Slashdot Mirror

You wanna see what FCC chairman Ajit Pai thinks of you? Here is a video he posted yesterday to tell you why you should not worry about losing Net Neutrality.; He posted it on the right-wing website Daily Caller. (for real, you should watch this 1.5 minute video from Trump's FCC chairman, as he reveals he has no idea what Net Neutrality is, and also that he is a massive fuckwit.)

https://youtu.be/JeKK637IYAg

He's telling you all the things you'll still be able to do on the Internet after he signs over control to Comcast. Oh, and by the way, in the part of the video where he does the "Harlem Shake", one of the girls he's dancing with is a blogger who promoted the "Pizzagate" pedophilia controversy.

https://gizmodo.com/ajit-pai-t...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/fut...

So Ajit Pai joined up with right-wing 'news' organization, The Daily Caller, to make a video mocking net neutrality proponents. Which is a big WTF all on its own, imagine if Tom Wheeler had made a video with the NYT promoting NN? But the chief editor of BannonBart was in the fucking white house so that kind of bullshit is just par for the course for the GOP.

Even crazier though is that one of the people in his video is a pizzagater. You just can not make this shit up. Kakistocracy.

You may have also got them easily replaced due to class action settlements and known production batch defects. They shipped me an ipod nano years after the one I got for an ADSL promotion fell 2ft or less onto tile and cracked the screen on day fucking one of having it. They refused to replace it since it was 3 weeks outside a known defect window and was deemed to be dropped and not covered. https://www.geek.com/apple/ipo... https://arstechnica.com/uncate... Nothing I have ever owned before or after this cracked so easily and I was pissed. It was clearly one of the defects. So they didn't replace the $350 defective lcd at the time, but like 5 years later I get a replacement as a result of a class action settlement because the batteries were defective. https://gizmodo.com/5858916/ap... Fuck Apple. Deny all problems until customers band together and push back against Apple denying clear production failures. In the 2000's, I had to get my aunts iMac repaired due to the defective capacitors. They were leaking like crazy. Apple wanted $1100 to replace the motherboard. I ranted about how my cousin has bought Apple shit since the 80's and Apple care when it was available and it was like 2 months out of Applecare coverage. Eventually, after 45 minutes of pleading, they did the one time exception since they bought Apple care a number of times. I believe if there was proper disclosure, my cousin could have checked the caps during warranty period to get it replaced before all the caps were completely fucked and total NFG.

Gizmodo gave Windows Phone 8.1 a positive review, and it's full of UX nerd nonsense like this.

https://gizmodo.com/windows-ph...

Giant, no-caps headings are still a terrific alternative to the tired and needlessly skeuomorphic concept of "tabs." Windows Phone's almost complete lack of borders in favor of cleverly utilized bands of negative space still makes it one of the best looking interfaces around. Live tiles are still colorful, and striking, and a somehow weirdly fun take on icons, even if an army of widget-squares maybe isn't quite as nice as having a proper notification hub.

However look at the comments

You don't find Windows 8 hard to support?

"Are you on the desktop or "tile" screen?"
"What's the tile screen?"
"The screen with all those tiles..."
"Oh...no, I'm on the desktop."
"Can you hit the Windows key and get back to the tile screen?"
"Where's the Windows key?"
"On the bottom row of your keyboard."
"Oh, I see it. OK I'm there."
"Now hit Windows + I and a menu will pop out of the right side"
"It does, but every time I move my mouse near it it disappears..."
"*sigh*"

I didn't say it's easy to support. I said it's not that hard of an OS to us once you actually try. It's terrible to support because people are fucking stupid. That's where WebEx comes in handy.

Windows Phone managed to stagger on for one more release before Microsoft killed it.

Despite an increase in car ownership and usage, cars aren't even the number one contributor to particulates anymore in many places.

That's only half true. To summarize, the major cause of air pollution in many cities is when ammonia from farms combines with pollution from vehicles to form PM 2.5.

Only if you buy a real Keurig, and buy the little plastic cups instead of grinding beans and brewing in reuseable cups.

A) There was a time when you couldn't do that with the Keurig 2.0
B) There are plenty of other coffee makers that come with "reusable cups" (they call them filters) from the factory.

"Explicit consent" is a worthless and meaningless measure.
Everyone already agrees to all the bullshit that a particular piece of software demands of them - either during the installation or when starting the software.
Or during updates.

