Fewer Toys Gives Kids a Better Quality of Playtime, Study Claims
This is true. Purely annecdotal but my kids select to play with very few toys (out of the many toys they have, too many IMO, which I'm trying to get rid of.)
If I could do it all over again, I would simply select few quality toys (in particular of the lego or painting types). Dolls, cars, and stuff, most of them remain unused at home.
If you haven't heard, software engineering has a diversity problem
There's unequal participation. That doesn't mean there's a problem.
What if I told you that in addition to unequal participation, there is also discrimination (racial, age and gender based)? I know because I was a target of it once (and that shit cost me money). And I've actually witnessed in other cases.
Somehow it seems to be that because there is a problem of unequal participation - which is also due to (partially, not totally) to systemic discrimination - that it is logically mandatory to conclude there is no discrimination against the members of those cohorts that happened to participate.
It also seems (and this is not addressed to you, but to other posters) that because there is age discrimination (which statistically happens to affect white folks the most) that this somehow precludes or denies the more pervasive racial and gender discrimination cases that do exist elsewhere (or sometimes in tandem.)
How about just acknowledge that there is discrimination, that it is multi-factorial, that it aggravates participation in several cohorts (and that therefore has an economic impact on individuals, and ergo, to the nation's social capital as a whole)?
I mean, for fuck's sake, it's not a fucking zero-sum game. It's just a matter of being decent and hire and respect people for the capabilities and professional personalities only.
It's funny I actually never hear it in that direction. I'm always hearing about how the brown people and women are complaining about the nice things white old men built and want in on that.
Bullshit, I know for a fact I was discriminated against once (myself and another person) for positions we were qualified, leaving the positions open for less qualified people (of the appropriate whiter complexion.) And outside of software I've literally seen people denying positions they were qualified for because they were black (they fucking said so.)
That thing that happened to me? That shit costed money. So don't you fucking tell me that it is just "brown people and women complaining about the nice things white old men built" (after all, a lot of that shit was actually built by women before software shifted from been seen as "clerical" to be seen as "professional".)
I have a female student who was asking me if she would have a problem getting a job since she is in her late 30s. I told her that anyone who is not white or an older man shouldn't have any trouble. Even though she is white, her gender will almost guarantee her a job.
Sometimes I wonder what kind of industries you work on or the type of circles you inhabit. I'm close to 50 and no problems regarding ageism. I work at an engineering firm where we have engineers in their 50's, 60's, 70's. Hell, one co-worker of mine just retired in his 80s. And another one retired when it turned 75.
There is plenty of work in software. If you can do it, you can get paid for it. Interesting work. Challenging work.
But if all you do is IT and fumbling cables or insist in working where all that is done is pursuing the next social media slash big data shinny turd, well, yeah, you'll have some problems competing with the cheaper young studs fresh out of college.
Know your niches and use them to your advantage. Ignore this at your own peril.
Another classical magazine succumbed to the advancement of technology it itself promoted.
Yes, it succumbed to the advancement of freely available information. While it's a shame that good people lost their jobs, the magazine offered nothing above what was already freely published. The same thing happened to Linux Magazine. Linux is one of the best documented operating systems ever made, and there is nothing that a fee-based magazine can offer to top that.
No. It offered a curation of items (obviously freely available in the wild), organized and cataloged, in addition to interview and editorials. There is information, where is everywhere, and there is knowledge (what you get and create out of raw information.)
That is was not valuable enough for consumers to keep it going, that is a different argument. But to argue it offered nothing above what was available for free, that does not make any sense. At. All.
You COULD adapt NOW and lessen the impact, you're avoiding that specifically - Making excuses for why we shouldn't do anything about it now! Absurd polluted conservatism with the magical excuses.
We cannot adapt now because we cannot afford to. There is a great lack of political will on it to make it happen as soon as we could technologically could, but truly we cannot adapt NOW (unless you have some new definition of "NOW" that I'm unfamiliar with.)
Why not just post all our Top Secret documents on Twitter where all enemies of the U.S. can find them easily? Would be cheaper and about as secure as any gods-be-damned 'cloud service'! Since when do U.S. Intelligence agencies, or ANY government agency for that matter, not hosting their own data!?
