So how about we just let people go into any career that makes them happy and fulfilled, and not worry about their gender? Want to be a nurse, a scientist, a homemaker? Male or female, who cares, just do it.
The only issue here is that society doesn't see it that way. The issue isn't that "oh man, women are 51% of the population but only 41% of the scientists (numbers not meant to be accurate, just illustrative) so we have a crisis and we better do whatever before the sun implodes." The issue is to allow and encourage people, without judging them or imposing preconceived notions, to seek their own destiny in their own way.
But some things simply will never change. Women are still going to be 100% of the mothers and men 100% of the fathers. (I did *not* say caregivers or homemakers.)
Windows 3.0 (and subsequent in that series) was not an operating system, it was a windowing environment. Remember, it still ran on top of MS-DOS, and it was still effectively single-tasking in that switching tasks paused the previous task.
Windows was not a true OS until Windows 95, as I recall the history.
There were others, like GEM, that never really caught on despite their relative quality.
But (to change the subject a little) I think the "big one that got away" was OS/2. A pity that IBM didn't know how to market it.
Let's put your theory to the test by giving the kid a noose for a night. If he doesn't hang himself, then we know for sure he'd rather live than die.
I'll go along with this, but with the following modification. Do this once a year, every year. First time, maybe the kid decides to live. After five, ten, twenty years with no hope at all?
Execute him, the punishment is quickly over. Put him in jail, he's likely to live 50 more years knowing he'll never, ever get out.
Why would my opinion change if whites were disadvantaged?
It's the same idea.
You assume racial bias in my comment. My arguments reference racial situations as they exist today, but swap the colors around and the argument is exactly the same.
That's what this is really all about, isn't it? That Latinos and Blacks should be present in higher numbers for social equality reasons?
Everyone deserves an equal chance, but it happens that the Asian culture highly values education and family, and instills those values (Jewish culture is similar). It seems to work.
If Latinos and Blacks grow up in a culture that values these things to a lesser degree, they start off with a disadvantage. But giving them a free boost (artificially lowered admission standards via preference or however) doesn't seem right either (matter of opinion, that's my opinion), but more importantly, I don't think it's sustainable.
So what's the answer? I think as usual it's to work on the root cause. Make sure kids aren't disadvantaged by accident of birth. Now, that's a lofty aspiration, and very hard to accomplish. But in the end I think it's the only real and lasting answer.
Side note: I'm an MIT alum, graduated way back in 1970. At the time, MIT was trying to attract Black students who they thought could succeed. One of the administration's ideas was to guarantee a four-year full scholarship to such Black students.
Do you know who opposed that policy? The Black Student Union! The BSU said that help for the first year was a good thing, for the student to get started, but guaranteed help for four years sends the message that the Black student can't make it on his/her own, while other students can. My respect for the BSU was really, really high. They were straight shooters.
So when some whiny punk says "just run Linux", they demonstrate how utterly clueless they are. In the real world, that's rarely an option.
Maybe, maybe not. If you have a truly mission-critical application that requires Windows, it's clear what you're going to do.
I'm not so sure about the whole support thing, though. How good is most commercial support, really? Not so great, and that's true for a lot of "big name" things like ERP packages, databases, etc. Sure, you pay for support. Generally you pay a lot. Do you get a lot? My own experience (decades in the industry) is quite mixed, but a "big name" and a big fee don't necessarily correlate with quality support.
A lot of the free stuff that you deride is actually supported better, for free, in online forums. Now, that's not the type of guarantee that corporate types want to see. But the idea that paid support is solid support is not necessarily true. I remember some years ago being pushed by management to move from Apache to Microsoft Internet Server (or whatever it was called) so we could get "support." That would not have been such a great idea, because --- get this --- the servers were mission critical and the FOSS solution worked better and was better supported.
