Making holes in masterpieces

This is not a realistic home to admire but it's got style

Fighting drugs with ....economics?

Good reading for when we're fighting

An argument for more massage and cuddling?

I've only ever posted one question on Quora - have you ever been rewarded for being generous - and I got some piddling responses.  This article is perhaps the best response.

Kitchen porn. I think this is interesting because the styles are so different. Which style calls to you?




Responses
1. I mean, I get it in theory. You should never smoke at all. You should never drink while pregnant. It's very belt and suspenders AND tight pants, but I understand where the CDC is coming from.

2. I will try to do these but I keep getting my credit card stolen and it's not because of the passwords.

3. Noted. We can have a sign at our wedding "__ Days without accidental Krispy Kreme deaths."

4. I like this guy's research but he seems to harp on the same point in every article he writes. 

5. Wow, the play by play of that game was really painful. I would be super embarrassed for everyone.

6. As I've said before, I'm a little mad at you for posting such a bad article. But it probably is "good" for me to know what insane thoughts other Asian people are having. I'm not sure if having Peter Liang is better or worse as a mascot than Michael Brown. 

7. This is key:  "It’s still unclear how big of a deal this is, but it seems that we have been underestimating the progress of Hispanic immigrants and their offspring because some of the more successful ones don’t mark themselves as “Hispanic” on government surveys." But in my mind, Asians and Hispanics are the most difficult races to hide from with your surnames so it's never really mattered to me to check off "Asian" anywhere because my name is unambiguously Asian.
I believe there was a study somewhere that when girls had to check off "female" before they completed a task, they did worse than if they completed the task without checking off their gender. So maybe the Asians and Hispanics that don't identify as such do better because they aren't checking those boxes. 

R2R
1. Agreed that a couple shouldn't be treated differently in the tax code than two single people. However, I think it does make sense for one person in the couple to reduce hours/work for childrearing. Do you think differently?
2. I think people have extra incentive to come because we are wonderful company! But yes, a home cooked meal is harder to come by these days.
3. I don't think there's anything wrong with a paleo/GF option if you want something different. I think paleo sounds like fun! Meat meat meat!
4. Let's download it together.
5. Our wedding will be both cool and timeless!
6. Maybe these hotels could be associated with overworked white collar workers instead?
7. I am agreed and I think Apple won anyway? I kept seeing all these "Apple victory" articles but I'm not sure they were hypotheticals. I was surprised at the number of people who thought Apple should comply. I thought we were more skeptical of the government and more pro-Apple a country than this.
R2R2R
2. I realize this but that was the first thing that popped into my head. It's certainly a cultural aspect - the only time I've ever seen silencers are in cartoony assassin movies so of course we should ban them so the cartoony assassins don't use them! But I thought about it more and realized that that's not a realistic depiction of how they're used.

R2R2R2R
1. I mean I understand that many of the measures that people employ to combat loneliness are stopgap measures but, unlike Louis CK's shoulder, you can beat loneliness. I think maybe counseling and 1 close friend is all you need (though I might need to do more research).
2. Well I'm only talking about us, silly! Not all the mooses who go without!

I Don't See Color

The CDC, in an effort to reduce incidents of fetal alcohol syndrome, somehow released a report with this infographic suggesting (see step 2) that women who do not use contraception should abstain from drinking altogether.  It sparked several responses.

Here are some ideas to keep the hackers at bay.

If we do Krispy Kreme favors, let's make sure this doesn't happen.  Ormsby.

A more interesting Black History Month (or just understanding of the history of black people in America) would highlight these points.

It is refreshing that people are actually talking about the harm this does to everyone (as opposed to just the harm it might do to the losing team, which harm likely inspired the stupid rule in the first place).

I'm not a big fan of this article, but it relates to some of the things we've talked about with respect to how Asian-Americans are viewed through the lens of race in America.  The article does a good job of demonstrating that Kang's perspective is based on a bizarre irrational anxiety that events plagued by small sample size still must mean something.  But it also tees up an interesting decision point for many Asian-Americans who may or may not feel as though they have really achieved the American Dream.

The Washington Post tackles immigration, mixed marriages, and ethnic self-identity, I guess.

Responses:

1. We learned about this phenomenon in the context of the marriage penalty/benefit in income tax class.  I think too many people still get married and rely on one spouse to reduce his or her earnings (in favor of childrearing, or because they don't need all of both incomes), such that it's hard to see a marriage as two people as opposed to one economic unit.  That said, I think it's fundamentally problematic for the tax code to treat a married person differently from a single person.  Perhaps there are ways to dodge this problem in specific circumstances (e.g. with income taxes, you pay the lower of what you would pay as two single filers versus what you would pay as married filers), but even those are controversial somehow.

2. This is a nice idea too.  But I like the idea of cooking (even if something simple) so that people have extra incentive to come.

3. Not sure how I feel about the gluten-free/paleo aspect, but it is interesting.

4. Would you like to try it?  Let me know if you download and I will too.

5. I don't want a cool wedding.  I want a timeless wedding.

6. It's never made sense why hotels stuck to the overnight stay model.  For all the fixed costs they have, why not try to parcel out remaining periods of time.  That said, one objection might be the sleaze factor: the hotels that have hourly stays (where you can stay for a minimum of one hour or as many hours as you like) are typically associated with prostitution.

7. This strikes me as a 13th Amendment problem.  My reading of the problem is that the FBI wants to force Apple to make something (not force them to turn something over, as the FBI already has the iPhone).  But even if the FBI is willing to compensate Apple for the labor and production costs for building the program, Apple (indeed, anyone) should have the right to say no.  In my view, if the FBI wants to prevent this, then they should ask Congress to pass a law requiring any technology that can be used to commit terrorism or conspiracy crimes to contain a backdoor only accessible by federal authorities.  Of course, when such a law is proposed and everyone realizes that eventually hackers will be able to exploit that same security opening, then maybe people will realize the folly of this idea and change their minds.  But in my (limited, partially informed, and humble) opinion, that's the only way to overcome the constitutional problem.

R2R:

2. The "why does anyone need [blank]" question in the context of firearms typically reflects either a lack of familiarity or comfort with firearms or a lack of belief that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms on a level of any other constitutional right.  Almost every gun control conversation I've had with a gun control supporter goes like this: GCS: We should ban [insert gun thing here]; Ben: Why should we ban it?; GCS: Well, why does anyone need it?  That strikes me as not much of an argument.

R2R2R:

1. It reminds me of a Louis CK bit where he goes to the doctor for his bad shoulder, and the doctor tells him to stretch and take a lot of Advil, but when Louis CK asks whether that will fix the problem, the doctor laughs and says of course not - it's not going to be fixed, and when Louis CK mentions that some professional athlete his age got treatment for his bad shoulder, the doctor scoffs and tells him that he's definitely not a professional athlete.  The sad aspect is that, for many of these people, the stopgap measures they employ are just bandages on a broken leg.  I think about the study that shows that a majority of widowers die within a year of the death of their wife because men are less likely to have a social network outside their wife.

2. Your summary of the article said "we're all ok."  My (tongue-in-cheek) question suggested that not everyone has all of those things.

B