Can we at least make sure stuff is adequately summarized before it hits the front page?
As already said, you must be new here.
For the record, it was in South Carolina.
Umm, what the heck? When a name like "Charleston" is just given without any other qualifier, it's obviously referencing the most well-known city with that name, i.e., the one in South Carolina.
Given that the "U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration" is explicitly mentioned, the summary automatically rules out your localities in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK, so listing those as possible interpretations of the summary is ridiculous and ignorant.
And while, yes, there is possibly one other well-known Charleston on your list (the capital of West Virginia), the rest of the members on your list of U.S. cities are not generally known widely enough that they would be recognized by a wider audience without qualification.
I'm not from the South, nor have I lived most of my life in the southern U.S., but if I said the name "Charleston" to just about anyone I know, without further qualification, they would assume I'm talking about Charleston, SC (unless context suggested otherwise).
When someone says "New York" in an article, you don't assume they are talking about New York in Linconshire in the UK, nor do they think you might be talking about New York, Kentucky or New York, Texas. Similarly, a story about "Los Angeles" shouldn't leave the reader befuddled about whether we're talking about Los Angeles, Texas, let alone the much more significant city of Los Angeles in Chile.
If you're from West Virginia, I can understand being a little irked that the South Carolinian Charleston is more famous, but just about all of the other Charleston locations you listed in the U.S. are pretty insignificant, with most of them having populations of a few hundred to a couple thousand. Heck, you even listed Charleston, Arizona and Charleston, Oklahoma, which are both freakin' ghost towns.
Next time, take two minutes and do some research by clicking the top link for "Charleston" in an internet search before pasting in an irrelevant list from Wikipedia that you didn't even bother to read.
No one, and I mean no one, who is paying attention and able to parse the audience interaction could possibly mistake Colbert for the right wing nut job that he is parodying.
Well, a detailed academic study of hundreds of people who were shown parts of the Colbert Report demonstrated that you're wrong about this. From the abstract:
conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements.
I personally find it hard to believe that no one involved in inviting him to a White House event would have realized the extent of Colbert's sarcasm. But clearly many "normal" conservatives don't get it....
Most people I know who are good at anything aren't good because of what they learned about it in school, but rather what they did outside school to further their own learning.
I absolutely agree with this -- and it generally must be true, or no one would excel in any field. In order to be better than average in a profession, you'd at some point have to go beyond the basic elements taught in school to everybody.
Let them teach themselves.
However, I disagree a bit here. There will be some kids who will be motivated to teach themselves from the start and who happen upon programming as you probably did, and as many here probably did.
But what about the kids who don't have a parent running a Linux box, or the kids whose primary experience on a "computer" is something like an iPad (as seems to be increasingly common)? You're right that there are lots of resources out there to learn from, but you have to know that they're there. You have to have some sort of concept of what "programming" is, and you have to have equipment set up that will allow you to do it.
It's not like the days when your parents bought you a Commodore 64, which booted you up to a blank screen that almost forced you to figure out how to code, and which came with a manual that taught you to write simple programs. Sure, you could arrange something like that for your kids, but as a parent, you'd need to at least be aware that tools like that exist and to make them available.
Having at least some basic programming class in school could make kids aware of what's out there. Most of them will probably never do anything with it again, but a few of them -- who just didn't happen to know much about programming, or whose parents didn't have the right equipment or didn't expose them to the right things -- will realize that programming is something that's "out there" in the world of knowledge.
And some of those kids who find the initial steps interesting may then be spurred into learning more outside of school, just as other kids who just happened upon it somehow or who had parents that made that opportunity available.
Nobody pretends that a high-school chemistry class is going to prepare you for a career as a chemist or that a high-school history class will churn out historians. But for a lot of kids, these classes can spark an interest and make them aware of aspects of knowledge that they just might not happen upon otherwise....
Computer Science is a science, for people with frizzy grey hair, that live in ivory towers and have little practical knowhow. You lock them in a room and occasionally things emerge that you can see a practical application for. It's essential, and it's all way beyond me.
Nice rant, but computer science is not a mere abstract academic subject. Sure, you can often come up with code that will solve a problem on a practical level, but what if you need the code to run faster for some application? What if you don't want to spend your days "reinventing the wheel" for every coding problem you encounter, when there are stock algorithms and methods that allow you to quickly code a solution?
I know some others will probably quibble with the following analogy, but one way to think of it is the difference between arithmetic and more advanced (symbolic) math. Both are tools that can be used to solve a problem. And if you're really good at arithmetic and have some intelligence, you'll probably figure out ways to do things that most people would use algebra or other more advanced math to do.
But algebra, trigonometry, calculus, etc. give you other tools and methods that can be helpful in solving problems. At some level, with only arithmetic knowledge you'll eventually even happen on problems that are basically impossible to solve except by trial-and-error. That may be fine for a lot of applications, but depending on your job, it may be useful to know more efficient and effective ways to go about it -- and advanced math gives you those tools. Same thing with CS for programming.
From a job standpoint, you might think of it as the difference between a degree in something like accounting and a degree in applied math. There are lots of things you can do with accounting, mostly having to do with basic arithmetic, and it's a very practical degree, but that doesn't mean that someone trained in applied math is just an ivory tower theoretician. There are such people in computer science, just as there are theoretical math people who spend their days trying to figure out abstract problems in number theory, abstract algebra, topology, etc. that seemingly have little practical application. But those mathematicians aren't doing what most people with math degrees do, anymore than most CS degree people spend their days solving theoretical academic problems.
By the way, please note that laches can still have an impact in these cases, as the reply to your previous post noted. Depending on the situation, damages for infringement may be reduced, etc. But as long as the control is asserted within the lifespan of the patent, the patent-holder will certainly have a legal right to control (and profit from) any future actions on the patent after the lawsuit is filed... until the patent runs out, of course.
Why not? Do patents have an exception for this part of civil law?
Well, the whole rationale for laches is to effectively introduce a sort of "statute of limitations" into equity law in situations where there is none. For many contracts, there is no effective time limit built in, so laches enables a defendent to assert that delay was unreasonable and rights to that entitlements in the contract should be lessened or negated by that point in time.
Patents have a limited lifespan already, so the duration under which reasonable enforcement is supposed to happen is already set by statute. Claims filed within that time period are assumed to have at least some validity.
The Wikipedia link you gave in your earlier post already answered your question: "in the United States, laches has historically not been applied if a statute of limitations exists."
