"The happiest place on earth"

Get email updates of new posts:        (Delivered by FeedBurner)

Saturday, January 18, 2020

Links - 18th January 2020 (2)

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, WAGs row - "It is a headline writers dream. A WAG row is how many papers described the bust up between two footballers wives... Coleen Rooney turned detective in an effort to track down which of her friends were leaking personal information about her to the press. That earned her the title - wait for it - Wagatha Christie. She placed false stories on her private Instagram account, blocked each of her friends in turn and watched to see which story made it into print"
BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, The Prosecutor General - "‘It's a long, long way to Vanuatu. Even if you're starting in Northern Australia, this small group of Pacific Islands with a population of little more than a quarter of a million is a three hour flight. But the population is swelling, thanks to a cunning wheeze to raise revenue, now employed by nearly two dozen countries by selling passports. It's not clear though, as Sarah Treanor has found that many of its new citizens will ever actually breathe the Pacific Air.’...
‘The Indian businessman, Amarendra Nath Ghosh, who fled to Vanuatu to escape fraud charges in his home country, and promised the Vanuatu government a giant ruby in return. Mr. Sope granted him a diplomatic passport. The ruby? That never materialized... he's here to make a moral argument against the current government scheme, selling passports to foreigners for around 150,000 US dollars. Citizenship sales account for over 30% of state revenue. That's more than VAT. The government has argued it needs funds for rebuilding after the devastation caused by Cyclone Pam in 2015. But who wants Vanuatu citizenship and why?... in Hong Kong, we met a citizenship agent who brokers passports for mainland Chinese clients, Vanuatu’s biggest market… his Chinese clients seek alternative passports to access the EU, making it easier to buy property, start businesses and set up bank accounts. It's a remarkably pragmatic approach to identity, but Vanuatu passports offer visa free travel to over 120 countries. Vanuatu’s official partner in Hong Kong even runs catchy TV ads aimed at mainland Chinese. One, modeled on a quiz show, asks a father and son to try and locate Vanuatu on a map. They do, and they win a passport...
‘The Chinese have much more money than us. It's like colonialism we are doing to ourselves.’"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, From Our Home Correspondent 22/10/2019 - "[On sending kids to university] You would think it gets easier as each child leaves. But for me, it doesn't. There's one less bed not slept in. One less toothbrush in the bathroom and one less voice around the house. I've heard other parents talk about parallels between the first day of school and taking children to university. In the first instance they cry and sob not to be left and you feel bad. Roll forward to age 18 and they can't wait to get away but somehow you still feel bad. You don't even get to pick them up in the afternoon or kiss them good night at the end of the day. It feels awful. I looked at the dining table through weepy eyes, and think about preparing dinner with my new normal of once again setting one place less. Then my phone rings. It’s son number three. Hi, mom. Can you help me? How do I cook chicken?"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, A Modern Day Evita - "Is the Catholic Church about to end the centuries old priestly celibacy rule which incidentally, was only introduced into Europe during the Middle Ages, in order to avoid property inheritance disputes. The Catholic Church already allows married priests in Eastern rite churches, and in cases where married Anglican priests have converted. There's no doubt though about the winds of change blowing through the Vatican now...
Han Chinese Buddhism as distinct from the Dalai Lama's Tibetan Buddhism, is thriving in China, with the tacit recognition of the government. From the ruling party’s point of view, it counteracts the spread of Christianity and Islam so it serves a purpose. Although if you are a party member, you cannot be a practicing follower of any religion. The party remains paramount"

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Trump in Trouble? - "It's clear Donald Trump does ask President Zielinski to investigate his Democratic Party rival Joe Biden, and his son Hunter, who was a director of a Ukrainian gas company. But this is where it all gets a bit complicated. One of Donald Trump's key campaign slogans was drain the swamp. And there are an awful lot of Americans who think it's an entirely legitimate question to ask how it was that the son of the former Vice President Joe Biden, came to be put on the board of a Ukrainian gas company. Hunter Biden trousered $50,000 a month, despite the fact that he'd never set foot in Ukraine, and had no expertise in the gas industry...
Sihanoukville could perhaps most kindly be described as a work in progress. Even before we arrived after the excruciating eight hour bus ride from the capital Phnom Penh, our guide, Mr. Lim had already warned me that if I was hoping to see something exotic, I might be disappointed. ‘It's full of Chinese people in Sihanoukville nowadays’. His eyes scan our group as if he were looking for a real Chinese person to get his message. And then, ‘they took our port, they destroy our environment and they look down on us’. Mr. Lim, whose ancestors in fact also came from China several generations ago, eventually turned to me with a friendly nod. But a look in his eyes suggested he really might think I was personally responsible. Being ethnic Chinese is somewhat unwelcome in many parts of Southeast Asia these days... Driving downtown, it almost felt like a third tier Chinese city. The billboards were primarily written in Mandarin, and then Google translated into the local Khmer language, with results that often amuse the locals. Chinese restaurants were everywhere too, with mind boggling names such as cockroach BBQ and wolf warrior fried fish. There was even a fertility clinic for Chinese men"
Presumably China shills will blame the CIA for why Cambodians are upset at the Chinese

