I agree with almost everything you said here. As I stated in other posts for this article I think these policies are pointless until we fix the pipeline problem.
My only disagreement is whether we need to even start thinking about when to remove the feedback loop yet. Wealth inequality between white and black/hispanic families is only growing, so we are nowhere close to needing to stop. On the contrary we likely need to at least double our efforts (or more precisely to start using methods which are more effective).
The gap between men and women is on a different order of magnitude, so perhaps talking about what success looks like there is reasonable.
Thankfully your suggestions were shot down by the civil rights movement. I'm not going to argue against these opinions other than to say segregation became illegal precisely because these forms of "free market" solutions are worthless.
The reading comprehension problem I'm having is with your twist on the definition, not the definition itself.
No, you clearly didn't understand what the phrase "intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own" means. This is evidenced by your contention that the lack of the word "race" in that statement means intolerance of someone's beliefs on race could not be considered bigotry.
The definition I posted was copied from dictionary.com. Let's try another source. "bigotry: Intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself". Not having intolerant opinions, but actually being/acting intolerant.
The is a reason we have different words for discrimination, racism, and bigotry. Bigotry is not accepting your views on race could be wrong. The actual beliefs on race themselves are what could be considered racist. It just so happens someone could not be racist without also being a bigot unless they are never introduced to the idea they could be wrong.
So it is perfectly acceptable for a group to hire no one who is not a member of their own race as long as they don't espouse the belief that their race is superior?
Do you think my contention is no action can be considered bad if it doesn't fit the definition of racism? If I kill my brother its okay because it isn't racism? If I beat my wife its okay because it isn't racism? Because your comment only makes sense if you believe my contention is everything is acceptable if it isn't technically racism.
Of course affirmative action and other forms or inclusive discrimination could be taken too far. It almost certainly is already in many cases. But considering the wealth gap between white households and Black / Hispanic families is growing, its nearly impossible to make that claim towards all programs assisting minorities as a whole. Unless you think white people are inherently superior to minorities that is.
That's exactly what affirmative action is. It says blacks are not as good as whites, can't compete, and thus need a loving, guiding hand to help them up.
No, it is saying socio-economic factors make it less likely for African Americans to succeed, and this will not be changed for hundreds of years if society does not lend a hand. The average household wealth of a white family is $656k, while the average for African Americans is $85k. This disparity was $355k vs $67k thirty years ago, so the gap is widening in both real dollars and ratio. (source)
And it makes sense the gap would widen without significant societal assistance. If you believe it often takes money to make money, or that school districts with better funding often provide better education, it is painfully obvious this inequality cannot be reduced without outside assistance.
So is ecnomics the determining factor in one's ability to succeed in technology? We've solved "nature vs. nurture" and the answer is nurture?
No, the answer is both. No reasonable person could possibly believe either nature or nurture are the only determining factor in one's ability to succeed in technology, or anything else.
You're right. Here's the dictionary definition of "bigotry": "stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own." Note that the concept of "race" is absent from the definition, so "bigotry on the basis of race"? Not a thing, according to the definition.
Reading comprehension fail. The definition refers to the intolerance found in someone's creed, belief or opinion, not intolerance about someone else's creed, belief, or opinion. For instance, having the opinion that a race is inferior and being unwilling to accept you are wrong (intolerance) would be bigotry.
Words end up meaning what most people generally agree they mean, which often diverge from dictionary definitions. Most people would generally agree that someone who believes that persons of a specific race are inherently inferior, is a bigot.
Words certainly do change over time, and the worst examples of this include when two very different (or even opposite) meanings are given to the same word because of ignorance of the population. Literally literally meaning figuratively is a good example.
Racism apologists are certainly attempting to re-use the word racism to mean any form of discrimination in an attempt to imply inclusive discrimination is just as bad as considering another race sub-human. It is a deeply ignorant attempt by people unwilling to accept their own privilege or at least who are unwilling to extend that privilege to others.
The concept I see being pushed these days is that only a member of an oppressed minority can be a victim of racism, and a member of an oppressed minority cannot be a racist, regardless of who he/she discriminates against.
