Links - 1st August 2017 (2)

6 Things You Never Knew About Cooking Onboard A Cruise Ship - "It is also important to stock up certain items based on the demographics of guests on-board. For instance, guests from UK usually prefer lamb, while Americans prefer beef and Chinese guests like pork dishes. As fire is a major safety hazard on-board every ship, kitchen equipment is limited to electric stoves and ovens. But that doesn't mean the chefs at Harmony restaurant are unable to recreate wok hei, a key hallmark of Cantonese cooking. Getting the wok hot enough on an induction stove (watch for it to start smoking), for instance, can come very close to recreating that charred flavour. It also means chefs put more emphasis on creating deeply-flavoured soups and tasty sauces used in the dishes... When the ship does not dock at a port to stock up on new supplies, vegetables are slow-cooked or pureed and enhanced with butter and herbs."

These are the original pneumatic zoom tubes hidden beneath New York and London - "there are stories of workers from downtown ordering sandwiches from a deli up in the Bronx and receiving them via pneumatic tube within 20 minutes."

Mexican Tarahumara woman wins 50km race wearing sandals - "María Lorena Ramírez defeated 500 other runners from 12 countries in the female category of the Ultra Trail Cerro Rojo in Puebla, in central Mexico. She ran without any professional gear, and her pair of sandals was reportedly made from recycled tyre rubber. The Tarahumara are famous for being excellent runners."

New ‘Social Justice’ Math Class Teaches Kids That Math Is Evil, Dehumanizing - "Teach for America thinks that language is "social justice," and has designed a course that makes some startling claims about math. "In western mathematics, our ways of knowing include formalized reasoning or proof, decontextualization, and algorithmic thinking, leaving little room for those having non-western mathematical skills and thinking processes," the training course claims."
Maybe this is why (some) minorities are underrepresented in STEM - because they're taught math is evil

A new academic hoax: a bogus paper on “the conceptual penis” gets published in a “high quality peer-reviewed” social science journal - "over the past 21 years since Sokal’s hoax, the social sciences remain rife with obscurantist nonsense—an academic miasma. Of course, not all people or areas in social science or the humanities are full of such nonsense, but cultural studies, including women’s studies, are particularly prone to the toxic combination of jargon and ideology that makes for such horrible “scholarship.”"
A lot of people claim it's a pay to publish journal, but Cogent Social Sciences is peer reviewed

Unconventional sexual relationships: Data about German women ages 50 to 91 years - "For older women there is a shortage of single male partners in the same age group... 4% (18%) of the interviewees had a relationship with a man younger than themselves, and 1% (4%) had a lesbian relationship. Of those living as singles, 8% were having an affair with a married man (21% had one while living as a single). Although relationships with married men occurred most often, attitudes towards relationships with married men were mostly negative. Feelings about relationships with younger men and other women were ambivalent."

Sexuality and Affection among Elderly German Men and Women in Long-Term Relationships: Results of a Prospective Population-Based Study - "When measured at age 74, affection was given a higher priority than sexual activity. Although men and women reported similar priorities, sexual activity and affection were more important for men than for women. Satisfaction within the relationship can be predicted by the importance of affection, but not by that of sexual activity. Our results confirm the thesis of the ‘second language of sexuality’: for humans in their later years affection seems to be more important than for younger individuals."

History of Sex and Sexuality from 1920 to 1951 - "1930s An underground amusement called le cirque erotique--the erotic circus--flourished in Paris. Nude women bicycled speedily around an indoor track while spectators bet on which cyclist would reach orgasm first from the rubbing of clitoris against bicycle seat.
1946 Charging Kathleen Winsor's Forever Amber with being obscene, the state of Massachusetts made an attempt to ban its sale. Attorney General George Rowell supported his request for the ban by charging that the novel contained the following: 70 references to sexual intercourse; 39 illegitimate pregnancies; 7 abortions; 10 descriptions of women dressing, undressing, or bathing in the presence of gentlemen; 5 references to incest; 13 references ridiculing marriage; 49 "miscellaneous objectionable passages." Afterwards, one radio comedian was censored for suggesting that Miss Winsor should have called her book Forever Under.
1951 A nationwide census in India indicated there were nearly 3 million husbands and more than 6 million wives between 5 and 14 years old"

Black Privilege - "Andrea's rendition of the events reminded me of those angerfests that were popular in the '70s. Back then, people would pay to be in encounter groups, where they'd holler and smack each other with foam bats. The idea was that by releasing anger, everyone would feel better. But guess what the research eventually found? By raging at another person (whether he deserves it or not), our anger doesn't dissipate; it grows. And the deleterious effects are not just emotional. Blood pressure rises and muscle tension increases, promoting hypertension and musculoskeletal pain."
Grievance/victim culture actually harms those it purports to defend

French Cheesemakers Crippled by EU Health Measures - "Unpasteurised milk, which gives a unique earth-and-fruit flavour, has been gradually marginalised on false public health pretexts after intense lobbying by the food processing industry, to the detriment of the consumer but the incalculable advantage of those producing cheese made with pasteurised milk. The latter will last up to a month on the supermarket shelf, while many made with raw milk – such as fresh goat’s cheese – are unlikely to be edible after more than 10 days... The slithery slide of French gastronomy is in no way confined to the fate of its once mighty national cheese trolley. In the past 10 years, at least half of the country’s artisans-boulangers have stopped baking the croissants and viennoiseries that they sell. These products, far from being home-baked, are mass manufactured, ­frozen, delivered and sold at an enormous mark-up, making it almost impossible for the genuine corner shop baker to compete... perhaps the crowning inglory is the French restaurant, where an estimated 70% of outlets now serve up microwaved meals bought from industrial caterers."