But for public jobs, the employer is the electorate (either directly, via an elected representative, or via someone appointed by an elected representative). If you're unable to convince the electorate that your job is worth a certain amount of money, then unionizing to thwart the will of the electorate seems pretty undemocratic to me.
I can see some of your point. But the logic fails. Why? Answer a simple question:
Do you think Congress always spends money wisely and fairly?
If you answer "yes," there's no reason for public unions. If you answer "no," that's your reason. Just because "We the People" elect Congress doesn't mean that it comes anywhere close to making decisions that the electorate thinks is right or fair most of the time. Congress's approval rating has been ridiculously low (approaching single digits) for a few years now, and I don't think it's ever been above 50% except at times of war.
Most people disapprove of Congress's actions in general, yet in a given election year, most representatives get re-elected.
That's the reason we can't trust our public officials to necessarily allocate the correct wages to public employees.
âoethe salient difference is that, in Germany, the automakers operate within an environment that precludes a race to the bottom; in the U.S., they operate within an environment that encourages such a race.â
First, I do strongly support unions to raise worker conditions, particularly at the lowest end of the pay spectrum.
However, I'm not sure this quotation fits in very well with almost everything I've ever heard from good friends who have been forced to join unions because of their professions. I've heard numerous tales of worker inefficiencies. The friends I mention are intelligent, hard-working people by nature, and at their union jobs they were warned by their coworkers to slow down, to take more breaks, to avoid working too hard lest they make the other union workers "look bad."
In a situation where all workers get equal wages and only seniority matters mostly (as is the case with most unions), where is there the incentive to have this "race to the top"? Most of the stories I've heard are about the exact opposite -- making sure that even the laziest most unproductive worker is rewarded the same as the smartest hard worker.
In other words, I think your examples might zero in on cultural differences between the U.S. and Germany, more than they say anything about the value of unions. Or maybe the dynamics between multiple workers organizations does something different in Germany.
But I don't think the correct conclusion to draw from these German examples is that unions can always be successful in creating the best wages. There are too many cultural and market variables that are different between the two situations.
because you can't be free if you're not economically secure.
But the GP's point actually was that he IS "economically secure."
I control your supply of food, shelter and medicine you will do as I say even if you're technically 'free'.
Yes, and as the GP said -- unions did serve an incredibly important purpose when businesses did these things to their workers in "company towns" in the 1800s, etc.
There's a difference between ensuring that workers are not abused and ensuring that all workers get to keep a high-paying job regardless of the market conditions or the actual competence of the worker.
We all have a societal interest in being sure that workers are not abused (or enslaved) and are treated fairly. But forcing companies to keep employing workers at inflated salaries when they can't compete will just lead to inefficiencies in the economy, ultimately resulting in bigger crashes when bankruptcies occur or economic conditions don't allow companies to be able to keep paying what they are required to by some long-term union contract.
I'm not anti-union at all. But you simply cannot in the same few sentences equate slave-like conditions in the 1800s (hard labor for 12 hours per day, 6 days per week, no worker safety, etc.) that caused unions to come into existence with the GP's apparently high-paying software job.
Frankly, making that comparison insults the memories of those union workers who fought so hard in terrible conditions long ago.
First world problems? Hell, 1% problems? The humanity... One time, at the Hamptons...
I know I shouldn't even respond to this... but, for the record, I'm not in the 1%, nor can I afford a house in the Hamptons (and likely never will be able to).
I happen to like certain kinds of music and will save up to go hear some good performances a few times each year. Some people spend as much or more to go see some mega rock concert. That's their choice too. Other people spend that kind of money for tickets to some major pro sports game, or a nice steakhouse... whatever. Everybody gets to choose what they enjoy.
And many of the people I know who save up to do these other things aren't in the 1% either.
Oops. I seem to have conflated two occurrences in my mind. I was actually at a different concert with a different orchestra (of the same piece, though). The concert I described probably happened a couple years before this. I remember reading about the NYC thing and being astounded that it happened yet again at a major orchestra.
My description of the guy coming forward with the apology may have been from this event... I can't find documentation of the concert I described with a couple quick searches, but I do remember some write-up about it; nothing like the attention the NYC one got, though. In my case, the conductor continued, and the piece ended, but during the applause you could see he was seething.
I have actually been at a movie premier, full theater, movie is actually running and past the opening credits, when the guy in front of me gets a phone call. After lots of shushing he says loudly enough for everyone to hear "I have to go, I'm in the middle of Star Trek".
Yeah, the obliviousness of some people to others knows no bounds. I was once at an opera, where everyone had paid at least 4-5 times what one pays per person to go to the movies (and many quite a bit more), and the guy in the row in front of me -- in the middle of the opera -- answers his phone after it rings and begins talking loudly: "Hello!? Yeah. I'm at the opera! [speaking louder] I said I can't hear you, because I'm at the opera!!"
Everyone for rows around was glaring at this guy. At this point, a seeming stranger next to the guy (who had been shushing him) yanked the phone from his hand and turned off, then handed it back.
And sometimes the effect simply destroys the entire event. I was at a symphony concert a few years back where a 90-minute piece ended with a slow gradual dissolution of the music, gradually getting softer and softer, fading away over a period of some 10 minutes. (Some people may find such a thing boring, others sublime, but obviously most people at such a concert probably are closer to the latter.)
Most people here had probably paid at least 10 times what a movie ticket costs... a couple thousand people in the hall. For the last few minutes of the concert, you could have heard a pin drop (almost literally).
About 3 minutes before the end of the piece, a cell phone starts going off loudly. It keeps going off -- for about a minute as a guy in the fifth row from the front or so gets up and actually works his way out of the hall (these rows were not spaced to allow people to pass while everyone was seated, so it took some time)... all the while with phone blaring.
The concert was completely ruined for the orchestra and the entire audience -- the profound effect of the music was lost.
This event was so notorious that it actually got written up in major newpapers. If I remember correctly, the guy actually came forward (anonymously) and apologized -- explaining that he had just received an iPhone as a gift in the past couple days, had someone else put it into "sleep" mode, had it on vibrate, but somehow had mistakenly set an alarm... which he didn't realize could sound aloud even when the phone was on vibrate or "asleep." When it sounded, he was too unfamiliar with the device to figure out how to make it stop.
