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User: MoriT

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  1. Re:This is hardly specific to computer science... on Women's Enrollment In Computer Science Correlates Negatively With Net Access · · Score: 3, Informative

    Women earn 45.5% of Mathematics degrees in the US. Engineering and Physics are only at around 25%, but they have been trending consistently upward. Computer Science, on the other hand, has declined from 38% to 25%. It is the only field with that dramatic decline.

  2. Re:Have you asked them? on Women's Enrollment In Computer Science Correlates Negatively With Net Access · · Score: 1

    Yes they have: there is a significant body of qualitative research stretching back to the early 80s. However, people are notoriously bad at describing why they made decisions, especially poorly-constrained decisions like "why didn't you study field X?" Observation of behavior are more reliable measures of preferences than asking people what their preferences are.

    That said, I still recommend reading the recent Girl Scout study of teenagers. The number one concern when discussing STEM fields was "women have to work harder than men to be taken seriously."

  3. Funny that on IT Positions Some of the Toughest Jobs To Fill In US · · Score: 1

    Our profession is the bottom twenty of gender parity and we wonder why we don't have enough employees. Unless the lack of women makes it super-extra-appealing to men I'd assume programmers would be about 20% rarer than other similar professions with 40% participation by women.

  4. Re:Not All Spankings Are The Same on No Charges For Child-Whipping Judge Caught On YouTube · · Score: 1

    I will support is as soon as all evidence doesn't suggest that it is counterproductive. As it is, there is no reason to support allowing parents to inflict punishments on their children we would never allow the state to inflict on its citizens.

  5. Re:Okay... on No Charges For Child-Whipping Judge Caught On YouTube · · Score: 1

    There's a reason you were out of control: you were subject to regular assaults. Obviously they didn't work or help, or you wouldn't have been out of control in the first place.

  6. Failures of the Rule of Law on No Charges For Child-Whipping Judge Caught On YouTube · · Score: 1

    It is straight-up assault. There is no excuse for assault; we live in a world where the law is just a tool of the rich, not justice.

  7. Re:Videos I've seen on Conflict Between Occupy Wall Street Protestors and NYPD Escalating · · Score: 2

    They are live streaming too, if you want all the context you can handle. Most videos get trimmed because people get bored: I know that if I start watching something and nothing happens for 20 seconds I'm likely to swap to the cute cat video linked in the right bar...

  8. Re:doubt it on Conflict Between Occupy Wall Street Protestors and NYPD Escalating · · Score: 2

    Yup. Except those knitting grandmas: they seemed pretty organized and leftist, so I'm betting they're ready to stab someone in the eye with those knitting needles at any second!

  9. Eventually, we'll all give up and be criminals on EU Extends Music Copyright to 70 Years · · Score: 1

    Guess I'll keep illegally listening to those downloads. I started out downloading music because I was broke and lazy, now I consider it civil disobedience. Thanks music industry! Until juries start refusing to enforce ridiculous laws and people refuse to follow them, the thought police will keep criminalizing the most basic of human instincts: to share stories around a campfire.

  10. Re:It's convenience and security. on Why the Fax Machine Refuses To Die · · Score: 1

    Besides, you can always shred a fax. Once it's on a company's mail servers, it is there for life.

    Worse solutions that are good enough and always work win over better solutions that require knowledge, new equipment, multiple steps and some decent luck. Just look at Dropbox!

  11. Re:Here we go! on TSA Groper Files Suit Against Blogger · · Score: 1

    They don't show anything internal, so body cavity bombs wouldn't show up even after the cancer-causing scan anyway. Have you even looked at the studies? Why do you want the illusion of safety at all? I'd much rather feel unsafe and be alive than feel safe and die, personally. Of course, I've watched knives be accidentally carried on planes multiple times, so I am certain security is nothing but theater.

    We're lucky that there are only a few terrorists in the world and most of them, like most everyone, aren't particularly good at what they do. After all, if they were smart they'd have launched a front corporation to funnel money through to Republican-supporting PACs and try to get Congress to refuse to raise the debt ceiling again next time it comes up. A default would cause far more American infidel pain and suffering than another terrorist attack.

  12. Re:C programmers? Wanted! on Age Bias In IT: the Reality Behind the Rumors · · Score: 1

    The way a handax is a very powerful tool. Sometimes it's the simplest, cheapest tool. Sometimes it's the tool you have on hand. Sometimes it's the only tool you have access to (say in some place without electricity). Sometimes you want to use one tool for any number of jobs. However, it is very seldom the "best" tool; it is just the most commonly used one.

  13. Re:Hague Treaty on Akamai Employee Tried To Sell Secrets To Israel · · Score: 1

    Rape is gendered because it is gendered violence. Men who are targeted (and men make up 15% of rape victims) are more likely to be children or teenagers than female survivors, and more likely to have intersecting oppressions otherwise. Rape is a crime of power, and men of perceived lower status are vulnerable just like women. However, if we actually want to prevent rape we need to stop rapists from raping. That means targeting the men who commit rape is the most effective solution, since men commit 98% of rapes. If we wipe out 96% of rapes and suddenly rapists are gender-balanced, it will make sense to focus equal resources. However, both male and female survivors will be best served by dismantling the patriarchy that enables rape culture, that makes rapes against women "natural" and rapes against men a joke. There is nothing anti-male about it; it is anti-patriarchy, which harms both men and women.

