Dubya, this June, declared a "Jesus day" in Texas.
We already have a Jesus Day... it's called Christmas !
You'd think a self-proclaimed born again christian, like Dubya, would already know that. This redundant holiday is especially striking comming from someone who won't support the ERA, gay rights or hate crime laws because he feels they are redundant.
The book has a rather erotic bit in it.. (don't have the book handy, it's been several years so I can't find the reference)
Of course, being a sexually intrested 8th grader, I flipped right to that section.
Flipping directly to the "dirty bits" in The Diary of Anne Frank? Your going to Hell for sure.
That would mean that you would also have to allow 3rd parties to sell cable boxes (not descramblers mind you, that would still be illegal). Hmmmm... my cable box is owned by the cable company. I don't feel particularly oppressed by the cable company. OTOH, I bet that if we opened up this market, some innovative 3rd party might come up with a cable box that didn't weigh 10 pounds and throw out heat like a blast furnace. You might be able to get them in some other color than brown too.
Can't you just buy 3rd party cable boxes or use a cable ready TV or VCR? I think some cable companies have started dicouraging this, somehow making it difficult to not use their cable box, IIRC my aunt was pissed when she moved from NYC to CT and they *required* that she use their crappy brown box even though it looked horrible on top of her new top of the line TV. For some reason, feeding cable driectly into her brand new cable ready set got fuzzy reception and could only be fixed with the cable companies box.
Well since you're getting reamed for straying from the Ayn Rand individualistic, self deterministic crap, I'll try and stick up for you - no point in hoarding kama, I'm topped out anyway.
While it's true that determination and aggessive persuit of your goals is needed to make anything happen in life, I find the/. community in denial over the affect exiting social and econonimic structures have on individuals.
When I was in jr. high and highschool I encountered many roadblocks when I'd try to get into the best math and science classes available. And as much as I'd like to believe otherwise, most of the hassle must be attributed to school authority figures having issues with my gender, race and social class. I was very lucky to have been raised to have the self confidence and knowledge needed to fight for what I wanted (being born an incredibly stubborn person helped too). I was also fortunate to have supportive parents who are also clueful and stuborn enough to be an asset in those battles.
(and starting in college i got to deal with ignorant fucks who assume that i got where i am by virtue of being a black woman - joy!)
There are many people who don't know what oppertunities are out there and/ or don't have the self confidence to persue it. And given our racist, sexist and classist society (both past and present) some folks are more suseptible (no, i don't know how to spell - deal!) to these problems than others. Up until the 60's it was common for women to be sent to college to "get engaged". Dorm mothers would get mad if you wanted to miss a dance with an ivy league school to stay home and work on a paper. So is it really so hard to believe that some women got a royal mind-fuck of an upbringing? Is it so hard to understand that people who lived under segregation might not know how to instill in thier children the agression and self confidence needed to compete? Is it hard to see how one's address could be a liability on certian job applications? Well for the very successful/. crowd, apparently that answer is yes.
Yes, almost everyone (except danforth quale and dubyuh) had to work really fucking hard for whatever they achived, and yes, there is no shortage of lazy, clueless and stupid people in the world but that dosn't mean that some folks might not have the cards stacked against them.
Reminds me of a really funny conversation I had w/ a digital cable telemarketer once...
He starts in on his schpiel about how digital cable is just the best thing ever and I say "well, my tv is really really old and crappy so i won't really get much out of the enhanced signal or the digital music stations"
"out of curiosity, why don't you get a new tv?"
"actually, i've been thinking about getting rid of the tv all together, i was really a much better person when i didn't have a tv."
At this point the guy starts laughing, "A better person? What do you mean?"
"You know, I did all those things that I usually mean to do but never get around to doing, I read more, did more artwork and crafts, went out more, socialized more, did volunteer work, I was the best possible version of me."
More nervous laughter, I can practically hear him shaking his head in disbelief. "Well this was, umm, a really 'interesting' conversation... if you ever change your mind..." blah blah blah...
The sad postscript is that I ended up caving in when they moved the sundance channel to a "digital only" station. I feel so 'dirty'.
My husband and a few of my friends grew up in TV-less households and they all wound up doing much better things with their time. Occasionally they feel bad about not "getting" some brady bunch reference, but I'm quick to point out that knowing how to play several musical instruments is way cooler than having seen every episode of the brady bunch, benny hill and three's company. Dispite growing up in very differnt households, they all learned to play multiple musical instruments, were extremely well read and had various interesting hobbies and side projects.
Of course, as adults, they all have a positively morbid facination with TV. Hopefully they'll get over it soon. My husband will watch absolutely anything (pro-wrestling if nothing else is on) since it is all a new a facinating insight into our culture (yeah right).
But once your daughter starts school, the other kids will gladly get her "up to speed" on important commercialism, materialism and brand-conciousness issues:P
I've never heard of that before, it sounds pretty cool.
