Links - 14th August 2018 (2)

No, 'Star Wars' Isn't Failing Because Of Hateful Trolls. It's Failing Because Kathleen Kennedy Has Done A Garbage Job. - "Calling your audience a bunch of deplorables didn’t work well for Hillary Clinton; it’s not going to work well for Disney, either. But that didn’t stop Bernardin from laying all the blame for Star Wars’ failures not at the feet of studio head Kathleen Kennedy but at the feet of the “toxic fandom.”... Why all this effort to blame the fans for the series’ troubles? Because we must never – ever, under any circumstances – blame Kathleen Kennedy. Kennedy, you see, is woke. The Lucasfilm story group is entirely female. Their goal, according to The New York Times: “They wanted to tell beautiful stories, fulfill the expectations of loyal fans and create meaningful female characters.” The Times gushes, “Today, the Lucasfilm story group is a diverse outlier in Hollywood: five of its members are people of color, and the team includes four women and seven men. … A new, unpublished analysis of Star Wars films shows striking progress in their representation of gender and race.”"

The Women Who Run the ‘Star Wars’ Universe - The New York Times - "Five days a week, in the foggy hills of San Francisco, 11 writers and artists discuss the minutiae of storm troopers. This is the Lucasfilm story group, and its members hold the keys to everything “Star Wars”... Kathleen Kennedy founded the group in 2012 when she succeeded George Lucas as president of Lucasfilm, putting Kiri Hart, a former film and TV writer, in charge of the unit. Ms. Hart’s first move was to make the story group entirely female, starting with Rayne Roberts and Carrie Beck... They wanted to tell beautiful stories, fulfill the expectations of loyal fans and create meaningful female characters... the Lucasfilm story group is a diverse outlier in Hollywood: five of its members are people of color, and the team includes four women and seven men... In addition to maintaining the continuity of the “Star Wars” universe, they aim to increase its diversity. This goal has sometimes led to struggles over their female characters."
This suggests that having all women in charge at the start might have led to bad decisions. Ironically this ties in with the liberal line that you need gender diversity for better outcomes. But since in 2017 it was more 'diverse' it might also suggest that pushing an agenda makes for a bad story
This is even more conclusive proof than "The Force is Female" T-Shirts that the new Star Wars films are indeed trying to push an agenda

How NVIDIA's Driver Installers Are Eating Up All Your Free Space - "There are actually two directories you can confidently nuke once an NVIDIA driver install is complete. The first one you probably already know:
C:\NVIDIA...
The second directory is a little hidden away, and you'll need access to the "Program Files" folder of your Windows drive. The path you want to navigate to is this one:
C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\Installer2"
Also C:\ProgramData\NVIDIA Corporation\Downloader

Opinion | The German Feminists’ Dilemma - The New York Times - "The cases have added fuel to the far right’s fiery anti-immigrant rhetoric. And it has created a dilemma for Germany’s liberal feminists... Is it even possible to defend pluralism and women’s rights at the same time in Germany today?... the narrative of a new “cultural” threat to women’s rights is spreading to the political center... Figures from Bavaria published last September show a 50 percent increase in reported cases of sexual crimes against women in the first six months of 2017. In 18 percent of those cases, the suspect was an immigrant."

Why do some job adverts put women off applying? - "A job descrittion that uses the phrase "We're looking for someone to manage a team" may seem innocuous enough. But research, based on an analysis of hundreds of millions of job ads, has shown that the word "manage" encourages more men than women to apply for the role. Changing the word to "develop" would make it more female-friendly, says Kieran Snyder, chief executive of Seattle-based Textio, an "augmented writing software" company... Textio taught her company to avoid terms such as "coding ninja" - a common phrase in Silicon Valley job ads. "These words send a message to women that these are hostile work environments for female staffers," says Ms Blanche. And the word stakeholder apparently "serves as a signal to people of colour that their contributions may not be valued", adds Ms Blanche"
If fewer men than women apply when they see "develop" (i.e. the gender disparit is dirven by men, not women), the team is already up (thus "developing" it is not the primary focus and this is false advertising) and you don't want someone who fits company culture, that is all presumably not a problem

North Korea media breaks tradition to report summit - "Citizens are traditionally told - pretty much from birth - that the United States and former colonial power Japan are the great enemies of the people of the Korean peninsula. North Korea has changed its narrative in recent months. It has been speaking of a "changed era", where old certainties are being rethought to achieve denuclearisation and peace. The country has also hyped up its intentions to develop a floundering economy."

