hsuehf's Xanga

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:58:03 GMT

Tuesday

Nothing going on.

- By the numbers: Who's Cooking This Thanksgiving? [pewresearch]. Interesting almost as many men are cooking as women.

- Research: True Love [National Geographic]. From the article: Helen Fisher has suggested that relationships frequently break up after four years because that's about how long it takes to raise a child through infancy. Passion, that wild, prismatic insane feeling, turns out to be practical after all. We not only need to copulate; we also need enough passion to start breeding, and then feelings of attachment take over as the partners bond to raise a helpless human infant. Once a baby is no longer nursing, the child can be left with sister, aunts, friends. Each parent is now free to meet another mate and have more children. I also like the blurb on love marriage vs arranged marriage. Interesting. (Thanks, MaMc)

- Research: Beauty really IS skin deep ... scientists find radiance is most important factor, not symmetry [dailymail]. Interesting. But not unexpected, since attractiveness always comes back to perception of good health (and therefore fertility).

- Thoughts: Cast/Characters in Twilight [wikipedia]. In the movie, Bella Swan is 17 years old and Edward Cullen is 108 years old though he appears to be 17 years old. First of all, she's under the age of consent in many parts of the US so it might constitute statutory rape. Second, she's dating a guy who's over 6 times her age. I'm guessing that nobody cares if it's a good story.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:57:21 GMT

- News: New jihad code threatens al Qaeda [cnn]. Finally. Let's see if this honorable code actually takes. I'll be surprised if it actually makes any difference.

- Research: The Jobless Rate for People Like You [NYTimes]. If you want the job, it's great to be the white female age 25 to 44 with a college degree and it sucks to be the black male, age 15 to 24 without a high school diploma.

- Research: The Harried Life of the Working Mother [pew research]. I find the poll Too many children are being raised in day care these days to be interesting (~ 72% agree in 2003). Seems a lot of people think women ought to want to raise their own kids. But realistically, this won't happen due to economics. I wonder how this sentiment will affect policy and opinion on the worth of marriage.

- Research: What Divides America? [pew research]. Apparently the biggest divide in America is the immigrant vs native born.

- Research: The States of Marriage and Divorce [pew research]. The last section, Correlations in Marriage Patterns, is interesting.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:43:04 GMT

Tuesday

Long time no blog.

- Research: Men should marry young, smart women, say scientists [telegraph]. You can download the original research paper here [ssrn]. The research is specific to Switzerland so it may or may not apply to the western world. But I imagine that if they did a similar study here, it would find similar results for similar reasons.

- Research: Steep rise in Down's pregnancies [bbc]. From the article: The sharp rise reflects the growing number of older women becoming pregnant, when there is a higher risk. An increase in the number of subsequent abortions and more antenatal diagnoses means slightly fewer children are being born with Down's syndrome. Interesting problems in this modern day and age.

- Research: Children 'make married parents happier' [telegraph]. From the article: Having children makes married people happier - but not those who become parents out of wedlock, according to an academic study. I go to a lot of random parties. It seems like people are either talking to people of the opposite gender in search of romance, or in the case of guys, talking to other guys to find people to golf/tennis/workout with or some other activity. My older friends say that people disappear off the earth when they get married; can't ever get them to hang out like good old days. So, I think eternal bachelor types will get increasingly frustrated as they find that they're doing the same things year after year. They want to do something of real significance (e.g.: raise well-adjusted kids who love and fear the Lord). And couples who don't have kids will eventually want to when they realize something is missing (well, the girl will). And single girls have the biological clock. And of course, life is hell if you're in a shotgun wedding or have a kid accidentally. The article does make sense.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:52:18 GMT

Wednesday

Nothing going on.

- News: Music teacher jailed for lesbian affair with pupil [Telegraph]. Historically, sexual interaction between a male teacher and female student has a response like A painful death cannot come too soon! and interaction between female teacher and male student gets NICE! So, what happens in the case of female teacher with a female student?

