...which leads to a past "Ask Slashdot" question, how do these folks who stick it out four years for a BS in Comp Sci actually get a paying job in the field if no one is willing to hire inexperienced folks?
Summer internships, research positions, contributing to open source, pet projects... I honestly don't know. I graduated university almost 20 years ago; and at that time, pretty much only enthusiastic geeks were enrolled in CS.
When I went to school I did research work with one of my profs for the last several years I was in school. So I did some specialized programming and the like (bare metal, OS kind of stuff) , had done code walkthroughs, and almost all of my courses had a really heavy coding quotient. So I crawled around in more code than some friends with Master's degrees since more of their stuff was theoretical, or only had to work well enough to cover their specific area of research -- you can still do cool research and write crap code if nobody else has to see it or maintain it.
In all honesty, by the end of my degree, there were people in my department who I was convinced managed to do most of the course work and pass, but who nonetheless weren't very good programmers. Give them a well defined problem and some help, they can do it -- go much beyond that, and they didn't seem to know much. I also know several people who only formally have high-school, but are absolute rock stars when it comes to writing code.
I am actually surprised at how many people out of school I've met who have never used anything like CVS, never built anything more complex than a little demo, and only really have a semester's worth of coding with everything else being theoretical. I've also seen people who had an OK high-level view of computers, but didn't really understand how an OS actually worked or anything like that. Often concepts like testing and documenting make them turn up their nose as if it's beneath them -- sorry, but we can't use you if you can't see why we do these things. I've also seen people who don't seem to have any measurable skill at debugging programs and trouble-shooting.
Years after I graduated, the prof I did my research work with and I were having a chat -- he asked me if I ever actually used anything he'd taught me. I could tell him in all honesty that the stuff I'd learned from him about programming and building/designing stuff I used every single day of my life. So, I was fortunate in that I got to learn a lot of the intangible stuff we didn't cover in class. I got to learn by going through the process and being shown how these things are done.
So, my best advise? Build something. Be ready to show it. Actual working code is probably better than your resume if you're just starting out. Perspective employers need to know that you have more than a passing/theoretical knowledge about how to program. And they also need to believe that you're capable of learning things you may not know very well.
There are plenty of inexperienced programmers out there too, many of which aren't given a shot at any of those open positions because they don't have the necessary experience or resume buzzwords.
That's true, but not all of them are (or would be) good programmers.
Years ago at a different job, we hired a guy who was supposed to be our UNIX admin as well as a programmer. Since he was new and unknown, we weren't just about to hand him the keys to the kingdom, so his initial tasks were coding and some stuff to make sure he was up to the task.
He was an atrocious programmer -- the first task I gave him took him several days to code, and it was badly implemented and incredibly slow. After he argued with me that his was just as good as mine (which I knocked up in 30 minutes). Sadly, the few Admin tasks we let him do he didn't really shine at either.
He didn't last long after that because he refused to understand that his half-assed attempt wasn't as good as we needed.
I also once worked with an electrical engineer who had been hired as a coder. He didn't actually *know* anything about writing code, and eventually became a placeholder position. We had assumed that as an EE he knew these things, and he had assumed we'd teach him.
I'm not saying all inexperienced programmers can't ever become good ones -- but many of us simply aren't willing to gamble on them and trust them with our code.
Lack of experience sometimes means you may not actually have the skillset. And employers aren't willing to pay to find out.
Be that as it may. It would be worthwhile to provide an item-by-item refutation to the article, than simply scream "racism" and leave it at that.
Take the text, do a search and replace of "black" with "Finlander", "American", "Teenager", "Faggot", "Republican", "Tall", "Skinny", "Fat", "Blonde", "Bespectacled", or pretty much any word of your choosing... it still reads like a series of gross generalizations which boil down to "stay away from those people -- be polite if you meet one but move on quickly, don't offer them help, don't trust them but don't antagonize them, and if you can pick up a token friend along the way it will make you look good".
Do you really need someone to write a well reasoned refutation to this?
Fact is that racism is a double edge sword. It takes one person to stereotype and another to take it badly, without either of those, there's no conflict.
Yes, you can stay in your gated community, say all the racist things you like, and the Neighborhood Watch guys will shoot any of 'them' that stray in.
It's perfectly OK to be a racist when nobody is looking, right?
