Links - 28th August 2018 (2)

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Toothpaste, Mud Bricks and Sparkling Wine - "Like most Iranians living abroad, I often send presents to my parents back home. Shortbread biscuits, English Breakfast tea, or a box of After Eight Mints. But back in 2012, when I phoned my father what he would like from London, he said toothpaste... Iranian toothpaste didn't taste right. And imported toothpaste was nowhere to be found. Toothpaste quickly became one of their most cherished presents. My parents would buy large packs of it every time they came to London to take back as gifts for my aunts and uncles... the paste itself was a greenish blue and looked a bit dry, but when I put it in my mouth, it was like eating a spoonful of flour. My teeth felt heavy, not clean. As if a layer of dust had settled on them"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, A Boarding School For Boko Haram? - "Pupils often come home with bruised arms or legs. Once one was even beaten. unconscious. Many people, of course, might be aghast that a school teacher of all people would sanction begging in the first place. Yet the practice is part of a holy tradition here. The Madrasah pupils are known as Al Majari [sp?] or followers of the prophet. Giving to them is considered an obligation for any observant Muslim. The problem... is that in the modern day, there are simply far too many Al Majari. The Nigerian government estimates that there may now be more than nine million nationwide, with many madrasahs serving as little more than poorhouses... most Al Majari now are just seen as street urchins...
[On Sri Lanka] In charge of both finance and construction is a subsidiary of a Chinese state enterprise that was black listed by the World Bank after allegations of corruption. It's been granted a 99 year lease like the one Britten used to possess in Hong Kong and the new city within a city will have its own financial and judicial systems like the extra territorial zones that Westerners once had in Shanghai and other Chinese ports. Sri Lanka has been caught in a debt threat and to resolve it has began to hand over its assets... My friend... was... refused entry at a Chinese restaurant in Colombo and told: it's not for locals"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, When Survival Trumps Justice - "About 200 people live in South Korea's freedom village Taesung. Just 500 meters separate the villagers from North Korea. Residency in this farming community is allowed only by marriage. Life in Tatsung comes with high risk and high reward. Despite the decades long threat of nuclear war, security curfews from midnight to 5am and daily military escorts to avoid land mines, those who live here do far better than the average South Korean farmer. Residents are given homes and large plots of land and typically earn 60 to 75000 pounds a year. The village is under the control of the UN command, which comes with other benefits: no federal taxes and no mandatory military service. The land in Taesung and the villages surrounding the DMZ is some of South Korea's most fertile, producing soybeans, ginseng, rice and honey."

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Crackdown on high overdraft fees - "They will buy a household appliance and then pay the money back, usually over three years. And the FCA says it's, for example, seen cases where a cooker that you can buy on the high street for 300 pounds, they've ended up because of the charges and the interest, the customers end up paying 1500 pounds"

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Wednesday's business with Dominic O'Connell - "99% of votes are 99% in favor of management. Any company which is getting more than 5 or 10% of votes against them at an AGM needs to sit down and have a good long talk with its shareholder"

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Don't expect smiles in Russia - "I once got stopped by police, and when I asked them why, they said, because you're smiling, that was suspicious... I take off my smiling face because it would be suspicious and I put on my gloomy face, my aggressive face"

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Lionel Shriver's diversity controversy - "'The United States has had a lot of experience with what's called in the US affirmative action, and it has all kinds of negative consequences. And I'm afraid it's actually entrenched racial prejudice in the US, and I don't wanna see that here'...

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Italy threatens to expel Roma people - "'It's pretty well known that in the Roma community, in many of, most of our cities are living off theft, off petty crime, they don't send their children to school. I think that in order to have the rule of law in our country we cannot allow anyone to don't send their children to school, and if they commit any crime and we have a bilateral agreement with the origin country, they might be sent back'...
'Yes, this is how they act. And this absolutely show the racist attitude towards Roma.'
Apparently that is the way Roma act, but to say that is racist?