What would be necessary goes beyond tracking or consent.
Basically, there's a need for legislation treating software and hardware developers as presumed criminals and fraudsters - requiring proof and regular inspection that they are not defrauding or abusing their customers, attempting to do so or allowing for it through negligence.
Think treating all software and hardware with same scrutiny as medical devices and procedures.

You know... as you would expect whatever it is that your dentist is putting inside your mouth during a root canal procedure.
Is it just filling material - or is she putting a tracking device in there, so the reptilian overlords could track you using satellites and cellphone towers?

Same scrutiny should be given to all the cases of giving away "free" software, purposefully making software obsolete or packaging the same old functionality in a "new" application just because the developer has to push SOMETHING out there every quarter.
Also, backward compatibility and right to repair for hardware would have to be obligatory, and could be waived only by making all the software running on obsolete and "reasonably beyond repair" hardware open source and "free" - unless said hardware/software is a part of a medical device.
In which case support would be obligatory "for the life" of the patient.
You know... so people wouldn't have to worry about being asphyxiated if a fuse blows out during the night.

Blank Reg was the pirate television broadcaster seen in the Max Headroom TV series of the 1980s. He traveled in his well equipped broadcast van, avoiding authorities and offering 'alternative' video that competed with the big broadcasters.

Someone at Gizmodo
https://io9.gizmodo.com/560967...
talks about the prescience of that TV show so long ago...

Right. But people didn't say "Oh you ignored this study, here's a link". They just tried to silence him by getting him fired. Gizmodo accused him of writing an 'anti diversity screed', and reproduced it without any of the charts and hyperlinks

https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-...

Vox called it a 'sexist screed' and said it reflected a 'divided tech culture' and said it ignored 'well documented gender biases'

https://www.vox.com/identities...

Vox didn't try to address his arguments, they all said he was

The memo's stereotype-based arguments and cries for less empathy sparked immediate controversy

In Damore's memo, he states that women are more "neurotic" and have a lower "stress tolerance" than men, and that these characteristics - not systemic harassment, routinely being passed over for promotions, or other well-documented instances of sexism in tech culture - are the reason why women do not succeed as often as men do in the high-pressure industry.

He also argues that men have a "higher drive for status" than women, and suggests that this factor, rather than well-documented gender biases in the workplace, may be responsible for the lack of women in leadership positions both at Google and in the tech industry as a whole.

Finally, Damore calls for Google to "De-empathize empathy," arguing that "being emotionally unengaged [with the issue of diversity] helps us better reason about the facts." He decries political correctness, discounting the very concept of unconscious bias and arguing against unconscious bias training for Google employees.

Google's VP of diversity said it 'it advanced incorrect assumptions about gender. and also refused to link to it because "itâ(TM)s not a viewpoint that I or this company endorses, promotes or encourages". I.e. no one addressed his arguments - they caricatured them and effectively labelled him a heretic to the diverse faith.

And you haven't addressed his arguments. You put rational is scare quotes, implying he's actually motivated by sexism.

And I think we can all agree that as traumatic as being downvoted on slashdot is, it's not as bad as being fired. Also look at the the difference in institutional power between the two sides of the argument. The CEO and VP on one side and some hapless engineer on the other. As soon as the engineer disagreed with them, they fired him. Which was a sign to other engineers not to argue with their ideas.

Not to mention most of the media immediately sided with Google and denounced him.

In the old days the left would say that racism/sexism was 'prejudice plus power'. I.e. that white men could be sexist and racist because they held institutional power, but non whites and non men could not be because they did not. The problem with that is that the left holds institutional power these days, at least in the media and at Google. So in that case Damore could at worse be prejudiced, not actually sexist.

Oddly, the summary gives a link to a two-month old critique of the fonts and style, but fails to link to the actual story being summarized.

It's here: https://gizmodo.com/ios-11-is-...

`Trap Crap Clickbait site for Hares. https://gizmodo.com/tag/ios-11

Gizmodo article, "iOS 11 Is Killing Me":
https://gizmodo.com/ios-11-is-...

> If you publish information about yourself on the Internet...
>YOU'VE PUBLISHED INFORMATION ABOUT YOURSELF ON THE INTERNET.

Or, sometimes, you are just in the contacts list of someone ELSE who published information about THEMSELVES on the Internet...

https://gizmodo.com/how-facebo...