I think that for the house and senate we could go with a proportional system where the number of seats a party gets is proportional to the number of votes they recieve. So, for example, if there are 10 seats, a given party gets a seat for every each 10% of the vote they capture. That system is used in some other countires because it allows for more than two viable parties. It allows for more diversity that the "winner take all" system we currently have. Perhaps we could even increase the total number of seats to make this system even more viable.
The districting and delagate situation is also a total mess. That system seems to be explicity designed to protect a 2 party system.
The really cool thing is that *everyone* asks me about the shirts when I wear them. People at work, in the grocer, in the cafes, on the street - they all get the 2 minutes or less overview - and so far, all have groked the total corporate bullshit.
Kick Ass!
But I'm a bit confused about Copyleft's role in the case. How can one add defendants to a case after it has already started? Is the RIAA taking copyleft to court seperately? Or can they add random defendants to the already tried and concluded case retroactively for some indefinate time period? This was the actual case wasn't it? This wasn't just some preliminary thing? I've always assumed that if I were a defendent in some court action, I would have to be notified beforehand so that I could have a chance to defend myself. As a shirt purchaser, have I broken the law?(not that I mind breaking the law:) Am I automagically a defendednt in this case? What the fuck is going on?
because the artist is the one financally responsible for the creation, production,manufacture, distribution and marketing costs.
software engineers get a decent salary and benefits while working on a product. in exchange for that they explicitly sign away rights to intellectual property developed at work. the engineer gets paied whether or not the product sells. and if the comany goes under the engineer is out of a job but incurrs no personal debt from the deal.
a major label musician, on the other hand, gets no salary, wage or benefits. if the conract explicitly gave the record label ownership of all IP then there wouldn't be an issue, but obviously that is not the case. most artists signed contracts before the new legistation and therfore expected the current copyright law at the time to apply to their contract.
the artist is loaned money by the record company, for the production, manufacturing, distribution and marketing of the CD and if it dosn't sell enough copies, the artist is in *serious* debt.
I don't see why record companies get to keep copyright even one moment after the contract has expired. the only reason why the record company get should get control of the copyright in the first place is to prevent the artist from using 2 different record companies at the same time.
this isn't giving the artist a special interest niche, this is taking away a special interest niche that was handed to the record comanies recently.
I never understood why someone would try to leverage a "cute little file sharing app" into an empire - after all, most people would [free,share]ware it and maybe show it off at job interviews.
But now I realize that it was a brilliant plan to get gullible VC's to foot the bill for the inevitable legal battles! And get some cool servers and some marteking money for free concerts to boot!
Instead of being a small, independent software vendor getting legally reamed by the RIAA, this guy raised more dough than the EFF to fight this file sharing issue in court!
I thought he was petty, greedy and stupid, but now I realize that he has a buiness accumen and genius that I can only begin to comprehend.
Don't worry about the organizers of the "Special Olympics" and the "Science Olympiad" - they have permission.
Damn, I was hoping that they'd try to sue the Special Olympics so that entire IOC would be immediately tarred and feathered, putting a just yet comical end to this utter bullshit.
It would bring new meaning to the phrase "international community" when representatives of every nation on the planet compete at outdoing each other in expressing moral outrage at those who bring lawsuits against disabled children.
The non-related rider thing really bothers me as well. Given our fickle political landscape, it really puts legislators between a rock and a hard place. i.e. HR #FFFF Harsh penalties for clubbing baby seals w/ a rider for encoraging taking candy from babies.
Perhaps it is still around because:
1) legislators don't vote based on their convictions but rather on what a) looks good b) the soft money wielding lobbist wants them to do or c) what they promised some other legislator they would vote in exchange for some favor (like a vote for something else)
2) the legislators can't be trusted to honor this (imho dishonerable) dealmaking so they have to put all the conditions of "i'll vote for this if you vote for that" in one big confied mess.
Papaver Somniferum - opium poppies, are also used to produce the poppy seeds used in bakeing (poppy seed cake, poppyseed rolls etc.). While the grocery store poppy seeds are generally rendered infertile (dried w/ heat or roasted), you can find viable papaver somniferum seeds for sale in some specialty seed catalogs.
My understanding is that scoring and scraping poppy pods is rather labor intensive... even if there were no drug laws opium would still only be farmed in the 3rd world. Note that boiling the pods for a medicinal opium tea is both a historical remedy and much, much easier.
I have heard that the dried poppy pods used in flower arrangements are also papaver somniferum, and that grinding those pods in a coffee mill will also make a decent tea, but 'decorative' plants, not intended for human consumption can have all sorts of wierd stuff. But I guess if you're desperate enough to ingest stuff from a crafts store...