Since that event, I ALWAYS turn my phone and any other devices COMPLETELY OFF at important events. An accidental alarm or other noise just isn't worth ruining an experience for thousands of other people who may have paid hundreds of dollars each.
A movie theater may not quite be like this, but a similar etiquette principle applies on a smaller scale.
More rude, or just practicing a different set of values than you?
Umm, "rudeness" by definition is "practicing a different set of values."
Politeness is simply a social construct -- there is no absolute objective standard. That said, there are social conventions that have little effect on others if violated. For example, for many decades it was considered important to come to a black-tie event wearing a black bow tie. In the past 10-15 years that convention has turned into black buttons, other clasps, and most recently long black ties seem fashionable. (Of course, at some events these variations may be more or less likely.)
Such a change in polite etiquette doesn't really have any broader effects other than a personal fashion choice. I may think someone looks idiotic in some faux "tuxedo," but it's not going to do any harm to me or probably anyone else except in unusual situations.
Similarly, your example of music choice probably doesn't harm anyone else, except if the sound is actually disruptive to others -- but you could be playing a Mahler Symphony too loud and also have that same problem... the actual choice of music isn't usually problematic.
On the other hand, one of the main reasons people go to a movie theater and pay the extra money is to experience a high-quality sound and visual experience on a large screen.
If you're shining a bright screen in a theater, you're degrading others' experience. Same thing with talking through the whole movie.
Violations of social conventions that have substantial effects on others are generally seen to be more disruptive than a personal choice that has little impact. "Rudeness" of this fashion is actually a bigger change in our culture than simply picking a different song to play on your stereo for your own experience.
BTW, the student/teacher ratio is about 2X larger in Utah, and their SAT scores are in the top 10 of the nation, rather than in the bottom 10, as in California. So throwing money or teachers at it doesn't fix what's wrong with education in California.
So what you're saying is... we need more Mormons in our educational system??
I remember back in the day AltaVista was the only search engine which allowed you to use + and - to fine-tune the results. Before Google's pagerank that was the best you could hope for.
I remember back in the day when Google was a search engine that actually responded correctly to + and - to fine-tune results, and when Google even listened to the actual words you typed, rather than replacing them with what it thinks are synonyms or sometimes random words that have nothing to do with what I'm searching for.
I gave up using Google over a year ago because it had become so hard to get it to actually search for the exact words I type, instead of having it try to guess what I mean.
If I wanted my computer to try to make wild guesses about what I was trying to do instead of doing what I ask, I'd reinstall Office 95 and spend my days in dialog with Clippy.
But if you want to say how the USA are better than Europe for some things, maybe you shouldn't mention racism: both Europe and the USA are awfully racist in their own way.
First, the majority of my post was about immigration, not racism, and I only even mentioned the word "racist" once in reference to the way anti-immigration policies are characterized. There are problems with racism everywhere, but I was writing a response to a claim about immigration difficulties and how immigrants are perceived -- it may be related to racism in many cases, but the issue is slightly different (and I made NO claims about racism per se in my post).
Second, please re-read the final sentence of my post, as well as they arguments by the parent poster and GP. My reply explicitly says it's not about how the US is better or worse, but that neither the US nor the EU are significantly better or worse than the other... each just has problems with different issues (including racism).
Are you serious? Yes, it's generally easier to move from one EU nation to another. But if you're coming from outside the EU, be ready for some significant obstacles. To go to Germany, be ready to satisfy similar conditions to the U.S. in terms of being a "highly skilled worker," and for some countries, like the Netherlands, you may even have to pass an exam in Dutch and on the culture of the country before even being allowed in.
And once you're there, be prepared to meet anti-immigrant discrimination and stereotypes that are often stronger than those in the U.S. In many European countries, numerous polls suggest that the majority of the population would prefer to stop immigration altogether. (I've heard this sentiment from European friends, who are otherwise quite "liberal" compared to U.S. political standards.) The anti-immigrant discrimination is incredibly well-known, particularly for certain groups in certain countries like the Turks in Germany, or Muslims in France. Opposition to immigrants from such groups has often lead to major demonstrations and occasionally even large-scale rioting. There are also some mainstream political parties in European countries that are known for opposition to immigration.
For some EU countries, it may be a little easier to immigrate from a non-EU country than it would be to come to the U.S., particularly if you are a skilled worker or have family already in the country. But the amount of discrimination and hatred against immigrants in general in many EU countries is probably much stronger than in the U.S., despite the fact that expressing such views is officially dismissed as "racist" or even criminal in many countries.
And in terms of "human rights," I suggest you spend just a minute or two Googling French prison conditions. Every 2-3 years, there's usually a big "expose" about how terrible French prisons are, all of the English-language media is suitably "shocked" that this is happening in a "civilized" country, and then everyone goes back to drinking wine and eating their Brie, while nothing ever changes.
Are EU nations better than the U.S. in protecting some rights? Sure. But it's not just the Westboro Baptists the U.S. is protecting -- freedom of speech is protecting against potentially abusive laws that try to legislate "civility," such as in Germany where you can be taken to court for insulting someone or flipping them the "bird."
So yeah, on the whole I agree with the GP -- the EU in general is probably no better or worse than the U.S., though yes, YMMV in individual countries.
Pre-History means "before recorded history". [snip] So it is basically wrong.
I take your point. However, I would note the qualifier: "secret pre-history."
From the time of the "father of history" Herodotus himself, it's pretty clear that history is about people being able to tell a story about past events.
If facts about some devices were kept secret and thus were not available for historians to write about, there's a strong argument that such information is "pre-historical," in the sense that stuff may have been going on before the known written ("historical") record. Of course, once it is released and incorporated into known histories, it becomes "historical" and will no longer be "pre-history."
As I read this headline, it isn't "NSA Releases Secret Pre-History of [ALL] Computers." (How far do we go back? Charles Babbage? What counts as a "computer"?)
Rather, the "secret" in the headline implies that the NSA is probably talking about itself. Hence: "NSA Releases Secret Pre-History of [the NSA's and Preceding Intelligence Agencies'] Computers."
The fact is, a lot of people in finance aren't bright enough - or cautious enough - to understand or care exactly what risks they're taking, especially with other people's money. [snip]
At least after the S&L debacle, people got prosecuted. This time, they were let off the hook.
