Arglebargle III posted:

GuestBob posted:

Herp derp.

But yes, I imagine that the second roll of the dice is a little bit more loaded. Also, infanticide amongst disabled female children can be quite high in some areas and deformities are certainly something which they'll tell you about when you have an ultrasound so, yeah, I imagine a bunch of things will set the ratio off.

Also, does anyone know if the sex ratio at birth is average if a woman has already had a child of one gender? I thought I would check Wiki on this in case it would help me to look like less of an idiot but it doesn;t say - strikes me that a perfectly even ratio might be questionable for second children.

hailthefish posted:

Natural human sex ratio at birth is pretty much 1:1. Current estimated average for the world sex ratio at birth is 107 boys to 100 girls.

GuestBob posted:

Yeah I get that much, what I was wondering was whether, after a child of one gender has been born, is it slightly more likely for subsequent children to be of the same gender.

hailthefish posted:

Natural human sex ratio at birth is pretty much 1:1. Current estimated average for the world sex ratio at birth is 107 boys to 100 girls.

Arakan posted:

Well because they kill the second girl obviously

VideoTapir posted:

...sperm's payload...

VideoTapir posted:

It isn't "pretty much 1:1."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sex_ratio

Are you asserting that all those countries practice sex-selective abortion or something? The average is being dragged upward by China and India, and a few other smaller countries, but it looks more like the typical natural ratio is more like 1.03 to 1.05.

Sperm production may be pretty much 1:1, but the viability of girl and boy fetuses may vary (possibly based on the mother's health), and the success of fertilization may vary depending on the sperm's payload (the Y chromosome is lighter, for instance).

I realize this has nothing to do with your gambler's fallacy argument which is still correct, just saying this detail is wrong.

SCMP posted:

The Court of Final Appeal, ruling 4-1 on Monday morning, holds that it is “contrary to principle to focus merely on biological features fixed at the time of birth and regarded as immutable”.

The court also noted that in present-day multicultural Hong Kong, the nature of marriage as a social institution had undergone far-reaching changes. It further noted that the importance of procreation as an essential constituent “has much diminished”.

The judgment states that “whether a consensus regarding a transsexual’s right to marry exists among the people of Hong Kong is not a relevant consideration”, because reliance on the absence of a majority consensus as a reason for rejecting a minority’s claim is “inimical in principle to fundamental rights”.

SCMP posted:

A provincial city’s ambitious plans for turning an ancient Buddhist temple near Xian into the world capital of Buddhism and listing it on a stock exchange have stagnated, leaving the temple surrounded by fake monks and sham Buddha statues.

In an investigative report, the Guangzhou-based Southern Weekly documents how the project involving the 1,700-year-old Famen Temple in Shaanxi province – which boasts the ownership of Buddha’s finger bone – went horribly wrong.

Now, fake monks from Hubei province roam a nearby scenic park that opened in 2009 and that tourists and pilgrims mistaken as part of the temple. The impostors get commission for collecting donations to the Shaanxi Famen Charitable Foundation.

But clueless visitors do not know the foundation is a front for the operating company of the park, Shaanxi Famen Temple Scenic Park Cultural Industrial Group, and is not related to the temple, the weekly reported last week.

Still the company is not collecting enough donations to make a profit, despite plans to be publicly listed. Last year, it had to take on 320 million yuan (HK$398 million) in debt. In 2011, it already had to borrow some 107 million yuan, according to the report.

The project had started in 2002, when the local government, only a two-hours’ drive west of the provincial capital Xian, decided on betting on the temple’s stature for economic development and windfall profits from rising real estate prices.

In 2004, the city approved to commission the Taiwanese architect CY Lee to build the world’s tallest stupa, a worthy landmark for its ambitious project. Lee had just completed Taipei 101 in Taiwan, which at the time was the world’s tallest building.

Silent opposition against the massive expansion became apparent in 2005, when no monks from Famen Temple attended the ground-breaking ceremony for the giant building - which has since made it on the annual list of China’s ugliest buildings.

When the park opened in 2009, it quickly became apparent that the massive project was not the goldmine it had promised to be for the government, and investors disappeared. In search for new capital, its operators set up an organisation, which could collect donations from Buddhist believers and bankroll the company.

The foundation collected some 54 million yuan in donations in 2011, Southern Weekly reported. A year later, it even considered listing on the stock exchange.

But the temple’s abbot and monks refused to pose as figureheads for the enterprise. Zeng Qin, a monk and head of the Xian’s Buddhist Association, told the weekly he was "involuntarily" selected as head of the foundation, and his requests for resignation have been rejected.

The Famen monks have said they were pushed into a contract with the company and last year refused to extend a contract with it, saying that the project had brought them only disrepute. In a quagmire, the local city administration offered to transfer the company’s ownership to the monks. They refused, well aware of its debt burden.