For a while. How the hell do you thing DoD contractors do secret/top-secret work? They have their own SEC/TS rated facilities.
I live in the USA and you're mostly treated as a disposable liability. It's sad how in America they pay lip service to making workplaces safer and friendlier but they only do this to comply with some law, regulation, or trend. It's all token. Any time you take any action, it's assumed that you're the problem child. Not good at all.
And that is why we are supposed to keep a diary or some other means to track everything significant that happens so we can defend ourselves when the time comes. It also behoove us in this country to be proactive (whenever possible) in our professional network so that we can jump ship as soon as possible instead of having to deal with shit.
At one point or another we have to deal with shit. It is unavoidable. What is not avoidable is to have to deal with shit longer than necessasy.
After about a year I had to take time off work for an unconnected health reason, which seemed to go on a lot longer than one might expect. After a week back at work, I was off again with flu, which seemed to go on forever. My doctor was puzzled and I was sent to the hospital for tests. But in conversation with my doctor one time I mentioned about how it was actually quite nice to be off work because it was an escape from the bullying, and it was as if I'd said the magic word. My doctor was certain that the stress of being bullied was the root cause of my poor health. It explained everything. It turns out that a year of sleepless nights and constant anxiety isn't very good for you.
This literally happened to me also, not as long as you, but enough to affect me physically. I vowed never to allow myself fall into such a situation. Like you, my work life has gone from strength to strength.
I'm glad that you got out of that. It was for the better (it always is.)
The problem lies in the fact that the pro-illegal crowd intentionally conflates legal and illegal immigration when trying to paint their opponents as xenophobic, which in turn creates this stupid atmosphere of 'OAMG the administration hatez the dreamers!!!111!!one!!'
He's making moves to deport them by ending DACA, he's appointing officials who want to aggressively deport, makes false statements about crime caused by undocumented immigrants, and wants to bankrupt us building a wall between us and mexico.
WTF does DACA and illegal immigrants have to do with international students?
On top of that, I mean, I've met Trump supporters. I'm a white dude. They don't exactly play their cards close to their chest on this subject.
You're trying to piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.
Ugh, I fucked up the quotation. Anyways, here I go again. WTF does DACA and illegal immigrants have to do with international students?
The problem lies in the fact that the pro-illegal crowd intentionally conflates legal and illegal immigration when trying to paint their opponents as xenophobic, which in turn creates this stupid atmosphere of 'OAMG the administration hatez the dreamers!!!111!!one!!'
He's making moves to deport them by ending DACA, he's appointing officials who want to aggressively deport, makes false statements about crime caused by undocumented immigrants, and wants to bankrupt us building a wall between us and mexico.
WTF does DACA and illegal immigrants have to do with international students?
On top of that, I mean, I've met Trump supporters. I'm a white dude. They don't exactly play their cards close to their chest on this subject.
You're trying to piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.
I'm sure it has nothing to do with the exploding cost of education, it must be all Trump's fault.
Newflash for you. International students that have come here typically have the means to pay whatever we ask them to pay. Price is typically not a factor.
I'll let others come to their own conclusions about the root cause. Don't be stupid enough, however, to think that it is because the exploding cost of education (which does affect those of us in the states, but that's a different topic altogether.)
Illegal immigrants? You think international students are illegal immigrants?
I'm glad I'm not the only one who so that. Anyone who conflates international students with illegal immigration is a flipping idiot as far as I'm concerned.
The kinetic energy of a planet in orbit is humongous, about 2.7x10^33 Joules. If you wanted to change that kinetic energy by 1%, and you had access to all the solar energy hitting the Earth, 3.2x10^20 J/h (89,000 TW), it would take nearly 10^12 h, over 100 million years. And that's without figuring out what to use for reaction Mass. Nope. Terraforming has to be a whole lot easier.
You're assuming Chlorophyll will optimize (adapt/evolve) to the same adsorbtion spectrum at a star with a different EM frequency output. I don't think that is a safe assumption...
Perhaps we can calibrate our assumptions to expect a certain type of photosynthetic absorption as a function of a start's EM frequency output. I don't think people are expecting to find evidence of "green" photosynthesis around a red dwarf, for example.