Chris Foo - I HATE the month of Ramadan. I don't hate the culture... - "I HATE the month of Ramadan. I don't hate the culture or religion. I hate that every year during this fasting period I have to feel anxious about eating anywhere. All because I have tanned skin and look Malay... I remember one individual once shouted at me "tak Puasa ke Babi?!" And just walked away. Leaving me in complete humiliation as it left everyone staring at me like I'm some sort of fool."
Maybe some people will say that this, together with people being beaten up (or even killed) for eating during Ramadan, is why we should ban Ramadan fasting (as per their logic for banning the hijab)

The Most Successful Ethnic Group in the U.S. May Surprise You - "29 percent of Nigerian-Americans over the age of 25 hold a graduate degree, compared to 11 percent of the overall U.S. population... Traditionally, education has been at the heart of the community’s success... Anyone from the Nigerian diaspora will tell you their parents gave them three career choices: doctor, lawyer or engineer
So much for racism
Strangely this sounds like what works for Asians

University theater performance segregates whites, makes them sign 'declaration' - "A student-created dance performance at the University of Melbourne is causing an uproar as white attendees have been segregated from people of color in the theater, and they’re required to sign a “declaration” in order to gain entrance to the show. According to The Australian, Isabella Mason’s “Where I Stand” is designed to show “how indigenous people and people of colour have been excluded from society and history.” Mason admits she has “confronted” some (white) attendees at her show.. People of color get first dibs on entering the venue, while whites have to “wait outside where four dancers, who introduce themselves by their preferred pronouns, talk to them about white privilege.”"

Jack Dorsey Apologizes for Eating Chick-fil-A After Twitter Mob Attacks - "Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was attacked by a large number of users, including Soledad O’Brien, after he decided to eat at Chick-fil-A during “Pride Month.” He apologized, explaining that he “completely forgot about their background.”"

Anime featuring yakuza thugs getting gender reassignment surgeries to become idols begins in July

Race, Gender and Trump: Everything You Think You Know is Wrong - "It is truly striking that Clinton performed so poorly (in terms of vote share and turnout) considering her historic status as the first female candidate at the top of a major party ticket, and given the unending media portrayal of her opponent as a sexist, misogynist, serial harasser with a policy agenda that was just as horrible as his rhetoric. The puzzle grows all the more fascinating in light of the fact that Democrats’ vote-share among women has been consistently eroding across most midterm and general elections of the last decade (attrition mostly to third-parties)... the most decisive votes for the 2016 race came from people who had supported Barack Obama in 2012 (and often 2008 as well) but then switched to Trump. If these were people horrified by a black commander-in-chief, it is not clear why they would have voted to give him another four years to pursue his agenda (let alone have voted for him in 2008)... scholars bend over backwards trying to find ways to “prove” that Trump voters were especially racist or sexist. Such narratives may be edifying for those who count themselves among the “resistance” — however, the real-world costs of politicized research likely outweigh these emotional benefits"

Men from Mars, women from Venus: terrifying truth behind experts call for shortened work week girls - "Experts recommend that women should work shorter hours in order to compensate for the unpaid jobs they do every single day."
I'm sure people will still demand equal pay. So this will be the clearest evidence that feminists want equal pay for unequal work

Association of male circumcision with risk of prostate cancer: a meta-analysis. - "overall findings showed nonsignificant reduced risk (odds ratio (OR) 0.88, P=0.19) of PCa in circumcised men compared with uncircumcised men, obtained under heterogeneous conditions (I(2)=65%). Heterogeneity and nonsignificance were erased when the overall effect was subjected to outlier treatment and three studies omitted (OR 0.90, P=0.04, I(2)=0%). Furthermore, subgroup analysis showed significantly reduced risks in the following subgroups: (i) post-PSA testing publications (OR 0.88, P=0.01), (ii) population-based studies (OR 0.84, P=0.05), (iii) studies that collected data by personal interview (OR 0.83, P=0.03) and (iv) studies in black race (OR 0.59, P=0.02). The strengths of these summary effects lie in the robustness revealed by sensitivity analysis."

Male circumcision greatly increases risk of urinary tract problems - "The condition is called meatal stenosis and the risk of developing it is 16-26 times higher in circumcised than intact boys under the age of ten. These are the conclusions of a new study based on data from the National Patient Register, the Central Population Register, and the National Health Service Register in Denmark between 1977 and 2013... Frisch and Simonsen estimate that circumcision is responsible for at least 42 per cent of all operations for meatal stenosis and other urethral strictures in less than ten-year-old UK boys. In the US, the proportion rises to at least 78 per cent, and, in Israel, to at least 81 per cent."