Bizarre video of Nobel physics laureate Gérard Mourou surfaces - "Mourou and a colleague, Jean-Paul Chambaret, are seen dancing in the laser lab, apparently surrounded by a troupe of female students. Two of the women fling off their semi-transparent lab coats to reveal white underwear underneath, in an unexpected striptease. The men, wearing reflective laser googles, strike macho poses."
It's quite a cool video, the "controversial" bit was 35 seconds (out of 4 minutes) at most, they are not showing off their underwear and it defies logic to call it a striptease. The video also features more female than male characters - which one would normally claim to be a good thing

American robots lose jobs to Asian robots as Adidas shifts manufacturing - "Adidas plans to close high-tech “robot” factories in Germany and the United States that it launched to bring production closer to customers, saying Monday that deploying some of the technology in Asia would be “more economic and flexible.”"

The Daily Northwestern Apologizes to Students for Reporting News That Triggered Them - "The Daily Northwestern is the student newspaper of Northwestern University, which is home to the Medill School of Journalism, one of the best regarded journalism schools in the country. Many Medill students work at the paper, reporting on the news.At least that's what they used to do. If a recent editorial co-signed by the paper's top editors is to be believed, The Daily Northwestern will no longer fully report on campus events if the reporting runs the risk of making marginalized students feel unsafe or upset... The incident that generated this sniveling, embarrassing apology was a recent visit to campus by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions... Some of the activists were apparently dissatisfied with the way The Daily Northwestern covered the event. This is not such a surprise: Activists are often dissatisfied when student papers maintain any objectivity whatsoever, as they believe that good journalism must itself be aligned with activist goals. At Harvard University, for example, student activists—as well as the student government—have demanded that the The Harvard Crimson stop quoting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in articles about pro-immigration rallies. To its great shame, The Daily Northwestern has apparently decided to cave to completely unreasonable demands... The piece must be read in its entirety to be believed. It sounds like parody—something The Babylon Bee would make up for a fake article mocking progressive deference to the hypersensitive... Absent from the piece is any attempt to explain how covering the event, and taking pictures of it, undermined the physical safety of students. Reading between the lines, I gather that consuming news or seeing pictures relating to the event was deemed psychologically scarring by some activists in the marginalized community, and this is the harm the paper's editors wish to avoid in the future. If so, reporters would be unable to cover any event that involves even the slightest public controversy.  Is this what students at the country's most prestigious journalism school are learning these days? That self-censorship is the paper's best practice if someone is offended by what's happening in the world?  The Washington Post's motto is "democracy dies in darkness." I hope the newspaper doesn't hire too many recent graduates of Northwestern's journalism program: They sound way too eager to turn off the lights."

Japan’s cheapest hotel charges just 130 yen (US$1.20) for a room, with a huge, no-privacy catch - "Located in Fukuoka City, Business Ryokan Asahi is about a 15-minute walk from the Tenjin neighborhood, the town’s primary shopping and entertainment area. What’s more, the unbelievably cheap 130-yen rate isn’t some middle-of-the-week special, but available on Fridays and weekends too. OK, so there’s got to be some sort of catch, right? Yes, there is, and it’s big one…or maybe we should call it a weird one? In any case, to stay in the 130-yen room, you have to agree to let the hotel live-stream your stay on its YouTube channel... the one thing we haven’t addressed is why Asahi offers such an odd package. The management told us that Room 8 is the least-often booked room in the hotel, and they thought this would be a good way to convince people to stay in it. Granted, they’re only making 130 yen each time, but that’s 130 yen more revenue than they’d be getting if it sat empty, plus helping spread the word about an otherwise ordinary ryokan that most people would never have heard of."

Outrage as Syrian refugee with FOUR WIVES and 23 KIDS 'claims £320,000 in benefits every year' - "The man named only as Ghazia A fled Syria with his huge family last year and has since settled in Germany. He doesn't work and instead lives off the huge benefit bung, according to a financial manager who worked out what the state is liable to fork out.  There is no official confirmation of the £320,000 figure.  Under Islamic law a man can marry up to four wives as long as he is able to give them financial support.  However, German law does not recognise polygamous marriages.  But instead of the marriages being ignored, the refugee was given special leeway to choose his "main wife".  The other three women were then categorised as "friends" in an arrangement a local official described as an "exemption""

Florida white man allegedly spits in face of black girlfriend because he didn’t want to play ‘slave and slaver’ - "A white man got angry with his black girlfriend who reportedly wanted to role play “slave and slaver,” which resulted in the pair getting into a spat that brought Tampa-area cops into the mix."