They can be racist if they are discriminating under the belief their race is superior. That is rarely the case for reverse-discrimination though. Minorities certainly can exhibit unfair discriminatory practices though, its just that the word racism is not appropriate. The only reason to use the word racism in that manner is to dismiss the damage real racism has done and still does by diminishing its meaning. If some people want to believe affirmative action is even on the same magnitude as believing other races are sub-human they are deluding themselves and making a very weak argument.
I also believe racism is used too often to explain every time Caucasians dislike cultural attributes common to certain races. I don't think disliking Sharia law or inner city thug-like behavior is racist even though they are often depicted as racist beliefs.
No need to be AC. Your views are far more popular in a group which believes itself to be nearly perfectly meritocratic. I assume many of my posts for this article will be modded down, as one nearly identical this one already has.
Such as believing that one race is unable to lift itself out of the poverty; unlike the Irish, Italian, etc... populations of the past.
It is almost certain underrepresented groups will catch up on their own eventually. One study predicts African Americans could reach wealth parity with Caucasians in 228 years without any assistance. These policies do not assume the disparity could never be improved without help, just that we don't want to wait hundreds of years.
Other ethnic groups over the past couple centuries had the advantage of still being Caucasian and being in a developing country. Disenfranchised groups could still just "move west" where they weren't as affected by ethnicities with more wealth in the East. And the most important difference is that Caucasian ethnicities greatly benefited from social programs after WW2 which weren't given to other minorities. This is perhaps even more damaging to current wealth inequality than slavery was.
So many universities are racist against Asians even by your definition; while by my definition nearly all are racist.
Believing one group has socio-economic advantages is not the same as thinking the group is inherently superior.
I grew up in a middle class home where my parents had a home computer in the early 80's and I had my own computer before I was 10, so I certainly am more likely to be competent with technology than your average inner city African American. But that does not make me inherently superior because of my race, it merely means I had advantages which make it more likely I will pass CS college admissions or CS job interviews regardless of my own inherent merit.
And while in the short term it may still be beneficial for a company to hire the best worker regardless of why they are better (and even that is very debatable), in the long term it is damaging to society to waste our human capital this way.
1. Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior: a program to combat racism
1.1 The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races:
Language is fluid, and there is certainly a push to consider policies to fight racism as racist themselves, but that is not the traditional definition. And it is not a useful change because it only seeks to protect the privileged of certain groups by preventing attempts to level the playing ground for underrepresented groups. If your new definition became the new norm there would be no need for the word racism since all discrimination would be racism. You are only trying to use the word to inflame the discussion.
facebook is the one being racist by treating some races different than others
Racism is only present when one group is believed to be inherently superior to others. The fight to mitigate socioeconomic barriers for underrepresented groups does not come close to fitting the definition of racism. It does fit the definition of inclusive discrimination, which so far has been the only successful way of fighting institutional exclusive discrimination.
Being racist to stop racism doesn't solve the problem. It's just more racism.
Racism is the belief one group is inherently superior to another. The belief that one group has socio-economic barriers which need to be mitigated is not racism. The process of fixing these barriers does include discrimination, but only because the English language uses this same term for multiple things. Exclusive discrimination can only be fought with inclusive discrimination, because a group being excluded because of institutional discrimination could never catch up without inclusive policies.
It certainly is the wrong approach, but not necessarily because of any unfairness. It is wrong because it simply doesn't work. We need to fix the pipeline of incoming workers before we can expect companies to do anything through recruiter policies. I just went back to get my Masters in CS finishing a couple years ago, and each class was at least 75% white / asian males. Some classes were 100%.
The only thing Facebook could do is set up their own training programs for people with little to no STEM background designed to make them ready for a Facebook job by the end of the program. This would be massively costly, so the next best thing is to support educational programs for the youth. This will take a decade or two to bear fruit but is likely the only option.
I've met very few EEs who couldn't also code proficiently.
I've met very few CSs who could code proficiently. The EEs / MEs I know who have the ability to code generally have a skill set similar to someone in academia. They can hack together some code to get something very specific done, but probably shouldn't be touching large scale production quality code. I don't mean that as an insult, since most software engineers can't do what EEs or CS researchers do either. But assuming you can take thousands of EEs and have them switch to being equally senior software engineers in a year or so seems silly.
