Links - 25th July 2018 (1)

Teens should have summer jobs, the less glamorous the better - "“The lessons are huge,” said Richard Weissbourd, a lecturer and researcher at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. “You see how hard people work, how rude and unthinking people can be to them.” “It’s a real lesson in how to treat people,” he added. Weissbourd, who wrote a report on how to change the college-admissions process to stem the insanity it breeds, said that many parents think that high-profile internships broaden horizons. Not so: “For many well-off kids, we are narrowing their options,” he countered. “Those are the only jobs that are elevated as having meaning.”"

The Secret Way To Win Monopoly (And Infuriate Your Friends) Every Time – Urbo - "“Most people think the objective of Ticket to Ride is to build the longest series of train lines around the map,” Hales explains. “However, this isn’t how you actually win. You win by having the most points.” Rest assured that Hales knows how to get the most points. “My strategy (which I’ll admit is wildly enraging to my family and friends) is to take as few train line cards as possible,” he says. “Instead of trying to complete long train lines, you focus on blocking choke points around the map"... A full, intact Monopoly set has 32 houses and 12 hotels, no more, no less. If all 32 houses are built, no one can build houses, unless they’re sold or converted to hotels. It’s simple supply and demand."

"My girlfriend and her ex-boyfriend are too close" - "she started to have anxiety attacks and the only person who knew how to console her was her ex-boyfriend. She would call him to come over and he would stay the night and take care of her. But then her anxiety attacks started to become frequent, so I told her ex-boyfriend that it was okay for him to sleep over, and vice versa. But now, it's become something like a secret between them because she doesn't tell me anymore. They share a bed and she doesn't see a problem with it."

MH370 mystery: Experts tell '60 Minutes' that Captain Zaharie Shaw committed suicide and mass murder - The Washington Post - "the “60 Minutes” team — which included aviation specialists, the former Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief in charge of investigating MH370's crash, and an oceanographer — put forth what they believe is the most likely theory."
Addendum: In light of this, TRIBUTE: Who exactly is Malaysia Airlines Captain Zaharie Shah of MH370? (which seems to have been taken down in 2015) is, as I noted, "very naively and parochially Malaysian"

Opinion | Liberals, You’re Not as Smart as You Think - The New York Times - "a backlash against liberals — a backlash that most liberals don’t seem to realize they’re causing — is going to get President Trump re-elected. People often vote against things instead of voting for them... At the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, the comedian Michelle Wolf landed some punch lines that were funny and some that weren’t. But people reacted less to her talent and more to the liberal politics that she personified. For every viewer who loved her Trump bashing, there seemed to be at least one other put off by the one-sidedness of her routine. Then, when Kanye West publicly rethought his ideological commitments, prominent liberals criticized him for speaking on the topic at all. Maxine Waters, a Democratic congresswoman from California, remarked that “sometimes Kanye West talks out of turn” and should “maybe not have so much to say.” Liberals dominate the entertainment industry, many of the most influential news sources and America’s universities. This means that people with progressive leanings are everywhere in the public eye... These platforms come with a lot of power to express values, confer credibility and celebrity and start national conversations that others really can’t ignore. But this makes liberals feel more powerful than they are. Or, more accurately, this kind of power is double-edged. Liberals often don’t realize how provocative or inflammatory they can be. In exercising their power, they regularly not only persuade and attract but also annoy and repel. In fact, liberals may be more effective at causing resentment than in getting people to come their way... the “army of comedy” that Michael Moore thought would bring Mr. Trump down will instead be what builds him up in the minds of millions of voters... Racist is pretty much the most damning label that can be slapped on anyone in America today, which means it should be applied firmly and carefully. Yet some people have cavalierly leveled the charge against huge numbers of Americans — specifically, the more than 60 million people who voted for Mr. Trump... Some liberals have gotten far out ahead of their fellow Americans but are nonetheless quick to criticize those who haven’t caught up with them... It’s one thing to police your own language and a very different one to police other people’s. The former can set an example. The latter is domineering.This judgmental tendency became stronger during the administration of President Barack Obama... Feeling increasingly emboldened, liberals were more convinced than ever that conservatives were their intellectual and even moral inferiors... Self-righteousness is rarely attractive, and even more rarely rewarded... it would be a leap to say that anyone who supported Hillary Clinton was racist because she once made veiled references to “superpredators.”"

Alexa and Siri Can Hear This Hidden Command. You Can’t. - The New York Times - "they can send hidden commands that are undetectable to the human ear to Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant. Inside university labs, the researchers have been able to secretly activate the artificial intelligence systems on smartphones and smart speakers, making them dial phone numbers or open websites. In the wrong hands, the technology could be used to unlock doors, wire money or buy stuff online — simply with music playing over the radio... researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign demonstrated ultrasound attacks from 25 feet away. While the commands couldn’t penetrate walls, they could control smart devices through open windows from outside a building. This year, another group of Chinese and American researchers from China’s Academy of Sciences and other institutions, demonstrated they could control voice-activated devices with commands embedded in songs that can be broadcast over the radio or played on services like YouTube."

