Links - 15th May 2019 (2)

WeChat is suspending one of its favorite features because people are using it to sell porn - "You type in a message on your phone, place it in a virtual bottle, and throw it to the virtual sea within WeChat, China’s most popular social platform. And then you wait for someone to pick it up and answer you.This is called “drift bottle,” a feature that WeChat came up with during its early years when it needed to attract users. It allowed people to have fun and turn complete strangers into pen pals. Online forums still whisper tales of those that have found true love through drift bottle – and even got married."

Unfair Restaurant Tipping: Research shows it rewards blondes - "Touching the customer
Having blond hair
Drawing a smiley face on the check—but only if you’re a woman
Wearing an ornament in their hair
Crouching next to the table
Wearing red"

Tipless restaurants: The Linkery’s owner explains why abolishing tipping made service better. - "we wanted to distribute the “tip” revenue to our cooks as well as our servers, making our pay more equitable. Servers and cooks typically made similar base wages—and minimum wage was the same for both jobs—but servers kept all the tips, which could often mean they were taking home three times what the cooks made, or more. In California at that time, it was illegal to distribute any tip money to cooks... By replacing tipping with a service charge, we were legally able to redirect about a quarter of that revenue to the kitchen, which reduced the income disparity and helped foster unity on our team... When we switched from tipping to a service charge, our food improved, probably because our cooks were being paid more and didn’t feel taken for granted. In turn, business improved, and within a couple of months, our server team was making more money than it had under the tipped system. The quality of our service also improved. In my observation, however, that wasn’t mainly because the servers were making more money (although that helped, too). Instead, our service improved principally because eliminating tips makes it easier to provide good service... if you don’t have to always think about money, you can focus on doing your job well. Software engineers, marriage counselors, bridge builders, you name the profession—in almost every industry, it’s expected you’ll be able to do your best work if you’re not constantly distracted by compensation issues. Why don’t we want that for restaurant servers?... In any workplace, everyone is required to perform well, and tips have nothing to do with it. The next time you see your doctor, ask her if she wouldn’t do better-quality work if she made minimum wage, with the rest of her income from her patients’ tips. I suspect the answer will be a version of “no."... Studies have shown that tipping is not an effective incentive for performance in servers. It also creates an environment in which people of color, young people, old people, women, and foreigners tend to get worse service than white males. In a tip-based system, nonwhite servers make less than their white peers for equal work. Consider also the power imbalance between tippers, who are typically male, and servers, 70 percent of whom are female, and consider that the restaurant industry generates five times the average number of sexual harassment claims per worker. And that in many instances employers have allegedly misused tip credits, which let owners pay servers less than minimum wage if tipping makes up the difference... people were angry even though they had spent less than they otherwise would have, because they had been robbed of their perceived power over their server."
Somehow tipping works in the rest of the world

No Tipping — Optimism Brewing Company - "Customers don’t like having to tip. Tipping feels awkward and compulsory. Doing math when the bill arrives is a pain. We don’t like having to tip, so why would we make our customers do it?...
Tipping fosters competition between co-workers for the best shifts and sections, instead of cooperation and teamwork."

FAQ — Optimism Brewing Company - "Why all-gender bathrooms?
It is the best use of resources to make all water closets available to all visitors at all times instead of arbitrarily segregating into two sets. (Men generally only use the urinals so any toilet in the mens room was never getting used.)
Individual rooms for everyone is more private and comfortable.
Unisex bathrooms are not discriminatory. Because everyone uses the same room, no one can judge whether someone else is using the correct gender segregated bathroom, and so it is safer for everyone as a result.
It is easier for parents to accompany their opposite gender kids to the restroom when all genders are together.
When everyone is watching, more people will wash their hands afterwards, because no one will want to be perceived as skipping it."

From video game to day job: How ‘SimCity’ inspired a generation of city planners - "It popularized the simulation game genre and turned Maxis — a start-up launched in Orinda, Calif., by Wright and Jeff Braun — into an industry titan. Maxis capitalized on the game's success, publishing “SimAnt,” “SimFarm,” “SimEarth,” “SimTower,” “SimLife,” “SimIsle” and “SimHealth” in its first decade, along with a handful of less popular non-simulation titles.

Camellia on Twitter - "“You’re fake.” Oh, yeah? Wait til you’re over 25 and work in a real job surrounding, filled with adult colleagues. You’re fake 9-5 everyday. We’re not in high school sweetheart. Fake in the adult world mean polite and manners. Tolerance. Considerations. Or you won’t survive."

‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’ Fandango Presales Double ‘Black Panther’
Presales aren't always a good indicator

Jack Sim - I was at the National Gallery with Naureen Nayyar. I... - "I was at the National Gallery with Naureen Nayyar. I tried this experiment by putting a pen on the floor.
Soon, we've got audience wondering how this is a piece of Art and they started taking photos of my pen.
After a while, I pick up my pen and the people realised it was not Art."
At the minimalism exhibition

In Singapore, Modern Slavery Happens Every Day. And We are All Responsible. - "Mary is a foreign domestic worker, whose employers abused her by pouring bleach on her hands and slamming her head against the wall. Eventually, Mary couldn’t take the abuse any longer, and jumped out of her employer’s flat window to escape.Abdul is a construction worker, who suffered an accident while on site. Three days after the accident, Abdul’s boss threatened him to admit the accident happened in the office storeroom instead, compelling him to sign “a piece of paper”—supposedly an agreement of some sort to ensure his silence.Iriana is a trafficked sex worker. She only realised what the work she was in Singapore to do was when she witnessed a friend try to communicate with a man on the streets. In her words, she never expected to find herself in a situation where she had to do this “lowest” form of work.Mary, Abdul, and Iriana are the faces of modern-day slavery in Singapore."
This is why I don't take talk of "modern slavery" seriously. Dodgy labour practices are very far from what "slavery" is supposed to mean

How civilizations fall by Kenneth Minogue - "In principle there is not the slightest reason why women should not take on a priestly role, and one might indeed suspect that feminists may be right in diagnosing resistance in part to an unhealthy attitude to women on the part of some of the clergy. In a pastoral role, women might well be better than men, as some women are in politics. The problem is that women priests raise very awkward questions of Christian theology. Jesus selected only male disciples. Was the son of God then merely a creature of his own culture? Here most conspicuously the entry of women changes entirely the conception of the activity and not for the better. Female clergy have done little to reverse the current decline of the church. Indeed while women as individuals have often enhanced what they have joined, the entry of women in general has seldom done much for any area previously dominated by men—except, significantly, bureaucracy.It is the military case that is the most telling. No one doubts the inferiority of women in physical strength and sport. No football team would think of fielding women against a first-class team of men. Yet the governments of Western countries, currently feeling unthreatened by any major military power, are prepared to gamble their security on female warriors. It would not be so serious if female battalions had been formed whose performance in action could over time be tested in real situations without endangering the security of Western countries. But the feminist program is to make the army, like the rest of society, conform to an idea, and the women want to go where the men are, to be fully integrated so that when dirty and unfeminine jobs must be done, there are men to do them... Let us now return to the teasing question of why the male custodians of our civilization sold the pass. Some element of cowardice must certainly be recognized, because the radicals were tribal warriors making ferocious faces and stamping their feet. The defenders were white, male, and middle class, and the radicals had long been engaged in a campaign to erode the morale of each of these abstract categories. They denoted racism, sexism, and elitism respectively. Caricatured in terms of these abstractions, men found it difficult not to be written off as oppressors of women. Again, the defenders were not united. Many had been longstanding advocates of liberal feminism and from confusion believed that radical feminism was merely a rather hysterical version of classical liberalism. Retreat is a notoriously difficult maneuver to control. Each concession could be used to demand further concessions in the name of consistency. Hence the appearance in all English-speaking countries of legislation mandating equal opportunities—and who could possibly be against that? Before long, the movement had taken over the universities, many public bodies, industrial firms and, above all, the media. Quite rapidly, hiring for status-giving jobs requiring degrees had become closely circumscribed by a set of rules. The dogma was that 50 percent of all jobs belonged to women, though the reality of quotas was long denied."

Meme - "Yes, of course I'm pro choice. I've had two abortions myself. I didn't feel like having kids, and I don't regret it at all.
Yes, of course I'm vegan. I do it for the animals.l just don't like the idea of taking an innocent life for our own selfish reasons."

Science Denial Across the Political Divide: Liberals and Conservatives Are Similarly Motivated to Deny Attitude-Inconsistent Science - "We tested whether conservatives and liberals are similarly or differentially likely to deny scientific claims that conflict with their preferred conclusions. Participants were randomly assigned to read about a study with correct results that were either consistent or inconsistent with their attitude about one of several issues (e.g., carbon emissions). Participants were asked to interpret numerical results and decide what the study concluded. After being informed of the correct interpretation, participants rated how much they agreed with, found knowledgeable, and trusted the researchers’ correct interpretation. Both liberals and conservatives engaged in motivated interpretation of study results and denied the correct interpretation of those results when that interpretation conflicted with their attitudes. Our study suggests that the same motivational processes underlie differences in the political priorities of those on the left and the right."
On the myth that only conservatives are anti-science