Oh.... and if you have a record of both financial transactions, you can also say "he double charged me" without any worries either.

Er what? In this case the claim is that the accountant's final bill was for double what the original estimate was. The claim is not that accountant erroneously charged the client twice for the same bill.

According to some sites this is the review in question:

Too bad there is no zero star option! I made the mistake of using them and had an absolute nightmare. Bill was way more than their quote; return was so sloppy I had another firm redo it and my return more than doubled. If you dare to complain get ready to be screamed at, verbally harassed and threatened with legal action. I chalked it up as a very expensive lesson, hope this spares someone else the same.

Reading this story, it appears this is a common thing that happens with quotes and estimates. The tax accountant gave an estimate of $200 based on the understanding that the tax preparation was a simple return. The actual return out more complicated so the bill went up to $400 and thus began the dispute. Whenever I used a tax accountant, it was understood that the more complicated my tax situation was, the more complicated return and thus the higher the bill. Bear in mind, I used a tax accountant when I knew that the tax would be complicated that year (bought/sold a house, moved cities and jobs, went from salary work to contract work, etc).

According to the reviewer, not only was there the bill dispute (which appears was paid), the work was "sloppy" and another firm was used to double the amount of his/her tax refund. The reviewer thus implies the accountant was also incompetent. The reviewer also implies that the accountant was unprofessional and screamed/harassed the client.

Here are some of the cited links:
http://mashable.com/2013/06/26/facebook-shadow-profiles/
http://www.zdnet.com/article/anger-mounts-after-facebooks-shadow-profiles-leak-in-bug/
http://www.zdnet.com/article/firm-facebooks-shadow-profiles-are-frightening-dossiers-on-everyone/
https://splinternews.com/facebook-recommended-that-this-psychiatrists-patients-f-1793861472

So why aren't we looking at returning the island of Manhattan to it's original, beautiful, state?

Paper is amazingly versatile and is not vulnerable to viruses or power failures. Apollo 13 used the cover of their flight manual (along with duct tape, socks and a few other odds and ends) to construct a CO2 scrubber that saved the lives of three crew members. I'd like to see a tablet computer do that.

Well, at least they did better than Microsoft

Came here exactly for this. I mean it's not like Google's program didn't start saying the things that Microsoft's very public twitter bot did. And Google even apologized and asked for understanding, etc. Microsoft just said, "It's a social experiment, and now it's offline. KTHXBAI!"

These require material to train them and the responses tend to reflect the participants nuanced behavior. I mean, what do people think is going to happen when you force feed it, eyes taped open, to 47 million social media feeds? Seems to be some kind of fine line between an algorithm and portal to hell. Well, at least they did better than Microsoft

You can find the source for the topic of this post at the folowing site: https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-...

The updates are broken down into 3 sections, with section “b” being the most relevant to this e-mail.
https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-...
https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-...
https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-...

Extract from section 63b:

When processing requests to establish and change memorized secrets, verifiers SHALL compare the prospective secrets against a list that contains values known to be commonly-used, expected, or compromised. For example, the list MAY include (but is not limited to):

Passwords obtained from previous breach corpuses.
Dictionary words.
Repetitive or sequential characters (e.g. ‘aaaaaa’, ‘1234abcd’).

Context specific words, such as the name of the service, the username, and derivatives thereof.

If the chosen secret is found in the list, the CSP or verifier SHALL advise the subscriber that they need to select a different secret, SHALL provide the reason for rejection, and SHALL require the subscriber to choose a different value.

*Verifiers SHALL implement a throttling mechanism that effectively limits the number of failed authentication attempts an attacker can make on the subscriber’s account as described in Section 5.2.2.*
*Verifiers SHOULD NOT impose other composition rules (e.g., mixtures of different character types) on memorized secrets.*
*Verifiers SHOULD NOT require memorized secrets to be changed arbitrarily (e.g., periodically) and SHOULD only require a change if the subscriber requests a change or there is evidence of compromise of the authenticator.*

Forcing password changes just to change the passwords also contributes to this security “fallacy”, that in fact does more to weaken our security than anything else.
When both of these are combined, we should find that the rules are in several ways, much like the TSA at airports, good security theater that causes no end of grief for travelers, yet does almost nothing to make people safer or more secure.

As a follow up, I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal regarding this topic.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/t...
That may be pay-walled, so another variant from Gizmodo.
http://gizmodo.com/the-guy-who...
Interesting to find out that the “supposed” strong password rules were developed by a bureaucrat with very little knowledge about computer security.