Oh, please...it definitely has its moments. My FEMALE roommate and I were watching it, and they had this bit where they go to the mall and postulate this question to women: "If you could have an operation that made you smarter, but your butt got bigger, would you do it?" To a one, every woman asked said "no". Both my roommate and I found it very funny. Of course, being male, I enjoy the girls on trampolines, and my roommate leaves the room during that bit...
it wasn't every woman they asked, it was every woman they showed. They probably asked 50 women and edited it down to the 5 funniest. That's how t.v. works. I'm sure if they asked guys the same questions, except making the penis smaller they'd get simmilar results.
Although, they probably didn't ask any latina or black chicks... if i could make my butt as big as Jennifer Lopez, I wouldn't need brains:)
Quoting my MALE hubbie: "I've seen teenagers getting high for the first time not giggle during the man show, I'd rather read Bazooka Joes. "
One thing that bothered me about that article, is the 'oooh, icky-poo!' attitude of the female people they quoted. IMHO, the woman they quoted can go have and have her stupid non-tech career, and I hope she fails miserably and has a disgusting job while seeing all those icky geeks around her do well. I hate this attitude, and nothing makes me shut down more with regards to helping someone than hearing it.
The chicklets they quoted were super annoying. Makes me wonder whether most highschoolers are that vapid and grateing or if the reporter went out of his/her way to pick the most inflamatory comments.
This is mostly because of carrer choice. Tech jobs can pay very well. Some people feel that gender pay inequality is bad for society in general - contibuting to the childhood poverty rate and such.
There are rather more factors involved. Many of which are outside of "employment" issues. One of these is that whilst it is not acceptable for a man to "marry for money" it is acceptable for a woman to do so. (Women demanding husbands and boyfriends earn more than they do undoubtedly contributes to these kind of statistic.) Another factor is that state and charity "welfare" are often not gender neutral in their application. Much of this statistical difference could be accounted for by men having to "pay their way" more often than women.
There are lots of reasons but I believe that the 70% figure only counted people who actually work, so housewives and welfare mothers weren't counted. The statistical analisis concluded that the biggest determing factor in one's pay is one's job choice (No, really?) . There are lot's of other factors but carrer choice was the biggest. Women who don't feel pressure to be head of the household, because their husbands make more money, may choose less demanding positions that don't pay as well. But remember that there are single mothers, single women, women who don't subscribe to the man-as-breadwinner mentality and women who don't end up with a high-earning man. And with the increasing finacial pressure on the middle class (it's well documented that the middle class is shrinking) 2 income households have gone from being an option to being a necessity.
When people try to deny it, I think they are really oversimplifying because it's easier to "assume that everyone is the same" than it is to grok and communicate the real issues involved in treating people fairly. And our societey tries to value fair play.
Ultimately, eneralizations are of limmited use when dealing with individuals.
Instead, she chose Ford itself - not because they offered to pay her more or because she's on the fast track to management. You know why she chose Ford? Because they offer a great maternity leave package and job security. That was the deciding factor.
The fact that women take maternity leave and spend more time on family care also factors into the pay disparity but from what I've read the biggest factor is the job choice. Regardless, your friend shouldn't have to choose between getting a big salary or getting maternity leave. Although anyone (male or female) thinking of rasing a family would want to look for job security.
I don't think it's fair to point to statistics that say "women earn less, pay them more" because there's a fundamental difference in what a large number of women are looking for when they seek employment.
Well I don't think it's fair that women earn less. And no one is saying to pay women more. What is going on is that people are trying to enourage and help women get themselves in better paying positions. There is a big difference.
But how do you measure something like the knowledge that your job will still be there when you return after a six-month leave?
Ummm, it's called compliance with labor law and I require it of any company I consider working for (and I don't even want to have kids).
Yes, but how are you generating those applicants? Are you in fact generating more applicants, or just different ones?
I don't really see what you mean here about more vs. different applicants, but by encouraging new people to study CS there would be a bigger pool of talent. While admission into the best schools is very competivtive, that's the exception, most schools will grow departments to meet the public's need.
The article mentions big names like Cisco and IBM sponsoring tech camps for girls. What about the boys that would have _killed_ to go to those? Are you going to get Betty Crocker to sponsor Summer Cooking Camps for boys? =) It sounds ridiculous, because it is.
Well there a lots of boys at the pre-existing tech camps. Any boys who would have kiled to go to tech camp and can afford to pay are probably there right now. As for the boys who want to go but can't afford it, there are grants available for them as well. There should be more funding for summer camps in general, but there should also be more funding for reducing third world debt, eliminating world hunger and providing basline medical care for everyone.
Studies have shown that boys can be very agressive which has a negative affect on girls in school. So the idea of a computer camp for girls sounds kinda cool to me.
Although, arguably, removing immigration barriers accomplishes this too. Perhaps even moreso.
I agree.