And, really, if you need to come up with an acronym for "Intelligent and Well Socialized Blacks", you're probably using it too often.
astronauts get to add more taste to their meals without the space traveler, as Myra Halpin, a chemistry and research instructor at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics says of one tale told to her, 'spinning himself around to get the hot sauce out of the bottle.'
Assuming you understand how the comma works, it says:
astronauts get to add more taste to their meals without the space traveler... 'spinning himself around to get the hot sauce out of the bottle.'
That's far from the most broken sentence I've seen in a Slashdot headline.
Why do people blame everything on religion? Religion has been around a LONG time. So if it is responsible for this increasing trend, well it sure has been increasing for a LONG time.
Well, for a very long time, if you disagreed with religion, you got burned at the stake, stoned, or some other such thing. In some places, you still do.
Nowadays, if you hear a group of people trying to get a law passed against criticizing their beliefs, it's likely religion behind it.
Or, do you have some examples of Atheists trying to pass blasphemy laws or talking about their right to not be offended? That kind of things comes purely from people looking to make sure their feelings about their religious beliefs get protected by the state.
So if it is responsible for this increasing trend, well it sure has been increasing for a LONG time.
It's been around forever, but it seems to be coming back with a fervor of late. An awful lot of people want to put a little more church back into the state.
How do you break it to a small child that dinosaurs didn't go "RAWWWWRRRR"?
Wait until they're a slightly larger child and won't be so crushed?
Seriously, if your 4 year old wants to believe they go "RAWWWWRRRR", why disappoint her just yet? She's got plenty of years to be stuck with cold hard facts. Just go "RAWWWWRRRR" back.:-P
One thing I've noticed about people on the right is they almost to a man have some irrational but deep seated belief that anyone who doesn't agree with them is from another planet or something
Well, this is a fun, albeit pointless, game.
Irrational people who believe they hold the One And Only Truth and aren't willing to listen to other people come in all stripes. People tend to think that what they believe is True and Self Evident, and everyone else is Just Plain Wrong.
The problem, is some things become so axiomatic to your belief system that you really are incapable of seriously questioning it, and your defense of it boils down to "How can you not see the obvious?". That applies to right, left, wrong, and undecided.
What do you expect from them though? They are private employees that are paid only a couple more dollars per hour than minimum wage. I hope you aren't expecting Captain America.
I expect them, as you say, to be the minimum wage flunkies they actually are.
But, I expect the laws that govern their behavior to hold them to a higher standard. If they look and act like law enforcement, you can't treat them like some minimum age employee who doesn't know better.
The problem is their role and authority in no way matches their skill or training. So in that regards, the TSA is an epic failure if it can't hold these people to the standard that their supposed authority confers. They've got rent-a-cops with the authority of real cops, but no accountability. That's a horrible situation, and as we're seeing, it simply can't work.
If they can make decisions which could potentially alter your life, they should be held to account. They shouldn't just be mall cops on a power trip -- which unfortunately is what they are.
As I said, if I threw coffee into a TSA screener's face, I'd be facing Federal charges. If one of them threw coffee in my face, well, I'd pretty much expect more than a misdemeanor charge.
They can't be law enforcement, but not law enforcement at the same time.
I'd actually blame it on the absolutism of religion.
If you absolutely believe something is true because of your religion, then you likely feel it should be illegal for someone to say something against that.
What you describe is the increasing trend for people to want/expect the state to look out for their feelings and protect them from hearing things which go against their world view. Coddling your feelings isn't what government is for.
While there is no right not to be offended, the offender may have restrictions on their rights if they are making it unreasonable or impossible for someone else to go about their daily life.
Sure, because that's to prevent you from interfering with the other guy's rights. Which I can agree with.
But if I said "all people with blue hair look silly", and someone with blue hair is offended, too bad. (And, for the record, when I was younger, I did have blue hair a few times.)
Similarly, if I say that anybody who believes the world is only 6000 years old is unqualified to judge science and sounds irrational, the fact that would offend someone doesn't make what I said illegal.
Your rights end when they prevent me from enjoying my rights. However, the fact that you could be offended by what I say is just something that most of us learned to deal with in grade school.
However, some people really want to see a situation in which if they feel offended, the person who offended them must have broken a law. Those people I consider to be clueless about what free speech is for.
Mr Trivett then attempted to get a closer look at the screener's ID tags, presumably in order to report the incident. The screener, 30 year old Lateisha El, then reportedly shoved the pilot and hurled a full cup of hot coffee at his face.