So I'm saying there's no one answer. Commercial software is not a guarantee of anything. You do what you have to do to run your business. Sometimes it's one way, sometimes the other. I've done everything I've needed to do for many years using mostly free open source software. It meets my needs. If I had some real specialty application, that might not hold true. To each his own.
I submit that people are people and fundamentally haven't changed.
Culture has changed, though, and that makes quite a difference. The older generation comes from a different culture than the younger generation, but when us 'oldsters" were "younguns" the "oldsters" of our day thought we were pretty worthless, too. And so on back through the years.
Different cultures, different life experiences. Not different people at the fundamental level.
I do a lot of fiction writing (no, I'm not talking about earnings reports) and I do three things to focus.
1. I don't work at home. There are too many distractions. (I realize this isn't relevant to office workers, generally.) I prefer a place like the University library where it's quiet and there are study carrels.
2. I use a distraction-free writing environment. (I created one for EMACS but there are things like FocusWriter etc.) This is similar to the close-all-tabs idea, I suppose.
3. I use the Pomodoro technique (you can look it up if interested) with 25 minutes on, 5 minutes off, for 3 cycles, then 20 minutes off before restarting. It may be my working style, but I've found this amazingly effective. I can make myself focus for 25 minutes knowing I'll have 5 (or 20) minutes to "scratch the itch" of email etc. Or even better, just close my eyes, or better yet, walk around a little.
Sorry but it isn't PC to use the word "cool" in a discussion about global warming.
Seriously, though, I wish the noise would go away and we could look at nothing but honest science. Can putting zillions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere fail to have an effect? It seems illogical to assume that it's neutral.
But what's really going to happen? If we could just get rid of all the politicians and special interests and DO SCIENCE we might actually get a clear answer.
The irony is, I actually think the real science is out there, but how can we cut through all the nonsense and get to an objective bottom line?
Here's proof that we are capable of great civilian technology achievements when we have the will and the desire to invest in science and engineering instead of yet another boondoggle.
The thing is, HR departments don't understand that learning a new language, if you already are good with a few, is no big deal. HR people ask for things like 10 years of experience in Language X and they don't listen to reason, even if Language X has only been around for 2 years.
You know what? You ("you" in the sense of "everyone out there") can use anything you want, anything you like, anything that works for you. It doesn't affect me all that much. I'll continue with Linux, LibreOffice, LaTeX, EMACS, Gimp, TaskJuggler, and all the other freeware that works just fine for me. There's symmetry here: That doesn't affect you all that much, either.
There's room in computerland for all of us. We don't need religious wars, we can all just worship in the manner of our choosing.
I would love to see science just be... you know, science. And I would accept any conclusions drawn therefrom, whether I liked them or not. (For instance, I may not "like" the law of gravity, because it means I can't fly off tall buildings, but I have no choice but to accept it.)
Science tainted with politics or political correctness is harder to trust. By the way, I mean this from any angle. In the specific instance of climate change, there are agendas on both sides.
In fact the problem is that there shouldn't be sides, there should just be objective science, accepted as such, and acted on as such.
It's wonderful to see what happens when someone drinks the Kool Aid, so to speak. I mean, it's fun to show contempt for anyone who doesn't meet the definition of politically correct. The contempt is, after all, what's important.
I'm waiting for someone to blame this latest on global climate change, GMO crops, the evil Americans, etc., instead of realizing that species have come and gone since the earliest days of life on earth.
Slashdot Mirror
I can beat that :) I started on an IBM 1620 (in 1966) with 2k of core memory --- old fashioned doughnut core. 2k was the "big" machine, by the way.
So how about we just let people go into any career that makes them happy and fulfilled, and not worry about their gender? Want to be a nurse, a scientist, a homemaker? Male or female, who cares, just do it.
The only issue here is that society doesn't see it that way. The issue isn't that "oh man, women are 51% of the population but only 41% of the scientists (numbers not meant to be accurate, just illustrative) so we have a crisis and we better do whatever before the sun implodes." The issue is to allow and encourage people, without judging them or imposing preconceived notions, to seek their own destiny in their own way.