This is hardly a good reason to push girls into science and engineering. So that it's easier to put together a co-ed office softball team? =)
Well, as far as self-serving charitable contibutions go, this would hardly be the worst culprit. But given the choice between spending my free time tutoring girls or tutoring random kids, this might be enough to make me lean towards tutoring girls through a SWE program.
I know I'm gonna get flamed for this big time but I've got the karma so here it goes....
Maybe teenage guys (on average, in general) view sex as a commodity more than their female counterparts. At that age hooking up with someone really hot seems like The Most Important Thing In The World. There is the belief (true or not) that hot chicks will fuck/date/marry anyone as long as he's rich. So by that reasoning it dosen't matter where a guy works so long as he's successful.
Getting a trophy wife seems like a worthy ambition to an upwardly mobile 16 year old guy but his female counterpart would be more likely to expect her mate to make as much or more than her. And teenage girls are probaly more interested in the non-sexual aspects of relationships than thier male counterparts (the guys do catch up eventually). So a HS girl who knows that she wants to have relationships with peers and will want to put herself around as many desireable peers as possible.
Of course, geek guys aren't all unattractive, trophy wives aren't as satifying as interesting and intelegent women and being rich dosn't necesarily get you laied. But they'll all learn that eventually.
Actually HP is pretty prograssive about getting the underrepresented into management. They will go out of their way to encourage promising women to consider persuing management.
And, IIRC, the head of the computer division and the head of the printer divisions are both women as well.
Women don't watch The Man Show for the same reason as men - because it isn't funny. (although I know some guys who will try to catch the girls on tramolines bit at the end)
There dosen't *have* to be a 50/50 split in everything but there are a couple of good reasons why some people are trying to encourage woment to persue sciences:
1) On average, women make less money than men. This is mostly because of carrer choice. Tech jobs can pay very well. Some people feel that gender pay inequality is bad for society in general - contibuting to the childhood poverty rate and such. Some people feel that as long as women have second class finacial status, they will have second class political and social status. Personally, I tend to feel that everyone should have an equal chance to take care for themselves financally and feel these these efforsts help remove barriers.
2) We could use more tech workers and women are an 'untapped resource'. With all the companies lobbying to increase the number of visas, it only makes sence to spend some effort in genreating more applicants at home.
3) Having people from diverse backgrounds working on design and problem solving often yields better results.
4) People already in the industry (both male and female) would, all other things being equal, enjoy having some more women in the office.
The last time I checked the neither CompUSA nor BestBuy was discriminating according to sex.
Actually, last time I bought hardware in person, I went to CompUSA (or was it Future Shop? I forget.) Anyway I was getting a modem and I was trying to find out which were PCI and which were ISA (since they were all behind the counter and I wasn't wearing my glasses). Every time I'd ask a question the sales guy kept answering towards my husband - who wasn't even looking/listening - since he dosen't deal w/ the computer's guts. Finally Chris realized that this dork was trying to talk to him and he said "Don't tell me, I don't know anything about it"
And just to broaden the scope a bit, the make-up of the nursing/patient care staff at my father's nursing home is about 90% philippina, with a few russians thrown in. That is most certainly a cultural thing -- My sister-in-law (also a philippina) helped care for my father when he lived with me.
Actually that's probably an economic thing. It's called working your way up. There are a lot of Philipeno and Eastern European immegants lately and nursing is a crappy difficult underpaied job that's a step up from the really really bad paying jobs. And nursing offers some sort of carreer path, since you can, in theory, start out as an orderly and through successive bouts of schooling, work your way up to Nurse Practitioner (almost an MD). Both my folks emmigrated to the US when they were really young. There are a lot of nurses and contruction workers in my grandparents generation and a lot of professionals in my parent's generation.
Since I'm now well off topic: We all known the US, our society has traditionally declared certian things "women's work" teaching, nursing, secratarial etc. and those things are generally valued less than "man's work". This is often called the "pink collar ghetto" by those who study it and is a major reason why women make around 70% less than men. I don't know the order of the chicken vs. egg thing (-> women's work -> low pay -> ) but it is still very much a factor today. Women aren't taken seriously when applying for certain kinds of jobs unless the hiring company does gov. contracts and has to meet a quota. If you look at the average person (HS, maybe some college) faced with having to get a career, a lot of the options are quite hostile: police, armed forces, construction trades, some factories, mechanic. There is something to these being physical but it's not like you need to be really strong to be an electrician. So the only options left are service industries and clerical work.
The thing that makes the engineering\tech situation unique is that it has one of the largest divides amoung proffessional careers. Women in college aren't nearly as turned off (if at all) by management, fincance, law, medicine, psycology, natural sciences, or liberal arts. Since many of these (natural sciences, finance, medicine) are just as technical, detailed, math-oriented and 'difficult' as CS, CE and EE, the CNET quotes about CS being 'too hard' can't be repesentative.
Slashdot Mirror
Dubya, this June, declared a "Jesus day" in Texas.