Male Circumcision and the HIV/AIDS Myth - "We now know that penile cancer is only slightly more prevalent in the uncircumcised, and routine circumcision is not the best way to go about preventing it, just as routine double mastectomy in women who are done with breastfeeding (and thus have no remaining physiological need for their breasts) is not a good approach to preventing breast cancer — which is much more common than penile cancer. We also know that the human papilloma virus (HPV), which also causes genital warts, is the most important risk factor for cancer of the penis — and genital warts are more easily contracted by circumcised men. Moreover, penile cancer is much less prevalent in countries like Denmark, where circumcision is uncommon, compared to the United States, where between 50-60% of males are circumcised... how do you go about conducting a randomized, controlled intervention trial looking at HIV infection in circumcised adult men? Probably not the way that these researchers did... the males in the study that underwent circumcision were not only told to abstain from sex for a significant time period after the operation — reducing their exposure time by six weeks compared to the uncircumcised (control) group — but told to use condoms, taught how to use them, and educated about their benefits. During this six week period, the men in the uncircumcised group did not have the same restrictions. There also doesn’t seem to be any mention of the researchers calling up the circumcised men after six weeks to say, “Okay, time’s up. Ease up on the condom use from here on.” The possibility that many of these men might have become accustomed to using condoms, armed with knowledge about their benefits, didn’t seem to be much of a concern... As a continent, Africa has the highest percentage of circumcised men, over 60%. Africa also has — as most people know — the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS... it’s quite possible that circumcised men are more likely to give their female partners HIV/AIDS than uncircumcised men... A recent study looking at sensitivity of the penis in the circumcised and uncircumcised male found that the five most sensitive areas on the penis are removed at circumcision, and that the keratinized glans on the circumcised penis is less sensitive than the foreskin-protected, mucosa-lined glans on the uncircumcised penis. The skin removed from the penis at circumcision makes up close to 50% of the total penile skin, amounting to 15 square inches in an adult. Even the mildest form of female circumcision is illegal... [Male genital mutilation] is still covered by many insurance providers, and Medicaid in most states, despite being completely unnecessary."

Denmark Doctors Declare Circumcision Of Healthy Boys 'Ethically Unacceptable' - "According to a nationally representative poll from the summer of 2016, 87 percent of Danes favor a legal ban on non-therapeutic circumcision of boys under the age of 18 years... Doctors and medical organizations in Denmark, the other Nordic countries and, with one notable exception, elsewhere in the Western world agree that circumcision of healthy boys is ethically problematic. It is considered an operation seriously and patently at odds with the Hippocratic oath (”first do no harm”) and one that is in conflict with a variety of international conventions, most notably the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of the Child... Amputation of healthy infant foreskins constitutes the single most common surgical procedure in the United States ― a several hundred million dollars a year industry... not one medical association in the whole world recommends circumcision of healthy boys... only around one in 200 intact boys will develop a medical condition necessitating a circumcision before the age of 18 years. In other words, the chance is around 99.5 percent that a newborn boy can retain his valuable foreskin throughout infancy, childhood, and adolescence and enter adulthood with an intact penis"

Are circumcised men less promiscuous than uncircumcised? - "Circumcision does greatly decrease sexual enjoyment... so therefor circumcised men don't get as satisfied and then feel the need to have sex and masturbate more often or they participate in more risky behavior. The risky behavior though has been more attributed to, since a circumcised male lacks a lot of sensitivity, adding a condom to that makes the sensitivity so low a man doesn't' feel like he can be satisfied and is therefore less likely to use them."
"It has been linked to premature ejaculation(1) and psychological problems.(2) Circumcised men are also more likely to engage in elaborate and rougher sex, and are also slightly more likely to exhibit addictive behavior.(3)"

Ritual circumcision and risk of autism spectrum disorder in 0- to 9-year-old boys: national cohort study in Denmark - "boys who undergo ritual circumcision may run a greater risk of developing ASD. This finding, and the unexpected observation of an increased risk of hyperactivity disorder among circumcised boys in non-Muslim families, need attention, particularly because data limitations most likely rendered our HR estimates conservative"

'Foreskin Man': Comic the Latest in Anti-Circumcision Group's Push for San Francisco Ban - ""The first issue dealt with medicalized circumcision, and in that case the villain was a doctor," he said. "Jewish circumcision is just one part of an ongoing series." The third issue of the series, starring an African "Vulva Girl," attacks tribal circumcision"

alittledashofwisdom: Exposing fckh8 (because... - " Exposing fckh8 (because feminists are spreading this piece of bullshit like the plague) fckh8 do not support feminism. Like homosexuality and so on, fckh8 does not donate a single penny to organisations they claim to support... Fckh8’s customer service is absolute shite. feel free to read ALL these reviews from people who have recieved wrong orders or simply not recieved it at all."
On the "Potty-Mouthed Princesses Drop F-Bombs for Feminism" company

Showing IKEA print to Art experts - YouTube - "To promote the new IKEA Art Event Street Art collection 2015, we made it to the ultimate test: Would art experts notice an IKEA painting, from NEVERCREW, compared to a million dollar peace in the museum?"