Exactly. I would say there aren't enough smartphone models, or at least enough variety in them. I'm still waiting for a 6"-6.2" 1440 x 2560 smartphone with a flagship processor and 4500+ mAh battery but don't see any hope on the horizon. Any fantasies that the increased Galaxy S7 Edge screen size would push up the Note series size were fruitless so I'll be sticking with my Note 4 for some time now. I'm in no rush to buy the Note 7 just because my phone is two years old, since it is basically the same phone.
You bring up the exact things which get down voted all the time around here.
Yes, I did that for a reason so it wouldn't appear I was making a straw man argument out of your "flat earth" example.
To many climate change is settled science yet over and over more information is coming out. The climate change of 1980's and today are drastically different. I have a feeling in 10 years it will be different than it is today. We learn we discuss we have conversations and present statistics. But it's deaf to those that refuse to hear it.
Our understanding of climate change has changed and will continue to change, but that has no impact on the reasonable discussions lay people can have on the topic. Settled science can change, but no one who isn't at least published in relevant scientific journals has any relevant opinions on the matter. For people like you and me the science is effectively settled. There are plenty of aspects to discuss such as how much money is reasonable to spend fixing the problem, but all discussions should start with a virtual 100% agreement that humans are lead causes of recent climate change.
Scientists should always question even established science, but average citizens and policy makers should not. Its easy to say our understanding of science will change, but not even scientists know how it will change (or else it already would have). Mindlessly pontificating about baseless opinions of which fringe studies are correct and which mainstream studies are wrong is no better than arguing the world is flat.
So what if he believes the earth is flat? That in and of itself shouldn't be down voted because you believe differently. It should be discussed and talked about and points given with facts and knowledge and in the end maybe you both learn something. You saying your brother is an idiot is actually proving the point of the problem that counter viewpoints aren't really allowed to blossom because you, rather than discuss it, pass it off as idiotic and down vote it.
This may provide insight into why you believe legitimate arguments are down voted on Slashdot. Many would consider stating the world is flat a ridiculous statement not worthy of discussion among adults. There are going to be other similar arguments in areas such as climate change, civil rights, etc. where comments considered ridiculous by educated adults are not given the time of day. This certainly does prevent discussion in these cases, which you likely view as crossing a line into excessive censorship. Others disagree and feel this allows more fruitful discussions to take place.
Neither side of this argument is necessarily wrong, but Slashdot's moderation generally favors those who want to reject arguments on the scale of "the world is flat" so more time is spent on what are perceived to be more fruitful discussions. I certainly understand that someone who wants to take those discussions seriously would feel Slashdot still censures too much.
What about the other guy who spent $19k and didn't win shit?
The same as any business which spends money to acquire a customer and fails, or builds a product which doesn't sell, or any number of ventures which require capital expenditures without a guarantee of return. Not everything which requires spending money for uncertain return is gambling.
I'm an apple developer with a PC for games. I shouldn't need to resort to Hackintosh to get the Mac OS on good hardware.
I agree you shouldn't have to, but that is the agreement when you enter the Apple ecosystem. Which is a choice you made. You knew Apple's main focus is on marketing and extreme profit margins, not catering to high end users, so this shouldn't be a surprise to you.
You are forced to use a substandard development environment and have a separate work and personal computer because of your career choices, but these certainly aren't extreme hardships. I don't like having to save my work to the cloud every time I test a small change, but I made my choices when I became a cloud developer. My father on the other hand had to break up ice twice a day in water troughs for his cattle because of his choice of profession. The hardships both of us endure for work are pretty minor compared to 99% of the population (probably more).
I'm more concerned about an AMD GPU. Nvidia Pascal would be much more efficient and powerful enough for 1800p60. Stop making the pro thinner! 2012 size is perfect. Larger battery and GPU is preferred Apple.
Then just get a larger laptop with an Nvidia Pascal video card and a secondary battery. There will be plenty of options within a few months (Pascal mobile cards were only released a week ago). These lack of choices generally only exist within the Apple ecosystem, so either leave it or stop complaining. They'll give you what they tell you you want and that will be that.