High mortality was not so much due to food shortage. With no antibiotics, a simple cut in a finger might kill you. Getting they yearly cold always carried the risk of pneumonia and death. Still, if you lived to 40, you were likely to live to 70 as well.
Err, I tend to disagree here. I grew up in a poor country with relatively high infant mortality. Antibiotics were available but proper nutrition for the mother and baby (as well as pre-natal care) were not. I literally saw babies dying from a mild flu because they were so compromised by malnutrition.
Even in the case of infections, a malnourished person will succumb faster.
We know what many vegetables looked like via diagrams. Carrots now look significantly different from several centuries ago (with orange carrots first appearing in Holland in the 17th century.)
Should we really be worried about this? Maybe it's heresy here; but what are they doing with these systems? Are the Chinese using them to solve problems that are more interesting and important, or are they just using them to build prestige?M
Despite what the West likes to think about China, I highly doubt the Chinese are building these just for mere prestige. They are building know-how. We use to do that. Now, if we cannot immediately predict a definite ROI, we do not even bother to investigate, build know-how or develop social capital.
Does it really say anything about the country, or are these systems just the computing equivalent of Dubai skyscrapers? Dubai is blowing us away in the skyscraper dept., but I don't want to live there. China might blow us away in flops on these computers, but if they're not doing any interesting science or other applications on them, so what?
Are you sure about that, that they are not doing anything interesting or useful (assuming then that accumulating know-how is not useful in itself.) I'm sorry but comparing Dubai's skyscrapper rush with Chinese cloud computing doesn't even make sense (different beasts, different conditions, different purposes.)
Slashdot Mirror
someone has to say it
Fewer Toys Gives Kids a Better Quality of Playtime, Study Claims
This is true. Purely annecdotal but my kids select to play with very few toys (out of the many toys they have, too many IMO, which I'm trying to get rid of.)
If I could do it all over again, I would simply select few quality toys (in particular of the lego or painting types). Dolls, cars, and stuff, most of them remain unused at home.
If you haven't heard, software engineering has a diversity problem
There's unequal participation. That doesn't mean there's a problem.
What if I told you that in addition to unequal participation, there is also discrimination (racial, age and gender based)? I know because I was a target of it once (and that shit cost me money). And I've actually witnessed in other cases.
Somehow it seems to be that because there is a problem of unequal participation - which is also due to (partially, not totally) to systemic discrimination - that it is logically mandatory to conclude there is no discrimination against the members of those cohorts that happened to participate.
It also seems (and this is not addressed to you, but to other posters) that because there is age discrimination (which statistically happens to affect white folks the most) that this somehow precludes or denies the more pervasive racial and gender discrimination cases that do exist elsewhere (or sometimes in tandem.)
How about just acknowledge that there is discrimination, that it is multi-factorial, that it aggravates participation in several cohorts (and that therefore has an economic impact on individuals, and ergo, to the nation's social capital as a whole)?
I mean, for fuck's sake, it's not a fucking zero-sum game. It's just a matter of being decent and hire and respect people for the capabilities and professional personalities only.
It's funny I actually never hear it in that direction. I'm always hearing about how the brown people and women are complaining about the nice things white old men built and want in on that.
Bullshit, I know for a fact I was discriminated against once (myself and another person) for positions we were qualified, leaving the positions open for less qualified people (of the appropriate whiter complexion.) And outside of software I've literally seen people denying positions they were qualified for because they were black (they fucking said so.)
That thing that happened to me? That shit costed money. So don't you fucking tell me that it is just "brown people and women complaining about the nice things white old men built" (after all, a lot of that shit was actually built by women before software shifted from been seen as "clerical" to be seen as "professional".)
I have a female student who was asking me if she would have a problem getting a job since she is in her late 30s. I told her that anyone who is not white or an older man shouldn't have any trouble. Even though she is white, her gender will almost guarantee her a job.
Sometimes I wonder what kind of industries you work on or the type of circles you inhabit. I'm close to 50 and no problems regarding ageism. I work at an engineering firm where we have engineers in their 50's, 60's, 70's. Hell, one co-worker of mine just retired in his 80s. And another one retired when it turned 75.