Police said that Mr Trivett thankfully walked away without being seriously hurt. El, from East New York in Brooklyn, was arrested and charged with harassment and misdemeanor-assault.
I'm sorry, but if someone in uniform who has the authority to arrest and detain you does that, that should be a lot more than a misdemeanor. Because if I threw a cup of coffee into a TSA screener's face, I'd be sure as hell facing an entirely different set of charges. In fact, it would likely be a Federal offense.
I know you're joking, but I have no idea where people came up with the notion they have some inalienable right to not be offended. Less so just because it's on the internet.
I'm offended every time I listen to a politician speaking. I'm offended when some executive gets millions in bonuses for a money-losing quarter. I'm offended when some idiot says the world is only 6000 years old.
Freedom of speech means you don't have to like what I say, and I don't have to like what you say. But neither of us can prevent the other from saying it.
However, I know there are some groups who really do believe that I should in no way be able to say something that offends them.
Yeah, I thought people bought consoles instead of gaming on a PC precisely because their Internet connection sucked, such as farmers and their children who have to live in a rural area.
I'm sure for many people that's a big part, but for me I simply have no interest in a video game console which demands a constant internet connection.
I'm not playing on-line. I'm not downloading content. I don't even have an XBox-live membership. But, after the recent update to my XBox where Microsoft started putting ads in my console, I basically decided to unplug it from the internet.
I'm a casual gamer at best. To me an always-on connection is a deal breaker. WTF do I need an internet connection for to play an hour or so of Need For Speed or something? No reason other than appeasing their DRM wishes and to make sure they can send me ads and probably track my usage. Not happening.
So, any console which requires a constant internet connection is pretty much guaranteed to not be bought by me.
Rumors are floating about of a required always-on internet connection
That pretty much guarantees I won't buy the next XBox.
I have no interest in having my XBox being required to always be connected so they can implement annoying features like ads in my XBox and other nuisances.
I don't play on-line, and I mostly view a console as a stand-alone, mostly off-line game. So, if it truly does require a constant internet connection, it's not going to get bought by me.
The SCOTUS essentially ruled its not unreasonable to strip search someone who is already a prisoner. Lots of people are posting, that you can now be strip searched for anything, hardly the case; you have to have already done something to warrant cause for arrest.
What, like photographing the police and other things they've arrested people for illegally?
If you are arrested without cause than you still have civil recourse to sue for false imprisonment.
Yeah, right.
Cops have been shown to arrest people for some fairly arbitrary things, often without any cause, and often what turns out to be unlawfully. Hell, you can be arrested for resisting arrest for asking why they're arresting you in the first place (usually when it's illegal to have done so).
Could it be that it's not piracy killing the traditional recording industry but digital distribution?
Or, maybe it's lousy music that's killing the traditional recording industry? If the only two choices are piracy or digital distribution, you have likely oversimplified.
Unfortunately, the music industry doesn't seem to be able to believe that one of the reasons people are buying less music is because they're not as interested in it. They just think they should be able to extrapolate from 30 year old numbers and say that should be their level of sales.
In case they haven't noticed, people might have less disposable income to play with -- and Angry Birds might be dipping into that.
They dropped them from the list of "secure" providers. Global Payments is still authorized to handle VISA credit card payments.
Wait, VISA will still let insecure providers to process transactions?
That makes no sense whatsoever. (I'm not disputing what you're saying, I just find it amazing they'd let someone who doesn't have good data security anywhere near transactions.)
That's kind of letting a known burglar work for an alarm company. It kind of defeats the purpose in the first place.
Curiously, how oblivious were you to how parties worked in college or what they were for
I don't see this as being the same at all.
In this case, someone posts their location on Facebook (which I think is kinda dumb) only to have Four Square pick it up, and then have an app scrape that, and then give a bunch of people their current location and personal information.
Reading this, it sounds far more creepy than "hey, she's out in public at a bar she must want to meet people, maybe I'll go introducce myself".
Now, if they didn't post and didn't have it public, it wouldn't happen. But that doesn't make me any less creeped out about how the app worked and how it was advertised.
Our society is truly fucked up if you can't send a stranger a text message without being labeled a creep.
Well, that's one opinion. Do you think this would be somehow different than knocking on a strangers door to ask if she'd like to go out with you? Sounds a little creepy to me. And a lot pathetic.
I sure as hell wouldn't respond to a text message from some random person who thought we could be friends. I'd probably tell them to fuck off or not even reply.