When are we going to stop pretending any technologically capable countries aren't actively spying on governments and companies whenever it suits their interests?
The answers to the following two questions should always be assumed to be the same: 1) Can the country benefit from hacking [insert organization]? 2) Is the country hacking [insert organization]?
You need to be reminded that you are not everyone.
And you need to be reminded I said "I wish they offered a Note without [an sPen]", not that I wish they removed the sPen from the entire Note line. They offered the S7 with and without a curved screen, so its not unprecedented to be given options.
If you did not want the Note's features, why did you buy one?
The Note 4's primary features for me were its size, build quality, and other specs. I also thought I would use the sPen more but never really had a reason. Use cases like yours seem to be the edge cases, especially since I believe no other phablet has a stylus, but I'm glad the option exists in the marketplace. I simply regret that giving that option to some requires everyone else to get worse battery life.
Seriously, who the fuck is spending $1k on a phone, whether you can afford it or not. It's a fucking phone. I do not understand this and I'm not some old timer. I just don't get it. Our society is so fucked up sometimes.
What do you not understand? These are mini-computers you can fit in your pocket. Some people buy bargain computers from Walmart and some people buy gaming rigs to max out Crysis. The concept is the same with phones. There are people spending $80k on their car too but it doesn't mean everyone can or should.
My Note was the first phone which made me give up my tablet because I didn't "need" both anymore. Now I get by with a Note 4 and Surface Pro 4 instead of a phone, tablet, and laptop. I may spend a few hundred more on my phone than I did 4 years ago, but I save $1k on not getting another iPad.
I would love a 6" phone even more, but understand these phones need more mainstream appeal and not everyone has big hands.
Give me something BETTER than my Note4 and I'll consider it.
I too have been a loyal Samsung customer, and literally haven't even looked at the competition for years. That changed this morning when I started researching the Nexus 6P and rumors about the upcoming 7P. Any phone manufacturer needs to know they can sometimes get away with one lackluster release, but two in a row is going to lose you customers.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with almost everything you said here. As I stated in other posts for this article I think these policies are pointless until we fix the pipeline problem.
My only disagreement is whether we need to even start thinking about when to remove the feedback loop yet. Wealth inequality between white and black/hispanic families is only growing, so we are nowhere close to needing to stop. On the contrary we likely need to at least double our efforts (or more precisely to start using methods which are more effective).
The gap between men and women is on a different order of magnitude, so perhaps talking about what success looks like there is reasonable.
Thankfully your suggestions were shot down by the civil rights movement. I'm not going to argue against these opinions other than to say segregation became illegal precisely because these forms of "free market" solutions are worthless.
The reading comprehension problem I'm having is with your twist on the definition, not the definition itself.
No, you clearly didn't understand what the phrase "intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own" means. This is evidenced by your contention that the lack of the word "race" in that statement means intolerance of someone's beliefs on race could not be considered bigotry.
The definition I posted was copied from dictionary.com. Let's try another source. "bigotry: Intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself". Not having intolerant opinions, but actually being/acting intolerant.
The is a reason we have different words for discrimination, racism, and bigotry. Bigotry is not accepting your views on race could be wrong. The actual beliefs on race themselves are what could be considered racist. It just so happens someone could not be racist without also being a bigot unless they are never introduced to the idea they could be wrong.
So it is perfectly acceptable for a group to hire no one who is not a member of their own race as long as they don't espouse the belief that their race is superior?
Do you think my contention is no action can be considered bad if it doesn't fit the definition of racism? If I kill my brother its okay because it isn't racism? If I beat my wife its okay because it isn't racism? Because your comment only makes sense if you believe my contention is everything is acceptable if it isn't technically racism.
Of course affirmative action and other forms or inclusive discrimination could be taken too far. It almost certainly is already in many cases. But considering the wealth gap between white households and Black / Hispanic families is growing, its nearly impossible to make that claim towards all programs assisting minorities as a whole. Unless you think white people are inherently superior to minorities that is.
That's exactly what affirmative action is. It says blacks are not as good as whites, can't compete, and thus need a loving, guiding hand to help them up.