There is plenty of work in software. If you can do it, you can get paid for it. Interesting work. Challenging work.
But if all you do is IT and fumbling cables or insist in working where all that is done is pursuing the next social media slash big data shinny turd, well, yeah, you'll have some problems competing with the cheaper young studs fresh out of college.
Know your niches and use them to your advantage. Ignore this at your own peril.
Another classical magazine succumbed to the advancement of technology it itself promoted.
Yes, it succumbed to the advancement of freely available information. While it's a shame that good people lost their jobs, the magazine offered nothing above what was already freely published. The same thing happened to Linux Magazine. Linux is one of the best documented operating systems ever made, and there is nothing that a fee-based magazine can offer to top that.
No. It offered a curation of items (obviously freely available in the wild), organized and cataloged, in addition to interview and editorials. There is information, where is everywhere, and there is knowledge (what you get and create out of raw information.)
That is was not valuable enough for consumers to keep it going, that is a different argument. But to argue it offered nothing above what was available for free, that does not make any sense. At. All.
You COULD adapt NOW and lessen the impact, you're avoiding that specifically - Making excuses for why we shouldn't do anything about it now! Absurd polluted conservatism with the magical excuses.
We cannot adapt now because we cannot afford to. There is a great lack of political will on it to make it happen as soon as we could technologically could, but truly we cannot adapt NOW (unless you have some new definition of "NOW" that I'm unfamiliar with.)
Why not just post all our Top Secret documents on Twitter where all enemies of the U.S. can find them easily? Would be cheaper and about as secure as any gods-be-damned 'cloud service'! Since when do U.S. Intelligence agencies, or ANY government agency for that matter, not hosting their own data!?
For a while. How the hell do you thing DoD contractors do secret/top-secret work? They have their own SEC/TS rated facilities.
There's a sucker burn every minute.
I live in the USA and you're mostly treated as a disposable liability. It's sad how in America they pay lip service to making workplaces safer and friendlier but they only do this to comply with some law, regulation, or trend. It's all token. Any time you take any action, it's assumed that you're the problem child. Not good at all.
And that is why we are supposed to keep a diary or some other means to track everything significant that happens so we can defend ourselves when the time comes. It also behoove us in this country to be proactive (whenever possible) in our professional network so that we can jump ship as soon as possible instead of having to deal with shit.
At one point or another we have to deal with shit. It is unavoidable. What is not avoidable is to have to deal with shit longer than necessasy.
After about a year I had to take time off work for an unconnected health reason, which seemed to go on a lot longer than one might expect. After a week back at work, I was off again with flu, which seemed to go on forever. My doctor was puzzled and I was sent to the hospital for tests. But in conversation with my doctor one time I mentioned about how it was actually quite nice to be off work because it was an escape from the bullying, and it was as if I'd said the magic word. My doctor was certain that the stress of being bullied was the root cause of my poor health. It explained everything. It turns out that a year of sleepless nights and constant anxiety isn't very good for you.
This literally happened to me also, not as long as you, but enough to affect me physically. I vowed never to allow myself fall into such a situation. Like you, my work life has gone from strength to strength.
I'm glad that you got out of that. It was for the better (it always is.)
The problem lies in the fact that the pro-illegal crowd intentionally conflates legal and illegal immigration when trying to paint their opponents as xenophobic, which in turn creates this stupid atmosphere of 'OAMG the administration hatez the dreamers!!!111!!one!!'
He's making moves to deport them by ending DACA, he's appointing officials who want to aggressively deport, makes false statements about crime caused by undocumented immigrants, and wants to bankrupt us building a wall between us and mexico. WTF does DACA and illegal immigrants have to do with international students? On top of that, I mean, I've met Trump supporters. I'm a white dude. They don't exactly play their cards close to their chest on this subject. You're trying to piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.
Ugh, I fucked up the quotation. Anyways, here I go again. WTF does DACA and illegal immigrants have to do with international students?
Good schools should be USA first and not foreigners on a full ride that pay way more then USC's and get first in line.
The majority of people who spout this shit barely make the effort to go to school, and it is not as if international students come here free.
