Links - 22nd January 2020 (2)

Octopus-Inspired Material Can Change Its Texture - The Atlantic

Anti-manspreading chair designer receives 'backlash' - "A student has faced an "unpleasant backlash" over her award-winning chair designed to stop "manspreading".Laila Laurel, from Norwich, won a major award for the seat which is crafted so that men sit with their legs closed.She said the "concept" chair was inspired by her experiences of men "infringing on my space in public"."
Can someone design a chair that doesn't let women put their bags on it?

Religion and Terrorism: Evidence from Ramadan Fasting - "We find a robust negative effect of more intense Ramadan fasting on terrorist events within districts and country-years in predominantly Muslim countries. This effect seems to operate partly through decreases in public support for terrorism and the operational capabilities of terrorist groups."

What Does Drinking Milk Have to Do with White Supremacy?
PETA never disappoints

Campus Hook-Up Culture and Title IX Sex Police Meet Due Process - "The sexual misconduct case of John Doe v. Grinnell College just settled, joining over 200 other such cases vindicating male students falsely accused of nonconsensual sexual relations on campus.  It appears the college hook-up culture is moving from Title IX sex police to courtroom due process... Doe’s case is one of 480 such lawsuits filed in both state and federal courts, of which almost half have found in favor of males wrongly accused. These statistics alone indict the campus sex police and the current Title IX regime."

How to switch from Mac to PC, Part 1: What's driving me to do it - "My beef with Apple is the lack of polish I’ve been seeing in the software over the past few years (don’t get me started on the state of iTunes), and the amount of trouble I’ve had personally with the hardware since investing $2,700 for my current laptop. My workflow has been plagued by graphical glitches, slowdowns, and occasional refusal on the part of my ports to recognize external storage media. At times, my MacBook Pro has outright refused to boot. Heck, I couldn’t get it to format an SD card if my life depended on it. Reinstalling MacOS has done nothing to sort out these issues, nor has restoring my system from a Time Machine backup.Having paid extra for AppleCare, I’ve taken in my MacBook Pro several times to be serviced. A few months ago, an Apple tech replaced the entire bottom half of my computer with a new one—it cost less than hunting down an issue with the laptop’s logic board, I was told. And yet, the thing still refuses to fulfill Apple’s promise of ‘it just works.’ The experience has left me frustrated enough to be willing to step into the unknown and see how the other side lives. It’s a sentiment echoed by a lot of folks online of late, amid concerns that Apple, as a company, has lost its way.  Apple once catered to creatives—hardcore power users in film and music production, desktop publishing, and other artistic endeavors. They valued the company’s hardware for its performance and ease of use... If the feedback from professional reviewers and everyday users like you are to be believed, however, the release of Apple’s latest laptops have done more to aggravate consumers than excite them in the way the company was once known for. Having done away with all ports save one for headphones and a few holes for Thunderbolt 3/Displayport 1.2 and USB-C connections, owners of Apple’s latest have been forced to invest in a forest of dongles so they can continue to use their trusty peripherals. Also, the processing power of these new portable rigs is underwhelming when compared to similarly priced Windows 10 hardware, which is salt rubbed into an already raw wound for many Apple aficionados."
From 2017

Everyday Lifehacks We Needed So Much (33 pics) - “About 2 minutes after realizing there was no bottle opener in my hotel room, I discovered this gem. *metal hinge thing at the top of the door*”
“Reuse a Pringles can for other snacks that come in bags to avoid loud bag crinkling in the office.”
“My dog likes to sleep on my legs. I made her this out of some of my old jeans for her to sleep on while I’m at work.”
“My girlfriend came up with a crazy-good microwave life hack for multiple plates! Heats up evenly!”
"Keep your toddler busy by letting them paint the fence with water"
“When you don’t want to buy a smaller pan for just 1 recipe”
"Writing dates and hours on the packaging of your medication eliminates the “did I remember to take it this afternoon or do I need to take it now” problem"
"Use a “decoy book” when your pet won’t let you read."
“Wear thick wool socks in new shoes around the house for an hour to break them in. It makes shoes much more comfortable.”
“Changed one of the earbud rubber pieces to black. Black is right and white is left, so you can quickly see which is which.”
“She will thank you later! *bucket over drunk woman's head*”

NeoN: Automataster on Twitter - "How can we stop artificial intelligence being so racist and sexist? So far, all attempts to de-bias our algorithms have failed"
""All of our attempts to bend math to conform to current social sensibilities have failed." Galileo says hi."

I,Hypocrite - Posts - "Women get mostly infertile at 40, but live to be 80.Without a family, what are you going to do with those 40 long long years?"
"Travel and shop and adopt pets and be happy in my childless life, Stefan"
Bio: "I tweet about having depression, loving the Seahawks, and hating Trump."