If you read these two quotes together, it sounds like these guys -- at least the ones calling the shots -- were clearly very bright: they convinced lots of people to give them money, then lost most of it, in many cases even did things that were probably illegal or at least totally unethical, and almost all of them walked away totally free -- the leaders with a boatload of cash for themselves.
How many other people can adopt completely ridiculous, irresponsible, and potentially illegal business practices to maximize profits and get away with a profit while their business fails utterly -- only to have the government rescue the business so you can do it again? Given that their main goal was to make a lot of money, sounds like they were pretty much geniuses.
You are making claims about two separate things -- the banks and the government. There may be collusion between the two, but they still have different primary aims. Governments may worry about Bitcoin because anonymous stuff makes them nervous, with the potential for illegal activity and all. It has little to do with any "threat" to any currency... and therefore banks too feel little threat in that sense. Banks may be wary of associating themselves with something that governments have pegged with illegal activities, though. In other words, banks may act because of perceived threats from the government in concern not to be involved with illegal anonymous dealings, but this has nothing to do with threats of Bitcoin to banks in any financial sense.
it seems that banks feel indeed threatened by it because, as you said, it IS something unreal, and those who use it and believe in it are deluded. But if "Famous Bank X" starts dealing with it, bitcoins will have that one proof of existence and even your average joe will now hear of it.
The reason why banks aren't interested is probably because it's just not worth caring about. It has nothing to do with a "threat."
There are two types of users of bitcoins (now, and likely in the foreseeable future):
(1) the same kind of anonymity-seeking people who do things like use Tor, a combination of (a) people who need secrecy for illegal (or questionably legal) activities, (b) anti-authoritarian extremists, and (c) other people with strong ideological perspectives on privacy
(2) speculators who think this might be the next "gold" or other random commodity to accumulate value in a ridiculous bubble
Group (1c) is perhaps strongest and most vocal on Slashdot, but banks don't want to be associated with the possibly illegal or political issues in dealing with (1a) and (1b), so group (1c) will be drowned out. And in a culture where the vast majority of people are happy to post all the minute details of their private life on Facebook, Twitter, etc., it's really doubtful that (1c) will ever be a huge market among the general public.
Meanwhile, group (2) just wants to make profit -- it doesn't give a crap about any of the rationale behind Bitcoin as long as it generates a return. Group (2) will guarantee that Bitcoin's value will be unstable enough for the near future that it can't be perceived as a stable currency. Unlike things like gold, Bitcoin is not known enough and popular enough to be stabilized by a lot of legitimate investment -- it will tend to attract a lot of speculators.
It's not that banks are afraid of it or don't want to legitimize it -- it's just that it's obscure enough to mostly only be known to Group (1), i.e., not important and possibly tainted with illegality. And banks want to be associated with Group (2) the same way legitimate banks tend to spend lots of money running those "BUY GOLD NOW!!" radio commercials every day. (Hint -- they don't.)
Unfortunately, the effort to equally represent women in science usually ends up devaluing the other, more important work that they do... raising a good family. Society has a greater need for mothers than scientists.
I wonder if part of the anger that your post seems to have triggered among mods is that you specifically said that children need mothers. It seems to be a point of strictly enforced dogma in politically correct discourse these days to say that children doesn't really need women in their lives (see the debate surrounding gay marriage). If you say that it's best for a child to have female mother, then you are generally considered a terrible person. At least that's what I've seen.
I don't think that's quite it. The original quote sounds very conservative (as in "women should be at home raising the kids, not doing science [with the justification that 'raising kids is important']").
I think a reader can choose to read that message into the original quote. I personally don't read it that way.
I'll risk losing a little karma by entering this debate, but what I see is mostly a statement of fact: as a society, we do actually need parents to raise children even more than we need research scientists. If we do not raise more children, society will cease to exist. That's a basic statement of fact.
The difficulty is in the assertion that we might actually need women more than men in the parental role, which is not a politically correct thing to say these days. I'm perfectly fine with a father staying home to be a primary caregiver, and I've actually done it myself for a time with small children.
The issue, however, is that there are things that only women can do, and again this is a biological fact. Only women can bear children -- that's an investment of a huge amount of time and energy during pregnancy. And only women can breastfeed, another huge commitment whose benefits have been shown by numerous studies.
(I would also note that some people tend to focus too much of breast milk, rather than the feeding itself -- the few studies that have actually bothered to try to look at the difference have shown that it's often the act of breastfeeding itself, along with closeness between infant and mother, etc., that triggers many benefits aside from the minor immunological ones very early on. I do wonder if many studies don't try to differentiate feeding behavior from the milk itself because they're afraid of disturbing this whole industry of breast pumping and breast milk craziness that has arisen... not to mention the problems it causes for feminist interpretations. If breast milk is the elixir of life, it's still possible, though incredibly inconvenient, for a working mother to provide that. If it's the actual feeding, suddenly we have to do deal with the fact that most women only get short maternity leaves and we're not giving them enough support to stay home for longer and... oh my... we don't want to be seen forcing or encouraging women to stay out of the workforce to raise children. And this doesn't even get into the hormonal aspects that actually are biologically designed to get women to spend more time with their infants, something women who keep breastfeeding often need to actively subvert to jump back into their jobs immediately.)
I've spent a lot of time with small children and being the primary caregiver as a father. I wouldn't give up any of that time, and I'd make the same choice again even if it wasn't the easiest thing.
But from my experience, I'd say once you get past the first couple years, Dad is just as good as Mom. But for infants and even small toddlers, there are biological advantages for women in child rearing that simply cannot be dismissed just in the name of political correctness.
That's a problem for our current feminist mythology, which says you can work almost all the way through pregnancy and should be
I feel like I've heard that's true for some areas (e.g. math), but I'd be very hesitant to draw that kind of across-the-board statement without massive amounts of data.
Well, most of this theory comes out of psychological research, particularly IQ tests and other general intelligence tests.
It isn't so much that we have across-the-board data for lots of fields/skills/areas, as much as we have a number of studies on supposed tests of "general intelligence," which show a wider variance for men compared to women.
If you believe in the assumption that IQ tests are actually relevant to performance in a wider variety of areas, then it would seem reasonable to conclude that such variance in IQ scores probably has an effect. If you're skeptical of the value of IQ as a general measurement tool, you should be skeptical of these claims as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Can we at least make sure stuff is adequately summarized before it hits the front page?
As already said, you must be new here.
For the record, it was in South Carolina.