When I was a teenager I used to search female profiles on AOL and send text messages to strangers. No one thought it was creepy
Maybe nobody ever told you that, but it's creepy nonetheless. It sounds like the years of "a/s/l" which everyone got bombarded with on chat rooms -- bunch of lonely pathetic guys thinking they'd put their swerve on and assume and try to hit on every suspected female in the vicinity.
No wonder I hate Facebook--the reasons are becoming apparent. Instead of FB bombarding us with people we might know, why don't they facilitate connections with people we do not know who are interested in the same things that we are?
If you want match.com, go there. I don't give FB enough information to try to infer people I might like to know. I sure as hell don't want random internet losers to think we should be friends.
I'm sorry, but as a guy even I can see how some random guy going "mmmm.... girl... will you be my friend" would be somewhat creepy.
Most especially since this app is mining through other services to get this information. If the women had signed up for a "introduce me to random guys" kind of thing, sure. But they're most likely wondering who the hell you are and WTF you're texting them for.
This is kind of like standing at the door of the mall and asking every pretty girl who walks in if she'd like to go out with you. In real life, that would likely lead to security or the police having a little chat with you.
Slashdot Mirror
Tell them you think it was stolen by terrorists or child pornographers ... those two seem to get you the full attention of law enforcement nowadays.
Summer internships, research positions, contributing to open source, pet projects ... I honestly don't know. I graduated university almost 20 years ago; and at that time, pretty much only enthusiastic geeks were enrolled in CS.
When I went to school I did research work with one of my profs for the last several years I was in school. So I did some specialized programming and the like (bare metal, OS kind of stuff) , had done code walkthroughs, and almost all of my courses had a really heavy coding quotient. So I crawled around in more code than some friends with Master's degrees since more of their stuff was theoretical, or only had to work well enough to cover their specific area of research -- you can still do cool research and write crap code if nobody else has to see it or maintain it.
In all honesty, by the end of my degree, there were people in my department who I was convinced managed to do most of the course work and pass, but who nonetheless weren't very good programmers. Give them a well defined problem and some help, they can do it -- go much beyond that, and they didn't seem to know much. I also know several people who only formally have high-school, but are absolute rock stars when it comes to writing code.
I am actually surprised at how many people out of school I've met who have never used anything like CVS, never built anything more complex than a little demo, and only really have a semester's worth of coding with everything else being theoretical. I've also seen people who had an OK high-level view of computers, but didn't really understand how an OS actually worked or anything like that. Often concepts like testing and documenting make them turn up their nose as if it's beneath them -- sorry, but we can't use you if you can't see why we do these things. I've also seen people who don't seem to have any measurable skill at debugging programs and trouble-shooting.
Years after I graduated, the prof I did my research work with and I were having a chat -- he asked me if I ever actually used anything he'd taught me. I could tell him in all honesty that the stuff I'd learned from him about programming and building/designing stuff I used every single day of my life. So, I was fortunate in that I got to learn a lot of the intangible stuff we didn't cover in class. I got to learn by going through the process and being shown how these things are done.
So, my best advise? Build something. Be ready to show it. Actual working code is probably better than your resume if you're just starting out. Perspective employers need to know that you have more than a passing/theoretical knowledge about how to program. And they also need to believe that you're capable of learning things you may not know very well.
That's true, but not all of them are (or would be) good programmers.
Years ago at a different job, we hired a guy who was supposed to be our UNIX admin as well as a programmer. Since he was new and unknown, we weren't just about to hand him the keys to the kingdom, so his initial tasks were coding and some stuff to make sure he was up to the task.
He was an atrocious programmer -- the first task I gave him took him several days to code, and it was badly implemented and incredibly slow. After he argued with me that his was just as good as mine (which I knocked up in 30 minutes). Sadly, the few Admin tasks we let him do he didn't really shine at either.
He didn't last long after that because he refused to understand that his half-assed attempt wasn't as good as we needed.
I also once worked with an electrical engineer who had been hired as a coder. He didn't actually *know* anything about writing code, and eventually became a placeholder position. We had assumed that as an EE he knew these things, and he had assumed we'd teach him.
I'm not saying all inexperienced programmers can't ever become good ones -- but many of us simply aren't willing to gamble on them and trust them with our code.
Lack of experience sometimes means you may not actually have the skillset. And employers aren't willing to pay to find out.
