Links - 20th November 2018 (2)

I made a machine learning chicken rice classifier in ~4 hours to tell me what type of chicken rice I bought for lunch

Google Chrome Begins 'Syncing' All Browser Data to Your Identity Without Asking - "Google users are concerned about their browsing privacy after a recent update at Google secretly logs Chrome browser users into their online Google accounts, syncing data without asking, a move one expert says has “enormous implications for user privacy and trust.”"

Rice Cooked in Black Beans (_Moros Y Cristianos_) recipe - "This dish gets its name from the wars between the dark-skinned Moors (moros) and the lightskinned Spaniards (cristianos) that occurred during the eighth century in Spain"

Overthinking It: Using Food As A Racial Metaphor - "That got us thinking about the very long list of foods that double as shorthands for racial betrayal. Banana and Oreo, sure. There's Twinkie, which does the same work as banana. There's apple, leveled at Native Americans who are allegedly white on the inside. And there's coconut, which is a sort of an all-purpose, you're-white-on-the-inside epithet for all manner of brownness — Desis, Latinos, Afro-Caribbeans."

Robot cognition requires machines that both think and feel - "The point is not that emotion is needed for intelligent, autonomous robots – the answer is yes – but that emotion needs to be hooked up to everything that goes on in a cognitive system. Emotion is not an ‘add-on’ module that endows a robot with feelings or allows it to express an internal state"

Why we need to bring back the art of communal bathing - "Living in a society where actual nudity has been eclipsed by idealised or pornographic images of it, many of us are, independently of our will, disgusted by hairy backs, flabby bellies and ‘strange-looking’ nipples. The relatively liberal attitude towards such issues in countries such as Denmark, where nudity in the bathhouse is the norm, and in some cases mandatory, exemplifies how the practice might help renormalise a basic sense of diversity and break through the rigid laws that regulate the so-called ‘normal body"

Androphobia — and How to Address It - "“Androphobia” is not a word in popular usage but I think it should be. It’s a far better word than “misandry” to describe the expression of fear of and aversion to men that permeates much of feminist discourse right now. Misandry is the hatred of men. Feminists who exhibit hostility towards men tell us that they do not hate men. They simply fear them and argue that hostility is a perfectly natural consequence of this which should be accepted. I think we should take them seriously and treat the problem as “androphobia” — an irrational fear which sufferers should be supported sympathetically to overcome... 100% of deaths by spider-bite are caused by spiders but the vast majority of spiders will do you no harm. If fear of spiders is affecting how you live your life, your arachnophobia needs treating. 100% of deaths by plane crash are caused by planes but the vast majority of planes do not crash. If your fear of flying limits your career and leisure opportunities, you might want to consider having your aviophobia treated. Most violent & sexual crimes are committed by men but the vast majority of men do not commit violent and sexual crime. If fear of men is affecting how you live your life, your androphobia needs treating... “CBT helps replace catastrophic cognitions with reasonable beliefs. When fear begins, it’s important to remind yourself to review the evidence that this is a false alarm, you are not in danger. The goal is to develop a nurturing, coaching inner voice to help stay grounded and effectively accept and cope with panicky feelings as they run their course.” The already tiny risk of violent attack can be reduced further by taking the same kind of precautions one takes against other kinds of crime and using the same kind of judgement one uses with other kinds of relationships. If we live life in constant fear and distrust of men, we could possibly reduce the risk further but at what cost? Avoiding interactions and relationships with half the population reduces the likelihood of having friends, lovers and meaningful bonds too... Presenting women’s psyches as so deeply dependent on their sexual “inviolateness” is demeaning, harmful and regressive in the true sense of the word. For me, those experiences of minor sexual assault were among a number of unpleasant and criminal things that have happened to me as someone who lives in a big city and rank below being shoved around in Central London by a group of teenage girls when I was also a teenage girl, having a shopping trolley rammed into my leg by a woman who felt I had not got out of her way fast enough (I still have a dent), being cornered by a shouting and wildly gesticulating street preacher to whom I had suggested God did not exist and having my purse stolen twice, my bike twice and my phone once. Arseholes exist. They need dealing with. I survived."