... it's called Christmas !
We already have a Jesus Day
You'd think a self-proclaimed born again christian, like Dubya, would already know that. This redundant holiday is especially striking comming from someone who won't support the ERA, gay rights or hate crime laws because he feels they are redundant.
I'm asking santa for the desktop refigerator - $75 from thinkgeek
. cgi?action=view&type=item&itemid=3619&at=c olor
http://www.thinkgeek.com/brain/bazaar/mart/cart
The book has a rather erotic bit in it.. (don't have the book handy, it's been several years so I can't find the reference)
Of course, being a sexually intrested 8th grader, I flipped right to that section.
Flipping directly to the "dirty bits" in The Diary of Anne Frank? Your going to Hell for sure.
;)
That would mean that you would also have to allow 3rd parties to sell cable boxes (not descramblers mind you, that would still be illegal). Hmmmm... my cable box is owned by the cable company. I don't feel particularly oppressed by the cable company. OTOH, I bet that if we opened up this market, some innovative 3rd party might come up with a cable box that didn't weigh 10 pounds and throw out heat like a blast furnace. You might be able to get them in some other color than brown too.
Can't you just buy 3rd party cable boxes or use a cable ready TV or VCR? I think some cable companies have started dicouraging this, somehow making it difficult to not use their cable box, IIRC my aunt was pissed when she moved from NYC to CT and they *required* that she use their crappy brown box even though it looked horrible on top of her new top of the line TV. For some reason, feeding cable driectly into her brand new cable ready set got fuzzy reception and could only be fixed with the cable companies box.
Well since you're getting reamed for straying from the Ayn Rand individualistic, self deterministic crap, I'll try and stick up for you - no point in hoarding kama, I'm topped out anyway.
/. community in denial over the affect exiting social and econonimic structures have on individuals.
/. crowd, apparently that answer is yes.
While it's true that determination and aggessive persuit of your goals is needed to make anything happen in life, I find the
When I was in jr. high and highschool I encountered many roadblocks when I'd try to get into the best math and science classes available. And as much as I'd like to believe otherwise, most of the hassle must be attributed to school authority figures having issues with my gender, race and social class. I was very lucky to have been raised to have the self confidence and knowledge needed to fight for what I wanted (being born an incredibly stubborn person helped too). I was also fortunate to have supportive parents who are also clueful and stuborn enough to be an asset in those battles.
(and starting in college i got to deal with ignorant fucks who assume that i got where i am by virtue of being a black woman - joy!)
There are many people who don't know what oppertunities are out there and/ or don't have the self confidence to persue it. And given our racist, sexist and classist society (both past and present) some folks are more suseptible (no, i don't know how to spell - deal!) to these problems than others. Up until the 60's it was common for women to be sent to college to "get engaged". Dorm mothers would get mad if you wanted to miss a dance with an ivy league school to stay home and work on a paper. So is it really so hard to believe that some women got a royal mind-fuck of an upbringing? Is it so hard to understand that people who lived under segregation might not know how to instill in thier children the agression and self confidence needed to compete? Is it hard to see how one's address could be a liability on certian job applications? Well for the very successful
Yes, almost everyone (except danforth quale and dubyuh) had to work really fucking hard for whatever they achived, and yes, there is no shortage of lazy, clueless and stupid people in the world but that dosn't mean that some folks might not have the cards stacked against them.
Reminds me of a really funny conversation I had w/ a digital cable telemarketer once ...
... if you ever change your mind ..." blah blah blah ...
He starts in on his schpiel about how digital cable is just the best thing ever and I say "well, my tv is really really old and crappy so i won't really get much out of the enhanced signal or the digital music stations"
"out of curiosity, why don't you get a new tv?"
"actually, i've been thinking about getting rid of the tv all together, i was really a much better person when i didn't have a tv."
At this point the guy starts laughing, "A better person? What do you mean?"
"You know, I did all those things that I usually mean to do but never get around to doing, I read more, did more artwork and crafts, went out more, socialized more, did volunteer work, I was the best possible version of me."
More nervous laughter, I can practically hear him shaking his head in disbelief. "Well this was, umm, a really 'interesting' conversation
The sad postscript is that I ended up caving in when they moved the sundance channel to a "digital only" station. I feel so 'dirty'.
FYI, a few datapoints ...
:P
My husband and a few of my friends grew up in TV-less households and they all wound up doing much better things with their time. Occasionally they feel bad about not "getting" some brady bunch reference, but I'm quick to point out that knowing how to play several musical instruments is way cooler than having seen every episode of the brady bunch, benny hill and three's company. Dispite growing up in very differnt households, they all learned to play multiple musical instruments, were extremely well read and had various interesting hobbies and side projects.
Of course, as adults, they all have a positively morbid facination with TV. Hopefully they'll get over it soon. My husband will watch absolutely anything (pro-wrestling if nothing else is on) since it is all a new a facinating insight into our culture (yeah right).