Take the text, do a search and replace of "black" with "Finlander", "American", "Teenager", "Faggot", "Republican", "Tall", "Skinny", "Fat", "Blonde", "Bespectacled", or pretty much any word of your choosing ... it still reads like a series of gross generalizations which boil down to "stay away from those people -- be polite if you meet one but move on quickly, don't offer them help, don't trust them but don't antagonize them, and if you can pick up a token friend along the way it will make you look good".
Do you really need someone to write a well reasoned refutation to this?
Yes, you can stay in your gated community, say all the racist things you like, and the Neighborhood Watch guys will shoot any of 'them' that stray in.
It's perfectly OK to be a racist when nobody is looking, right?
And, really, if you need to come up with an acronym for "Intelligent and Well Socialized Blacks", you're probably using it too often.
Really?
Assuming you understand how the comma works, it says:
That's far from the most broken sentence I've seen in a Slashdot headline.
Well, for a very long time, if you disagreed with religion, you got burned at the stake, stoned, or some other such thing. In some places, you still do.
Nowadays, if you hear a group of people trying to get a law passed against criticizing their beliefs, it's likely religion behind it.
Or, do you have some examples of Atheists trying to pass blasphemy laws or talking about their right to not be offended? That kind of things comes purely from people looking to make sure their feelings about their religious beliefs get protected by the state.
It's been around forever, but it seems to be coming back with a fervor of late. An awful lot of people want to put a little more church back into the state.
Wait until they're a slightly larger child and won't be so crushed?
Seriously, if your 4 year old wants to believe they go "RAWWWWRRRR", why disappoint her just yet? She's got plenty of years to be stuck with cold hard facts. Just go "RAWWWWRRRR" back. :-P
Well, this is a fun, albeit pointless, game.
Irrational people who believe they hold the One And Only Truth and aren't willing to listen to other people come in all stripes. People tend to think that what they believe is True and Self Evident, and everyone else is Just Plain Wrong.
The problem, is some things become so axiomatic to your belief system that you really are incapable of seriously questioning it, and your defense of it boils down to "How can you not see the obvious?". That applies to right, left, wrong, and undecided.
I expect them, as you say, to be the minimum wage flunkies they actually are.
But, I expect the laws that govern their behavior to hold them to a higher standard. If they look and act like law enforcement, you can't treat them like some minimum age employee who doesn't know better.
The problem is their role and authority in no way matches their skill or training. So in that regards, the TSA is an epic failure if it can't hold these people to the standard that their supposed authority confers. They've got rent-a-cops with the authority of real cops, but no accountability. That's a horrible situation, and as we're seeing, it simply can't work.
If they can make decisions which could potentially alter your life, they should be held to account. They shouldn't just be mall cops on a power trip -- which unfortunately is what they are.
As I said, if I threw coffee into a TSA screener's face, I'd be facing Federal charges. If one of them threw coffee in my face, well, I'd pretty much expect more than a misdemeanor charge.
They can't be law enforcement, but not law enforcement at the same time.
I'd actually blame it on the absolutism of religion.
If you absolutely believe something is true because of your religion, then you likely feel it should be illegal for someone to say something against that.
What you describe is the increasing trend for people to want/expect the state to look out for their feelings and protect them from hearing things which go against their world view. Coddling your feelings isn't what government is for.
Sure, because that's to prevent you from interfering with the other guy's rights. Which I can agree with.
But if I said "all people with blue hair look silly", and someone with blue hair is offended, too bad. (And, for the record, when I was younger, I did have blue hair a few times.)
Similarly, if I say that anybody who believes the world is only 6000 years old is unqualified to judge science and sounds irrational, the fact that would offend someone doesn't make what I said illegal.
Your rights end when they prevent me from enjoying my rights. However, the fact that you could be offended by what I say is just something that most of us learned to deal with in grade school.
However, some people really want to see a situation in which if they feel offended, the person who offended them must have broken a law. Those people I consider to be clueless about what free speech is for.
Starting with the Constitution, apparently.
If they can ignore the Constitution, what can any other law do? That's supposed to be the one that trumps everything.
Holy crap, you're not kidding.
I'm sorry, but if someone in uniform who has the authority to arrest and detain you does that, that should be a lot more than a misdemeanor. Because if I threw a cup of coffee into a TSA screener's face, I'd be sure as hell facing an entirely different set of charges. In fact, it would likely be a Federal offense.
