Links - 30th November 2018 (1)

Mobile Gaming's Whales Overwhelmingly Male, Spend Big On All Types Of Video Games - ""We classify mobile whales as the top 5% of mobile spenders," Jesse Divnich, of video game research firm EEDAR, tells me. "They spend in excess of $10 or more a month on mobile gaming."... young men are more likely to be whales than women, by a 2:1 ratio, which is one reason we see games targeting male audiences more than females.
More limitations of the "more women are gamers than men" claim
If the spending threshold were increased the number of men would probably be even more overwhelming

Making new plastic is now cheaper than recycling - "As oil prices plummet, a surprising piece of the economy is taking a huge hit: the market for recycled plastic."

P. T. Barnum & the Circus - "Eight months after it retired the elephants, the circus announced on January 14, 2017, that the circus would close in May 2017, and would lay off more than 462 employees between March and May 2017. The circus cited steeply declining ticket sales associated with the loss of the elephants combined with high operating costs as reasons for the closure"
Once again (as with SJW protests), those who protest aren't the ones who buy tickets. Neglecting your audience in order to appease non-noisy customers is folly

Doctor writes to forum: Errant SAF commanders and MOs who revoke NSFs' medical leave should be reported - "Just as the Ministry of Manpower and the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) are concerned that some doctors are not giving injured workers the rest they need, the Ministry of Defence (Mindef) and the SMC should be concerned that our young and injured NSFs are not given the rest they require to recover. When the NSF is injured and is unable to perform his duties, he is entitled to medical leave"

North Yorks Enquirer | Labour Activists Threaten Violence - "Speaking at the counter protest was Scarborough & Whitby Labour Party Prospective Parliamentary candidate, Hugo Fearnley. Fearnley joined in shouting “Whose Streets? Our Streets!” along with black-clad, bovver-booted comrades in an attempt to intimidate those protesting against child rape and trafficking gangs."

Actor James Cromwell warns of 'blood in the streets' if Democrats don't win election - "“This is nascent fascism. We always had a turnkey, totalitarian state — all we needed was an excuse, and all the institutions were in place to turn this into pure fascism,” Cromwell said. “If we don’t stop [President Trump] now, then we will have a revolution for real. Then there will be blood in the streets.”"
Losing an election and then resorting to violence is apparently upholding democratic ideals

Research Shows Spanish Speakers Take Longer To Learn English. Why? - "Students whose home language was Spanish were considerably less likely to reach proficiency than any other subgroup. And, on the extreme end, Spanish speakers were almost half as likely as Chinese speakers to cross the proficiency threshold."
Whatever you think causes this, having more poor performing students is a burden for the country

Exclusive: Trump targeting birthright citizenship with executive order - Axios - "Until the 1960s, the 14th Amendment was never applied to undocumented or temporary immigrants... The Supreme Court has already ruled that children born to immigrants who are legal permanent residents have citizenship. But those who claim the 14th Amendment should not apply to everyone point to the fact that there has been no ruling on a case specifically involving immigrants in the country illegally or those with temporary legal status"

Is it possible to end birthright citizenship? - "65 percent of likely U.S. voters do not support birthright citizenship, which is automatic citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil. A 2010 CBS News poll found that 47 percent of Americans are in favor changing the law so that the children of immigrants in the U.S. illegally cannot become citizens, whereas 49 percent say it should stay the same... Trump also noted that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid once backed the idea of ending birthright citizenship"

How to make cities more walkable - "Cities with high walk scores also have high property values. According to a 2009 study, each additional walk score point resulted in home values increasing between $500 and $3,000. Investing in walkable cities, whether through allocating funds to repaint pedestrian walkways or building affordable housing close to downtowns, also attracts diverse populations and creates jobs... People also tend to spend more money in walkable cities, stimulating the local economy"

Dancers in Thongs at Business Gala Still OK in Post-MeToo France - "The decision to hold a male-dominated corporate event with half-naked women highlights how there are differing views on what’s considered acceptable in a business setting. That’s especially true in France, where attitudes toward sex and nudity are freer and it’s common to see topless women in a storefront magazine... The Moulin Rouge said it continues to hold corporate parties with dancers and professional artists for all ages, including children. The Crazy Horse, another venue known for nude female dancers, also offers corporate events. On its website, the venue advertises that “your company evening party at Crazy Horse Paris is specially designed to seduce you.”"

Baidu launches simultaneous language translation AI - "STACL, unlike most AI translation systems, is capable of beginning a translation just a few seconds into a speaker’s speech and finishing seconds after the end of a sentence. It’s the opposite of consecutive interpretation, where a translator waits until the speaker pauses to start translating... “In [the example] Bùshí Zǒngtǒng zài Mòsīkē (‘Bush President in Moscow’) and the English translation so far ‘President Bush,’ which is k=2 words behind Chinese, our system accurately predicts that the next translation word must be ‘meet’ because Bush is likely ‘meeting’ someone (e.g., Putin) in Moscow, long before the Chinese verb appears.”