US prisoner who died, but was resuscitated, argues he's served his life sentence - "WHAT does it mean to complete a sentence of life in prison? One prisoner claims he has done it by serving time until the moment of his death — plus another four years since — and said it is well past time to set him free.The prisoner, Benjamin Schreiber, made that argument to an appeals court in Iowa, saying that when he briefly died in 2015, before being revived at a hospital, he completed his obligation to the state. He asked the three-judge panel to let him get on with his life.The judges rejected his argument this week, ruling that a lower court had been right to dismiss his petition... He has filed several unsuccessful appeals, but in 2018 he argued in court in Wapello County that he had been resuscitated against his will, and that because he had, his “sentence has expired.”"

What is the LGBT rainbow poppy and why is it controversial? - ""the RED poppy is in memory of ALL soldiers during the war. The poem Flanders fields states why."Pride has a whole month to raise awareness. Soldiers who died and fought for us have one MINUTE a year. Get some respect!""
If the rainbow flag were turned another colour for some cause, would that be okay?

Life of Dad - Posts - "You left the toilet seat up"
*Sink full of her shit*

subtle asian traits - "Haircut: 60
Gupit: 40"
"When they scamming tourists
(Gupit means haircut in Tagalog)"

Decolonize this place - "There is class war that’s been waging on the poor, largely Black and other POC, of this city. It’s a way to extract wealth, incarcerate, and entrench White Supremacy in the name of law and order and fairness, but robbing people blind. Fuck their law and order, fuck the police, and fuck the MTA. Today we fight back together 🏽🏾🏿"
Apparently it's racist to expect people to pay for their subway fare
Surely OP is not suggesting that black people and people of colour are disproportionately likely to not pay...

The Many Lives of Demogorgon, From Scribal Error to 'Stranger Things' - "Demogorgon was never a deity who loomed over Greek or Roman mythology. In fact, “Demogorgon” wasn’t even a real word. His popularity actually dates back to the 1300s, when he began appearing in Latin literature in and around Florence. In the words of the late historian and mythographer Jean Seznac, “Demogorgon is a grammatical error become a god.”... Demogorgon’s nonexistence is exactly what makes him useful to scholars today. When historical texts discuss classical gods like Apollo and Hades, it’s difficult to figure out their source material: They could have been inspired by any number of Greek or Latin writings. But when Demogorgon appears, it’s possible to trace him all the way to the source"

Johnstone Castle – Johnstone, Scotland - "the remains of this 16th-century castle are surrounded by ordinary terraced homes, with the castle forming the center point of a post-war housing development."

Mother charged, may have to register as sex offender after being topless in her home - "A Utah woman is facing charges after she says her stepchildren spotted her topless in her own home.Tili Buchanan is charged with a misdemeanor that could force her to register as a sex offender.Her lawyers were in court Tuesday, asking a judge to strike down the law banning women from being topless.The incident happened more than a year ago in Salt Lake City. Buchanan says she and her husband were hanging drywall in their garage when they took off their shirts to keep their clothes from getting dusty. Buchanan also removed her bra.Her three stepchildren asked why she wasn’t wearing a shirt, and she told the children that everyone should be fine walking around their own home with their skin showing... Buchanan is facing three counts of lewdness in front of a child"
The fetish for "protecting" children strikes again

Utah Woman Charged With Lewdness After Being Topless In Her Own Home - "Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah argued this week that the statute under which Tilli Buchanan, 27, was charged is unconstitutional, and they have asked a judge to drop the charges against her and change the state law... When her stepchildren, aged 9, 10 and 13, walked in, she "explained she considers herself a feminist and wanted to make a point that everybody should be fine with walking around their house or elsewhere with skin showing"... "Simply because Miss Buchanan is a woman, she is facing this charge," Farrell says. "Therefore, women throughout Utah are at higher risk of facing a criminal charge simply because of their gender. There are different ideas around what morality is or is not. But the state's reach to criminalize morality based on gender and gender stereotyping is incredibly problematic.""
If it's sexism to treat female toplessness differently from male, then circulating topless photos of your ex can't be revenge porn (and touching a woman's breasts without consent isn't more serious than touching a man's). Feminists should be careful what they wish for

Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts - "In a decision that has First Amendment implications, California is punishing dissent. They will not buy vehicles from companies who did not side with them in a legal battle. This matters as California filed a second lawsuit and any automaker who doesn’t take their side will lose the state’s business."
"state agencies will only purchase vehicles from manufacturers that recognize the authority of California’s clean air agency to set its own greenhouse gas emission standards"
Of course, if Trump had done something similar...

Conservative from the 2050s starterpack : starterpacks - ""Marriage is only between two humans" (but still against interplanetary marriage)
Solar system change denier
Profited from the intergalactic economy boom after Solar War 2, thinks teens nowadays are lazy
Has no interest in understanding the marginalized android community
In favor of dirty fusion power plants
Still believes in the 2D gender spectrum instead of the 3D spectrum in complex space
Revels in the fact that space-socialism has proven disastrous for Venusians
Against any portal gun regulations"