace the BBC is. They do a section on the #exMuslimBecause campaign and guess what? 90% of it is not on ex-Muslims, but on Muslims. How they are persecuted, how they are attacked. How Islamophobia is affecting them. How this campaign has "unfortunate timing" (because of the refugee crisis and Paris apparently) and is full of "vitriol" Guess who gets most of the airtime on the programme? Yes, a Muslim who goes by the name of Mobin Nazar... Do you see what the BBC just did? They took this wonderful campaign and turned it into a piece of an attack on Muslims, reinforcing any idiotic stereotype and smear about ex-Muslims that Islamists and their apologists have ever come up with."

Islamic State is a bit player in a much bigger fight - "IS isn't a player. It's the Middle East's illegitimate child: a byproduct of the power vacuums of a broken region. It exists because it gets lost amid the much bigger fights going on around it – you know, between armies that actually have planes to shoot down. And you can do what you will to IS. Until those bigger fights are somehow resolved, there will always be a byproduct."

Men eat 93% more pizza around women they want to impress - "Previous research has suggested that in comparison, women eat less in the company of men. But the ladies in the Cornell study noshed the same amount when eating with men as they did with other women. They reported feeling like they overate while out with the guys, however, or complained they were more rushed through their meal than when they were on a girls’ night out - even though neither was necessarily true."