Umm, what the heck? When a name like "Charleston" is just given without any other qualifier, it's obviously referencing the most well-known city with that name, i.e., the one in South Carolina.
Given that the "U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration" is explicitly mentioned, the summary automatically rules out your localities in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK, so listing those as possible interpretations of the summary is ridiculous and ignorant.
And while, yes, there is possibly one other well-known Charleston on your list (the capital of West Virginia), the rest of the members on your list of U.S. cities are not generally known widely enough that they would be recognized by a wider audience without qualification.
I'm not from the South, nor have I lived most of my life in the southern U.S., but if I said the name "Charleston" to just about anyone I know, without further qualification, they would assume I'm talking about Charleston, SC (unless context suggested otherwise).
When someone says "New York" in an article, you don't assume they are talking about New York in Linconshire in the UK, nor do they think you might be talking about New York, Kentucky or New York, Texas. Similarly, a story about "Los Angeles" shouldn't leave the reader befuddled about whether we're talking about Los Angeles, Texas, let alone the much more significant city of Los Angeles in Chile. If you're from West Virginia, I can understand being a little irked that the South Carolinian Charleston is more famous, but just about all of the other Charleston locations you listed in the U.S. are pretty insignificant, with most of them having populations of a few hundred to a couple thousand. Heck, you even listed Charleston, Arizona and Charleston, Oklahoma, which are both freakin' ghost towns.
Next time, take two minutes and do some research by clicking the top link for "Charleston" in an internet search before pasting in an irrelevant list from Wikipedia that you didn't even bother to read.
No one, and I mean no one, who is paying attention and able to parse the audience interaction could possibly mistake Colbert for the right wing nut job that he is parodying.
Well, a detailed academic study of hundreds of people who were shown parts of the Colbert Report demonstrated that you're wrong about this. From the abstract:
conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements.
I personally find it hard to believe that no one involved in inviting him to a White House event would have realized the extent of Colbert's sarcasm. But clearly many "normal" conservatives don't get it....
Most people I know who are good at anything aren't good because of what they learned about it in school, but rather what they did outside school to further their own learning.
I absolutely agree with this -- and it generally must be true, or no one would excel in any field. In order to be better than average in a profession, you'd at some point have to go beyond the basic elements taught in school to everybody.
Let them teach themselves.
However, I disagree a bit here. There will be some kids who will be motivated to teach themselves from the start and who happen upon programming as you probably did, and as many here probably did.
But what about the kids who don't have a parent running a Linux box, or the kids whose primary experience on a "computer" is something like an iPad (as seems to be increasingly common)? You're right that there are lots of resources out there to learn from, but you have to know that they're there. You have to have some sort of concept of what "programming" is, and you have to have equipment set up that will allow you to do it.
It's not like the days when your parents bought you a Commodore 64, which booted you up to a blank screen that almost forced you to figure out how to code, and which came with a manual that taught you to write simple programs. Sure, you could arrange something like that for your kids, but as a parent, you'd need to at least be aware that tools like that exist and to make them available.
Having at least some basic programming class in school could make kids aware of what's out there. Most of them will probably never do anything with it again, but a few of them -- who just didn't happen to know much about programming, or whose parents didn't have the right equipment or didn't expose them to the right things -- will realize that programming is something that's "out there" in the world of knowledge.
And some of those kids who find the initial steps interesting may then be spurred into learning more outside of school, just as other kids who just happened upon it somehow or who had parents that made that opportunity available.
Nobody pretends that a high-school chemistry class is going to prepare you for a career as a chemist or that a high-school history class will churn out historians. But for a lot of kids, these classes can spark an interest and make them aware of aspects of knowledge that they just might not happen upon otherwise....
Computer Science is a science, for people with frizzy grey hair, that live in ivory towers and have little practical knowhow. You lock them in a room and occasionally things emerge that you can see a practical application for. It's essential, and it's all way beyond me.
Nice rant, but computer science is not a mere abstract academic subject. Sure, you can often come up with code that will solve a problem on a practical level, but what if you need the code to run faster for some application? What if you don't want to spend your days "reinventing the wheel" for every coding problem you encounter, when there are stock algorithms and methods that allow you to quickly code a solution?
I know some others will probably quibble with the following analogy, but one way to think of it is the difference between arithmetic and more advanced (symbolic) math. Both are tools that can be used to solve a problem. And if you're really good at arithmetic and have some intelligence, you'll probably figure out ways to do things that most people would use algebra or other more advanced math to do.
But algebra, trigonometry, calculus, etc. give you other tools and methods that can be helpful in solving problems. At some level, with only arithmetic knowledge you'll eventually even happen on problems that are basically impossible to solve except by trial-and-error. That may be fine for a lot of applications, but depending on your job, it may be useful to know more efficient and effective ways to go about it -- and advanced math gives you those tools. Same thing with CS for programming.
From a job standpoint, you might think of it as the difference between a degree in something like accounting and a degree in applied math. There are lots of things you can do with accounting, mostly having to do with basic arithmetic, and it's a very practical degree, but that doesn't mean that someone trained in applied math is just an ivory tower theoretician. There are such people in computer science, just as there are theoretical math people who spend their days trying to figure out abstract problems in number theory, abstract algebra, topology, etc. that seemingly have little practical application. But those mathematicians aren't doing what most people with math degrees do, anymore than most CS degree people spend their days solving theoretical academic problems.
By the way, please note that laches can still have an impact in these cases, as the reply to your previous post noted. Depending on the situation, damages for infringement may be reduced, etc. But as long as the control is asserted within the lifespan of the patent, the patent-holder will certainly have a legal right to control (and profit from) any future actions on the patent after the lawsuit is filed... until the patent runs out, of course.
For patents, it isn't quite that simple.
Why not? Do patents have an exception for this part of civil law?
Well, the whole rationale for laches is to effectively introduce a sort of "statute of limitations" into equity law in situations where there is none. For many contracts, there is no effective time limit built in, so laches enables a defendent to assert that delay was unreasonable and rights to that entitlements in the contract should be lessened or negated by that point in time.
Patents have a limited lifespan already, so the duration under which reasonable enforcement is supposed to happen is already set by statute. Claims filed within that time period are assumed to have at least some validity.
The Wikipedia link you gave in your earlier post already answered your question: "in the United States, laches has historically not been applied if a statute of limitations exists."
