Links - 31st January 2019 (2)

Is writing overly romanticized as a career? - Quora - "Would you like to be a journalist, knowing that what you write today will end up as a paper aeroplane tomorrow?
How about a Copywriter advertising medicine you put in unmentionable places.
Again, you could write recipes on the back of tinned beans.
Jokes for Christmas Crackers might spark you off."
"I met and talked to published authors. They led thrifty lives. I learnt how becoming a full-time author was scary as shit. It was exciting, they said, but only in the beginning. They were content but passion didn't ooze out of them, as I would have expected it to, having grown up with a grossly skewed image of what it meant to be an author."

Ghost in the Shell beloved in Japan, despite box office blowout in the West - "Ghost in the Shell brought in more than $3 million in Japan during its first three days in theaters, a modest sum that looks stellar compared to its U.S. gross during the same period. Japanese audiences have reportedly taken to the film, despite its primary controversy stemming from its predominantly white take on a historically Japanese property. Yahoo Japan’s movie review site lists the film at a decent 3.56 user rating, higher than that of the original anime... Praise went to the visuals, Scarlett Johansson’s performance and the overall original approach to the iconic source material. On comment in particular stood out, however. THR spoke to a fan identified as Yuki, who thought that the film was better off with a white woman in the lead role, instead of a Japanese one as intended. "I heard people in the U.S. wanted an Asian actress to play her," Yuki told THR. "Would that be OK if she was Asian or Asian-American? Honestly, that would be worse, someone from another Asian country pretending to be Japanese. Better just to make the character white."... Although critics quickly decried director Rupert Sanders’ whitewashed take on Ghost in the Shell, both its creative team and original author didn’t see a problem... "What issue could there possibly be with casting her?" Oshii said to IGN in an interview. "The Major is a cyborg and her physical form is an entirely assumed one. The name 'Motoko Kusanagi' and her current body are not her original name and body, so there is no basis for saying that an Asian actress must portray her. Even if her original body (presuming such a thing existed) were a Japanese one, that would still apply." Some stateside fans echoed Oshii’s argument in their praise of the film, as did Johansson and Sanders. Nonetheless, Ghost in the Shell was so roundly panned that its failure at the box office was ultimately a forgone conclusion."
Kicking up a fuss over a non-issue = hurting the film's prospects = you're less likely to get something 'ethnic' in the future = 'white supremacy' is advanced

Jury Convicts New York TV Executive of Beheading Wife - "The founder of a Muslim-oriented New York television station was convicted Monday of beheading his wife in 2009 in the studio the couple had opened to counter negative stereotypes of Muslims after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Muzzammil "Mo" Hassan never denied that he killed Aasiya Hassan inside the suburban Buffalo station the couple established to promote cultural understanding. A jury deliberated for one hour before rejecting his claim that the killing was justified because he was long abused by and afraid of his wife."

Extreme Centrist Memes for Hardline Moderates - Posts - "When you xenophobically murder a mentally ill person of colour as punishment for illegal immigration but leftists praise it because your status as an uncontacted native tribe puts you 5 steps higher on the Oppression ScaleTM than him"

Taiwan asked voters 10 questions, including gay rights. It got some unexpected answers - "One of the biggest issues in the election campaign — and the subject of half the referendum questions — was gay rights.Voters expressed overwhelming opposition to same-sex marriage, despite a court ruling last year that limiting marriage to heterosexual couples was unconstitutional. Voters also supported the removal of content about homosexuality from primary school textbooks.Many in Taiwan, especially young voters, were stunned by the referendum results... Three of the referendum questions concerned energy policy, with voters supporting a reduction in the use of coal and a halt to construction of coal-fired power stations. They also voted to repeal legislation that would have halted all nuclear power production by 2025, driven in part by concern that without nuclear power, air pollution would worsen in southern Taiwan, which supplies the majority of electricity for Taipei and other northern cities."
The echo chamber is real
Presumably this is all the fault of Christians - even though under 5% of the population is Christian and European colonisation only lasted for 38 years in the 17th century
Of course now liberals are saying democracy is bad and we should just impose the gay agenda despite what voters think

Inside Britain's sex robot brothels and ‘it IS legal’ - " increasing technological unemployment in other industries could increase the number of sex workers.He said: "Human prostitutes will adapt in order to maintain their advantage over robot competitors."Sex workers will adopt safe sex practices if this is what the clients demand."They will cater to the emotional needs of customers and engage in different sexual practices."