    If there are men reading this who seek support, resources do exist. http://www.pandys.org/malesurvivors.html has links to national hotlines that can provide referrals.

  14. Re:Hague Treaty on Akamai Employee Tried To Sell Secrets To Israel · · Score: 1

    We have no information about whether he pursued legal means at all. Since he wasn't pursuing legal means, in fact, my first suspicion would be that his son was legally living abroad. As you point out, treaties exist for cases where children are unlawfully transported across borders.

  15. Re:Why I'm not sympathetic with Doxer ... on Akamai Employee Tried To Sell Secrets To Israel · · Score: 1

    You are assuming "justice" is automatically on his side. We have no information about the case: whether she was granted sole custody, whether he left them or why they were estranged in the first place. We don't know if they were even married in the US; he could have been working abroad and returned to the US alone.

    I'm not saying that his wife is an angel, or that he might not have been devastated by the loss of his son, but when his primary worry when dealing with the undercover FBI agent was making sure bad things happen to her I'm pretty sure that she's not lying if she claims he's a dangerous "stalker".

  16. No need to go that far forward in time on Ask Slashdot: Am I Too Old To Learn New Programming Languages? · · Score: 1

    There is a ton of work available in C++ where I am. I've worked in C++ for about 8 years, having come from the Java world, and routinely worked with coworkers nearing retirement. Even better, many of the skills and good habits you may have acquired in more functional and finicky languages can prove useful.

    If you want to pick up something cutting-edge and fresh, I'd highly recommend generic GPU programming. Highly sought after by computer vision and scientific computation, it feels like assembly and writes like C on LSD. There also just aren't all that many people in the field yet, so it's still at the point where writing a frame differencing algorithm on your home machine can be a foot in the door.

  17. Re:Lets run the fogcreek numbers per hiring catego on Girls Go Geek Again · · Score: 1

    We usually see fewer women make it to our interview process, but hire a lot more of those who do. I've usually chalked it up to women being less likely to bluff or bluster; we more often find that we've brought in dudes who talk a good game and can write a function, but when push comes to shove either the skills aren't there or their ego is big enough it'd need its own cube. Women we're more likely to be able to filter out early on. "How good are you?" usually gets a nervous chuckle followed by a diplomatic but pretty accurate assessment, for example.

  18. Re:/. cannot math today it has the dumb on Girls Go Geek Again · · Score: 2
  19. Re:Waterfall Vs. Agile on Are You Too Good For Code Reviews? · · Score: 1

    Pair-programming is the "extreme" version of code review, so that makes sense. Google certainly doesn't have universal pair-programming. In general, I would hazard a guess that pair-programming is the least commonly employed Agile practice.

  20. Re:If all your developers were Ken Thompson... on Are You Too Good For Code Reviews? · · Score: 1

    Ken Thompson didn't need source control either.

    How often do you release code? My projects take anywhere from half a day to three weeks, and I am expected to have self-documenting code. "Presenting" code would probably have taken nearly as long as some whole projects, and an hour is far longer than most of us ever spend on a code review.

    I'm assuming part of the issue is how we are defining "code review". Day-long, or even hour-long, in-person conferences would never fit into our workflow. Online, collaborative code reviews do, and can be done well in maker's time.

  21. Re:Obvious answer is obvious on Are You Too Good For Code Reviews? · · Score: 1

    And then that guy comes on Slashdot to complain about how useless code reviews are.

    Code reviews are a way to shape code to conform to social norms. They allow for community-owned commits to community-owned code, and the development of a collaborative, shared culture. In the absence of such a society, or the desire to create one, code reviews will be no more constructive than a debate between Glen Beck and Rachel Maddow. Some people don't want to give up agency and independence, and for them code reviews can at best be a smarter compiler check. But at their best they can allow the creation of a program that transcends its individual contributors.

  22. Re:We need more testers / QA as well on Are You Too Good For Code Reviews? · · Score: 1

    Someone will have to do that eventually anyway. Whether it is before that code is released or when something breaks while that coder is on vacation, it is more efficient to have multiple people aware of the code and familiar enough to give good feedback. The right answer is to just do it. My PHBes don't notice the coders who spend half their time reading slashdot, why should they notice code reviews?

  23. Re:Targets For Ridicule on Officials Say "Capes For the Unemployed" Plan Not Super · · Score: 1

    Actually, half the children in America qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, and 25% of them are living in poverty. We don't have nearly as many programs supporting children, or providing health care to women of childbearing age, as we do retirees. It shows.

    It wouldn't quite be cheaper to simply provide free lunches to all children than it is to have the administrative overhead of verifying eligibility, but only barely.

  24. Re:I Do like it on Officials Say "Capes For the Unemployed" Plan Not Super · · Score: 1

    It's the governments job to make sure I actually am empowered, in that I am able to have agency over my own life. I would much prefer if they set about making sure I am not stuck in a terrible economy because some people think it's awesome to introduce contractionary fiscal policy mid-downturn. The government should be dealing with the business cycle, not offering me interview tips or capes. Though at least they spent money on the capes; at this point any government spending is good.

  25. Wait on Facebook Bans 20,000 Kids a Day · · Score: 1

    People lie on the internet!?!!

    At least now you only have to claim to be 13. Back in my day I was 18 every year for 6 years.