But for public jobs, the employer is the electorate (either directly, via an elected representative, or via someone appointed by an elected representative). If you're unable to convince the electorate that your job is worth a certain amount of money, then unionizing to thwart the will of the electorate seems pretty undemocratic to me.
I can see some of your point. But the logic fails. Why? Answer a simple question:
Do you think Congress always spends money wisely and fairly?
If you answer "yes," there's no reason for public unions. If you answer "no," that's your reason. Just because "We the People" elect Congress doesn't mean that it comes anywhere close to making decisions that the electorate thinks is right or fair most of the time. Congress's approval rating has been ridiculously low (approaching single digits) for a few years now, and I don't think it's ever been above 50% except at times of war.
Most people disapprove of Congress's actions in general, yet in a given election year, most representatives get re-elected.
That's the reason we can't trust our public officials to necessarily allocate the correct wages to public employees.
âoethe salient difference is that, in Germany, the automakers operate within an environment that precludes a race to the bottom; in the U.S., they operate within an environment that encourages such a race.â
First, I do strongly support unions to raise worker conditions, particularly at the lowest end of the pay spectrum.
However, I'm not sure this quotation fits in very well with almost everything I've ever heard from good friends who have been forced to join unions because of their professions. I've heard numerous tales of worker inefficiencies. The friends I mention are intelligent, hard-working people by nature, and at their union jobs they were warned by their coworkers to slow down, to take more breaks, to avoid working too hard lest they make the other union workers "look bad."
In a situation where all workers get equal wages and only seniority matters mostly (as is the case with most unions), where is there the incentive to have this "race to the top"? Most of the stories I've heard are about the exact opposite -- making sure that even the laziest most unproductive worker is rewarded the same as the smartest hard worker.
In other words, I think your examples might zero in on cultural differences between the U.S. and Germany, more than they say anything about the value of unions. Or maybe the dynamics between multiple workers organizations does something different in Germany.
But I don't think the correct conclusion to draw from these German examples is that unions can always be successful in creating the best wages. There are too many cultural and market variables that are different between the two situations.
because you can't be free if you're not economically secure.
But the GP's point actually was that he IS "economically secure."
I control your supply of food, shelter and medicine you will do as I say even if you're technically 'free'.
Yes, and as the GP said -- unions did serve an incredibly important purpose when businesses did these things to their workers in "company towns" in the 1800s, etc.
There's a difference between ensuring that workers are not abused and ensuring that all workers get to keep a high-paying job regardless of the market conditions or the actual competence of the worker.
We all have a societal interest in being sure that workers are not abused (or enslaved) and are treated fairly. But forcing companies to keep employing workers at inflated salaries when they can't compete will just lead to inefficiencies in the economy, ultimately resulting in bigger crashes when bankruptcies occur or economic conditions don't allow companies to be able to keep paying what they are required to by some long-term union contract.
I'm not anti-union at all. But you simply cannot in the same few sentences equate slave-like conditions in the 1800s (hard labor for 12 hours per day, 6 days per week, no worker safety, etc.) that caused unions to come into existence with the GP's apparently high-paying software job.
Frankly, making that comparison insults the memories of those union workers who fought so hard in terrible conditions long ago.
First world problems? Hell, 1% problems? The humanity... One time, at the Hamptons...
I know I shouldn't even respond to this... but, for the record, I'm not in the 1%, nor can I afford a house in the Hamptons (and likely never will be able to).
I happen to like certain kinds of music and will save up to go hear some good performances a few times each year. Some people spend as much or more to go see some mega rock concert. That's their choice too. Other people spend that kind of money for tickets to some major pro sports game, or a nice steakhouse... whatever. Everybody gets to choose what they enjoy.
And many of the people I know who save up to do these other things aren't in the 1% either.
Oops. I seem to have conflated two occurrences in my mind. I was actually at a different concert with a different orchestra (of the same piece, though). The concert I described probably happened a couple years before this. I remember reading about the NYC thing and being astounded that it happened yet again at a major orchestra.
My description of the guy coming forward with the apology may have been from this event... I can't find documentation of the concert I described with a couple quick searches, but I do remember some write-up about it; nothing like the attention the NYC one got, though. In my case, the conductor continued, and the piece ended, but during the applause you could see he was seething.
I have actually been at a movie premier, full theater, movie is actually running and past the opening credits, when the guy in front of me gets a phone call. After lots of shushing he says loudly enough for everyone to hear "I have to go, I'm in the middle of Star Trek".
Yeah, the obliviousness of some people to others knows no bounds. I was once at an opera, where everyone had paid at least 4-5 times what one pays per person to go to the movies (and many quite a bit more), and the guy in the row in front of me -- in the middle of the opera -- answers his phone after it rings and begins talking loudly: "Hello!? Yeah. I'm at the opera! [speaking louder] I said I can't hear you, because I'm at the opera!!"
Everyone for rows around was glaring at this guy. At this point, a seeming stranger next to the guy (who had been shushing him) yanked the phone from his hand and turned off, then handed it back.
And sometimes the effect simply destroys the entire event. I was at a symphony concert a few years back where a 90-minute piece ended with a slow gradual dissolution of the music, gradually getting softer and softer, fading away over a period of some 10 minutes. (Some people may find such a thing boring, others sublime, but obviously most people at such a concert probably are closer to the latter.)
Most people here had probably paid at least 10 times what a movie ticket costs... a couple thousand people in the hall. For the last few minutes of the concert, you could have heard a pin drop (almost literally).
About 3 minutes before the end of the piece, a cell phone starts going off loudly. It keeps going off -- for about a minute as a guy in the fifth row from the front or so gets up and actually works his way out of the hall (these rows were not spaced to allow people to pass while everyone was seated, so it took some time)... all the while with phone blaring.
The concert was completely ruined for the orchestra and the entire audience -- the profound effect of the music was lost.
This event was so notorious that it actually got written up in major newpapers. If I remember correctly, the guy actually came forward (anonymously) and apologized -- explaining that he had just received an iPhone as a gift in the past couple days, had someone else put it into "sleep" mode, had it on vibrate, but somehow had mistakenly set an alarm... which he didn't realize could sound aloud even when the phone was on vibrate or "asleep." When it sounded, he was too unfamiliar with the device to figure out how to make it stop.
Since that event, I ALWAYS turn my phone and any other devices COMPLETELY OFF at important events. An accidental alarm or other noise just isn't worth ruining an experience for thousands of other people who may have paid hundreds of dollars each.