- Research: Genetics Linked to Early Sexual Activity in Kids [health.com]. I wonder if this is some evolutionary biological mechanism to increase fecundity. I managed to find a prepublication of that document here [srcd.org], if you want to read a fairly late draft of the research. Interesting.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:19:06 GMT

Nothing going on.

- Research: Girls are primed to fear spiders [newscientist]. Interesting.

- Article: Texting for Toddlers? [NYTimes] and Tips on Choosing Age-Appropriate Texting Devices [NYTimes]. Interesting problems in this modern day and age.

- Research: What makes them hot? Body or Face? [scitechbits]. Short answer for guys and girls is body for short term and face for long term. Read for the full story.

- Research: Men lose their minds speaking to pretty women [Telegraph]. Maybe true when you're younger and stupider but not when you're older and wiser. And definitively not when you're married else management will yell at you and you'll have worse problems.

- Research: Long-term wine consumption is related to cardiovascular mortality and life expectancy independently of moderate alcohol intake [JECH]. Is this scientific justification to drink more?

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:01:11 GMT

Nothing going on.

- Research: Obese People Have 'Severe Brain Degeneration' [LiveScience]. HFS; 8% less brain tissue is a lot. Don't be obese.

- Research: Researchers Answer: When should I ask her out? [SciTechBits].

- Research: How to Get Cancer: Move to the United States [livescience]. Epidemiological study involving hispanics and cancer. Interesting.

- Research: Working women get lower quality sleep than working men [TIME.com].

- Article: I'm beautiful, clever, and I'll sell you my eggs for £12,000 [dailymail]. Interesting business proposition and the confluence of social-economic circumstances that encourages such a thing.

- Research: Twitter tweets are 40% 'babble' [BBC]. From the article: The study found that only 8.7% of messages could be said to have "value" as they passed along news of interest. Yup. Sharing more things more often to be more relevant to more people in more social networks is obviously more better. Everybody wants to be heard. Nobody wants what they are saying to be rated as junk. Now, they need another study to try to understand and classify the blogosphere.

Monday, August 03, 2009

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:00:19 GMT

Monday

Nothing going on.

- Research: The Calorie Content of Popular Beers [DivineCaroline]. Good to know.

- Research: Divorce 'health scars permanent' [BBC].

- Article: NYC to ship homeless out to destination of choice [ajc.com]. I agree with this program. It does make social and economical sense. And those who say you can't just blah blah blah, do you foot the bill?

- Article: Is it OK to impregnate a 60-year-old woman? [Slate]. From the article: Everywhere you look, moms are older. Over the last three decades, the U.S. birth rate among women aged 35 or older has increased by 140 percent. These women now produce one of every seven American children. In Europe, women over 35 have increased their share of pregnancies from 5 percent to 20 percent. More than 100,000 American women aged 40 or older have babies each year. In the last 15 years, at least a dozen women aged 60 or older have done it. The oldest age at which a woman has given birth is now 70. Is middle-aged motherhood getting out of control? And to the God-fearing, are we playing God now?

- Research: Organic 'has no health benefits' [BBC]. Actually, it does have health benefits, but the difference is negligible. But one might want to make the organic or no-organic decision based on sustainability and chemical use.

- Poem: Mother Teresa's Do It Anyway. Is it really that hard to implement?

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:00:46 GMT

Wednesday

Nothing going on.

- Article: Couples saying 'I don't' to expensive weddings [USA Today].

- Article: Hot Climates May Create Sluggish Economies [NPR].

- Research: Delinquent Behavior Among Boys 'Contagious,' Study Finds [Science Daily]. Yup; a study confirms the obvious.

- Research: Blinded by Science in the Online Dating Game [NY Times].