What I Gained When I Lost My Religion - "I give credit where credit is due, both to others and to myself. Like the preceding two, I think this makes me a healthier person than before. If someone does something good, I do not thank God for it. I thank the person who actually did it. They deserve credit for the things that they do. Doctors, for example, must get really tired of hearing people give God credit when their surgical/medical skills and learning are what saved a person’s life"

"Religion Thing Cannot Touch" - "When religion enters the equation, in Singapore, we often find ourselves unable to disentangle the real issues and engage in constructive discussion. Sincerity is absent if honesty and openness must be checked in at the door when religious matters are to be discussed. It does not help when the Government and authorities choose softly-softly approaches to problem-solving when religion is involved as it only entrenches existing attitudes and behaviours and sends the wrong signals to the impressionable in society. It also emboldens those who know that playing the religion card often puts a stop to conversations"

Shenzhen workers create 'Clothes-off Challenge' in response to 'Ice Bucket Challenge'

What French Kids Eat For School Lunch (It Puts Americans To Shame!) - "Almost all foods are prepared right in the kitchen; they’re not ready-made frozen. This means mashed potatoes, most desserts, salads, soups, and certainly the main dishes are prepared daily. Treats are included — the occasional slice of tarte, a dollop of ice cream, a delicacy from the local pastry shop"

No, There Is Not A Brazilian Town Full Of Women Seeking Single Men - "Upon further investigation, BBC Brazil determined that the town was not a real life Amazon tribe hungry for men. Noiva Do Cordeiro resident Rosalee Belies Fernandes, who allegedly was the person who said they needed bachelors, claimed that their was no such campaign and the situation is "absurd.""

This app wants to invest your 'spare change' so you'll actually be able to retire - "The app links to any credit or debit card and automatically rounds up purchases to the nearest full dollar, investing the rounded-up cents into a portfolio of index funds"

Japan Has Its Own Batman, And He Is So Awesome

The truth about the Ice Bucket Challenge: Viral memes shouldn't dictate our charitable giving - "With ALS, he said that $56,000 would provide one quality-adjusted life year to a sufferer. On the other hand, he said, "the same amount of money could provide 500 quality-adjusted life years if you give money to bed nets for malaria.""

Only women need apply: ARTC gets permission to target women for rail jobs - "The Australian Rail Track Corporation has been given permission to hire only women for track maintenance roles across Newcastle and the Hunter Valley... It has obtained permission from the Anti-Discrimination Board to specifically target women for some current vacancies, based in Muswellbrook, Scone, Maitland and Newcastle."
Would they do the same if men were underrepresented?

Swedish social experiment highlights the benefits of a six-hour work day - "At Gothenburg’s Svartedalens care home, the standard of care increased when nurses switched to a six-hour day... Gothenburg is not the first to discover that shorter hours can lead to improved work performance. Last year, Stanford economist John Pencavel proved (pdf) that output does not proportionally increase with each additional hour worked. In fact, above a certain number of hours, he found, work output begins to rise more slowly. British employees work more than French or German employees, but produce, on average, 27% to 31% less than their continental colleagues"

Tokyo’s labyrinthine Shibuya Station becomes a literal RPG dungeon in free smartphone game - "UeharaLabo claims that the game’s map is an accurate recreation of the entire Shibuya Station layout, although the real thing doesn’t have quite as many walls of spikes and wandering ghosts as the video game version"

SNP back prostitution law changes condemned by sex workers - "“The criminalisation of clients has been shown time and time again to make sex workers more vulnerable to violence, as interactions with clients have to become more rushed and clandestine – a gift to people with violent intentions. "Indeed, we already have evidence of this happening in Scotland – in 2008, the prostitution in public places act criminalised the clients of street-based sex workers, and SCOT-PEP saw a 50 per cent increase in violence against street-based sex workers within just the first six months of the law."

Triple talaq not integral part of the religion: Centre in Supreme Court - "The government maintained that triple talaq and polygamy impacted a woman’s status and her right to live with confidence and dignity, and added that they were not protected under Article 25 of the Constitution, which guaranteed immunity to practices essential or integral to the religion... The Muslim Personal Law Board, in its reply to the petitions, had defended the validity of triple talaq saying that if the practice is discontinued, a man could murder or burn his wife alive to get rid of her."