But once your daughter starts school, the other kids will gladly get her "up to speed" on important commercialism, materialism and brand-conciousness issues
I've never heard of that before, it sounds pretty cool.
I think that for the house and senate we could go with a proportional system where the number of seats a party gets is proportional to the number of votes they recieve. So, for example, if there are 10 seats, a given party gets a seat for every each 10% of the vote they capture. That system is used in some other countires because it allows for more than two viable parties. It allows for more diversity that the "winner take all" system we currently have. Perhaps we could even increase the total number of seats to make this system even more viable.
The districting and delagate situation is also a total mess. That system seems to be explicity designed to protect a 2 party system.
.
Also got the 2600 MPAA shirt,
:) Am I automagically a defendednt in this case? What the fuck is going on?
The really cool thing is that *everyone* asks me about the shirts when I wear them. People at work, in the grocer, in the cafes, on the street - they all get the 2 minutes or less overview - and so far, all have groked the total corporate bullshit.
Kick Ass!
But I'm a bit confused about Copyleft's role in the case. How can one add defendants to a case after it has already started? Is the RIAA taking copyleft to court seperately? Or can they add random defendants to the already tried and concluded case retroactively for some indefinate time period? This was the actual case wasn't it? This wasn't just some preliminary thing? I've always assumed that if I were a defendent in some court action, I would have to be notified beforehand so that I could have a chance to defend myself. As a shirt purchaser, have I broken the law?(not that I mind breaking the law
I'm *so* confused.
because the artist is the one financally responsible for the creation, production,manufacture, distribution and marketing costs.
software engineers get a decent salary and benefits while working on a product. in exchange for that they explicitly sign away rights to intellectual property developed at work. the engineer gets paied whether or not the product sells. and if the comany goes under the engineer is out of a job but incurrs no personal debt from the deal.
a major label musician, on the other hand, gets no salary, wage or benefits. if the conract explicitly gave the record label ownership of all IP then there wouldn't be an issue, but obviously that is not the case. most artists signed contracts before the new legistation and therfore expected the current copyright law at the time to apply to their contract.
the artist is loaned money by the record company, for the production, manufacturing, distribution and marketing of the CD and if it dosn't sell enough copies, the artist is in *serious* debt.
I don't see why record companies get to keep copyright even one moment after the contract has expired. the only reason why the record company get should get control of the copyright in the first place is to prevent the artist from using 2 different record companies at the same time.
this isn't giving the artist a special interest niche, this is taking away a special interest niche that was handed to the record comanies recently.
I finally get it!
I never understood why someone would try to leverage a "cute little file sharing app" into an empire - after all, most people would [free,share]ware it and maybe show it off at job interviews.
But now I realize that it was a brilliant plan to get gullible VC's to foot the bill for the inevitable legal battles! And get some cool servers and some marteking money for free concerts to boot!
Instead of being a small, independent software vendor getting legally reamed by the RIAA, this guy raised more dough than the EFF to fight this file sharing issue in court!
I thought he was petty, greedy and stupid, but now I realize that he has a buiness accumen and genius that I can only begin to comprehend.
Don't worry about the organizers of the "Special Olympics" and the "Science Olympiad" - they have permission.
Damn, I was hoping that they'd try to sue the Special Olympics so that entire IOC would be immediately tarred and feathered, putting a just yet comical end to this utter bullshit.
It would bring new meaning to the phrase "international community" when representatives of every nation on the planet compete at outdoing each other in expressing moral outrage at those who bring lawsuits against disabled children.
The non-related rider thing really bothers me as well. Given our fickle political landscape, it really puts legislators between a rock and a hard place. i.e. HR #FFFF Harsh penalties for clubbing baby seals w/ a rider for encoraging taking candy from babies.
Perhaps it is still around because:
1) legislators don't vote based on their convictions but rather on what a) looks good b) the soft money wielding lobbist wants them to do or c) what they promised some other legislator they would vote in exchange for some favor (like a vote for something else)
2) the legislators can't be trusted to honor this (imho dishonerable) dealmaking so they have to put all the conditions of "i'll vote for this if you vote for that" in one big confied mess.
Papaver Somniferum - opium poppies, are also used to produce the poppy seeds used in bakeing (poppy seed cake, poppyseed rolls etc.). While the grocery store poppy seeds are generally rendered infertile (dried w/ heat or roasted), you can find viable papaver somniferum seeds for sale in some specialty seed catalogs.
... even if there were no drug laws opium would still only be farmed in the 3rd world. Note that boiling the pods for a medicinal opium tea is both a historical remedy and much, much easier.
...