A movie theater may not quite be like this, but a similar etiquette principle applies on a smaller scale.
"And the younger the generation, the more rude."
More rude, or just practicing a different set of values than you?
Umm, "rudeness" by definition is "practicing a different set of values."
Politeness is simply a social construct -- there is no absolute objective standard. That said, there are social conventions that have little effect on others if violated. For example, for many decades it was considered important to come to a black-tie event wearing a black bow tie. In the past 10-15 years that convention has turned into black buttons, other clasps, and most recently long black ties seem fashionable. (Of course, at some events these variations may be more or less likely.)
Such a change in polite etiquette doesn't really have any broader effects other than a personal fashion choice. I may think someone looks idiotic in some faux "tuxedo," but it's not going to do any harm to me or probably anyone else except in unusual situations.
Similarly, your example of music choice probably doesn't harm anyone else, except if the sound is actually disruptive to others -- but you could be playing a Mahler Symphony too loud and also have that same problem... the actual choice of music isn't usually problematic.
On the other hand, one of the main reasons people go to a movie theater and pay the extra money is to experience a high-quality sound and visual experience on a large screen.
If you're shining a bright screen in a theater, you're degrading others' experience. Same thing with talking through the whole movie.
Violations of social conventions that have substantial effects on others are generally seen to be more disruptive than a personal choice that has little impact. "Rudeness" of this fashion is actually a bigger change in our culture than simply picking a different song to play on your stereo for your own experience.
BTW, the student/teacher ratio is about 2X larger in Utah, and their SAT scores are in the top 10 of the nation, rather than in the bottom 10, as in California. So throwing money or teachers at it doesn't fix what's wrong with education in California.
So what you're saying is... we need more Mormons in our educational system??
what the fuck are you talking about?
Designed for entertainment?
Have you even used a tablet before? ... I've written many screeds on /. ON an iPad.
I think you just proved the GP's point.
(Hint: ranting on Slashdot does NOT usually count as an "educational" activity.)
Sorry - I meant Office 97.
I remember back in the day AltaVista was the only search engine which allowed you to use + and - to fine-tune the results. Before Google's pagerank that was the best you could hope for.
I remember back in the day when Google was a search engine that actually responded correctly to + and - to fine-tune results, and when Google even listened to the actual words you typed, rather than replacing them with what it thinks are synonyms or sometimes random words that have nothing to do with what I'm searching for.
I gave up using Google over a year ago because it had become so hard to get it to actually search for the exact words I type, instead of having it try to guess what I mean.
If I wanted my computer to try to make wild guesses about what I was trying to do instead of doing what I ask, I'd reinstall Office 95 and spend my days in dialog with Clippy.
But if you want to say how the USA are better than Europe for some things, maybe you shouldn't mention racism: both Europe and the USA are awfully racist in their own way.
First, the majority of my post was about immigration, not racism, and I only even mentioned the word "racist" once in reference to the way anti-immigration policies are characterized. There are problems with racism everywhere, but I was writing a response to a claim about immigration difficulties and how immigrants are perceived -- it may be related to racism in many cases, but the issue is slightly different (and I made NO claims about racism per se in my post).
Second, please re-read the final sentence of my post, as well as they arguments by the parent poster and GP. My reply explicitly says it's not about how the US is better or worse, but that neither the US nor the EU are significantly better or worse than the other... each just has problems with different issues (including racism).
Immigrating to Europe is a lot easier
Are you serious? Yes, it's generally easier to move from one EU nation to another. But if you're coming from outside the EU, be ready for some significant obstacles. To go to Germany, be ready to satisfy similar conditions to the U.S. in terms of being a "highly skilled worker," and for some countries, like the Netherlands, you may even have to pass an exam in Dutch and on the culture of the country before even being allowed in.
And once you're there, be prepared to meet anti-immigrant discrimination and stereotypes that are often stronger than those in the U.S. In many European countries, numerous polls suggest that the majority of the population would prefer to stop immigration altogether. (I've heard this sentiment from European friends, who are otherwise quite "liberal" compared to U.S. political standards.) The anti-immigrant discrimination is incredibly well-known, particularly for certain groups in certain countries like the Turks in Germany, or Muslims in France. Opposition to immigrants from such groups has often lead to major demonstrations and occasionally even large-scale rioting. There are also some mainstream political parties in European countries that are known for opposition to immigration.
For some EU countries, it may be a little easier to immigrate from a non-EU country than it would be to come to the U.S., particularly if you are a skilled worker or have family already in the country. But the amount of discrimination and hatred against immigrants in general in many EU countries is probably much stronger than in the U.S., despite the fact that expressing such views is officially dismissed as "racist" or even criminal in many countries.
And in terms of "human rights," I suggest you spend just a minute or two Googling French prison conditions. Every 2-3 years, there's usually a big "expose" about how terrible French prisons are, all of the English-language media is suitably "shocked" that this is happening in a "civilized" country, and then everyone goes back to drinking wine and eating their Brie, while nothing ever changes.
Are EU nations better than the U.S. in protecting some rights? Sure. But it's not just the Westboro Baptists the U.S. is protecting -- freedom of speech is protecting against potentially abusive laws that try to legislate "civility," such as in Germany where you can be taken to court for insulting someone or flipping them the "bird."
So yeah, on the whole I agree with the GP -- the EU in general is probably no better or worse than the U.S., though yes, YMMV in individual countries.
Pre-History means "before recorded history". [snip] So it is basically wrong.
I take your point. However, I would note the qualifier: "secret pre-history."
From the time of the "father of history" Herodotus himself, it's pretty clear that history is about people being able to tell a story about past events.
If facts about some devices were kept secret and thus were not available for historians to write about, there's a strong argument that such information is "pre-historical," in the sense that stuff may have been going on before the known written ("historical") record. Of course, once it is released and incorporated into known histories, it becomes "historical" and will no longer be "pre-history."
As I read this headline, it isn't "NSA Releases Secret Pre-History of [ALL] Computers." (How far do we go back? Charles Babbage? What counts as a "computer"?)
Rather, the "secret" in the headline implies that the NSA is probably talking about itself. Hence: "NSA Releases Secret Pre-History of [the NSA's and Preceding Intelligence Agencies'] Computers."
The fact is, a lot of people in finance aren't bright enough - or cautious enough - to understand or care exactly what risks they're taking, especially with other people's money. [snip]
At least after the S&L debacle, people got prosecuted. This time, they were let off the hook.