I am a trainer in the Army. - "My team and I train officer cadets in physical fitness and warfighting competencies almost every day. Unlike the contributor here, I welcome the introduction of the hybrid uniform wholeheartedly. If there were a constant across all militaries, it would be that each generation scoffs at the later generations, call them soft, and reminisce about the hardcore days of yore when men ate bullets for breakfast, used diesel for mouthwash, and pooped nails. I think we simply don't give our current soldiers enough credit. Our Army has advanced tremendously, and with those advancements, the demands placed upon our soldiers have also increased. When I was a cadet, we used the Armbrust LAW as our section anti-armour weapon. Today, my cadets carry the more lethal and thereby heavier MATADOR. For my gear, I used to carry them in an extremely skeletal SBO (fondly known as the Sotong). Soldiers today have better protection with their integrated load bearing vests, but that also means that more of their bodies are covered and can't cool as fast. Climate change isn't helping either as five of Singapore's "Top 10 Hottest Years" (since 1948) occurred in the past 10 years. Meanwhile, our operating environment has grown in complexity. Our soldiers today train and prepare for a much broader spectrum of operations with no corresponding increase in training time. Qualitatively, our soldiers are not worse than previous generations. They just grew up in a different world with different complexities and demands. Part of the Army's duty to its servicemen is to give them the best equipment it can afford. We provide our soldiers with protective gear so that we can train them harder without breaking them. What is the point of qualifying soldiers if we break them in the process? If we know that heat will continue to be a problem, would it not be the Army's duty to provide cooler uniforms when the technology becomes available? National Service is a duty and a sacrifice. Rather than call them names, let's be more constructive and show our soldiers some support."

Effect of Low-Fat vs Low-Carbohydrate Diet on 12-Month Weight Loss in Overweight Adults and the Association With Genotype Pattern or Insulin Secretion - "In this 12-month weight loss diet study, there was no significant difference in weight change between a healthy low-fat diet vs a healthy low-carbohydrate diet, and neither genotype pattern nor baseline insulin secretion was associated with the dietary effects on weight loss. In the context of these 2 common weight loss diet approaches, neither of the 2 hypothesized predisposing factors was helpful in identifying which diet was better for whom."
Apparently 30% of your calories from carbohydrates is considered a low carb diet. How do people come up with such nonsense?

Energy expenditure and body composition changes after an isocaloric ketogenic diet in overweight and obese men. - "The isocaloric KD was not accompanied by increased body fat loss but was associated with relatively small increases in EE that were near the limits of detection with the use of state-of-the-art technology"
This is a good test of the insulin-carbohydrate hypothesis (31g of carbs a day, of which 12g fibre) and is evidence it doesn't hold

Calorie for Calorie, Dietary Fat Restriction Results in More Body Fat Loss than Carbohydrate Restriction in People with Obesity.
Even though this was 140g of carbohydrates a day on the reduced carbohydrate diet, the fact that reduced fat was 352g is evidence that the insulin-carbohydrate hypothesis doesn't hold

Dietary carbohydrate intake and mortality: a prospective cohort study and meta-analysis - "Both high and low percentages of carbohydrate diets were associated with increased mortality, with minimal risk observed at 50–55% carbohydrate intake. Low carbohydrate dietary patterns favouring animal-derived protein and fat sources, from sources such as lamb, beef, pork, and chicken, were associated with higher mortality, whereas those that favoured plant-derived protein and fat intake, from sources such as vegetables, nuts, peanut butter, and whole-grain breads, were associated with lower mortality, suggesting that the source of food notably modifies the association between carbohydrate intake and mortality."

Is promoting vegetarianism a form of colonialism? - "Taber argues that the assumption that vegetarianism is always more sustainable comes from a Euro-centric perspective, where limited land and surplus water makes it relatively easy to grow food crops and less sensical to dedicate vast tracts of land to graze cows. In other parts of the world, however, the opposite is true. For example, as Taber calculates it, in the Chihuahua desert of Western Texas and Northern Mexico, “it would takes a thousand times more water to grow an acre of crops for human consumption, than it takes to grow an acre of cow on wild range.”"

