The short version is, if you discriminate against members of group X, you cut yourself off from the contributions which potentially valuable members of group X can make.
Absolutely. I agree 100%. I probably wasn't very clear in what I wrote. I didn't inted to support discrimination, which, I believe, is what you're describing. What I meant to ask was "Why is diversity, in and of itself, a good thing and important to the success of Microsoft?" To follow the stance taken in Ballmer's email to its logical conclusion, it would *seem* that given two candidates of equal technical skill, Microsoft would have to hire the one who somehow contributed to the sexual, ethnic, or religious diversity of the company, since such diversity, according to Ballmer, is important to Microsoft's success.
I'm trying to find out exacly how such diversity, in and of itself, contributes to the success of the company. I.e., if we assume that their candidate pool includes everyone on the planet, how does hiring the more "diverse" candidate contribute to Microsoft's success?
One point really stood out in all the e-mails you sent me. Regardless of where people came down on the issues, everyone expressed strong support for the company's commitment to diversity. To me, that's so critical. Our success depends on having a workforce that is as diverse as our customers - and on working together in a way that taps all of that diversity.
How does sexual-orientational diversity help a software company to produce better software? How exactly does Microsoft's success depend on such diversity? If any sort of diversity is relevant, wouldn't it be techincal diversity, or diversity of technical experience among its developers?
I mean this as a serious inquiry. For many years people have fought long and hard to show that someone should not be discriminated against because of his sexual orientation (or race, or other criteria irrelevant to a particular job). The country has made great strides against such discrimination. It seems that many of the same people who fought against discrimination are now saying that such criteria are not only relevant but are actually important to a company's success.
Which would you rather have? Pay a relatively small amount of money out of your check or have the homeless population explode.
Observe, ladies and gentlemen, a spectacular example of the species Dichotomous fallacious, or false dichotomy. Rarely do we get such a clear example of someone artificially limiting the discussion to only two outcomes to serve his political agenda, when in fact there are many possible outcomes.
"Give me an example of these many other outcomes!" you say. Fair enough. Perhaps if you let me keep more of my hard earned money, I'll give some of that money to a private charity and that charity can house those who would otherwise be homeless. Or, better yet, perhaps I could afford to have my elderly parents live with me and my family, instead of having to say "Sorry, Mom, you carried me for 9 months, raised me and put me through college, but now I can't afford to have you live with me because my tax burden is so high, so hit the streets."
Though I recognize the humor in your remark, I want to make sure that people who haven't read the book understand that "thin slicing" as he calls it isn't really "thinking without thinking."
It's important to point this out because the author himself is a bit unclear. From the author's description of "thin slicing," it's not uninformed snap judgment, it's the quick application of years and years of experience in a particular problem domain.
For example, the book begins with a story about a kouros statue that a museum was to purchase for millions of dollars. Their scientists spent 14 months authenticating the statue and decided it was legit. Then, several experts who hadn't been part of the authentication project were shown the statue and had immediate "gut" reactions that said the statue was a fake. One said the statue looked too fresh, another noticed the fingernails seemed wrong.
These experts weren't making uninformed snap judgments, they were applying their entire lifetimes of experience in archaeology and art in a single moment. I would argue they were working with *more* information than the scientists who did the 14 months of authentication, not less.
Do people really not understand that creationism and evolution are not mutually exclusive? Do people really not understand that science develops theories about how things happen whereas theology gives us reasons why things happen?
Why do so many people persist in conflating these two?
Since when is using a publicly available public key to encrypt a stream of data from an application and send it to a device considered "cracking?" It seems to me that this is a good ol' hack (read: clever piece of software), just like DeCSS or the other thing he did with protected iTunes tracks.
I wasn't surprised that the first source I saw report this called it a "crack," but had hoped by the time the story made it to/. the error would be corrected.
By the way, you do a real disservice to people trying to fight the DMCA by calling things like this "cracks." Lawyers for the bad guys already think these sorts of hacks are actually illegal cracks. You're bolstering their opinion by conflating the two.
Somehow this is different when we hack open Microsoft gaming consoles?
Quite.
If you buy something, you get to do what you want with it (EULAs be damned). That is not what Real is doing.
