Interesting Links for 25-05-2017

[andrewducker]

Stop Calling It a 'Vagina'

(tags: genitals women vagina language )

Conservatives’ free school breakfast pledge costed at just 7p per meal

(tags: Conservatives food money OhForFucksSake )

Have a list of marketing tricks to avoid falling for

(tags: marketing psychology viaSwampers )

Researchers find dozens of genes (mildly) associated with measures of intelligence

(tags: Intelligence genetics )

Terrorism is mass murder with a media strategy; it’s long past time to disrupt it.

(tags: terrorism media )

Laffer curve: Everything Trump and Republicans get wrong about trickle-down economics

(tags: economics tax politics usa history )

What It's Like to Carry Your Nobel Prize through Airport Security

(tags: awards science physics security viaSwampers )

China Reaches the Moon Snapping Incredible, Never-Before-Seen High-Definition Images

(tags: moon china space photos viaDrJon )

Google starts tracking what you buy at stores in person

(tags: Google shopping surveillance )

A true, real, and accurate definition of the term "fanfiction"

(tags: fanfiction funny writing )

No, ‘The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct’ Hoax Doesn’t Prove Gender Studies Is Garbage

(tags: academia fraud fail viaSupergee )

Dog sits on the editorial boards of seven international medical journals

(tags: academia dogs fraud )

Study indicates mushrooms may be the safest recreational drug

(tags: psilocybin drugs safety )

Britain stops sharing Manchester attack intelligence with US after leaks continue

(tags: usa spying OhForFucksSake )

I am terrible with names, and would totally do this

(tags: names funny comic )

Comments

[bugshaw]

Marketing: I know that I'm a sucker for a "rare opportunity" to see a film as a "once-in-a-lifetime experience". I laugh at myself as I click Buy Ticket. Then I go and enjoy the film.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes, I'll put up with marketing for something I already know I want.

[danieldwilliam]

I have a thought for a while that the world will be an exciting place when China and India are a bit richer and better able to support high quality science and technology at the same per capital level as the USA and Europe. I hope the additional volume of efforts counter-acts the slowing return on ordinary R&D and broadens out the chances for significant breakthroughs.

In the meantime, it's nice to have some nice pictures of the moon.

[adrian_turtle]

The first link, from vice.com, seems to take a known fact and go off in a weird direction trying to explain it. Yes, lots of people say "vagina" when they really mean "vulva." I'm dubious that the mistake is because everybody is focusing on how women's bodies contribute to men's orgasms. The other name for "vagina" is "birth canal." It's the part people focus on when they aren't interested in anybody's orgasm. (And of course jargon is self-propagating. When a person hears one word used to represent the whole set of bits, they tend to go on using it.)

[matgb]

I don't like that Laffer curve article, it's seems to be trying to prove that the idea of the curve itself is wrong, not the way idiots interpret it.

The basics of the curve and the analysis are, provably and obviously, correct, if you put taxes up on something above a certain point people stop doing it and do other things instead: it's a per-tax analysis not an overall analysis. The idea that taxes reduce activity is a centerpoint of tax policy on stuff we don't like (petrol, tobacco).

The problem with the right wing use of Laffer's work is that they seem to have only learnt the "if taxes are too high you can cut them and get more revenue" bit, which is true in a way, Thatcher famously increased income tax revenues by shifting the tax burden to VAT, but they don't seem to have noticed that the opposite is also true and taxes on some things can be below optimal.

The article seems to cover this, but never actually goes at it and instead just knocks idiots, which is a shame because an actual debunking of their use of it would be useful.