Finally, a previous paper I composed as an attempt to point out the fallacy of those laughably weak "strong password rules" several years ago.

You know, every time I see people asking for the ability to enforce "strong" password rules like the above, I have to laugh.
Those kinds of rules actually reduce the safety and "strength" of the passwords.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if those "recommendations" came directly from the NSA with the express purpose of making brute-force cracking of the passwords so much easier for them.

Let's do a little math here.

Start with a typical 8 character password requirement - with 95 printable characters in the ascii character set, we subtract 1 for the "space" character, leaving us with 94 character "options" for each of the 8 spaces.

So now, we do the math, 94 characters for each of the 8 positions gives us just a little over 6 quadrillion possibilities.

Now, we start to add in the "rules".
1 uppercase

On a decent system, one can easily change user-id by logging out and in as necessary. Cookies are not shared among different users. For phones, better use different hardware with different cards. However, that is not enough. Quoting the report:

The people who hire sex workers are also very concerned with anonymity so they’re using alternative emails and alternative names. And sometimes they have phones that they only use for this, for hiring women. You have two ends of people using heightened security, because neither end wants their identity being revealed. And they’re having their real names connected on Facebook.

Yes she did. Yahoo was struggling but profitable before Mayer.

She sabotaged all the cash cows, like the women website (shine) because she felt it was tacky. She replaced it with immensely expensive bloggers that the usual Yahoo users didn't care about (like Katie Couric) and fancy fashion blogs that she liked but that drove away the millions of loyal users. Ad money dwindled down as she tried to attract sophisticated users that didn't want anything to do with Yahoo and scared away the peasants that were the real customer base but that she didn't like. She was like someone buying a McDonald's franchise and replacing bigmacs with $25 goat cheese paninis, then wondering why both the former customers and the fancy new ones she wanted to attract didn't show up.

She spent 1 BILLION for tumblr, which never paid off. She also made 50+ other acquisitions that went nowhere, see the list here:
https://gizmodo.com/heres-what...

She also antagonized important partners and key internal team members, in part because she was extremely rude (being hours late for meetings with clients, making people beg for meetings in 5-minute increments and making them wait in line in front of her office, etc) and in part because she tried to rebuild a Google team at yahoo but hired all the wrong people, like Henrique De Castro (a 60 million dollars mistake) who himself antagonized everyone.

She also repeatedly botched possible partnerships with media companies and tech companies.

For the record, there's many examples of people who took companies in far more dire situations and turned them around, like Steve Jobs or Alan Mullaly, or even Lou Gerstner back in the 90s. Mayer had no vision, no strategy, and no execution skills, and yet she got paid more than those people.

In 1920, just 35 percent of American households had electricity. https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/how-the-1920s-thought-electricity-would-transform-farms-510917940

Ahem: Throwing the Godwin Flag.

Here's what Mike Godwin himself had to say about the neo-Nazis at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville: "By all means, compare these shitheads to the Nazis. Again and again. I'm with you."

I'd call [the NSDAP and its successors] fascist-left

Though the platform of the NSDAP included workfare programs, the rest of its nationalist, anti-feminist, anti-gay, anti-Marxist ideology smells a lot like paleoconservatism, the ideology of the alt-right.

How about those Antifa Nazis? They OK in your book?

And there's a LOT more of those LEFTIST purveyors of violence than the few hundred - at most - real Nazis in the US.

Oh, right, LEFTIST violence is OK because it's to force "progress".

GFY.

Oh, yeah, did you hear the chants from Green Bay fans in response to those anti-American "#Takeaknee" protests?

USA! USA! USA!

Bwaaa HAAA AHAAAA!

Notice the #1 selling jersey for all NFL players is now Pittsburgh offensive tackle Alejandro Villaneuva's? Yeah, the US Military Academy graduate, ex US Army Ranger officer, combat veteran, who was the ONLY Steeler on the field for the Star Spangled Banner last weekend.

Yep, the #1 selling jersey for all NFL players is that of an offensive lineman who openly defied all that #takeaknee anti-US BULLSHIT.

IN YOUR FACE, "PROGRESSIVE" ASSWIPES!

Notice what those "#Takeaknee" have done for NFL ratings? Yeah, in the tank. So bad that the TV networks showing NFL games are having to give money back to advertisers.

