Links - 22nd August 2019 (2)

15 Facts About 'The Garden of Earthly Delights' by Hieronymus Bosch

Hidden meanings in The Garden of Earthly Delights - "Ultimately, The Garden of Earthly Delights evades analysis. According to Falkenburg, it’s a work deliberately designed to resist interpretation; while Erwin Panofsky claims in Early Netherlandish Painting that “In spite of all the ingenious, erudite and in part extremely useful research devoted to the task of ‘decoding Jerome Bosch’, I cannot help feeling that the real secret of his magnificent nightmares and daydreams has still to be disclosed. We have bored a few holes through the door of the locked room; but somehow we do not seem to have discovered the key”."

Why Do Dogs Look So Sad? - "dogs’ faces are structured for complex expression in a way that wolves’ aren’t, thanks to a special pair of muscles framing their eyes... when dogs work these muscles, humans respond more positively. And both man and mutt benefit from a jolt of oxytocin when locked in on each other"

What if the Asian-white achievement gap were treated the same as the white-black gap? - "Why is it that the Asian-white achievement gap gets no attention compared to the extensive and widespread attention the white-black achievement gap gets, even though the gap for Math SAT scores has been growing for Asians vs. whites since 1996 while it’s been stable for whites vs. blacks for the last 20 years?"
Looks like Asians are even more white/have even more 'whiteness' than whites

15 rights LGBT people in the UK still don't have - "1. Gay conversion therapy is still legal in the UK
2. Trans prisoners are put in the wrong prison
3. Gay and bi men can’t donate blood for three months after having sex
4. There’s no non-binary gender option on passports
5. HIV-prevention drug PrEP is not widely available
6. No central London LGBT+ venues are fully accessible
7. Intersex babies are operated on by the NHS
8. Gay marriage is still illegal in Northern Ireland
9. Sex education doesn’t teach LGBT+ relationships
10. LGBT+ people can’t travel safely on public transport
11. Teaching kids that LGBT+ people exist has caused protests in two cities
12. In Northern Ireland, trans people can be legally discriminated against
13. Sexuality and gender identity aren’t included in the census
14. 24% of homeless young people are LGBT+
15. The Gender Recognition Act still hasn’t been reformed"
We are told that the gay agenda is a paranoid right wing conservative myth, but most of these aren't even rights and the rest only apply to Northern Ireland (so using them to slam the UK is mischevous)

When you get a stitch in your side, what's really going on? - "There's a medical term for that stabbing side cramp: exercise-related transient abdominal pain, or ETAP. And it's far from rare. Around two-thirds of runners experience them every year. But unfortunately for middle schoolers, elite athletes, and weekend joggers everywhere, this medical term does not come with a medical solution. There's no standard advice for how to prevent a side stitch, says sports chiropractor Brad Muir, because we don't know the mechanism that produces the pain in the first place... That's partly because, even though side stitches are common, researchers haven't really studied them. In 2015, a review article noted that after a few studies in the 1940s and 50s, there was a nearly 50 year gap in research on side stitches. Despite that, there are some basic things that we do know about ETAP: It's more common in younger people; the number of reported cases tends to drop off as people get older. The pain is more common in activities where the upper body twists, like swimming, running, and horseback riding. Athletes of all levels get side stitches—elite athletes get them less often, but their stitches are no less painful than the ones in amateur exercisers"

Why the X-Men Cartoon Theme Song is Even Better Than You Remember... - YouTube

PA threatens to cut security ties with Israel if Gaza blockade lifted - "The Palestinian Authority (PA) has threatened to sever security cooperation with Israel if the blockade on the Gaza Strip is lifted"
From 2018. Of course, Israel is always to blame

Kuwaiti Cleric: Kill Apostates; Enslave Infidels | MEMRI TV - "In his weekly fatwa session, which he uploads to his YouTube channel, Kuwaiti cleric Othman Al-Khamis said that apostates must be killed. In a video uploaded on January 9, 2019, Sheikh Al-Khamis said that apostasy is tantamount to scorning Islam. In an October 14, 2015 video, Sheikh Al-Khamis said that only infidels may be enslaved, adding that people who do not worship Allah must convert to Islam, pay the jizya poll tax, be forced into slavery, or be fought against and killed"

Google’s Best AI Just Flunked a High School Math Test - "Unfortunately for our new AI overlords, the crusade to take over the world has been stopped in its tracks by an unlikely hurdle: a 16-year-old’s math test... even a simple math problem involves a great deal of brainpower, as people learn to automatically learn to make sense of mathematical operations, memorize the order in which to perform them, and know how to turn word problems into equations.But artificial intelligence is quite literally built to pore over data, scanning for patterns and analyzing them. In that regard, the results of the test — on which the algorithm scored a 14 out of 40 — aren’t reassuring."