With massive debts and dreams unfulfilled, the park is getting by with donations from unknowing tourists. For 100 yuan to thousands of yuan, visitors can have their names carved on merit plates. Some 26,000 people have done so already, Southern Weekly calculated.

In July, Zhao He, a woman from Qinghuangdao in northeastern Hebei province, said she spent some 111,000 yuan during a visit, including 9,999 yuan to cover "costs for chanting and blessing by a Buddhist master".

When she found out that the park had nothing to do with the temple, she alerted police and was promised her money back.

Vladimir Putin posted:

Natural sex rations at birth are not 1:1. However, natural sex ratios in the population should be appx. 1:1. Why? Statitically speaking, more boys are born than girls, something like 1:1.03. No one knows why this is, scientifically--it could have to do with the Y chromosome being lighter as someone mentioned. But as life progresses, the extra .03 of boys dies out naturally because boys are typically more reckless and therefore more prone to life threatening activities, keeping the population at about 1:1.

Longanimitas posted:

In my college child development class the textbook stated that the ratio is actually around 1.1:1 at conception. More males are miscarried than females, however, which puts the rate closer to 1:1 at birth. By the time a generation hits 20 the ratio will be around 0.85:1 because of the aforementioned reckless activities by males.

dilbertschalter posted:

Wait what? The sex ratio when people hit 20 is right around 1:1 (as one would expect from an evolutionary perspective).

Arglebargle III posted:

Evolution is a lot slower than cultural change, I'm sure the ratio will vary by culture. A lot of New Zealand tribes have horrifying attrition in the male population and FDLS communities literally eject teenage boys. Then you have the selective abortion of females in Asia that started the whole conversation. It can get hosed up in a lot of ways.

I was going to post that evolution has never kept up with culture but that would be a lie; modern humanity as a species is adapted to ancient cultural innovations in a variety of ways.

dilbertschalter posted:

http://populationpyramid.net/

Obviously it's possible for the gender ratio to get skewed in a major way- hence this whole discussion- but when it comes to women outnumbering males, the combination of childbirth and malnourishment (which both apply in the less advanced societies you mention) have the effect of balancing out male deaths. Again, that's not to say that it's impossible, but the post I was responding to made it sound like the .8 number was a general truth which is just wrong. You can get very skewed ratios in favor of women after particularly devastating wars and such, but that falls under the exception and not the rule.

Tse Chi-kin posted:

A family member of a Manila Hostage’s Victim: Tell me how to love China?

Under enormous pressure of Taiwanese, President of the Philippines, Aquino Ⅲ, finally issued an apology for the killing of a Taiwanese fisherman by the Philippine Coast Guard. Even though Taiwan states that the representative of Aquino Ⅲ isn’t authoritative enough, the Taiwanese government has garnered lots of support across the Strait for taking a hard line against the Philippines.

Compared with Taiwan, Beijing has done nothing and even neglects demands of Manila Hostage victims, Tse Chi-kin is very disappointed, “Taiwanese government only spent 3 days to accomplish the job (*demanding an apology from the Philippines) that our government hasn’t been able to archive over the last 3 years. It might even not be able to archive in 30 years! It’s so ironic. I can’t see that Hong Kong government and Beijing have defended interests of their citizens. They only know how to arrest dissidents.

SCMP posted:

Calligraphy by Japanese porn star Sola Aoi has sparked controversy in China, where she has a huge fan base, with purists dismissing her work as "unskilled" after it was reportedly auctioned for US$95,000.

Eight Chinese characters the actress wrote with brush and ink at a theme park in the eastern city of Ningbo were sold earlier this month, the Liberation Daily newspaper, which is backed by Shanghai's Communist Party branch, said yesterday.

"The style of calligraphy is childish, unskilled," it added.

Sola Aoi, 29, is best known for her work in adult movies, with some of her less risqué titles including Virgin Sky and Cosmic Girl. Despite China's official censorship of films, pornography is widely available on pirate DVDs.

She has recently moved into mainstream films, appearing in one 2010 movie as a zombie-killing stripper, and her blog has nearly 14 million followers. Her fans jumped to her defence.

"'Teacher Aoi' excels in both performing skills and moral integrity. This price is certainly worth it," Duoyan Sanwei said in a microblog posting.

But many dismissed the auction as a marketing ploy by the theme park that sponsored her trip in April.

Dressed demurely in a pink and white dress, the 1.55 metre tall actress was surrounded by mainly male fans on her visit, when she wrote, "Fun Phoenix Mountain Theme Park".

Bloodnose posted:

"'Teacher Aoi' excels in both performing skills and moral integrity. This price is certainly worth it," Duoyan Sanwei said in a microblog posting.

VideoTapir posted:

That is pretty bad...almost as unskilled as her porn performances.

SCMP posted:

For example, HKU offers one-year exchange programmes for its undergraduates to study abroad. Students are selected based on academic performance and extra-curriculum activities. Each year we received about four to five HKU students in Los Angeles, and usually three or four of them were students originally from the mainland.

