While the lack of African-Americans and Latinos in Silicon Valley is certainly a problem worth remedying, this isn't a hiring issue, it's a training issue. Sure, these minorities make up 13.1 and 16.9 percent of the general population, but they make up only 4.6 and 5.2 percent of the Science and Engineering (S&E) workforce - See Table 3.22, NSF S&E Indicators 2014. If we want more of these under-represented groups in our tech companies, we need to first get them to pursue S&E degrees in our schools.
Are we asking for the wrong thing here? I don't think we really the security holes, less efficient code, and fewer features that come with rolling back software to a previous version. What we really want is the former user experience, correct? Maybe instead of asking for the ability to rollback software, we should be asking that developers uncouple the user interface from the core functionality (which good software design dictates anyway) so that we can move to the new interface, say v3.0 or choose to use any of the previous ones as well, say v1.0, v2.0, etc. Or, maybe simply including the option to use former user interface elements in new versions.
As a kid... I loved legos... other creative things along those lines... Erector sets, lincoln logs and those big cardboard bricks... actually the big "bricks" were awesome cause you could build more lifesized things. Or, if they have snow in the winter, I spent way too much time making snow forts with a plastic "snow brick" maker. It was basically a cinderblock sized hollow rectangle with a handle for you to easily raise off of the packed snow brick.
Chemistry set or microscope with some pre-made slides are more "sciency" if you want to go that route.
Finally, I might say a car-track set... I spent many an afternoon setting up a matchbox car track with a ramp at the start and timing my cars to see which was the fastest or could jump the farthest off a ramp at the end.
Yes... I was definitely a nerd-kid;)
There's been a ton of responses already, but I'm a little different, so I thought I'd contribute. I have a pretty nice home AV setup from working in the industry for a while, and I ditched Comcast last August when I moved into a new place, and I haven't really missed it. I get all I really want from over-the-air, Hulu and the network sites and in some cases in better quality. The one thing I do miss is digital audio from the Internet sites... but I haven't looked much into whether I can get that or not. The Comcast guide here in the DC area is an antiquated pile of buggy poo and my TV experience is better without it. The HD quality is also much better over the air in 100% unadulterated ASTC. I got a number of comments at the superbowl party I hosted on how good the picture was on my 5 year old mid-range plasma (i.e. not a killer TV, but decent) because people were used to the crappy Comcast HD (which is compressed to go over their network and reconstituted into ASTC by the box at the consumer). Honestly, if FIOS was available here, I'd jump on that bad wagon because a) their HD compression is less aggressive and b) their interface is quite wonderful and adds, not detracts, from the viewing experience. IF Comcast a) got better hardware and improved their interface instead of wasting money on a rebranding campaign (Infinity??? really???) and b) had better up-time in the DC area (the Internet goes wonky most days for some time between 5 and 8pm, I assume due to over-saturation, or when it rained), I'd go back, but I'm not paying $80 a month for sketchy Internet and a 1990-era interface. I don't mind paying for cable (as I did for TimeWarner in Milwaukee), but I do mind paying for something that's actually worse than what I can get for free.
After reading a number of responses here while I finish my night cap, this is my favorite by far. While I have my own opinions as to what the best email service is technically, it really is a indicator of what culture you belong to. Gmail is still the new and edgy (T-shirt with a sport coat), just out of beta email service, hotmail and yahoo are the I got email when it was cool crowd (banana republic sweater over shirt and tie) and aol and compuserve are the I figured this out 10 years ago and got stuck crowd (white short sleve shirt with pens in the pocket).
Most smart companies have now figured out that personality and culture are equally, if not more important than technical prowess and the email address you choose to use is one of many indicators of your personality.
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While the lack of African-Americans and Latinos in Silicon Valley is certainly a problem worth remedying, this isn't a hiring issue, it's a training issue. Sure, these minorities make up 13.1 and 16.9 percent of the general population, but they make up only 4.6 and 5.2 percent of the Science and Engineering (S&E) workforce - See Table 3.22, NSF S&E Indicators 2014. If we want more of these under-represented groups in our tech companies, we need to first get them to pursue S&E degrees in our schools.
Are we asking for the wrong thing here? I don't think we really the security holes, less efficient code, and fewer features that come with rolling back software to a previous version. What we really want is the former user experience, correct? Maybe instead of asking for the ability to rollback software, we should be asking that developers uncouple the user interface from the core functionality (which good software design dictates anyway) so that we can move to the new interface, say v3.0 or choose to use any of the previous ones as well, say v1.0, v2.0, etc. Or, maybe simply including the option to use former user interface elements in new versions.
As a kid... I loved legos... other creative things along those lines... Erector sets, lincoln logs and those big cardboard bricks... actually the big "bricks" were awesome cause you could build more lifesized things. Or, if they have snow in the winter, I spent way too much time making snow forts with a plastic "snow brick" maker. It was basically a cinderblock sized hollow rectangle with a handle for you to easily raise off of the packed snow brick. Chemistry set or microscope with some pre-made slides are more "sciency" if you want to go that route. Finally, I might say a car-track set... I spent many an afternoon setting up a matchbox car track with a ramp at the start and timing my cars to see which was the fastest or could jump the farthest off a ramp at the end. Yes... I was definitely a nerd-kid ;)
There's been a ton of responses already, but I'm a little different, so I thought I'd contribute. I have a pretty nice home AV setup from working in the industry for a while, and I ditched Comcast last August when I moved into a new place, and I haven't really missed it. I get all I really want from over-the-air, Hulu and the network sites and in some cases in better quality. The one thing I do miss is digital audio from the Internet sites... but I haven't looked much into whether I can get that or not. The Comcast guide here in the DC area is an antiquated pile of buggy poo and my TV experience is better without it. The HD quality is also much better over the air in 100% unadulterated ASTC. I got a number of comments at the superbowl party I hosted on how good the picture was on my 5 year old mid-range plasma (i.e. not a killer TV, but decent) because people were used to the crappy Comcast HD (which is compressed to go over their network and reconstituted into ASTC by the box at the consumer). Honestly, if FIOS was available here, I'd jump on that bad wagon because a) their HD compression is less aggressive and b) their interface is quite wonderful and adds, not detracts, from the viewing experience. IF Comcast a) got better hardware and improved their interface instead of wasting money on a rebranding campaign (Infinity??? really???) and b) had better up-time in the DC area (the Internet goes wonky most days for some time between 5 and 8pm, I assume due to over-saturation, or when it rained), I'd go back, but I'm not paying $80 a month for sketchy Internet and a 1990-era interface. I don't mind paying for cable (as I did for TimeWarner in Milwaukee), but I do mind paying for something that's actually worse than what I can get for free.
After reading a number of responses here while I finish my night cap, this is my favorite by far. While I have my own opinions as to what the best email service is technically, it really is a indicator of what culture you belong to. Gmail is still the new and edgy (T-shirt with a sport coat), just out of beta email service, hotmail and yahoo are the I got email when it was cool crowd (banana republic sweater over shirt and tie) and aol and compuserve are the I figured this out 10 years ago and got stuck crowd (white short sleve shirt with pens in the pocket). Most smart companies have now figured out that personality and culture are equally, if not more important than technical prowess and the email address you choose to use is one of many indicators of your personality.