My understanding is that scoring and scraping poppy pods is rather labor intensive
I have heard that the dried poppy pods used in flower arrangements are also papaver somniferum, and that grinding those pods in a coffee mill will also make a decent tea, but 'decorative' plants, not intended for human consumption can have all sorts of wierd stuff. But I guess if you're desperate enough to ingest stuff from a crafts store
Oh, please...it definitely has its moments. My FEMALE roommate and I were watching it, and they had this bit where they go to the mall and postulate this question to women: "If you could have an operation that made you smarter, but your butt got bigger, would you do it?" To a one, every woman asked said "no". Both my roommate and I found it very funny. Of course, being male, I enjoy the girls on trampolines, and my roommate leaves the room during that bit...
... if i could make my butt as big as Jennifer Lopez, I wouldn't need brains :)
it wasn't every woman they asked, it was every woman they showed. They probably asked 50 women and edited it down to the 5 funniest. That's how t.v. works. I'm sure if they asked guys the same questions, except making the penis smaller they'd get simmilar results.
Although, they probably didn't ask any latina or black chicks
Quoting my MALE hubbie: "I've seen teenagers getting high for the first time not giggle during the man show, I'd rather read Bazooka Joes. "
One thing that bothered me about that article, is the 'oooh, icky-poo!' attitude of the female people they quoted. IMHO, the woman they quoted can go have and have her stupid non-tech career, and I hope she fails miserably and has a disgusting job while seeing all those icky geeks around her do well. I hate this attitude, and nothing makes me shut down more with regards to helping someone than hearing it.
The chicklets they quoted were super annoying. Makes me wonder whether most highschoolers are that vapid and grateing or if the reporter went out of his/her way to pick the most inflamatory comments.
This is mostly because of carrer choice. Tech jobs can pay very well. Some people feel that gender pay inequality is bad for society in general - contibuting to the childhood poverty rate and such.
There are rather more factors involved. Many of which are outside of "employment" issues. One of these is that whilst it is not acceptable for a man to "marry for money" it is acceptable for a woman to do so. (Women demanding husbands and boyfriends earn more than they do undoubtedly contributes to these kind of statistic.) Another factor is that state and charity "welfare" are often not gender neutral in their application.
Much of this statistical difference could be accounted for by men having to "pay their way" more often than women.
There are lots of reasons but I believe that the 70% figure only counted people who actually work, so housewives and welfare mothers weren't counted. The statistical analisis concluded that the biggest determing factor in one's pay is one's job choice (No, really?) . There are lot's of other factors but carrer choice was the biggest. Women who don't feel pressure to be head of the household, because their husbands make more money, may choose less demanding positions that don't pay as well. But remember that there are single mothers, single women, women who don't subscribe to the man-as-breadwinner mentality and women who don't end up with a high-earning man. And with the increasing finacial pressure on the middle class (it's well documented that the middle class is shrinking) 2 income households have gone from being an option to being a necessity.
In general, men and women aren't the same.
When people try to deny it, I think they are really oversimplifying because it's easier to "assume that everyone is the same" than it is to grok and communicate the real issues involved in treating people fairly. And our societey tries to value fair play.
Ultimately, eneralizations are of limmited use when dealing with individuals.
Instead, she chose Ford itself - not because they offered to pay her more or because she's on the fast track to management. You know why she chose Ford? Because they offer a great maternity leave package and job security. That was the deciding factor.
The fact that women take maternity leave and spend more time on family care also factors into the pay disparity but from what I've read the biggest factor is the job choice. Regardless, your friend shouldn't have to choose between getting a big salary or getting maternity leave. Although anyone (male or female) thinking of rasing a family would want to look for job security.
I don't think it's fair to point to statistics that say "women earn less, pay them more" because there's a fundamental difference in what a large number of women are looking for when they seek employment.
Well I don't think it's fair that women earn less. And no one is saying to pay women more. What is going on is that people are trying to enourage and help women get themselves in better paying positions. There is a big difference.
But how do you measure something like the knowledge that your job will still be there when you return after a six-month leave?
Ummm, it's called compliance with labor law and I require it of any company I consider working for (and I don't even want to have kids).
Yes, but how are you generating those applicants? Are you in fact generating more applicants, or just different ones?
I don't really see what you mean here about more vs. different applicants, but by encouraging new people to study CS there would be a bigger pool of talent. While admission into the best schools is very competivtive, that's the exception, most schools will grow departments to meet the public's need.
The article mentions big names like Cisco and IBM sponsoring tech camps for girls. What about the boys that would have _killed_ to go to those? Are you going to get Betty Crocker to sponsor Summer Cooking Camps for boys? =) It sounds ridiculous, because it is.
Well there a lots of boys at the pre-existing tech camps. Any boys who would have kiled to go to tech camp and can afford to pay are probably there right now. As for the boys who want to go but can't afford it, there are grants available for them as well. There should be more funding for summer camps in general, but there should also be more funding for reducing third world debt, eliminating world hunger and providing basline medical care for everyone.