Unlike us citizens, foreign students pay the full blown price of tuition, 4, 5, sometimes 6 times what we typically pay.
So don't tell me this "USA first" shit. At least when it comes to international students (the fucking focus of this fucking topic), it is bullshit.
The problem lies in the fact that the pro-illegal crowd intentionally conflates legal and illegal immigration when trying to paint their opponents as xenophobic, which in turn creates this stupid atmosphere of 'OAMG the administration hatez the dreamers!!!111!!one!!'
He's making moves to deport them by ending DACA, he's appointing officials who want to aggressively deport, makes false statements about crime caused by undocumented immigrants, and wants to bankrupt us building a wall between us and mexico. WTF does DACA and illegal immigrants have to do with international students? On top of that, I mean, I've met Trump supporters. I'm a white dude. They don't exactly play their cards close to their chest on this subject. You're trying to piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.
hooah hurr durr
I'm sure it has nothing to do with the exploding cost of education, it must be all Trump's fault.
Newflash for you. International students that have come here typically have the means to pay whatever we ask them to pay. Price is typically not a factor.
I'll let others come to their own conclusions about the root cause. Don't be stupid enough, however, to think that it is because the exploding cost of education (which does affect those of us in the states, but that's a different topic altogether.)
Illegal immigrants? You think international students are illegal immigrants?
I'm glad I'm not the only one who so that. Anyone who conflates international students with illegal immigration is a flipping idiot as far as I'm concerned.
The kinetic energy of a planet in orbit is humongous, about 2.7x10^33 Joules. If you wanted to change that kinetic energy by 1%, and you had access to all the solar energy hitting the Earth, 3.2x10^20 J/h (89,000 TW), it would take nearly 10^12 h, over 100 million years. And that's without figuring out what to use for reaction Mass. Nope. Terraforming has to be a whole lot easier.
That or we buy a planet mover from the Outsiders. http://larryniven.wikia.com/wi...
You're assuming Chlorophyll will optimize (adapt /evolve) to the same adsorbtion spectrum at a star with a different EM frequency output. I don't think that is a safe assumption...
Perhaps we can calibrate our assumptions to expect a certain type of photosynthetic absorption as a function of a start's EM frequency output. I don't think people are expecting to find evidence of "green" photosynthesis around a red dwarf, for example.
High mortality was not so much due to food shortage. With no antibiotics, a simple cut in a finger might kill you. Getting they yearly cold always carried the risk of pneumonia and death. Still, if you lived to 40, you were likely to live to 70 as well.
Err, I tend to disagree here. I grew up in a poor country with relatively high infant mortality. Antibiotics were available but proper nutrition for the mother and baby (as well as pre-natal care) were not. I literally saw babies dying from a mild flu because they were so compromised by malnutrition.
Even in the case of infections, a malnourished person will succumb faster.
You would know, gramps.
We know what many vegetables looked like via diagrams. Carrots now look significantly different from several centuries ago (with orange carrots first appearing in Holland in the 17th century.)
Food was extremely hard to come by? How the hell did the human race continue?
With high numbers of infant mortality and a much shorter life expectancy.
Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.
With a centipede crawling into his butt in addition to that.
If it's that dystopian, they could just, you know, have the person killed.
That could be a waste of *resources* (resources being you).
Should we really be worried about this? Maybe it's heresy here; but what are they doing with these systems? Are the Chinese using them to solve problems that are more interesting and important, or are they just using them to build prestige?M
Despite what the West likes to think about China, I highly doubt the Chinese are building these just for mere prestige. They are building know-how. We use to do that. Now, if we cannot immediately predict a definite ROI, we do not even bother to investigate, build know-how or develop social capital.
Does it really say anything about the country, or are these systems just the computing equivalent of Dubai skyscrapers? Dubai is blowing us away in the skyscraper dept., but I don't want to live there. China might blow us away in flops on these computers, but if they're not doing any interesting science or other applications on them, so what?
Are you sure about that, that they are not doing anything interesting or useful (assuming then that accumulating know-how is not useful in itself.) I'm sorry but comparing Dubai's skyscrapper rush with Chinese cloud computing doesn't even make sense (different beasts, different conditions, different purposes.)