Real is a competitor to Apple who is trying to make money by hacking one of Apple's products, with full knowledge that when Apple updates the firmware in the future and people's songs no longer play, it's Apple who will have to deal with the vast majority of customer complaints and related expenses. And what happens if Real's hack damages the iPod? Which company will bear the brunt of the negative reaction (and expense) from customers whose iPod warranties are voided by this hack?
In Gmail, you can have a filter apply a label to messages, thus making the labels automatic. The result is essentially the equivalent of smart folders.
Isn't that the thing where you type in your PIN number?
PIN number is quite a mouthful. I usually abbreviate it `PINN'.
Re:The first 15 posts on this are things you cant
on
What You Can't Say
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· Score: 1
It's a double standard and it's called reverse discrimination.
I've yet to understand why some people insist on using the term "reverse discrimination." From what I understand, many people use this term when a member of the minority discriminates against a member of the majority. But is that such a useful distinction?
It seems to me that the term "discrimination" should suffice to describe the exclusion of someone based on irrelevant criteria (such as race, sex, religion, etc.). Using the qualifier "reverse" adds no value, but turns an apt description into political rhetoric.
The laws of this land should not give your religious beliefs preferential treatment over mine.
Agreed. I did not intend to imply that they should.
Thanks for calling my ideas "wishy washy." Gee. Here's where you've offended me.
You haven't enumerated your beliefs for us, so I can't address them specifically. While "wishy washy" may seem pejorative, I find it an apt description of someone who believes that each person makes his own truth. I would point out that based on your own reply, you clearly do not fall into the "wishy washy" category. By engaging in this argument, you're quite obviously interested in finding truth and are zealous in attacking the propagation of falsehoods. A "wishy washy" person would have no motivation for doing so.
Let me distill my argument. Rational people understand that truth is an absolute and fixed thing--it doesn't change with the whims of mortal men. Rational people also understand that for a society to be just, members of the society must measure their own judgments against this objective truth. The phrase "under God" acknowledges this fact by referencing the source of truth identified by the majority of people in the world.
If you agree with the idea that we should acknowledge a source of absolute truth, yet disagree that we should name God as that source, what source would you name? Should we simply state the Law of Noncontradiction as part of the pledge?
I think we disagree on the purpose of including the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. It seems to me that when we say we are "one nation, under God" we give God neither credit nor responsibility for the creation or maintenance of the United States of America. Rather, we recognize that God is the objective third party who is the source of truth. It is an admonition against those who would claim there is no objective truth, no objective right.
It is an assertion that we believe in and are ultimately held accountable to absolute truth and not the wishy washy idea that everyone makes his own truth. Ours is not a society that recognizes good and evil as equal forces. We recognize an objective truth as the necessary foundation for any just society.
Please don't misconstrue what I have said here. I do not wish to imply that we *are* always right and that anyone outside the USA is always wrong--clearly this is not the case. I assert only that our pledge holds us accountable to a single truth. Whether we live up to that truth is another matter entirely.
Just a note, airlines make money from people using in-flight phones, it's not in their economic interest to have people using their mobile phones.
That's odd. The in-flight phones I've seen on every flight I've been on since the beginning of 2002 have included a sticker that says "Service discontinued effective March, 2002" (or something to that effect). Actually, I think the year might have been 2001...
How can you all afford to live in the UK when the government confiscates most of your earnings as taxes so students can go to university for ~ 1k/year?!?
I'd say that 'I, Robot' augth to be far more serious that MIB or any other movie Smith has starred, so I'll bracing myself for a big disapointment.
Actually, I thought he was quite good in Six Degrees of Separation. Quite a serious dramatic role not reminiscent whatsoever of his rap career nor indicative of his future sci-fi comedy roles.
Slashdot Mirror
The short version is, if you discriminate against members of group X, you cut yourself off from the contributions which potentially valuable members of group X can make.
Absolutely. I agree 100%. I probably wasn't very clear in what I wrote. I didn't inted to support discrimination, which, I believe, is what you're describing. What I meant to ask was "Why is diversity, in and of itself, a good thing and important to the success of Microsoft?" To follow the stance taken in Ballmer's email to its logical conclusion, it would *seem* that given two candidates of equal technical skill, Microsoft would have to hire the one who somehow contributed to the sexual, ethnic, or religious diversity of the company, since such diversity, according to Ballmer, is important to Microsoft's success.