Huda Kattan: Blogger’s vagina whitening post slammed
Female empowerment means you're not allowed to let people know how to do something they want to their body. Except presumably if they want to be fat, then that's fabulous

AirAsia shares tumble after Tony Fernandes apologises for backing Najib - "AirAsia shares fell as much as 10 per cent... Fernandes said the video and campaign-themed livery was an effort to appease Najib's government after he came under"intense" pressure in the lead-up to elections for adding extra flights on polling day and refusing to fire a subsidiary's chairman who had expressed support for Mahathir. AirAsia had announced extra flights and reduced fares to help voters return home to cast ballots... "Within 24 hours, we were summoned by the (regulator) Malaysian Aviation Commission and told to cancel all those flights. That put us again under tremendous pressure," Fernandes said, adding that his airline had added 120 flights."
This is why most CEOs are as bland as possible

Dirty secret of black-on-Asian violence is out - "San Francisco's hidden truth is out. That's what community organizer Carol Mo calls the realization that Asian residents are being targeted for robberies, burglaries and intimidation by young black men... the response has been disappointing, particularly from the San Francisco Police Department. It seems intent on downplaying the role of race and its impact in the community... Mo participated in a 2008 survey by the Police Department in which about 300 strong-arm robberies were analyzed. "In 85 percent of the physical assault crimes, the victims were Asian and the perpetrators were African American," she said... Edward Chang, who lectures on civil unrest and race relations at UC Riverside, has studied the contentious history of Korean-African American relations in Los Angeles when Korean store owners moved into black neighborhoods. "There was this sense of being invaded by someone else," Chang said. "There was a sense of needing to protect and defend their turf."
Since Asians are now considered white, it's open season
Is white flight a response to a sense of being invaded by someone else?

Elliot Rodger's Asian Self-Hatred - "The complexities related to Elliot Rodger’s mental health are vast and speculative, but from his writings it’s clear it hinges on three prongs: race, class, and gender. Mainstream media has expounded on the class and male entitlement aspect of Rodger’s life but very little is mentioned on the racial component. If anything, it seems race is the last subject they want to address
Of course everyone only focuses on the women though he killed more Asian men than women

Dress code for lawyers: A UK guide reveals a sexist double standard
Of course Quartz ignores the fact that men but not women get docked for colourful socks, men get 2 marks deducted for their shirt's top button being undone but women are allowed to undo at least one button (and they may only be docked one point if they undo too many), that men get 2 demerit points for non-black shoes but women may wear navy too (and they may only get 1 demerit point even if they wear another colour). Maybe everything that might even conceivably disadvantage women is considered sexism

How to Lease a $50,000 BMW for Less Than a Subway Pass - "“There’s an issue of EVs being able to stand on their own in the marketplace without a credit,” said Jeff Schuster, an analyst at LMC Automotive. “To get the mass market into them, it’s got to be more cost competitive, and it’s not at this stage.”
Lack of market demand despite a small but vocal group of enthusiasts killed the electric car

This Is What Really Happens When Someone Wins A Game Show - "every penny won on a TV game show is seen as income in the eyes of the IRS, and that means that big cash windfalls are subject to big tax bills. Or, in the case of Aurora De Lucia, jettisoning the shiny new car she had won on The Price is Right. Her car was not handed over right away... she had also won a pair of HD camcorders. But, after reading online reviews of the items “and basically couldn’t find a positive one,” she decided to try to sell them. That proved more difficult than one might expect. De Lucia posted on social media, Craigslist, and eBay. “No one wanted them—no one in the world wanted these cameras. I had a couple friends who said they wouldn’t even take them for free.” Finally she was able to donate them to a worthy cause through a friend."

Humans don’t get enough sleep. Just ask other primates. - "most species get somewhere between nine and 15 hours of shut-eye daily, while humans average just seven. An analysis of several lifestyle and biological factors, however, predicts people should get 9.55 hours"

Snooze patterns vary across cultures, opening eyes to evolution of sleep - "“Contrary to conventional wisdom, people in societies without electricity do not sleep more than those in industrial societies like ours”... Hadza and Malagasy individuals often supplemented nighttime sleep with one or two daytime naps. Shut-eye breaks averaged 47.5 minutes for the Hadza and about 55 minutes for villagers. Critically, Samson says, foragers and villagers displayed more consistent daily cycles of sleep and wakefulness than are characteristic of Westerners... At night, they slept in two phases, awakening for around an hour shortly after midnight. Historical accounts describe a similar sleep pattern among Western Europeans between 500 and 200 years ago — two sleep segments, divided by a period of activity or reflection... hunter-gatherers and villagers got plenty of direct sunlight, unlike many Westerners"