No, it is saying socio-economic factors make it less likely for African Americans to succeed, and this will not be changed for hundreds of years if society does not lend a hand. The average household wealth of a white family is $656k, while the average for African Americans is $85k. This disparity was $355k vs $67k thirty years ago, so the gap is widening in both real dollars and ratio. (source)
And it makes sense the gap would widen without significant societal assistance. If you believe it often takes money to make money, or that school districts with better funding often provide better education, it is painfully obvious this inequality cannot be reduced without outside assistance.
So is ecnomics the determining factor in one's ability to succeed in technology? We've solved "nature vs. nurture" and the answer is nurture?
No, the answer is both. No reasonable person could possibly believe either nature or nurture are the only determining factor in one's ability to succeed in technology, or anything else.
You're right. Here's the dictionary definition of "bigotry": "stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own." Note that the concept of "race" is absent from the definition, so "bigotry on the basis of race"? Not a thing, according to the definition.
Reading comprehension fail. The definition refers to the intolerance found in someone's creed, belief or opinion, not intolerance about someone else's creed, belief, or opinion. For instance, having the opinion that a race is inferior and being unwilling to accept you are wrong (intolerance) would be bigotry.
Words end up meaning what most people generally agree they mean, which often diverge from dictionary definitions. Most people would generally agree that someone who believes that persons of a specific race are inherently inferior, is a bigot.
Words certainly do change over time, and the worst examples of this include when two very different (or even opposite) meanings are given to the same word because of ignorance of the population. Literally literally meaning figuratively is a good example.
Racism apologists are certainly attempting to re-use the word racism to mean any form of discrimination in an attempt to imply inclusive discrimination is just as bad as considering another race sub-human. It is a deeply ignorant attempt by people unwilling to accept their own privilege or at least who are unwilling to extend that privilege to others.
The concept I see being pushed these days is that only a member of an oppressed minority can be a victim of racism, and a member of an oppressed minority cannot be a racist, regardless of who he/she discriminates against.
They can be racist if they are discriminating under the belief their race is superior. That is rarely the case for reverse-discrimination though. Minorities certainly can exhibit unfair discriminatory practices though, its just that the word racism is not appropriate. The only reason to use the word racism in that manner is to dismiss the damage real racism has done and still does by diminishing its meaning. If some people want to believe affirmative action is even on the same magnitude as believing other races are sub-human they are deluding themselves and making a very weak argument.
I also believe racism is used too often to explain every time Caucasians dislike cultural attributes common to certain races. I don't think disliking Sharia law or inner city thug-like behavior is racist even though they are often depicted as racist beliefs.
No need to be AC. Your views are far more popular in a group which believes itself to be nearly perfectly meritocratic. I assume many of my posts for this article will be modded down, as one nearly identical this one already has.
Such as believing that one race is unable to lift itself out of the poverty; unlike the Irish, Italian, etc... populations of the past.
It is almost certain underrepresented groups will catch up on their own eventually. One study predicts African Americans could reach wealth parity with Caucasians in 228 years without any assistance. These policies do not assume the disparity could never be improved without help, just that we don't want to wait hundreds of years.
Other ethnic groups over the past couple centuries had the advantage of still being Caucasian and being in a developing country. Disenfranchised groups could still just "move west" where they weren't as affected by ethnicities with more wealth in the East. And the most important difference is that Caucasian ethnicities greatly benefited from social programs after WW2 which weren't given to other minorities. This is perhaps even more damaging to current wealth inequality than slavery was.
So many universities are racist against Asians even by your definition; while by my definition nearly all are racist.
Believing one group has socio-economic advantages is not the same as thinking the group is inherently superior.
I grew up in a middle class home where my parents had a home computer in the early 80's and I had my own computer before I was 10, so I certainly am more likely to be competent with technology than your average inner city African American. But that does not make me inherently superior because of my race, it merely means I had advantages which make it more likely I will pass CS college admissions or CS job interviews regardless of my own inherent merit.
And while in the short term it may still be beneficial for a company to hire the best worker regardless of why they are better (and even that is very debatable), in the long term it is damaging to society to waste our human capital this way.