Germany set to make 'educational state-funded feminist pornography' - "The idea might have been inspired by Sweden, where in 2009 the state film institute spent £44,813 financing Dirty Diaries, a series of short porn films produced by female film artists."
Apparently they haven't been on PornHub

From Somali refugee to Swedish reporter - "Here is a story of a young journalist who went from Somali refugee to Swedish reporter trying to expose the Al-Shabab, but being left out to dry by all... [As Amun Abdullahi] washed her community’s dirty linen in public, she was accused of betraying secrets of her people and bringing “shame on the Swedish-Somalis.” In reports for Swedish Radio, she revealed that some Somali asylum seekers scorch their fingertips to make fingerprints unrecognizable, and that Somali women were over-represented in abortions... She said she had mentally prepared herself for the threats and social ostracism. What she was not prepared for was betrayal and isolation from her own journalist colleagues on one of Sweden’s most influential political radio shows, Konflikt. Amun’s work was dismissed as mere “hearsay” and “rumours.” Behind Amun’s witch-hunt stood one of Sweden’s leading liberal journalists, Randi Mossige-Norheim. Despite evidence of Al-Shabab recruitment in Sweden, Randi Mossige-Norheim maintained it was not the job of Amun Abdullahi to judge anyone. She laced her critique of Amun by the politically correct verdict: “We don’t judge anybody.”... “You see what the Swedish journalists have done? Why should you want to report (on Al-Shabab) when the Swedes don’t want to?”... Amun Abdullahi is today a broken-hearted reporter, who dared to roar. She has abandoned not only journalism, but also Sweden, moving back to Somalia where she has set up a girls’ school. About Sweden she says: “Here you cannot tell the truth. The truth is kept hidden, and the people are silenced. Not all dreams come true,” she sighs."

“Sweden is More Dangerous than Mogadishu” - "This place is more dangerous than Mogadishu.
What do you mean? Here you cannot tell the truth.
The truth is kept hidden, and the people are silenced.
Not all dreams come true, she says.
She came to Sweden as a refugee, now she is fleeing again. On her way to Somalia to start anew.
If you lose your things in a fire, it is not a problem.
But if you have faith in something, and you lose it, then it hurts.
I had faith in journalism, and in spite of its shortcomings I also believed in Swedish Radio.
I also had faith in myself, quite a lot actually.
And all three things were crushed in one go."

London Seen As More Dangerous Than Somalia, Warns Chuka Umunna - "For some young people the streets of London are more dangerous than Somalia, Chuka Umunna has warned. In a sobering speech in the Commons on Friday afternoon, the former shadow cabinet minister told MPs about the number of stabbings that take place in his Streatham constituency - including one man who had seen two of his sons fall victim to knife crime. "This constituent had come to the UK with his sons from Somalia – a country ravaged by lawlessness, extreme violence and civil war - because he wanted a better future for his children and for them to be safe," Umunna said. "He is completely bewildered by what has happened. When I asked him whether he felt his sons would be safer in Mogadishu than in London, he told me he felt it would be less dangerous for his children to live there than here - he massively regrets moving them to our capital."

The Lost World of Soviet PCs - "Commercial isolation from the U.S. produced a strange parallel universe of technology in the Soviet Union, and computers were no exception"