What is “White” Crime? – David Shuey - "Liberals can seemingly get away with making specious points, with the mainstream media in full support screaming headlines such as “WHITE MEN HAVE COMMITTED MORE MASS SHOOTINGS THAN ANY OTHER GROUP”... few push back with a fact-based argument that “blacks commit more crime” across the board, including in mass shootings (16% of total), at a higher rate than their share of the population. Why? Fear of being called racist, I assume. It’s also the truth. So, sure, non-Hispanic whites technically commit more mass shootings than anyone else in the United States (64% of total, according to Mother Jones-data interpreted by CNN … or possibly 54% according to Mother Jones-data interpreted by Newsweek). But whites are also 5 times larger than the black population. And when it comes to all homicides and shootings, blacks actually DO surpass whites by rate (8 times more) AND sum total. But Newsweek and others have learned not to focus on those inconvenient facts in recent years as the Black Lives Matter narrative has taken solid root deep in the media landscape... 5 times more crime is directed at whites by blacks than vice versa... Yet the narrative is pushed by critical race theory professors who say “some white people will have to die” to carry out justice against “anti-black” forces. There’s many sides to this complex point, and Snopes tends to side with the professor’s arguments, arguing his words are taken out of context. Perhaps. The professor obfuscates the point that “historically” one could say lynchings are a good reason to defend oneself. Yet it’s a contemporary reality that there practically are no lynchings. Additionally, 43% of cop killers are black, but 25% of the victims of lethal force by police are black, thus making the professor’s argument a logical and irrelevant fallacy. Today, social and mainstream media erupts from a drunken white man perpetrating a hate crime murder in Kansas against another man from India, while far less attention was paid to a hate crime mass killing in Fresno in 2017 where a black man killed 3 white people (representing almost half of of the average annual hate crime killings). He was motivated by paranoid fears of the white majority threat against blacks, saying from jail to CNN, “All I knew was white supremacy has to die and the people who benefit from white supremacy … are white men.” They say he’s being checked for his mental health, but his sentiments are widespread and often heard on college campuses and social media... a black Harvard economist and MacArthur Fellowship winner showed the world that white people were more likely to be shot and killed by police than black people. Many people didn’t listen... For every 1 black person killed by police, there are another 31 blacks killed by a black person... Thus, when acclaimed writer and “public intellectual” Ta-Nehisi Coates talks about “violence against black bodies” as coming from “oppressors,” I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about."
Black lies matter

SCDF ragging rituals: From being dunked in pump wells to blanket parties - "Ragging rituals ranging from getting pushed into a pump well to being locked in a cage or being ambushed while asleep are part of a "deeply ingrained culture" at the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), despite stringent rules against the practice... On Monday (May 14), the SCDF announced that an NSF had died after being found unconscious at the bottom of a 12m-deep fire station pump well which was filled with water... The activities may also include inserting a battery into a person's anus, moving his entire locker onto the roof or locking them up in a cage... A former medic, 25, said ORD personnel would have to get an intravenous drip done by junior medics, or get soaked in water as part of their ragging ritual... Despite stringent rules against the practice, ragging remains a "deeply ingrained culture" to initiate newbies and mark milestones such as ORD or a regular's retirement, said one ex-firefighter in his late 20s. "Ragging was, and I’d like to believe still is, meant to be a good-natured way of fostering a sense of brotherhood, cohesion and team bonding amongst the firefighters""

I knew Muslims who celebrated 9/11 – 15 years on, they know how naive they were - "“The chickens are coming home to roost.” I'm ashamed to admit that many Muslims I know certainly felt that way – albeit inexcusably – as they watched the events of 9/11 unfold. And 15 years later, many observers – just as unfathomably – feel that Muslims’ own chickens have now come home to roost, in the form of Islamphobia, hate crime and bans on the burkini, teaching my community a few harsh lessons... we can’t flirt with anti-Semitism (indulging in conspiracy theories such as ‘Israel knew about 9/11’) and then complain about the effects of Islamophobia. We can’t always be the victims of society – even if, all too often, we still are... Sheikh Adel Kalbani, the former Imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca (the closest thing to a Sunni Muslim Pope) acknowledged recently that Isis takes inspiration, albeit pervertedly, from much of the Islamic teachings in the Arab world. Kalbani’s message is vital because the silent majority can no longer afford to be silent; if you can march against Salman Rushdie or Israeli collateral damage in Gaza, then you can march against extremism too... The Prophet Muhammad instructed his followers that there would be constant “Mujaddids” – renewers or reformers – for his religion"

Are Instagram Influencers Peddling Dubious Investments?

Why I Cancelled My ILP (Investment-Linked Policy) - "Divide $24,534 by $75,600 and that works out to be 32.4%. These are fixed expenses - no matter whether my policy makes money or not, the insurance company still gets paid. 32% is a LOT of money. That's like me telling someone, "hey give me your money to invest for you. Whether or not you make or lose money, you still have to pay me 1/3 of the total capital though!"... Now let's examine what happens if my policy makes a more plausible 4% p.a. instead. Since my money is growing, I should be benefiting, right? WRONG. This gets even more shocking: I get back LESS of my total capital even if my money grows at 4% p.a. To be exact, I'll stand to lose $10,447"