Here Are The World's Most Dangerous Countries For Women Right Now - "The Thomson Reuters Foundation this week published its results of a survey of 550 global experts on women’s issues conducted between March 26 and May 4. The experts took into account the countries that have high rates of violence against women, a lack of economic resources, health care issues and traditions that perpetuate strict gender roles... The only Western country to make the list was the United States at No. 10. According to Reuters, the U.S. appears on the list because of the rampant sexual violence American women face, such as “rape, sexual harassment, coercion into sex and a lack of access to justice in rape cases.”"
What happens when you let mass hysteria get out of hand and survey experts instead of looking at data

Peter Alexander boys will be boys top pulled from shelves parents complain Facebook - "A boys' pyjama top has been pulled from shelves after parents claimed it was offensive and sexist. Made by Australian brand Peter Alexander, the grey top is printed with the slogan: "Boys will be boys"... "This is ridiculous. Are we starting to strip the innocence away from children? The shirt is just saying kids will be kids," TODAY Show viewer Sophie Cannell posted. Fellow viewer Phillip Bryant said: "What’s more offensive to me is that the company succumbed to the opinions of just a few parents.""
Maybe boys will be girls - ergo trans mania

Ryde hit by 2,000 phantom bookings from 300 fake accounts, IP address points to ‘Grabtaxi Pte Ltd’ - "This has caused disruption to drivers and the resulting loss of income borne by them has exceeded S$50,000... Ryde has lodged a police report on June 26 against the attacks. It has also notified the relevant authorities, such as the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS), National Private Hire Vehicles Association (NPHVA) and Land Transport Authority (LTA)."

'Why should we make foreigners rich?': Taxi drivers are taking on Uber and Grab in Bali, and some are turning to violence - "Taxi drivers have repeatedly threatened, attacked, and harassed ride-sharing drivers, who they feel are violating Bali’s unwritten traditional laws and profiting off their communities... A taxi driver at the stand quoted me a price of 200,000 rupiah ($14) for the ride back. I tried to bargain with the self-righteousness of a western traveler used to being treated like a money tree. The driver refused to budge, pointing angrilyto a wall-size board on the back of the hut printed with locations and prices. As I walked away, a driver called out, “I guess you’ll be walking home tonight.” I didn’t. I walked until I was out of their line of sight, ordered a Grab – the Southeast Asian equivalent of Uber – and paid a tenth of the fare... in Bali, the resistance from taxi drivers has been uniquely tenacious, frequently exploding into violent confrontations, as happened last year when an Uber driver was beaten to a pulpby four taxi drivers. Harassment and threats from the so-called “taxi mafia” are a common occurrence for both drivers and the tourists who use the apps... The Batu Balongbanjar, to which Tono and his drivers belong, dictate that drivers net only 70% of each fare, with the rest going back to the community: 10% for road maintenance, 10% for religious ceremonies, and 10% for thepecalang, or Balinese traditional police who handle issues the official police won’t deal with – basically everything except serious crimes. Another 10% goes to the taxi co-op that all the drivers belong to, money which is used for lawyers, car insurance, and loans for drivers in need. If there is a profit, drivers are paid out at the end of the year. No wonder a ride through Grab or Uber is a tenth of the price... The most brutal incident in Bali came last year when an Uber driver was beaten and his car smashed for trying to pick up a passenger in south Bali... Everything I’d heard about the taxi drivers was true, I thought. They were just looking to price-gouge tourists; the price I’d been quoted was more than double what my Balinese host told me he was usually charged."
Bali's unwritten traditional law: it's your God-given right to rip off foreign tourists as much as possible
If needing to pay other people were really the reason for higher taxi fares, taxi fares would only be 43% more expensive - not 900%
Go-Jek is Indonesian, but the taxi drivers protest it too