I know you're joking, but I have no idea where people came up with the notion they have some inalienable right to not be offended. Less so just because it's on the internet.
I'm offended every time I listen to a politician speaking. I'm offended when some executive gets millions in bonuses for a money-losing quarter. I'm offended when some idiot says the world is only 6000 years old.
Freedom of speech means you don't have to like what I say, and I don't have to like what you say. But neither of us can prevent the other from saying it.
However, I know there are some groups who really do believe that I should in no way be able to say something that offends them.
I'm sure for many people that's a big part, but for me I simply have no interest in a video game console which demands a constant internet connection.
I'm not playing on-line. I'm not downloading content. I don't even have an XBox-live membership. But, after the recent update to my XBox where Microsoft started putting ads in my console, I basically decided to unplug it from the internet.
I'm a casual gamer at best. To me an always-on connection is a deal breaker. WTF do I need an internet connection for to play an hour or so of Need For Speed or something? No reason other than appeasing their DRM wishes and to make sure they can send me ads and probably track my usage. Not happening.
So, any console which requires a constant internet connection is pretty much guaranteed to not be bought by me.
That pretty much guarantees I won't buy the next XBox.
I have no interest in having my XBox being required to always be connected so they can implement annoying features like ads in my XBox and other nuisances.
I don't play on-line, and I mostly view a console as a stand-alone, mostly off-line game. So, if it truly does require a constant internet connection, it's not going to get bought by me.
What, like photographing the police and other things they've arrested people for illegally?
Yeah, right.
Cops have been shown to arrest people for some fairly arbitrary things, often without any cause, and often what turns out to be unlawfully. Hell, you can be arrested for resisting arrest for asking why they're arresting you in the first place (usually when it's illegal to have done so).
With all of the hate directed at Apple, I actually have a hard time believing that.
Or, maybe it's lousy music that's killing the traditional recording industry? If the only two choices are piracy or digital distribution, you have likely oversimplified.
Unfortunately, the music industry doesn't seem to be able to believe that one of the reasons people are buying less music is because they're not as interested in it. They just think they should be able to extrapolate from 30 year old numbers and say that should be their level of sales.
In case they haven't noticed, people might have less disposable income to play with -- and Angry Birds might be dipping into that.
I'm curious to know what "gigantic" would have been in this context.
By todays standards, probably less than the average watch. :-P
Wait, VISA will still let insecure providers to process transactions?
That makes no sense whatsoever. (I'm not disputing what you're saying, I just find it amazing they'd let someone who doesn't have good data security anywhere near transactions.)
That's kind of letting a known burglar work for an alarm company. It kind of defeats the purpose in the first place.
I don't see this as being the same at all.
In this case, someone posts their location on Facebook (which I think is kinda dumb) only to have Four Square pick it up, and then have an app scrape that, and then give a bunch of people their current location and personal information.
Reading this, it sounds far more creepy than "hey, she's out in public at a bar she must want to meet people, maybe I'll go introducce myself".
Now, if they didn't post and didn't have it public, it wouldn't happen. But that doesn't make me any less creeped out about how the app worked and how it was advertised.
Well, that's one opinion. Do you think this would be somehow different than knocking on a strangers door to ask if she'd like to go out with you? Sounds a little creepy to me. And a lot pathetic.
I sure as hell wouldn't respond to a text message from some random person who thought we could be friends. I'd probably tell them to fuck off or not even reply.
Maybe nobody ever told you that, but it's creepy nonetheless. It sounds like the years of "a/s/l" which everyone got bombarded with on chat rooms -- bunch of lonely pathetic guys thinking they'd put their swerve on and assume and try to hit on every suspected female in the vicinity.
If you want match.com, go there. I don't give FB enough information to try to infer people I might like to know. I sure as hell don't want random internet losers to think we should be friends.
I'm sorry, but as a guy even I can see how some random guy going "mmmm .... girl ... will you be my friend" would be somewhat creepy.
Most especially since this app is mining through other services to get this information. If the women had signed up for a "introduce me to random guys" kind of thing, sure. But they're most likely wondering who the hell you are and WTF you're texting them for.
This is kind of like standing at the door of the mall and asking every pretty girl who walks in if she'd like to go out with you. In real life, that would likely lead to security or the police having a little chat with you.
Emma Peel, as played by Diana Rigg is the reason why all of my fantasies involve a British accent.
Oh, wait, did you mean something else?