So those NFL protests are about to be STOMPED on. By the NFL itself. Because pissing off 80% of your audience doesn't work for an entertainment business.

Ahem: Throwing the Godwin Flag.

Here's what Mike Godwin himself had to say about the neo-Nazis at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville: "By all means, compare these shitheads to the Nazis. Again and again. I'm with you."

I'd call [the NSDAP and its successors] fascist-left

Though the platform of the NSDAP included workfare programs, the rest of its nationalist, anti-feminist, anti-gay, anti-Marxist ideology smells a lot like paleoconservatism, the ideology of the alt-right.

It took Dyson 15 years and 5000+ prototypes to get a vacuum right. Yes, a vacuum.

I can only wonder how many tries it's going to take them to get right something as complex as a car.

I just disrupted my pants in multiple ways.

Pass the smalt or maybe some raw water - that is real disruption!

This is NASA, come on, a science institution. Using Fahrenheit?

(The following is a joke)

I'd like to point out that NASA also lands probes on Mars. The Europeans with their vaunted metric system? They tend to crash.

Heck, the one time NASA used a little bit of the metric system? Whammo!

It's like a virus. Start including the metric system and the whole thing gets screwed up!

(The preceding was a joke. Yes, I know the issue with the ESA lander had nothing to do with the metric system. Yes, I know the issue with the NASA lander was converting between metric and imperial units.)

Why would this surprise anyone? We've known that animals (and not just mammals, either) can use logic for a while now.

The notion that animals do not "think" is an artifact from the bad old days when it was widely believed that animals do not feel pain.

https://gizmodo.com/crows-unde...

Maybe take 10 seconds to verify your assumptions before spewing ignorance? Just a thought.

http://gizmodo.com/how-apples-...

The headphones are fine, you just need to buy the Monster headphone cables to connect them. Then they'll sound purer, fuller, and richer.

You forgot "danceabler"

http://gizmodo.com/302478/7250...

Make sure that you get the cables with the gold connectors, otherwise you are just frontn'.....

The headphones are fine, you just need to buy the Monster headphone cables to connect them. Then they'll sound purer, fuller, and richer.

You forgot "danceabler"

http://gizmodo.com/302478/7250...

So despite knowing that Microsoft is an early NSA collaborator, forcing and tricking users into "upgrading" to Windows 10, distributes proprietary software (all of which is untrustworthy by default which prevents even technical users from fixing problems and distributing improved software to others), and Microsoft blatantly disregarded user choice and privacy, shipped with bad defaults for privacy, got caught lying to users about how Windows 10's euphemistically named "privacy controls" worked, you believe the headline that Microsoft "will soon give users more control over app permissions" and therefore want to talk about this in the context of the rose-colored vision of the past for Windows users? Microsoft has made so many choices against "giving users more control" over anything there's no reason to believe they'll ever make such choices, just like any other software proprietor.

Forget the past, history begins now.

Although an interesting thought experiment about the light collected by an eye vs a lens, you are not factoring in a massive difference - the eye is filled with fluid, while the chamber of a camera is not.

That keeps the temperature regulated, in a way a camera simply does not do...

In fact if you read about HOW eyes are actually damaged by looking at the sun without magnifying elements for too long, heat is not a factor at all - so how can it possibly compare to the damage done by a camera lens which is entirely heat related? It is in fact the result of an internal chemical reaction, totally different...

In the article she mentions that a Google spokesperson said that there was a NDA for the meeting... but nobody else seems to have heard anything about it. You'd think that if there really was a NDA, somebody other than an anonymous "google spokesperson" would know about it. (In the article, she refers to it as "the claim that the meeting was covered by a non-disclosure agreement." The wording is interesting here: if she had any good evidence that a NDA existed, she would have phrased this as "the fact that the meeting was covered by a non-disclosure agreement.")

A couple of people wrote articles commenting on her article before it got deleted: https://www.mediapost.com/publ... https://raventools.com/blog/fo...

What are you mumbling about "Enterprise-level office chairs"? I have never heard of that term. Did you just make it up?

Oh wait, let me google it! Enterprise-level office chairs: Oh I see, I am sorry, here is the first result when searching without quotes:
https://gizmodo.com/spocks-hom...

If quoting the term when searching Google, e.g. "Enterprise-level office chairs", your post is the only result Google provides. So, maybe you made it up after all!

