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Fazebook is nothing new as this history of social media shows; before it there were:

* Classmates
* Open Diary
* Friendster
* myspace
* Live Journal
* Plaxo

Fazebook is the only one that gained critical mass. So yeah, Fazebook is just-another-gossip-fad.

A good programmer knows how to use the tools he is given to best advantage, and when to say "I can't reach the desired goals using these tools because xyz."

"Good people" also understand why black and white thinking is a bad thing.

That's okay, I have a litmus test of my own: if the boss is arrogant, unpragmatic, idealistic, elitist, or just an asshole like you, I don't work for him.

If a non-50/50 distribution is due to people expressing their own career preferences (whether influenced by biology or simply their personal tastes), free from discrimination, then that's perfectly acceptable.

I agree it's perfectly acceptable, but "free from discrimination" is the glaring loophole in that statement. We have a long and very sexist history that we've only recently started to unravel--we've gotten rid of laws that are openly discriminatory, but we're just starting now to tease out all the social ways in which we continue to discriminate.

And when studies show that there are low level, statistical differences between male and female brains, that strikes me as a pretty weak counter to the now-obvious idea that when there are large gender imbalances, it's probably sexism at root. Part of that is because it's not obvious to me that a difference in aptitude for spatial reasoning translates to "men are better programmers than women"; part of that is the fact that no profession is particularly dominated by one or two single aspects of cognition--every successful professional is so because they have a variety of useful skills they apply in their job; and a big part of that is the understanding that it take a few generations of people growing up not thinking bigoted bullshit before we start to get it out of our system.

I posted this link below, but it's worth reposting here: This woman is a freelance writer who'd peaked, until she started a second freelance business where she appeared to be male. Suddenly, she's getting more jobs, people are treating her better, she's being paid more, and her clients treat her as having more expertise. A better illustration of how we still live in a sexist society I haven't found.

Already been done.

Nonsense. Sexism is alive and well

What's happening now, and what these articles are suggesting, is some kind of proactive quota system that 'values' femininity over getting the job done well.

You're imagining things. I've never seen anyone seriously suggest a quota system in technical fields.

Anyway, judging one's attributes as they relate to the job at hand is perfectly justified imo.

Absolutely, if by "one" you mean the individual, and not just the exemplar of their gender.

Assuming that any uneven distribution across a population implies bigotry is itself a bigoted outlook. It implies that the dominant population selected against unlike-kind because of the desire to be around like-kind using irrelevant attributes while ignoring other possibilities (like self-selection on the part of the minority population).

There's nothing bigoted about empirically observing that the dominant group has done a particular thing for a particular reasons, just like there's nothing wrong with empirically observing that the basic structure of men's and women's brains is different in a statistically significant way. Empiricism isn't bigoted.

actually, just checking the parent post I replied to - it said:

"Pan's Labyrinth may not be for everyone, but it's is certainly among the top tier in movies. Maybe you should stick to Disney if you want something less depressing."

Where did he say "Pan's Labyrinth sucked."?

You need to brush up on *your* reading before you start casting aspersions toward others.

http://www.copyblogger.com/5-common-mistakes-that-make-you-look-dumb/

http://www.copyblogger.com/5-common-mistakes-that- make-you-look-dumb/

It's really not about blogs vs. "web sites" but about the quality of the content and the expertise of the author. The signal-to-noise ratio in the blogosphere may be high, but that's increasingly true of "mainstream media" as well.

Viral marketing is quite often an attempt to encourage users to pass on your marketing material without any financial inducement.

As soon as there is an additional incentive, it becomes much more like affiliate marketing.

Some incentives might be included that are not financial, such as unlocking access if you get 3 friends to sign up.

The biggest problem with the FTC statement is with Affiliate marketing, especially where a marketer is offering a recommendation regarding a specific product, with the ability to link directly through to that product with a CPA or affiliate link.

On stuff like this you listen to lawyers, and consult with them if you are in any kind of internet business.

Here are some references to what 2 lawyers have written about this.

http://www.copywritersblog.com/2006/12/13/ftc-crac ks-down-on-word-of-mouth-advertising/
http://www.copyblogger.com/affiliate-marketing-dis closure-now-required-by-law/

This affects Amazon, Google, Ebay, Clickbank, Commission Junction, Linkshare and a host of other billion dollar companies that allow affiliates to link directly through to a particular product or service with a recommendation.

Disclosure: I practice disclosure on my blogs and use affiliate links recommending products, and have an interest with this as I just launched a disclosure policy plugin for Wordpress. It is available free of charge and is GPLed

This might go beyond merely corporations. Affiliates may also be required to disclose the fact that they're paid for their links.
Or, more specifically, the affiliate networks & companies involved may be forced to require affiliates to do, since the networks/companies are the ones who'll be getting the fines.
Read Copyblogger's excellent post on this subject for more details.