Clever lass uses her dildo in genius life hack - "One lass has discovered that her dildo could in fact fix the dents on her car. The footage shows the French girl attaching the suction cup at the end of her plaything to her car door. When she pulls, the sheer power of the suction manages to pull back the dent into shape."

Dick Code - What kind of Dick do you have?

The end is nigh: terrifying robot choir sings Beethoven’s Ode To Joy - "This technology firm has been training their robots to sing a truly terrifying and haunting version of the triumphant final chorus from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, his ‘Ode To Joy’. This is literally the scariest thing we’ve seen in forever"

Children are suffering serious head lice infestations - "Mr Burgess and his team conducted tests in a primary school in Cambridgeshire before this year's summer holidays and found around eight per cent of the children had head lice. They handed parents of all the infested children vouchers worth £10 to collect any treatment of their choice from a pharmacy metres from the school.Yet only a quarter of the vouchers - for just eight of the children - were cashed in."
With 2 videos of people with serious lice problems

3D printers emit microparticles that can embed in your lungs - "there is no such thing as a 3D printer that doesn’t emit concerning microparticles into the air. Even industrial models that appear sealed, complete with fans and filters, put out measurable particulates... how worried should we be in the meantime? A bit. “I wouldn’t say it’s terrifying because you get exposed to these particles all the time from roadway emissions–like diesel cars. It’s not like 3D printers create the only nanoparticles in the world,” says Weber. “It’s just that it’s unregulated and people haven’t thought about it much.”“To be honest, I wouldn’t be too concerned as long as you have good ventilation,” he continues. “That’s what it comes down to. If you have a bunch of printers in one room like a classroom, you walk in and can smell plastic, then I’d be concerned about it.”"

Forbidden Transmissions - "don’t quote MLK if you’re white
don’t quote MLK if you’re white
DON’T QUOTE MLK IF YOU’RE WHITE
MLK DIDN’T MAKE HIS “I HAVE A DREAM” SPEECH FOR YOU… HE MADE IT FOR BLACK EMPOWERMENT.
STOP STEALING EVERYTHING."
"“Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding. We must love our white brothers, no matter what they do to us. We must make them know that we love them. We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man.” -MLK"
"I love it when ignorant teenagers use legitimate icons of civil rights as martyrs to justify their own hatred without even knowing the level of human compassion those people really stood for."

My Little Pony: Lesbianism is Magic - "Bronies have their own ways of talking about shipping, referring to mare/mare relationships as “fillyfooling” (and relationships between stallions as “coltcuddling”). The amount of fillyfooling equals or outnumbers the amount of heterosexual shipping on many fansites. What is also surprising is how non-fetishistic these stories are. While sexual fanfic – called “clop” in the brony fandom – certainly exists (it’s Rule 34, after all), the majority of sapphic pony fanfiction I found was fairly chaste, and more focused on romance than titillation"

Intimate partner homicide methods in heterosexual, gay, and lesbian relationships. - "Previous research indicates that the killing method used in homicides may reflect the motivation of the offender and qualities of the victim-offender relationship. The effect of gender and sexual orientation of intimate partner homicide offenders (N = 51,007) was examined with respect to the brutality of killing methods. Guided by previous research and theory, it was hypothesized that homicide brutality will vary with the offender's sexual orientation and gender, such that the percentage of killings coded as brutal will be higher for (a) gay and lesbian relative to heterosexual relations, (b) men relative to women, (c) gay relative to heterosexual men, and (d) lesbian relative to heterosexual women. The rates of intimate partner homicide were also hypothesized to vary with the gender of the partners, such that (a) homicide rates will be higher in gay relative to heterosexual and lesbian couples and (b) homicide rates will be lowest in lesbian couples. The results support all but one prediction derived from the two hypotheses. We predicted that men would kill their partners more brutally than would women, but the results indicate that the opposite is true."
Of course, feminists will claim this is proof of patriarchy

