Interesting Links for 14-06-2015

[andrewducker]

• The Surprising Downsides of Being Clever
  • (tags: iq intelligence happiness )
• The creation of Protestantism, as told through Facebook updates
  • (tags: Facebook protestant catholicism history )
• Amazon commits to Terry Gilliam's 'lost' Don Quixote film
  • (tags: Amazon TerryGilliam )
• Generating Magic cards using deep, recurrent neural networks
  • (tags: ai magic

Comments

[andrewducker]

As a note, I think there are a couple of interesting points in the "What makes a woman" article, but the writer gets negative points for using Caitlyn's original name.

Also for not bothering to do any research into transgender people and brains:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_transsexualism#Biological-based_theories

On the other hand, they're completely correct to be baffled by the idea that you need to change genders to wear nail polish, and to rail against what looks like a lot like people buying heavily into gender roles.

[kalimac]

The argument that brain differences are purely environmental is not borne out by research, and the argument that you're not a woman unless you've had your period "in the middle of a crowded subway" looks a lot like the argument that Barack Obama isn't "really" African-American. What got Larry Summers in trouble was not suggesting that there are biological differences between men and women, but the differences he suggested, which are demonstratably environmental, and his refusal to allow for individual variability.

[ckd]

If being a woman requires menstruating on a subway, it's amazing that the human race survived long enough to invent subways.

[steepholm]

Also for sliding silently from Jenner's account of herself to trans activism in general, and for implying that all trans people define womanhood in terms of nail polish, etc. in the most simple-minded way imaginable. This reads much like a Daily Mail article "proving" that feminism is oppressive because they managed to find a couple of OTT examples of language policing.

[ETA: I've just come across an excellent analysis of the Burkett piece here, and recommend it to your attention. It's long, but well worth it.]

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sous vide b s

[apostle_of_eris]

eek! chemicals!!
and not a single number
bull

Re: sous vide b s

[andrewducker]

Please do some research

Re: sous vide b s

[steer]

The worry is linked with an article that is about things which don't leech BPAs but can leech Estrogenic Chemicals in some circumstances in small amounts

RE: Re: sous vide b s

[andrewducker]

Gah! LJ ate my response! (Well, more likely, the hotel WiFi did).

But, swiftly, you seem to be indicating the BPA isn't a risk, and I could have sworn the evidence was strongly on the side of it definitely being an endochrine disruptor with likely unpleasant effects from long-term exposure to it (see contents of most of my response above), and that leeching from plastic containers into hot water was a great way to get it into people's systems.

Am I misunderstanding something here? (If that Wikipedia page has been twisted out of recognition then I'd like to know that...)