But some things simply will never change. Women are still going to be 100% of the mothers and men 100% of the fathers. (I did *not* say caregivers or homemakers.)
Windows 3.0 (and subsequent in that series) was not an operating system, it was a windowing environment. Remember, it still ran on top of MS-DOS, and it was still effectively single-tasking in that switching tasks paused the previous task.
Windows was not a true OS until Windows 95, as I recall the history.
There were others, like GEM, that never really caught on despite their relative quality.
But (to change the subject a little) I think the "big one that got away" was OS/2. A pity that IBM didn't know how to market it.
I need to read the article, but it seems like 12 seconds is really, really short, let alone 8 seconds.
Seriously? People can't concentrate for more than 12 seconds?
Let's put your theory to the test by giving the kid a noose for a night. If he doesn't hang himself, then we know for sure he'd rather live than die.
I'll go along with this, but with the following modification. Do this once a year, every year. First time, maybe the kid decides to live. After five, ten, twenty years with no hope at all?
Execute him, the punishment is quickly over. Put him in jail, he's likely to live 50 more years knowing he'll never, ever get out.
Why would my opinion change if whites were disadvantaged?
It's the same idea.
You assume racial bias in my comment. My arguments reference racial situations as they exist today, but swap the colors around and the argument is exactly the same.
That's what this is really all about, isn't it? That Latinos and Blacks should be present in higher numbers for social equality reasons?
Everyone deserves an equal chance, but it happens that the Asian culture highly values education and family, and instills those values (Jewish culture is similar). It seems to work.
If Latinos and Blacks grow up in a culture that values these things to a lesser degree, they start off with a disadvantage. But giving them a free boost (artificially lowered admission standards via preference or however) doesn't seem right either (matter of opinion, that's my opinion), but more importantly, I don't think it's sustainable.
So what's the answer? I think as usual it's to work on the root cause. Make sure kids aren't disadvantaged by accident of birth. Now, that's a lofty aspiration, and very hard to accomplish. But in the end I think it's the only real and lasting answer.
Side note: I'm an MIT alum, graduated way back in 1970. At the time, MIT was trying to attract Black students who they thought could succeed. One of the administration's ideas was to guarantee a four-year full scholarship to such Black students.
Do you know who opposed that policy? The Black Student Union! The BSU said that help for the first year was a good thing, for the student to get started, but guaranteed help for four years sends the message that the Black student can't make it on his/her own, while other students can. My respect for the BSU was really, really high. They were straight shooters.
Wish I could mod this up. For once an entirely sensible post.
Mandatory Linux post: I would rather have Linux than touch Microsoft (insert any version here) with a 10 foot pole.
AOL mail actually has a pretty good API. I found I can read and post AOL mail through GNUS on EMACS. Now that's a kind of ultimate irony.
Slapping him in maximum security prison for life with no chance of parole
I have to agree with this much of the post. I think it is a much worse punishment than execution. It's living death. Exactly what the guy deserves.
This is so cool, I just went and got myself an aol email account based on this article!
The point is, sometimes you WANT to look like a non-techie. Great deception value.
I'm way too old to be a hipster. And the mission critical software run on Apache was part of a large ISP operation.
My post, unlike yours, had some genuine content, citing specific industry experience.
So when some whiny punk says "just run Linux", they demonstrate how utterly clueless they are. In the real world, that's rarely an option.
Maybe, maybe not. If you have a truly mission-critical application that requires Windows, it's clear what you're going to do.
I'm not so sure about the whole support thing, though. How good is most commercial support, really? Not so great, and that's true for a lot of "big name" things like ERP packages, databases, etc. Sure, you pay for support. Generally you pay a lot. Do you get a lot? My own experience (decades in the industry) is quite mixed, but a "big name" and a big fee don't necessarily correlate with quality support.