I'm trying to find out exacly how such diversity, in and of itself, contributes to the success of the company. I.e., if we assume that their candidate pool includes everyone on the planet, how does hiring the more "diverse" candidate contribute to Microsoft's success?
One point really stood out in all the e-mails you sent me. Regardless of where people came down on the issues, everyone expressed strong support for the company's commitment to diversity. To me, that's so critical. Our success depends on having a workforce that is as diverse as our customers - and on working together in a way that taps all of that diversity.
How does sexual-orientational diversity help a software company to produce better software? How exactly does Microsoft's success depend on such diversity? If any sort of diversity is relevant, wouldn't it be techincal diversity, or diversity of technical experience among its developers?
I mean this as a serious inquiry. For many years people have fought long and hard to show that someone should not be discriminated against because of his sexual orientation (or race, or other criteria irrelevant to a particular job). The country has made great strides against such discrimination. It seems that many of the same people who fought against discrimination are now saying that such criteria are not only relevant but are actually important to a company's success.
I don't get it. Someone please explain.
Which would you rather have? Pay a relatively small amount of money out of your check or have the homeless population explode.
Observe, ladies and gentlemen, a spectacular example of the species Dichotomous fallacious, or false dichotomy. Rarely do we get such a clear example of someone artificially limiting the discussion to only two outcomes to serve his political agenda, when in fact there are many possible outcomes.
"Give me an example of these many other outcomes!" you say. Fair enough. Perhaps if you let me keep more of my hard earned money, I'll give some of that money to a private charity and that charity can house those who would otherwise be homeless. Or, better yet, perhaps I could afford to have my elderly parents live with me and my family, instead of having to say "Sorry, Mom, you carried me for 9 months, raised me and put me through college, but now I can't afford to have you live with me because my tax burden is so high, so hit the streets."
Though I recognize the humor in your remark, I want to make sure that people who haven't read the book understand that "thin slicing" as he calls it isn't really "thinking without thinking."
It's important to point this out because the author himself is a bit unclear. From the author's description of "thin slicing," it's not uninformed snap judgment, it's the quick application of years and years of experience in a particular problem domain.
For example, the book begins with a story about a kouros statue that a museum was to purchase for millions of dollars. Their scientists spent 14 months authenticating the statue and decided it was legit. Then, several experts who hadn't been part of the authentication project were shown the statue and had immediate "gut" reactions that said the statue was a fake. One said the statue looked too fresh, another noticed the fingernails seemed wrong.
These experts weren't making uninformed snap judgments, they were applying their entire lifetimes of experience in archaeology and art in a single moment. I would argue they were working with *more* information than the scientists who did the 14 months of authentication, not less.
Perhaps the scientists who dated the article used the same faulty carbon dating technique...
Do people really not understand that creationism and evolution are not mutually exclusive? Do people really not understand that science develops theories about how things happen whereas theology gives us reasons why things happen?
Why do so many people persist in conflating these two?
For some reason making my SSID "stopleeching" didn't prevent my neighbor from using it to download DVDs over BitTorrent 24 hours a day....
Since when is using a publicly available public key to encrypt a stream of data from an application and send it to a device considered "cracking?" It seems to me that this is a good ol' hack (read: clever piece of software), just like DeCSS or the other thing he did with protected iTunes tracks.
/. the error would be corrected.
I wasn't surprised that the first source I saw report this called it a "crack," but had hoped by the time the story made it to
By the way, you do a real disservice to people trying to fight the DMCA by calling things like this "cracks." Lawyers for the bad guys already think these sorts of hacks are actually illegal cracks. You're bolstering their opinion by conflating the two.
Somehow this is different when we hack open Microsoft gaming consoles?
Quite.
If you buy something, you get to do what you want with it (EULAs be damned). That is not what Real is doing.
Real is a competitor to Apple who is trying to make money by hacking one of Apple's products, with full knowledge that when Apple updates the firmware in the future and people's songs no longer play, it's Apple who will have to deal with the vast majority of customer complaints and related expenses. And what happens if Real's hack damages the iPod? Which company will bear the brunt of the negative reaction (and expense) from customers whose iPod warranties are voided by this hack?