This had to do with the rising population of mainland students in Hong Kong. Back in my day, the economics department only had three to four mainland students. We got As most of the time, but plenty of As were left for local students. Today the economics department has about 20 to 30 mainland students, and when they get most of the As, as I heard from a HKU professor, a B is the best that a local student can hope for.

It’s not about who is smarter. After all, one is selected from a population of 1.4 billion and the other is from a population of seven million. Even though universities are supposed to be a place for fair competition, it is understandable why many Hong Kong students dislike their mainland peers. Ten years ago we “stole” apples and milk; today we “steal” As in class.

posted:

“After four years of sweat and toil, after four years of spending Chinese New Year without your family, and after four years of eating tasteless food, you have finally earned this day when you can proudly graduate. But you know that all is worth it because you want to learn from an advanced developed country, something you can use to contribute to your hometown. So you decide to call up all of your friends and family to fly across the Pacific Ocean to celebrate with you on this special day. Then, on your graduation day, you get up super early, happily dress up in your academic regalia, and have your friends and relatives seated in the field, cameras ready, recorders turned on, all excited.”

“And then all of sudden, the graduation speaker, who is supposed to be there to congratulate you on your achievement, says to you: you and your nation suck. Regardless of whether that statement is true, how would you feel?”

SCMP posted:

The key to all these, Biden argued, was the ability to “think different”, in a reference to Steve Jobs' slogan for Apple.

“You cannot think different in a nation where you cannot breathe free; you cannot think different in a nation where you aren’t able to challenge orthodoxy, because change only comes from challenging orthodoxy.”

To which Zhang argued: “Come on, my ancestors were challenging orthodoxy even before his ancestors got to America.”

Bloodnose posted:

Then there's the much better and much whinier story of Joe Biden's commencement speech at UPenn.


But my personal favorite:


I wonder why Zhang mentions his ancestors instead of any kind of contemporary example...

Arglebargle III posted:

I have this suspicion that Chinese students in the U.S. who tend to dismiss American food as tasteless are the ones who never go anywhere except the cafeteria. I know a lot of people that rarely left campus and I feel like the Chinese (especially male) students are a big portion of them. I have heard people complain about American food and when they give examples it's nearly all cafeteria food, and when I meet Chinese people in China who have been to America and are like I LOVE MEXICAN FOOD AAA (because they can't get it in China) they tend to be extroverts who I could see going around to actual restaurants with friends on a regular basis.

I also don't doubt for a minute that the Chinese students who wouldn't leave campus would also lack the critical thinking skills to realize that cafeteria food sucks everywhere and not to identify the food they get at their lovely cafeteria with ALL American food.

hitension posted:

American food IS pretty bland though.

Vladimir Putin posted:

What is 'American' cuisine anyway? It's basically a mish mash of contributions for whatever cultures landed here from the WASPS to the Irish to the Italians and now being heavily influenced by Mexicans and immigrants from Asia and all over the world. Maybe we selected the worst meals from all of these cultures?

Warcabbit posted:

http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/04/what-happened-to-chinas-rivers/275365/


And so it continues. Dustbowl getting more likely.

Vladimir Putin posted:

What is 'American' cuisine anyway? It's basically a mish mash of contributions for whatever cultures landed here

Arglebargle III posted:

I have this suspicion that Chinese students in the U.S. who tend to dismiss American food as tasteless are the ones who never go anywhere except the cafeteria. I know a lot of people that rarely left campus and I feel like the Chinese (especially male) students are a big portion of them. I have heard people complain about American food and when they give examples it's nearly all cafeteria food, and when I meet Chinese people in China who have been to America and are like I LOVE MEXICAN FOOD AAA (because they can't get it in China) they tend to be extroverts who I could see going around to actual restaurants with friends on a regular basis.

I also don't doubt for a minute that the Chinese students who wouldn't leave campus would also lack the critical thinking skills to realize that cafeteria food sucks everywhere and not to identify the food they get at their lovely cafeteria with ALL American food.

EasternBronze posted:

Biden is the unofficial mascot of our office　thanks to all those articles about him in the Onion and everyone is going to love reading about this tomorrow morning. I guess you'll be offended if you're some rich kid whose dad bought him a Lexus to drive around campus but any right thinking individual will appreciate a little straight talk at the kind of event mostly populated by dull platitudes and cliches.　Kind of ironic this kid　starts out by basically outing himself as one of those guys who wants to live in a foreign bubble while he's abroad, the rich-kid version of my co-worker who only eats at Italian restaurants, McDonalds and Burger King.

I've never been out of the Midwest in the states, but I'd tend to agree that American food is quite a bit more mild than the stuff you eat out here. On the same chord, I consider Japanese food far more bland than the States. I wouldn't take food being bland as being a prejorative though, I enjoy being able to sit down at a meal and eat something filling that isn't swimming in oil. Maybe some steamed green peas with a bit of butter, a salad maybe? Hmm...