A lot of the free stuff that you deride is actually supported better, for free, in online forums. Now, that's not the type of guarantee that corporate types want to see. But the idea that paid support is solid support is not necessarily true. I remember some years ago being pushed by management to move from Apache to Microsoft Internet Server (or whatever it was called) so we could get "support." That would not have been such a great idea, because --- get this --- the servers were mission critical and the FOSS solution worked better and was better supported.
So I'm saying there's no one answer. Commercial software is not a guarantee of anything. You do what you have to do to run your business. Sometimes it's one way, sometimes the other. I've done everything I've needed to do for many years using mostly free open source software. It meets my needs. If I had some real specialty application, that might not hold true. To each his own.
And "what about the children"
Come on, you left out global warming and save the whales.
What's changed over the generations?
I submit that people are people and fundamentally haven't changed.
Culture has changed, though, and that makes quite a difference. The older generation comes from a different culture than the younger generation, but when us 'oldsters" were "younguns" the "oldsters" of our day thought we were pretty worthless, too. And so on back through the years.
Different cultures, different life experiences. Not different people at the fundamental level.
I do a lot of fiction writing (no, I'm not talking about earnings reports) and I do three things to focus.
1. I don't work at home. There are too many distractions. (I realize this isn't relevant to office workers, generally.) I prefer a place like the University library where it's quiet and there are study carrels.
2. I use a distraction-free writing environment. (I created one for EMACS but there are things like FocusWriter etc.) This is similar to the close-all-tabs idea, I suppose.
3. I use the Pomodoro technique (you can look it up if interested) with 25 minutes on, 5 minutes off, for 3 cycles, then 20 minutes off before restarting. It may be my working style, but I've found this amazingly effective. I can make myself focus for 25 minutes knowing I'll have 5 (or 20) minutes to "scratch the itch" of email etc. Or even better, just close my eyes, or better yet, walk around a little.
That Asimov article, is cool,
Sorry but it isn't PC to use the word "cool" in a discussion about global warming.
Seriously, though, I wish the noise would go away and we could look at nothing but honest science. Can putting zillions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere fail to have an effect? It seems illogical to assume that it's neutral.
But what's really going to happen? If we could just get rid of all the politicians and special interests and DO SCIENCE we might actually get a clear answer.
The irony is, I actually think the real science is out there, but how can we cut through all the nonsense and get to an objective bottom line?
Here's proof that we are capable of great civilian technology achievements when we have the will and the desire to invest in science and engineering instead of yet another boondoggle.
The thing is, HR departments don't understand that learning a new language, if you already are good with a few, is no big deal. HR people ask for things like 10 years of experience in Language X and they don't listen to reason, even if Language X has only been around for 2 years.
You know what? You ("you" in the sense of "everyone out there") can use anything you want, anything you like, anything that works for you. It doesn't affect me all that much. I'll continue with Linux, LibreOffice, LaTeX, EMACS, Gimp, TaskJuggler, and all the other freeware that works just fine for me. There's symmetry here: That doesn't affect you all that much, either.
There's room in computerland for all of us. We don't need religious wars, we can all just worship in the manner of our choosing.
I would love to see science just be ... you know, science. And I would accept any conclusions drawn therefrom, whether I liked them or not. (For instance, I may not "like" the law of gravity, because it means I can't fly off tall buildings, but I have no choice but to accept it.)
Science tainted with politics or political correctness is harder to trust. By the way, I mean this from any angle. In the specific instance of climate change, there are agendas on both sides.
In fact the problem is that there shouldn't be sides, there should just be objective science, accepted as such, and acted on as such.
It's wonderful to see what happens when someone drinks the Kool Aid, so to speak. I mean, it's fun to show contempt for anyone who doesn't meet the definition of politically correct. The contempt is, after all, what's important.
I'm waiting for someone to blame this latest on global climate change, GMO crops, the evil Americans, etc., instead of realizing that species have come and gone since the earliest days of life on earth.