THE UNINTENDED GENIUS OF DONALD TRUMP - "Donald Trump must be treated seriously because he has demonstrated a willingness to make controversial and hard decisions. Many commentators thought that his threats to raise and extend tariffs on imports from China merely a negotiating tactic but he has proceeded to do so when he perceived that China was proving intransigent... It is important to look beyond Trump’s antics and even beyond Trump himself or his term of office, to consider structural implications of the trade wars, especially with China. Taking the long-term view can reveal insights into how, what seem like disruptive even destructive policies in the short term may in the longer term potentially lead to a revival of American economic strength and lead to a broader resurgence of economic growth... Trump is forcing the American economy to evolve. China’s has been a key supply chain partner to the United States for most of the last two decades. By imposing stinging tariffs on Chinese imports, which have to be paid by the US importers not the Chinese exporters, Trump is forcing American businesses to revise their products, services and business models to remain competitive.Over the coming decade, the well proven ingenuity of American companies will lead them to evolve their products to be independent of supply from China. And even if they find the economics of ‘insourcing’ or relocating the supply chain within the US commercially unviable, they will search for new sources of supply which will benefit other developing countries such as Vietnam, Loas and Cambodia. Unlike with China, these small economies can never evolve to being strategic rivals to the United States and thus their growth will be politically palatable. Chinese companies too will have to find new markets for its exports and the development of secondary economies will create new sources of demand. The geographic distribution of potential markets of demand will also create resilience in the global economy that is overconcentrated on the consumption of the largest economies... Trump is spurring innovation... By obstructing Chinese companies such as Huawei and distracting the Chinese leadership with his trade war, he is artificially creating time and space for American companies to regain their competitive advantage in innovation. His ‘us versus them’ approach, will also drive competitive innovation in both economies as political leaders urge their respective leading companies to outperform their competitors... Taken together, these longer-term effects of the Trump era will be structural and substantive. Each has the potential to deliver new sources of growth, reshape the global economic model and to distribute the benefits of growth more widely"

Eat Pray Love: An insult to women with real problems - "why is Eat, Pray, Love so popular despite this chicanery? Perhaps because it taps into a deeper malaise, some level of inchoate female unhappiness that is not often addressed in the mainstream. Perhaps the secret of its success is not Gilbert’s journey, but that she managed to run away from her life.Or perhaps it is popular for the same reason I always believed the film Ghost was so popular with women: because the husband snuffs it in the opening scenes. You can see the appeal for Mrs Clinton... Gilbert is the kind of indulged, privileged, self-obsessed, professional, middle-class woman whose entire focus is always inwards in despair, never outwards in hope.In the end, she is healed not by some great mental revelation, but by having sex with the first bloke who asks her."

Why Elizabeth Gilbert’s Ideas About Happiness in Eat Pray Love Are Wrong | Intellectual Takeout - "Gilbert would have us believe there is a direct path to happiness that each of us can navigate. In Gilbert’s case, today’s right partner or circumstance may be replaced by a better one tomorrow, as one reaches for more happiness. But Gilbert’s path to happiness is misdirected. A bottomless appetite seeking better circumstances is antithetical to happiness.Eli Finkel is a psychology professor at Northwestern University. In his book The All or Nothing Marriage, Finkel explains how Gilbert taps into our “cultural zeitgeist—the contemporary American hunger for a life that is true to the self rather than beholden to rules and restrictions.”Finkel points out that at the beginning of Eat Pray Love, Gilbert is “married to a loving, decent” man and “knows it,” but “settling for love and decency doesn’t feel like an option for [her].” In Eat Pray Love, Gilbert claims to find happiness and her true self. She falls in love with José Nunes (called Felipe in the book) a Brazilian-Australian importer. In her follow-up book to Eat Pray Love, Committed, Gilbert marries Nunes; she presumably lives happily ever after. Not so fast. In 2016, she left Nunes for Rayya Elias.As Finkel points out, “This is the second time Gilbert has divorced an impressive and appealing partner who generally treated their relationship with respect and dignity.”...
'“Fairy tales and romantic comedies often depict getting married at the end of the story—the beginning of the happily-ever after. From the perspective of a relationship scientist, such stories are more farce than romance. Building a happy marriage requires that spouses successfully navigate a dense thicket of challenges and opportunities, frequently without a good map of the route ahead.”'...
In a 2015 New York Times essay “Confessions of a Seduction Addict,” Gilbert confesses that in her youth she “careened from one intimate [non-monogamous] entanglement to the next — dozens of them — without so much as a day off between romances.”“Sex was just the gateway drug,” she writes. Gilbert was after “seduction”"

Attacks by White Extremists Are Growing. So Are Their Connections. - The New York Times - "white extremism — an umbrella term encompassing white nationalist, white supremacist, neo-Nazi, xenophobic, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic ideologies — accounted for about 8 percent of all attacks in [Europe, North America and Australia] and about a third of those in the United States."
How come the people who constantly obsess about the "far right" and "white extremists" are the same people who reassure us that you're more likely to die from falling out of your bathtub than from terrorism and it's Islamophobic to worry about it?
Of course there's a convenient fudging of the numbers by including Elliot Rodger
Somehow, the article doesn't put the numbers in context by looking at what is behind 92% of attacks

European study on anti-Semitism is scrapped - "A study backed by the European Union on the rise of anti-Semitism has been shelved after officials decided that its findings were "too controversial".The 112-page survey, commissioned by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia based in Austria, found that many anti-Semitic incidents were carried out by Muslim and pro-Palestinian groups.The research was ordered in response to fears that anti-Semitism was on the rise across Europe - and apparently confirmed the truth of the claims. However, the centre - which is the EU's official racism watchdog - was unnerved by its results.–– ADVERTISEMENT ––A spokesman for the watchdog refused to comment yesterday, but according to authoritative reports officials admitted a "political decision" was taken not to publish it partly because of fears that it would increase hostility towards Muslims... An official who refused to be named said: "There is a trend towards Muslim anti-Semitism, while on the Left there is also mobilisation against Israel that is not always free of prejudice. Merely saying the perpetrators are French, Belgian or Dutch does no justice to the full picture."... Dr Rita Koch, a prominent Jewish historian in Vienna, said that the refusal to publish the report was pushing political correctness to extremes. "This is an official body and it has no business covering up this report. If it wanted the report, it should be prepared to publish it. Behaving like this is like they are afraid of their own shadow.""
From 2003
If you can't blame the "Far right", it's not a real problem