If you read these two quotes together, it sounds like these guys -- at least the ones calling the shots -- were clearly very bright: they convinced lots of people to give them money, then lost most of it, in many cases even did things that were probably illegal or at least totally unethical, and almost all of them walked away totally free -- the leaders with a boatload of cash for themselves.
How many other people can adopt completely ridiculous, irresponsible, and potentially illegal business practices to maximize profits and get away with a profit while their business fails utterly -- only to have the government rescue the business so you can do it again? Given that their main goal was to make a lot of money, sounds like they were pretty much geniuses.
You are making claims about two separate things -- the banks and the government. There may be collusion between the two, but they still have different primary aims. Governments may worry about Bitcoin because anonymous stuff makes them nervous, with the potential for illegal activity and all. It has little to do with any "threat" to any currency... and therefore banks too feel little threat in that sense. Banks may be wary of associating themselves with something that governments have pegged with illegal activities, though. In other words, banks may act because of perceived threats from the government in concern not to be involved with illegal anonymous dealings, but this has nothing to do with threats of Bitcoin to banks in any financial sense.
it seems that banks feel indeed threatened by it because, as you said, it IS something unreal, and those who use it and believe in it are deluded. But if "Famous Bank X" starts dealing with it, bitcoins will have that one proof of existence and even your average joe will now hear of it.
The reason why banks aren't interested is probably because it's just not worth caring about. It has nothing to do with a "threat."
There are two types of users of bitcoins (now, and likely in the foreseeable future):
(1) the same kind of anonymity-seeking people who do things like use Tor, a combination of (a) people who need secrecy for illegal (or questionably legal) activities, (b) anti-authoritarian extremists, and (c) other people with strong ideological perspectives on privacy
(2) speculators who think this might be the next "gold" or other random commodity to accumulate value in a ridiculous bubble
Group (1c) is perhaps strongest and most vocal on Slashdot, but banks don't want to be associated with the possibly illegal or political issues in dealing with (1a) and (1b), so group (1c) will be drowned out. And in a culture where the vast majority of people are happy to post all the minute details of their private life on Facebook, Twitter, etc., it's really doubtful that (1c) will ever be a huge market among the general public.
Meanwhile, group (2) just wants to make profit -- it doesn't give a crap about any of the rationale behind Bitcoin as long as it generates a return. Group (2) will guarantee that Bitcoin's value will be unstable enough for the near future that it can't be perceived as a stable currency. Unlike things like gold, Bitcoin is not known enough and popular enough to be stabilized by a lot of legitimate investment -- it will tend to attract a lot of speculators.
It's not that banks are afraid of it or don't want to legitimize it -- it's just that it's obscure enough to mostly only be known to Group (1), i.e., not important and possibly tainted with illegality. And banks want to be associated with Group (2) the same way legitimate banks tend to spend lots of money running those "BUY GOLD NOW!!" radio commercials every day. (Hint -- they don't.)
Unfortunately, the effort to equally represent women in science usually ends up devaluing the other, more important work that they do... raising a good family. Society has a greater need for mothers than scientists.
I wonder if part of the anger that your post seems to have triggered among mods is that you specifically said that children need mothers. It seems to be a point of strictly enforced dogma in politically correct discourse these days to say that children doesn't really need women in their lives (see the debate surrounding gay marriage). If you say that it's best for a child to have female mother, then you are generally considered a terrible person. At least that's what I've seen.
I don't think that's quite it. The original quote sounds very conservative (as in "women should be at home raising the kids, not doing science [with the justification that 'raising kids is important']").
I think a reader can choose to read that message into the original quote. I personally don't read it that way.
I'll risk losing a little karma by entering this debate, but what I see is mostly a statement of fact: as a society, we do actually need parents to raise children even more than we need research scientists. If we do not raise more children, society will cease to exist. That's a basic statement of fact.
The difficulty is in the assertion that we might actually need women more than men in the parental role, which is not a politically correct thing to say these days. I'm perfectly fine with a father staying home to be a primary caregiver, and I've actually done it myself for a time with small children.
The issue, however, is that there are things that only women can do, and again this is a biological fact. Only women can bear children -- that's an investment of a huge amount of time and energy during pregnancy. And only women can breastfeed, another huge commitment whose benefits have been shown by numerous studies.
(I would also note that some people tend to focus too much of breast milk, rather than the feeding itself -- the few studies that have actually bothered to try to look at the difference have shown that it's often the act of breastfeeding itself, along with closeness between infant and mother, etc., that triggers many benefits aside from the minor immunological ones very early on. I do wonder if many studies don't try to differentiate feeding behavior from the milk itself because they're afraid of disturbing this whole industry of breast pumping and breast milk craziness that has arisen... not to mention the problems it causes for feminist interpretations. If breast milk is the elixir of life, it's still possible, though incredibly inconvenient, for a working mother to provide that. If it's the actual feeding, suddenly we have to do deal with the fact that most women only get short maternity leaves and we're not giving them enough support to stay home for longer and... oh my... we don't want to be seen forcing or encouraging women to stay out of the workforce to raise children. And this doesn't even get into the hormonal aspects that actually are biologically designed to get women to spend more time with their infants, something women who keep breastfeeding often need to actively subvert to jump back into their jobs immediately.)
I've spent a lot of time with small children and being the primary caregiver as a father. I wouldn't give up any of that time, and I'd make the same choice again even if it wasn't the easiest thing.
But from my experience, I'd say once you get past the first couple years, Dad is just as good as Mom. But for infants and even small toddlers, there are biological advantages for women in child rearing that simply cannot be dismissed just in the name of political correctness.
That's a problem for our current feminist mythology, which says you can work almost all the way through pregnancy and should be
I feel like I've heard that's true for some areas (e.g. math), but I'd be very hesitant to draw that kind of across-the-board statement without massive amounts of data.
Well, most of this theory comes out of psychological research, particularly IQ tests and other general intelligence tests.
It isn't so much that we have across-the-board data for lots of fields/skills/areas, as much as we have a number of studies on supposed tests of "general intelligence," which show a wider variance for men compared to women.
If you believe in the assumption that IQ tests are actually relevant to performance in a wider variety of areas, then it would seem reasonable to conclude that such variance in IQ scores probably has an effect. If you're skeptical of the value of IQ as a general measurement tool, you should be skeptical of these claims as well.