Racism:
1. Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior:
a program to combat racism
1.1 The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races:
Language is fluid, and there is certainly a push to consider policies to fight racism as racist themselves, but that is not the traditional definition. And it is not a useful change because it only seeks to protect the privileged of certain groups by preventing attempts to level the playing ground for underrepresented groups. If your new definition became the new norm there would be no need for the word racism since all discrimination would be racism. You are only trying to use the word to inflame the discussion.
facebook is the one being racist by treating some races different than others
Racism is only present when one group is believed to be inherently superior to others. The fight to mitigate socioeconomic barriers for underrepresented groups does not come close to fitting the definition of racism. It does fit the definition of inclusive discrimination, which so far has been the only successful way of fighting institutional exclusive discrimination.
Being racist to stop racism doesn't solve the problem. It's just more racism.
Racism is the belief one group is inherently superior to another. The belief that one group has socio-economic barriers which need to be mitigated is not racism. The process of fixing these barriers does include discrimination, but only because the English language uses this same term for multiple things. Exclusive discrimination can only be fought with inclusive discrimination, because a group being excluded because of institutional discrimination could never catch up without inclusive policies.
It certainly is the wrong approach, but not necessarily because of any unfairness. It is wrong because it simply doesn't work. We need to fix the pipeline of incoming workers before we can expect companies to do anything through recruiter policies. I just went back to get my Masters in CS finishing a couple years ago, and each class was at least 75% white / asian males. Some classes were 100%.
The only thing Facebook could do is set up their own training programs for people with little to no STEM background designed to make them ready for a Facebook job by the end of the program. This would be massively costly, so the next best thing is to support educational programs for the youth. This will take a decade or two to bear fruit but is likely the only option.
I've met very few EEs who couldn't also code proficiently.
I've met very few CSs who could code proficiently. The EEs / MEs I know who have the ability to code generally have a skill set similar to someone in academia. They can hack together some code to get something very specific done, but probably shouldn't be touching large scale production quality code. I don't mean that as an insult, since most software engineers can't do what EEs or CS researchers do either. But assuming you can take thousands of EEs and have them switch to being equally senior software engineers in a year or so seems silly.
Exactly. I would say there aren't enough smartphone models, or at least enough variety in them. I'm still waiting for a 6"-6.2" 1440 x 2560 smartphone with a flagship processor and 4500+ mAh battery but don't see any hope on the horizon. Any fantasies that the increased Galaxy S7 Edge screen size would push up the Note series size were fruitless so I'll be sticking with my Note 4 for some time now. I'm in no rush to buy the Note 7 just because my phone is two years old, since it is basically the same phone.
You bring up the exact things which get down voted all the time around here.
Yes, I did that for a reason so it wouldn't appear I was making a straw man argument out of your "flat earth" example.
To many climate change is settled science yet over and over more information is coming out. The climate change of 1980's and today are drastically different. I have a feeling in 10 years it will be different than it is today. We learn we discuss we have conversations and present statistics. But it's deaf to those that refuse to hear it.
Our understanding of climate change has changed and will continue to change, but that has no impact on the reasonable discussions lay people can have on the topic. Settled science can change, but no one who isn't at least published in relevant scientific journals has any relevant opinions on the matter. For people like you and me the science is effectively settled. There are plenty of aspects to discuss such as how much money is reasonable to spend fixing the problem, but all discussions should start with a virtual 100% agreement that humans are lead causes of recent climate change.
Scientists should always question even established science, but average citizens and policy makers should not. Its easy to say our understanding of science will change, but not even scientists know how it will change (or else it already would have). Mindlessly pontificating about baseless opinions of which fringe studies are correct and which mainstream studies are wrong is no better than arguing the world is flat.
So what if he believes the earth is flat? That in and of itself shouldn't be down voted because you believe differently. It should be discussed and talked about and points given with facts and knowledge and in the end maybe you both learn something. You saying your brother is an idiot is actually proving the point of the problem that counter viewpoints aren't really allowed to blossom because you, rather than discuss it, pass it off as idiotic and down vote it.