Bokhari: New Establishment Argument -- Tech Bias Does Exist, But It's Good - "Rifkind’s argument is important because it’s a different approach to the one taken by Congressional Democrats, who have thus far maintained that bias and censorship against conservatives and populists on the part of social media companies is simply a “conspiracy theory.” Rifkind, by way of contrast, accepts that the bias exists — he just thinks it’s good, and should go further. In the coming battle over the digital public square, I predict the “conspiracy theory” argument will fall out of favor... in “The Good Censor,” an internal presentation leaked to Breitbart News, Google admitted in plain terms that the tech platforms that “dominate the majority of online conversations” have “shifted towards censorship.” There will surely be a few Democrats shameless enough to insist that internet censorship is still just a conspiracy theory, but when the world’s most powerful tech company contradicts them, it’s hard to imagine who’ll be gullible enough to buy it... Google executives have made it clear: they want the populist movement to be snuffed out. In leaked footage obtained by Breitbart News, Google VP Kent Walker said “history teaches us that there are periods of populism, of nationalism… That’s why we have to work so hard to ensure that it doesn’t turn into a World War or something catastrophic, but instead is a blip, is a hiccup.” The video also showed top Google executives, including co-founder Sergey Brin and CEO Sundar Pichai, addressing questions about what to do following the 2016 election. Their answers included a promise to look into combating “fake news,” and a brief discussion of Google’s anti-extremist “Jigsaw” project in relation to allegedly “extremist” Trump supporters."

Google, The ‘Good Censor’ - "Don’t believe Breitbart? You can read the entire document at the end of the report... 'there’s a number of commenters who won’t read it because Breitbart leaked it. Just as Center for Medical Progress’s videos on Planned Parenthood were ignored as soon as some PR hack came up with the word “edited” to dismiss the content. Wikileaks faces silent ostracism as well: there’s just too much info discrediting the mainstream narrative, and because there’s so much of it it’s easy to just ignore it all, double-down on the narrative, and run character attacks on the outlets still nuts enough to go after you. I don’t see how to get through that brick wall they’re building; it’s a heck of a lot stronger than any wall Trump wanted to build.'"

Kenyans Say Chinese Investment Brings Racism and Discrimination - The New York Times - "the two were on a sales trip and spotted a troop of baboons on the roadside, he said. “‘Your brothers,’” he said his boss exclaimed, urging Mr. Ochieng’ to share some bananas with the primates. And it happened again, he said, with his boss referring to all Kenyans as primates... their office bathrooms were separated by race: one for Chinese employees, the other for Kenyans... during the train’s maiden voyage, with President Uhuru Kenyatta on board, two Kenyan women drove the train to much fanfare. In interviews with The New York Times, several current and former locomotive drivers agreed that only Chinese drivers got to operate the train, describing a range of racist behavior... China has had a tendency to dismiss criticism of its conduct by noting that the West, not China, fueled the slave trade and colonized the continent. But that misses the point, Mr. French said, by ignoring the treatment of Africans today."
A China lover proclaimed that only the West is racist and there's no racism in China
More evidence that being obsessed with historical grievances cripples you today

Kenya Tells Workers to Learn from Chinese, Despite Abuse Allegations - "Even as we talk about the [railway] and the racism and all that, it might be necessary for us as a country to change our work ethic"

A White Woman, Teresa Klein, Called the Police on a Black Child She Falsely Said Groped Her - The New York Times - "A white woman who called the police after claiming that a young black boy touched her behind in a Brooklyn deli drew a storm of ridicule and criticism on social media"
#Believeallwomen

How to Attract a Killer Tigress? Try a Man’s Cologne - The New York Times - "For the past six months, forest rangers in a wet and bushy patch of central India have been chasing a cunning female tiger suspected of killing 13 people. They have thrown just about everything they have at the tigress: hundreds of foot soldiers to comb the jungle, bulldozers to clear it, sharpshooters, jeeps, camera traps, a thermal imagery drone and five Indian elephants in hopes of surrounding the tiger so the veterinarians riding the elephants can dart her. No luck. So the rangers plan to deploy a new weapon: a bottle of Calvin Klein Obsession cologne."

Women Struggling to Drink Water - "Previously: Women Laughing Alone With Salad."

Fallen from grace, Grab could learn ‘the hard way’ if it does not change its ways: Report - "The fall from grace of “digital darling" Grab serves as a cautionary tale for digital disruptors, after its Uber takeover left riders and drivers up in arms over price hikes and lower incentives. Among other things, the firm’s rapid descent in the minds of riders and drivers points to the pitfalls of “weak” customer experience"

The Democrats’ Culture Divide - "Energized progressives are thrilled with their momentum in the Trump era. But the party’s blue-collar base might not want what the new left is delivering."

Why students feel so vulnerable - "I wasn’t at all surprised to read reports this week about more and more university students seeking mental-health support. Apparently the number has increased by more than 50 per cent in the past five years in the UK. My research suggests that young people’s quest for identity has become entwined with ideas of emotional fragility and vulnerability. They are encouraged by contemporary culture to interpret their problems through the prism of mental health... students who cut themselves and then flaunt their scars and compete with one another about who has experienced the greatest pain. That self-inflicted scars are now a kind of identity surprised me. What didn’t surprise me, however, was the fact that the quest for identity has become so destructive... The fairly routine challenges involved in becoming an undergraduate – whether it’s making the transition from school life to college life or dealing with homesickness – came to be reframed as threats to students’ wellbeing. The presumption that students were unable to cope with life on campus led to calls for the provision of more and more mental-health support from university authorities... Because the idea of the fragile student is now so widely accepted, it is easy to overlook the fact that it is a relatively recent development... how university students are conceived of today – as weak and lacking in traditional coping mechanisms... unlike previous generations, the current cohort of students find it difficult to flourish in the often unstructured environment of higher education... undergraduates are ‘significantly more unhappy and anxious on average than other young people the same age’"
The perils of victim culture, how it can become a self fulfilling prophecy and how an obsession with preventing harm sensitises people and actually increases harm