Dear Shashi Tharoor, the fault was not in the Raj, but in ourselves - "The British didn’t come to conquer India; it was a creeping takeover facilitated and encouraged by Indians. Gujarat was relieved when the British finally protected them from the excesses of the Marathas (who still squat on Baroda) and the incompetence of the Mughal rump. It was the Oswal Jains who financed and executed Robert Clive’s win at Plassey. They did so because the Mughal governors there were in power but incapable of leading them, even if they were not foreign... The fact is that the Indian army has historically been an army of mercenaries that became a national army overnight on August 15, 1947. It has zero history of fighting for national causes, only ever for money... If the British failed to govern India well it is because India is ungovernable. They did as good a job as might be expected of colonialists and have little to apologize for. Under the British, India’s population quadrupled for the first time in the 19th century (having only doubled each century before that according to the economist Angus Maddison). That is in my opinion purely down to Pax Britannica, the peace ensured by the Raj’s monopoly over violence"

A Dust Over India - "Indians will rarely, if ever, resort to violence. As a foreigner, you never have to worry about being robbed, or having a knife pulled on you, or getting beaten up by a gang of thugs and having your kidney carved out of you. And this is true. I’ve been to many shady parts of the world. But never did I once feel unsafe in India. Even late at night. But, Sanjay said, an Indian will lie to your face. He’ll say anything to get what he wants from you. And most of them don’t see it as immoral or wrong. So on the one hand, they won’t stick a gun in your face to take your wallet. But they’ll hand you fake business cards and offer to sell you something that they don’t actually have, so that you’ll voluntarily empty your wallet to them on your own accord... I learned long ago the perfect remedy to street touts: iPod + sunglasses. Crank that shit up to 10 and just keep walking. What you can’t hear or see can’t bother you. Would-be harassers and hagglers bounce off you like flies... There’s no single sentence for India. The place is a fucking mess. And it’s the only country that I’ve ever been to where I left more confused than when I arrived"

India: 'Walls of shame' against outdoor defecation - "Villages in the Nadia district in West Bengal are setting up "walls of shame" featuring the names and photos of people caught relieving themselves in public... while toilets have been built, persuading some people to use them is another matter"

Meepok Da's answer to What do Singaporeans think about Indians? - Quora - "We in Singapore have mixed views about Indians, from India...
1) Argumentative
They argue and argue. And argue more. Why do they always need to "win" an argument? It is not our culture to be confrontational, we can agree to be different and we will stop at that.
2) Caste System
I wish they stop bringing their superiority complex here. We do not have a caste system here like they do back in India, so stop looking down on others. And this is from my local Indian friend's mouth "I wish they stop talking down to us. Sick of all this BS!"
3) Quick to Promise, Fail to Deliver
"Yes, it can be done." "No problem, delivery time is not an issue" Sounds familiar when dealing with them? You are not alone!
4) Corrupt
Let one into a position of power, and soon his/her department are all filled with Indians...
5) Irresponsible tenants
Wonder why the landlords do not want to rent to Indians? Here's why. They mess up the house, abuse the furniture / equipment. Do not clean up their cooking mess. They promise you they would fix it before their lease ends, then they don't. And they have the cheek to come asking for their deposit after all that.
Point 5 is my personal experience. Not once but twice. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I'm sorry, but no more Indian tenants for me.
They also abuse the dependent pass system, brings their entire "clan" here, applies PR for daughters and not for sons, and talks openly about "reaping the benefits before skipping to the US of A." They are so notorious, it's a well known fact in the expat forums. And so bad, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority has to crack down on their BS and tighten the leash on Indian applications."

Worried about cellphone radiation? Apply cow dung on its back, says RSS ideologue - "Lal said that cow dung has the potential to cure any disease. He claimed that controlled intake of cow dung has kept him healthy though his age was 76. Lal added that they made pregnant women eat cow dung and urine paste to ensure a normal delivery."

Why Archeologists Hate Indiana Jones - ""True, the Nazis were trying to find the Ark of the Covenant so they could destroy the world," Canuto says. "But methodologically and legally they were in the right." Whatever you may think of evil archeologists bent on world domination, they presumably had permits to be there. And while the early days of Egyptian archeology were corrupt and exploitative, it was far better than just allowing foreign looters to run wild. Looters like Indiana Jones."

Little India COI report: Punches pulled - "So, give ‘em a break. You know, none of them had ever had to handle a riot; the frontline cops weren’t equipped nor prepared for crowds who throw stones and beer bottles. How would anyone have figured that red tape would have delayed the deployment of the riot cops? How would anyone have known that communication lines would be jammed such that the cops couldn’t talk to one another and find out what was happening in the streets of Little India or even how many cops were already there? Holding a position by lining up across key roads is really a good idea but did you know that there were so many alleyways and back streets that rioters could go through? And you would have thought the riot cops would have blared their way through traffic with sirens on, so who would have figured that they would be so late on the scene? In any case, in the half hour waiting for the calvary to arrive, all the rioters did was damage 23 emergency vehicles, including setting fire to four. Just over S$530,000 of damage caused – hey, small sum! And remember no tear gas nor water cannons used. No shots were fired.
Okay, I am being cynical but I sure hope I won’t have to hear such comments if the guys in GREEN had to go into action."