Let's see if you can tell the difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump's positions on net Neutrality:
citation provided

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton has indicated support for net neutrality. She gave two thumbs up to FCC chairman Tom Wheelerâ(TM)s proposal for strong net neutrality rules, though admitted it was only a âoefoot in the door.â

Donald Trump

Donald Trump does not support net neutrality. Actually, he thinks it will lead to the censorship of conservative media. âoeObamaâ(TM)s attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media,â he tweeted in 2014.

Question:

How can you be so wrong, and so smarmy in your fucking ignorance, and not at some point examine your idiotic and wrong "both sides suck" worldview, which has you actively assisting the people who actually are screwing you.

The author of the Gizmodo article also wrote articles on a psychiatrist whose patients were appearing as "people you may know", speculating that the doctor had the phone number for the patients.

The author also wrote an article that suggests Facebook uses physical location.

The author has also put out a request for more than just speculation, and is looking for concrete evidence.

nothing stops the user from changing the SSID on their home network or owning their own router.

Other than that if you subscribe to home high-speed Internet in a Comcast territory, and you're not renting Comcast's latest gateway, Comcast will inject pop-up ads for its gateway into randomly chosen HTML responses in cleartext HTTP connections that your PCs, tablets, and smartphones make. (Source; Source; Source) Is this a reason to break down and rent Comcast's gateway? Or to boycott sites not available through HTTPS? Or to ditch Comcast and instead pay nearly 100 times more per GB for satellite or home cellular?

The differences that whisky aficionados talk about are readily perceived by the ordinary palette.

And while the audiophile realm is filled with snake oil salesmen who want nothing more than to separate you from your hard-earned wages, providing you with products of highly dubious value, whisky is largely --- and I do say this in the over-all sense, understanding that there are occasional exceptions --- value-based. The more you spend on a bottle, generally speaking, the better it will taste.

I largely agree with this, but I'll go ahead and provide one of the most egregious and notable exceptions that you alluded to: Pappy Van Winkle is surely the Pear Anjou speaker cable of the whiskey world. Perfectly acceptable bourbon, to be sure. But not worth anything near the going price.

True "whisky snobs" know the difference.

You remind me of true audiophiles

Nobody calls moderates Nazis or anything else - we call Nazis Nazis - and we will run them into the ground.

Two weeks ago, William Shatner was compared to a Nazi and called "alt-right".

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/william-shatner-attacks-snowflakes-social-justice-warr-1797386393

And recall that last year, the former president of Mexico compared Donald Trump to Hitler.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-donald-trump-felipe-calderon-mexico-wall-20160228-story.html

Neither William Shatner nor Donald Trump are Nazis.

People keep complaining about being called Nazis, not even listening carefully enough to notice that it's not directed at them.

Two weeks ago, it was William Shatner who was being compared to a Nazi and called "alt-right":

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/william-shatner-attacks-snowflakes-social-justice-warr-1797386393

If Shatner were to complain about those accusations, would you insist that the accusations aren't really being directed at Shatner, and that Shatner has nothing to worry about?

We see that the same tactics being used against people like Shatner could be used against us, too. You insist that we're just imagining it. You insist that we have nothing to worry about. But we just don't believe you.

http://gizmodo.com/godwin-of-g...

. A conference in Vegas becomes a showdown between Owen Pitt and the staff of Monster Hunter International with an ancient god, one that could turn Sin City into a literal hell on earth.

Yeah, ancient gods are so so sci-fi. Moving on, when Torgensen ran the Sad Puppies he explicitly said that it was because "popular" works were being passed over in favor of "literary" works or works with political messages http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-hugo-awards-were-always-political-now-theyre-only-1695721604. Note that that doesn't say anything about whether it is fantasy or scifi. The Rabid Puppies meanwhile explicitly tried to be more extreme and to deliberately nominate "right-wing" sci-fi or simply ruin the Hugos. As Vox Day https://www.wired.com/2015/08/won-science-fictions-hugo-awards-matters/ said:

“I wanted to leave a big smoking hole where the Hugo Awards were,” he told me before the winners were announced. “All this has ever been is a giant Fuck You—one massive gesture of contempt.”