This may provide insight into why you believe legitimate arguments are down voted on Slashdot. Many would consider stating the world is flat a ridiculous statement not worthy of discussion among adults. There are going to be other similar arguments in areas such as climate change, civil rights, etc. where comments considered ridiculous by educated adults are not given the time of day. This certainly does prevent discussion in these cases, which you likely view as crossing a line into excessive censorship. Others disagree and feel this allows more fruitful discussions to take place.
Neither side of this argument is necessarily wrong, but Slashdot's moderation generally favors those who want to reject arguments on the scale of "the world is flat" so more time is spent on what are perceived to be more fruitful discussions. I certainly understand that someone who wants to take those discussions seriously would feel Slashdot still censures too much.
What about the other guy who spent $19k and didn't win shit?
The same as any business which spends money to acquire a customer and fails, or builds a product which doesn't sell, or any number of ventures which require capital expenditures without a guarantee of return. Not everything which requires spending money for uncertain return is gambling.
I'm an apple developer with a PC for games. I shouldn't need to resort to Hackintosh to get the Mac OS on good hardware.
I agree you shouldn't have to, but that is the agreement when you enter the Apple ecosystem. Which is a choice you made. You knew Apple's main focus is on marketing and extreme profit margins, not catering to high end users, so this shouldn't be a surprise to you.
You are forced to use a substandard development environment and have a separate work and personal computer because of your career choices, but these certainly aren't extreme hardships. I don't like having to save my work to the cloud every time I test a small change, but I made my choices when I became a cloud developer. My father on the other hand had to break up ice twice a day in water troughs for his cattle because of his choice of profession. The hardships both of us endure for work are pretty minor compared to 99% of the population (probably more).
I'm more concerned about an AMD GPU. Nvidia Pascal would be much more efficient and powerful enough for 1800p60. Stop making the pro thinner! 2012 size is perfect. Larger battery and GPU is preferred Apple.
Then just get a larger laptop with an Nvidia Pascal video card and a secondary battery. There will be plenty of options within a few months (Pascal mobile cards were only released a week ago). These lack of choices generally only exist within the Apple ecosystem, so either leave it or stop complaining. They'll give you what they tell you you want and that will be that.
When are we going to stop pretending any technologically capable countries aren't actively spying on governments and companies whenever it suits their interests?
The answers to the following two questions should always be assumed to be the same:
1) Can the country benefit from hacking [insert organization]?
2) Is the country hacking [insert organization]?
You need to be reminded that you are not everyone.
And you need to be reminded I said "I wish they offered a Note without [an sPen]", not that I wish they removed the sPen from the entire Note line. They offered the S7 with and without a curved screen, so its not unprecedented to be given options.
If you did not want the Note's features, why did you buy one?
The Note 4's primary features for me were its size, build quality, and other specs. I also thought I would use the sPen more but never really had a reason. Use cases like yours seem to be the edge cases, especially since I believe no other phablet has a stylus, but I'm glad the option exists in the marketplace. I simply regret that giving that option to some requires everyone else to get worse battery life.
Seriously, who the fuck is spending $1k on a phone, whether you can afford it or not. It's a fucking phone. I do not understand this and I'm not some old timer. I just don't get it. Our society is so fucked up sometimes.
What do you not understand? These are mini-computers you can fit in your pocket. Some people buy bargain computers from Walmart and some people buy gaming rigs to max out Crysis. The concept is the same with phones. There are people spending $80k on their car too but it doesn't mean everyone can or should.
My Note was the first phone which made me give up my tablet because I didn't "need" both anymore. Now I get by with a Note 4 and Surface Pro 4 instead of a phone, tablet, and laptop. I may spend a few hundred more on my phone than I did 4 years ago, but I save $1k on not getting another iPad.
I would love a 6" phone even more, but understand these phones need more mainstream appeal and not everyone has big hands.
Give me something BETTER than my Note4 and I'll consider it.
I too have been a loyal Samsung customer, and literally haven't even looked at the competition for years. That changed this morning when I started researching the Nexus 6P and rumors about the upcoming 7P. Any phone manufacturer needs to know they can sometimes get away with one lackluster release, but two in a row is going to lose you customers.