- Article: The painful side effects of Obama's healthcare reform [LA Times]. From the article: In looking for a way to fund healthcare, Obama has set his eye on the oldest and sickest. You see, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, about 30% of Medicare spending -- nearly $100 billion annually -- goes to care for patients during their last year of life. What if there were no "last year of life," the president seems to be asking. The Eskimos used to set their elderly and sickly adrift on the ice or otherwise abandon them during times of scarcity, and that, metaphorically speaking, is what Obama would like us all to start doing. Interesting proposition.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:00:16 GMT

Sunday

Nothing going on.

- Article: U.S. Births Hint at Bias for Boys in Some Asians [NY Times].

- Article: Too Poor to Make the News [NY Times].

- Article: How Much Student Debt Is Too Much? [NY Times].

- Article: Facebook and Divorce: Airing the Dirty Laundry [Time].

- Article: Have a Purpose in Life? You Might Live Longer [health.com].

- Article: When Young Men Are Scarce, They're More Likely To Play The Field Than To Propose [Science Daily].

3 Choices; Pick 2

Sample problems:

Good quality, on time, within budget. Context is work project.
Sleep, work, social. Context is college life.
Strong christian, nice, socially desirable [1]. Context is a relationship with someone.
Zerg, Terran, Protoss. Context is your races in a 2 on 2 Brood War multi-player game.

Such is life that you can't have everything. So, for #1, I would rather the project be of good quality and on time and not within budget. For #3, I would rather have a relationship with somebody that is nice and socially desirable but not a strong Christian. Yeah, I'm part of the majority that does not reward strong Christianity and punishes lack of physical attractiveness.

What would you pick? And if you want to answer but don't want to be publicly lynched, email / IM your answer and I will write an anonymous comment (except that it communicates your gender). In case it wasn't obvious, I'm most interested in #3.

[1] Let's define terms.
- How to define "Strong christian" ? Let's use George Barna's fairly technical definition of evangelical as found here [barna], under heading "survey methology", 3rd paragraph.
- How to define "nice" ? Let's say it's stuff like kind, generous, gracious, patient. Notice that the definition of "Christian" does not have any causal relationship to being "nice".
- Finally, how to define "socially desirable" ? Let us say a socially desirable girl is one you find physically attractive and a socially desirable guy is somebody you can emotionally connect with. So, a socially undesirable girl is one you don't find physically attractive and a socially undesirable guy is one who you can't connect emotionally.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:55:48 GMT

Tuesday

Nothing going on.

- Article: Why Your Baby’s Name Will Sound Like Everyone Else's [Wired].

- Article: Why the poor pay more: More in money, time, hassle, exhaustion, menace [Seattle Times]. Being poor sucks you into the continuing cycle.

- Article: Going under the knife with open eyes [Globe & Mail]. At what price, beauty? And is beauty worth it?

- Article: The "Bitch" Evolved: Why Girls Are So Cruel to Each Other [Scientific American]. Interesting, this evolutionary psychology.

- Research: The Paradox of declining female happiness [UPenn's Wharton]. An interesting quote from Women are more unhappy despite 40 years of feminism, claims study [Daily Mail UK]: We pushed so hard for equal rights, for having the right to work, for having equal status, we pushed so hard to have choice. But what we hear from many mums is: I have no choice, I have to work, I don't love my career, my childminder is taking half my salary and I'd rather bring up my children myself but I can't afford to. Feminism has traded one set of problems and benefits for another set of problems and benefits. Is it better? The answer depends on which set of problems and benefits you like better. So, better for some and not for others.

My Opinion: The Cost of High Christian Standards in Spiritual Maturity

This is about relationships, again.

Being a pragmatist, I think that for many (most?) folks in the church, the lack is not in spiritual credibility but in dealing with real-world social issues. But we all still focus on Christian standards of spiritual maturity in despite of this.

I honestly think good enough is just that, good enough. It's easy to argue that one can never have too high a standard for spiritual maturity. But consider that people will be bummed when they think they don't meet those overly high standards. Good people get disqualified. One might better solve the problem of quality of spiritual maturity (was there a problem to begin with?) and incidentally create another, and in my opinion, worse problem. Are we better off?

Good enough is good enough.