Moreover, the idea that the Hugos classically focused on science fiction that was less fantasy is simply not true. "The Graveyard Book" won in 2009, Bujold's "Paladin of Souls" won in 2004, "American Gods" won in 2002, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" won in 2001, and if one looks at nominations rather than winners, fantasy novels have frequently been nominated, going back at least to "Too Many Magicians" in 1967 and Dragonquest in 1972, and Book of Skulls in 1973. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Novel. And that's just in the Best Novel category. Similar remarks apply to the other categories.

Like he stood for the truth when he lied about having a PHD?

Like he stood up for the truth when he was offending women at Harvard?

Fired Google Memo Writer Took Part in Controversial, 'Sexist' Skit While at Harvard for Which Administration Issued Formal Apology

Damore participated in the writing of the skit, along with other program students, but according to two sources, Damore was the primary performer during the skit when it was performed. The source noted that in the “particular year in which James played a role organizing, [the skit] was particularly offensive to women.”

Three sources allege that Damore told what they characterized as a masturbation-related joke during the course of the performance, which fell flat and offended some in the audience. However, two sources attributed the backlash to the performance not to any malice on the part of Damore, but instead to his awkward delivery.

Multiple sources also allege that the skit was viewed as problematic among many individuals in the department and that a number of people were offended by the specific masturbation joke. The administration later issued the formal apology to the group for the skit overall.

Try reading the memo. Here's the first line for you:

I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes.

Uhhh, GPS chips are required by law to disable for altitudes and velocities common for missiles.

http://gizmodo.com/5824905/you...

The GPS system is also controlled by... the USA. Which can be shut off or reduced accuracy for an area. Which in fact, they actually did for years and only somewhat recently was "military-grade precision" actually given to consumers. Bill Clinton ended it in 2000. It's called "Selective Availability." But they can re-enable it at any time should some dumbasses in North Korea decide to use GPS.

Technically, they said "they would never use SA again." But does anyone really believe that? ONE area where the USA just says "Screw it. We'll tap everyone's phones but we wouldn't dare shut off this gigantic array of satellites WE build, run, and support, if someone was using them to nuke us."

Now, perhaps they might try using the Russian equivalent, GLONASS, system. But Russia knows how to leverage itself. If they knew NK was using GLONASS, they would USE that leverage to bargin. But they (and China) wouldn't just let NK start World War 3. It's about letting assholes get away with "as much as possible" to gain leverage but never letting them "actually do something bad" because then the leverage disappears and the entire political climate changes. (That is, Russia and China don't want WW3 unless they know they can win it and not be crippled for a hundred years afterward.)

There's not a whole lot that the Y chromosome carries, and there are predictions that it will atrophy into carrying no information in 4.6 million years at the current rate of decay: https://www.quantamagazine.org...

While the X chromosome carries 1,000 or so genes, the Y chromosome currently carries 200 genes and declining: http://gizmodo.com/the-y-chrom...

Most of what people think the "male" chromosome carries is based on unscientific knowledge. Your chest hair, beard, and other male traits, do not come from the Y chromosome, but are instead expressions of the X chromosome under high levels of testosterone. That's why people without the Y chromosome can have sex-change operations and get a beard, chest hair, etc. by taking testosterone supplements. Testosterone also increases aggression and risk-taking, even for individuals without the Y chromosome.

Danielle Brown, Google’s Vice President of Diversity, Integrity & Governance, wrote,

Many of you have read an internal document shared by someone in our engineering organization, expressing views on the natural abilities and characteristics of different genders, as well as whether one can speak freely of these things at Google. And like many of you, I found that it advanced incorrect assumptions about gender.

But exactly what in the document advanced incorrect assumptions about gender?

I found only one stereotype in the document, which I could see someone complaining about: The section labeled "Personality differences" states,

"Women, on average, have more: ... Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance). This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs."

I'm not a psychologist, so I don't know if that claim is true.

The other differences between men and women, which the document lists, are generally accepted as true. It states that women have more openness towards feelings, and are less assertive and more agreeable (which makes it harder for women to negotiate a salary, ask for a raise, speak up, or lead). It also says that men are judged on status, which pushes them to work for higher-paying jobs.

And footnote number 4 says, "[4] For heterosexual romantic relationships, men are more strongly judged by status and women by beauty. Again, this has biological origins and is culturally universal." James Damore didn't say that was how it should be. He said that that was how people think.

So I wonder what in the document Google execs are complaining about. What in his document is false, besides possibly the claim of more neuroticism in women?

(The document made some generalizations, but it stated that they were traits on average men and women, not all men and women.)