What do British Muslims really think? - "Liberal opinion in Britain has, for more than two decades, maintained that most Muslims are just like everyone else, but with more modest dress sense and more luxuriant facial hair; any differences would fade with time and contact... The survey of British Muslim opinion — What British Muslims Really Think — will be published in full... When I was chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, I played a principal role in the creation of UK laws against religious discrimination — and it was a report that I commissioned exactly 20 years ago that first introduced the term Islamophobia to Britain... The data... shows what the polling experts call “a chasm” opening between Muslims and non-Muslims on such fundamentals as marriage, relations between men and women, schooling, freedom of expression and even the validity of violence in defence of religion. And the chasm isn’t going to disappear any time soon; indeed, the gaps between Muslim and non-Muslim youngsters are nearly as large as those between their elders... more than half mix with non-Muslims daily, probably at work or college — but 30% never translate that into a friendship that would take them into a non-Muslim’s house more than once a year. One in five never enter a non-Muslim home... more than half of ethnic-minority children attend schools where white British children are in the minority... Two out of five Muslims — men and women — say they believe that a woman should always obey her husband... One in three British Muslims supports the right of a man to have more than one wife, even though it is illegal in the UK... Amra, a female sharia court judge, says: “In my experience, it’s not men who have demanded it; it’s women."... More than half of the sample reported that they believe that homosexuality should be illegal. Even more opposed gay marriage, and nearly half thought that it was unacceptable for a gay person to teach their children. A quarter supported the introduction of sharia law in parts of the UK... “You know, we [liberal Muslims] are a dying breed — in 10 years there will be very few of us left unless something really important is done.”... Many of our (distinctly un-diverse) elite political and media classes simply refuse to acknowledge the truth. Any undesirable behaviours are attributed to poverty and alienation. Backing for violent extremism must be the fault of the Americans. Oppression of women is a cultural trait that will fade with time, nothing to do with the true face of Islam... while our liberal elite wrings its hands in anguish and makes school children celebrate Eid, Diwali, Hanukkah — and Easter — hundreds of young people are being seduced to join Islamist fanatics abroad, thousands of young girls are shipped off to have their genitals mutilated, and many more are pressured into marriages they do not want... the integration of Muslims will probably be the hardest task we’ve ever faced. It will mean abandoning the milk-and-water multiculturalism still so beloved of many, and adopting a far more muscular approach to integration... While many of us are comfortable condemning less numerous and less powerful minorities [on things like homophobia], we are reluctant to speak clearly when it comes to Muslims"
2 years after Trevor Philips wrote this, the obsession is still on "hate crimes" and the "far right" instead

Trevor Philips: Former equalities chief says Muslims are 'not like us' - "Trevor Philips, ex head of the much-maligned Equality and Human Rights Commission, has been blasted after claiming that Government efforts to integrate Muslim communities are "disrespectful" and should be stopped... Continuously pretending that a group is somehow eventually going to become like the rest of us is perhaps the deepest form of disrespect. "Because what you are essentially saying is the fact that they behave in a different way, some of which we may not like, is because they haven’t yet seen the light. It may be that they see the world differently to the rest of us."... Government equalities Tsar warned that hand-wringing liberals obsessed with political correctness and multiculturalism are failing crime victims."

James Bond museum on Austrian mountain sidesteps politically incorrect scenes - "As James Bond collects his casino winnings in the film Octopussy he turns to an Indian character to share some of the rupees he has won in a high-stakes game of backgammon. Roger Moore’s character declares: “Keep you in curry for a few weeks, won’t it?” The scene is one of many that the owners of the Bond film rights are trying to forget as they authorise a museum devoted to the fictional British superspy on an Austrian mountain peak."

Standards commission explains why George Soros' donation to fund Amnesty abortion campaign was illegal - "THE STANDARDS IN Public Office Commission (SIPO) has explained why it ordered Amnesty International to return a donation made by billionaire George Soros for its My Body My Rights campaign. Sipo said current legislation governing donations to political groups forces those who receive donations over €100 to register as a third-party. The Electoral Act also bans foreign donations from an individual other than an Irish citizen who resides outside the island of Ireland – meaning Soros’ €137,000 donation did not meet the criteria for an acceptable donation."
Not so Uniquely Singapore after all
But of course it's only unacceptable to liberals when it's right wingers like the Koch brothers doing it

Correlation implies causation – when it does or does not with vaccines - "There are seven additional tests of the correlation data that could be used to move a finding of correlation between two sets of data from an unknown causal relationship to a presumed one...
1. The data must be strong
2. The data must be consistent
3. The data must be specific
4. The data must be temporal
5. The data must possess a dose response effect
6. The implication of causality must be biologically plausible
7. The data must be coherent."