Ranking Rise May Intimidate Opponents - Scientific American - "Opponents seeing the newbies’ names climb in the rankings might have been somewhat psyched out. It’s a phenomenon that Duke University researcher Hemant Kakkar calls “status momentum”:“If that person is gaining momentum, you tend to feel more threatened or intimidated by their momentum. And as a result, your performance is impaired.”Kakkar and his colleagues analyzed more than 100,000 matchups between tennis pros and millions of amateur chess games. They found that players fared worse when facing opponents who were rising in rank. And it’s not just that the rise in rank reflected higher skills... people expect that a competitor’s future rank will actually mirror physical laws of momentum—that is, an object in motion will continue to stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force."

Science News Briefs from around the Globe - Scientific American - "Hong Kong’s government revealed plans to build an artificial island to alleviate the nation’s housing crisis, triggering concerns from activists and residents about nearby marine ecosystems."
Presumably marine life is more important than bringing down the world's highest housing prices

Is surge pricing the fairest way to manage demand? - "consider a dilemma faced by the Coca-Cola company. A Coke had cost a nickel - five cents - for decades.Coca-Cola would have liked to increase the price by a cent or two but it couldn't.Why? Its 400,000 vending machines took only nickels and redesigning them to take two different denominations of coin would be a logistical nightmare. In 1953, Coca-Cola tried instead to persuade President Eisenhower - in all seriousness - to introduce a 7.5 cent coin. That attempt failed - and Coca-Cola's price remained five cents until 1959.  But Vickrey wasn't daunted and described a contraption that would solve the problem... Consumers can feel exploited by some forms of dynamic pricing - especially when, as with Uber, prices can double or halve in a matter of minutes.  A 1986 study by behavioural scientists Daniel Kahneman, Jack Knetsch and Richard Thaler indicated people found price surges infuriating.  Having once despaired over the lack of a 7.5 cent coin, Coca-Cola unsuccessfully attempted another technological solution in 1999, when it flirted with a vending machine that on sweltering days would raise the price of an ice-cold Coke. It was so unpopular, the company had to backtrack. But peak-load pricing is likely to play an increasing role in the economy of the future.  Consider a smart electricity grid fed by intermittent power sources such as wind and solar power. When a cloud covers the Sun, your laptop might decide to stop charging, your freezer might switch itself off for a minute, or your electric car might even start pumping energy into the grid rather than sucking it out.  But all that would require those devices to respond to second-by-second price changes."
Another example of how renewable energy makes life worse

ABC's of HIV Prevention : Dan Ariely, James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics, Duke University : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive - "‘I do a lot of research on cheating. So in some sense, if you find a lot of zeros and ones you probably find a lot of cheaters.’
‘Yeah. And I think we did actually here... men who respond, the number of men who were found to be HIV infected and reporting abstinence for their entire life, the proportion was about 4% of those who came in.’...
‘That's very hard to do, to get HIV if they if they are abstinent’
‘it's pretty hard to do. You had to be 18 to be in this survey. So it's unlikely that anyone would have acquired HIV at birth and survived age 18 frankly. A few people perhaps could have gotten it through a blood transfusion. I think this tells you that there may be some baseline bit of lying about sex... the proportion of women who were HIV infected and reported abstinence was around 1.67%. So pretty low, right in the same ballpark as the men.’
‘Okay, so what about the ones? Once a month’
‘And this is really where we get at the crux of the paper. So for men who reported that they only had one sexual partner their entire lifetime, zero [Ed: HIV?] prevalence didn't change at all. It was right around the same, three and a half percent. For women who reported that they'd had only one sexual partner in their entire lifetime, the zero prevalence was 19%.’
‘Okay, so one possibility is that women are lying… they're okay to admit that they had one partner but they have a very hard time admitting they had more. The other possibility of course, is they are telling the truth, is that their mens have been not beast [sp?]’...
‘We fully acknowledge that there may be people that are lying about sex here, I think it's probably not the case. Because if you look at the magnitude of increase, there's a very nice linear line… you see a very nice line here. A trend line among the number of sexual partners for women and for men suggesting that there is an incremental increase there.’
‘Yeah. So let me kind of summarize. The point is that women who have fewer partners have much more prevalence of AIDS. And your take of this is that what's happening is that they might have low prevalence, but it's the men who they’re sleeping with who actually are, a bit more playful, let's call it’"
blog comments powered by Disqus
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Latest posts (which you might not see on this page)

powered by Blogger | WordPress by Newwpthemes