Studies have shown that boys can be very agressive which has a negative affect on girls in school. So the idea of a computer camp for girls sounds kinda cool to me.
Although, arguably, removing immigration barriers accomplishes this too. Perhaps even moreso.
I agree.
This is hardly a good reason to push girls into science and engineering. So that it's easier to put together a co-ed office softball team? =)
Well, as far as self-serving charitable contibutions go, this would hardly be the worst culprit. But given the choice between spending my free time tutoring girls or tutoring random kids, this might be enough to make me lean towards tutoring girls through a SWE program.
I know I'm gonna get flamed for this big time but I've got the karma so here it goes....
Maybe teenage guys (on average, in general) view sex as a commodity more than their female counterparts. At that age hooking up with someone really hot seems like The Most Important Thing In The World. There is the belief (true or not) that hot chicks will fuck/date/marry anyone as long as he's rich. So by that reasoning it dosen't matter where a guy works so long as he's successful.
Getting a trophy wife seems like a worthy ambition to an upwardly mobile 16 year old guy but his female counterpart would be more likely to expect her mate to make as much or more than her. And teenage girls are probaly more interested in the non-sexual aspects of relationships than thier male counterparts (the guys do catch up eventually). So a HS girl who knows that she wants to have relationships with peers and will want to put herself around as many desireable peers as possible.
Of course, geek guys aren't all unattractive, trophy wives aren't as satifying as interesting and intelegent women and being rich dosn't necesarily get you laied. But they'll all learn that eventually.
Actually HP is pretty prograssive about getting the underrepresented into management. They will go out of their way to encourage promising women to consider persuing management.
And, IIRC, the head of the computer division and the head of the printer divisions are both women as well.
Women don't watch The Man Show for the same reason as men - because it isn't funny.
(although I know some guys who will try to catch the girls on tramolines bit at the end)
There dosen't *have* to be a 50/50 split in everything but there are a couple of good reasons why some people are trying to encourage woment to persue sciences:
1) On average, women make less money than men. This is mostly because of carrer choice. Tech jobs can pay very well. Some people feel that gender pay inequality is bad for society in general - contibuting to the childhood poverty rate and such. Some people feel that as long as women have second class finacial status, they will have second class political and social status. Personally, I tend to feel that everyone should have an equal chance to take care for themselves financally and feel these these efforsts help remove barriers.
2) We could use more tech workers and women are an 'untapped resource'. With all the companies lobbying to increase the number of visas, it only makes sence to spend some effort in genreating more applicants at home.
3) Having people from diverse backgrounds working on design and problem solving often yields better results.
4) People already in the industry (both male and female) would, all other things being equal, enjoy having some more women in the office.
The last time I checked the neither CompUSA nor BestBuy was discriminating according to sex.
Actually, last time I bought hardware in person, I went to CompUSA (or was it Future Shop? I forget.) Anyway I was getting a modem and I was trying to find out which were PCI and which were ISA (since they were all behind the counter and I wasn't wearing my glasses). Every time I'd ask a question the sales guy kept answering towards my husband - who wasn't even looking/listening - since he dosen't deal w/ the computer's guts. Finally Chris realized that this dork was trying to talk to him and he said "Don't tell me, I don't know anything about it"
Actually that's probably an economic thing. It's called working your way up. There are a lot of Philipeno and Eastern European immegants lately and nursing is a crappy difficult underpaied job that's a step up from the really really bad paying jobs. And nursing offers some sort of carreer path, since you can, in theory, start out as an orderly and through successive bouts of schooling, work your way up to Nurse Practitioner (almost an MD). Both my folks emmigrated to the US when they were really young. There are a lot of nurses and contruction workers in my grandparents generation and a lot of professionals in my parent's generation.
Since I'm now well off topic: We all known the US, our society has traditionally declared certian things "women's work" teaching, nursing, secratarial etc. and those things are generally valued less than "man's work". This is often called the "pink collar ghetto" by those who study it and is a major reason why women make around 70% less than men. I don't know the order of the chicken vs. egg thing (-> women's work -> low pay -> ) but it is still very much a factor today. Women aren't taken seriously when applying for certain kinds of jobs unless the hiring company does gov. contracts and has to meet a quota. If you look at the average person (HS, maybe some college) faced with having to get a career, a lot of the options are quite hostile: police, armed forces, construction trades, some factories, mechanic. There is something to these being physical but it's not like you need to be really strong to be an electrician. So the only options left are service industries and clerical work.
The thing that makes the engineering\tech situation unique is that it has one of the largest divides amoung proffessional careers. Women in college aren't nearly as turned off (if at all) by management, fincance, law, medicine, psycology, natural sciences, or liberal arts. Since many of these (natural sciences, finance, medicine) are just as technical, detailed, math-oriented and 'difficult' as CS, CE and EE, the CNET quotes about CS being 'too hard' can't be repesentative.