No, the government would never hinder people from riding the subway.
In Gmail, you can have a filter apply a label to messages, thus making the labels automatic. The result is essentially the equivalent of smart folders.
Swedish Carbon-Fiber Stealth FISH Runs NT
I must have Swedish Fish on the brain...
No Registration Required.
Isn't that the thing where you type in your PIN number?
PIN number is quite a mouthful. I usually abbreviate it `PINN'.
It's a double standard and it's called reverse discrimination.
I've yet to understand why some people insist on using the term "reverse discrimination." From what I understand, many people use this term when a member of the minority discriminates against a member of the majority. But is that such a useful distinction?
It seems to me that the term "discrimination" should suffice to describe the exclusion of someone based on irrelevant criteria (such as race, sex, religion, etc.). Using the qualifier "reverse" adds no value, but turns an apt description into political rhetoric.
The laws of this land should not give your religious beliefs preferential treatment over mine.
Agreed. I did not intend to imply that they should.
Thanks for calling my ideas "wishy washy." Gee. Here's where you've offended me.
You haven't enumerated your beliefs for us, so I can't address them specifically. While "wishy washy" may seem pejorative, I find it an apt description of someone who believes that each person makes his own truth. I would point out that based on your own reply, you clearly do not fall into the "wishy washy" category. By engaging in this argument, you're quite obviously interested in finding truth and are zealous in attacking the propagation of falsehoods. A "wishy washy" person would have no motivation for doing so.
Let me distill my argument. Rational people understand that truth is an absolute and fixed thing--it doesn't change with the whims of mortal men. Rational people also understand that for a society to be just, members of the society must measure their own judgments against this objective truth. The phrase "under God" acknowledges this fact by referencing the source of truth identified by the majority of people in the world.
If you agree with the idea that we should acknowledge a source of absolute truth, yet disagree that we should name God as that source, what source would you name? Should we simply state the Law of Noncontradiction as part of the pledge?
I think we disagree on the purpose of including the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. It seems to me that when we say we are "one nation, under God" we give God neither credit nor responsibility for the creation or maintenance of the United States of America. Rather, we recognize that God is the objective third party who is the source of truth. It is an admonition against those who would claim there is no objective truth, no objective right.
It is an assertion that we believe in and are ultimately held accountable to absolute truth and not the wishy washy idea that everyone makes his own truth. Ours is not a society that recognizes good and evil as equal forces. We recognize an objective truth as the necessary foundation for any just society.
Please don't misconstrue what I have said here. I do not wish to imply that we *are* always right and that anyone outside the USA is always wrong--clearly this is not the case. I assert only that our pledge holds us accountable to a single truth. Whether we live up to that truth is another matter entirely.
It'll be the first ever time the CPU bus is a bottleneck to the Internet connection
But if the good ol' C64 is old enough to drink, can't it can buy those wide-mouth cans and avoid bottle necks entirely?
Just a note, airlines make money from people using in-flight phones, it's not in their economic interest to have people using their mobile phones.
That's odd. The in-flight phones I've seen on every flight I've been on since the beginning of 2002 have included a sticker that says "Service discontinued effective March, 2002" (or something to that effect). Actually, I think the year might have been 2001...
How can you all afford to live in the UK when the government confiscates most of your earnings as taxes so students can go to university for ~ 1k/year?!?
Actually, I've long wondered whether Alanis was quite clever in choosing a title for that song.
You see, none of the events she describes in the song is an example of irony, making the choice of the title "Ironic," well, ironic.
DOUBLEPLUSUNGOOD! CRIMETHINK!
I'd say that 'I, Robot' augth to be far more serious that MIB or any other movie Smith has starred, so I'll bracing myself for a big disapointment.
Actually, I thought he was quite good in Six Degrees of Separation. Quite a serious dramatic role not reminiscent whatsoever of his rap career nor indicative of his future sci-fi comedy roles.
BLUETOOTH, I would have bought one today. I guess the rumor mills can't get everything right :-(
I went to visit /. today, but it seems DNS redirected me to VersionTracker with an announcement about a new Phoenix release ... strange ...