I Love America. That’s Why I Have to Tell the Truth About It - "Then the U.S. re-established relations with Vietnam in 1994, and my parents took the first opportunity to go home. They went twice, without me, to visit a country that was just emerging from postwar poverty and desperation. Whatever they saw in their homeland, it affected my father deeply. After the second trip, my parents never again returned to Vietnam. Instead, over the next Thanksgiving dinner, my father said, “We’re Americans now.”At last, my father had claimed America"
At the same time, if you only ever have good things to say - or bad things to say - that is not the truth

Shin Bet foils Hamas-planned bombing in Israel - "Hamas communicated with the militants in the West Bank through messages passed on by Gaza patients allowed into Israel to undergo life-saving medical treatments, as well as other Gaza residents who had business contacts in the West Bank. The Shin Bet noted this was not the first time Hamas was exploiting humanitarian cases to carry out military operations in the West Bank
Of course, if Israel puts more scrutiny on humanitarian cases because of this, they will be slammed as inhumane

Ethnic Diversity, Economic and Cultural Contexts, and Social Trust: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Evidence from European Regions, 2002–2010 - "across European regions, different aspects of immigration-related diversity are negatively related to social trust. In longitudinal perspective, an increase in immigration is related to a decrease in social trust. Tests of the conditional hypotheses reveal that regional economic growth and ethnic polarization as a cultural context moderate the relationship. Immigration growth is particularly strongly associated with a decrease in social trust in contexts of economic decline and high ethnic polarization. However, there is some evidence that in contexts of low polarization the relationship is actually positive."

ETHNIC DIVERSITY AND ITS IMPACT ON COMMUNITY SOCIAL COHESION AND NEIGHBORLY EXCHANGE - "Putnam's “constrict theory” suggests that ethnic diversity creates challenges for developing and sustaining social capital in urban settings. He argues that diversity decreases social cohesion and reduces social interactions among community residents. While Putnam's thesis is the subject of much debate in North America, the United Kingdom, and Europe, there is a limited focus on how ethnic diversity impacts upon social cohesion and neighborly exchange behaviors in Australia. Employing multilevel modeling and utilizing administrative and survey data from 4,000 residents living in 148 Brisbane suburbs, we assess whether ethnic diversity lowers social cohesion and increases “hunkering.” Our findings indicate that social cohesion and neighborly exchange are attenuated in ethnically diverse suburbs. However, diversity is less consequential for neighborly exchange among immigrants when compared to the general population. Our results provide at least partial support for Putnam's thesis."

The (in)compatibility of diversity and sense of community. - "Community psychologists are interested in creating contexts that promote both respect for diversity and sense of community. However, recent theoretical and empirical work has uncovered a community-diversity dialectic wherein the contextual conditions that foster respect for diversity often run in opposition to those that foster sense of community. More specifically, within neighborhoods, residential integration provides opportunities for intergroup contact that are necessary to promote respect for diversity but may prevent the formation of dense interpersonal networks that are necessary to promote sense of community. Using agent-based modeling to simulate neighborhoods and neighborhood social network formation, we explore whether the community-diversity dialectic emerges from two principles of relationship formation: homophily and proximity. The model suggests that when people form relationships with similar and nearby others, the contexts that offer opportunities to develop a respect for diversity are different from the contexts that foster a sense of community. Based on these results, we conclude with a discussion of whether it is possible to create neighborhoods that simultaneously foster respect for diversity and sense of community."