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User: Bruce+Perens

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  1. Your thesis picks things selectively and then posits a reason for what is really your selection rather than objective fact. For example, your Star Wars toy line doesn't include any memory of Jar Jar toys.

  2. The letter you quoted has nothing to do with an employer running a diversity program. If you want to hear the same voice, EEOC's counsel, on that matter, it's here.

  3. Sorry to hear that.

  4. If you are looking to create, and can only create alone because respecting other folks is inimical to you, that's your problem. If you object to an organization that was out to encourage participation by women and minorities insisting that funded candidates actually be women or minorities, that is also your problem. In that case, yeah, you can only create alone now because reasonable people aren't going to put up with you any longer. Maybe you need a long walk and some thinking about your own attitude.

  5. Re:Meet minimum standards of human behavior on One Of LLVM's Top Contributors Quits Development Over Code of Conduct, Outreach Program (phoronix.com) · · Score: 0

    It keeps the people who don't like them out, because they want to violate just that sort of rule, and they realize this project won't be their playground.

  6. There were a few problems with the community the nerds had built. Not just computer programming - I deal with this exact same problem regarding Amateur Radio, which has taken the same community and carried it another 50 years, so I figure it's predictive of what could happen in computer programming. Go to a hamfest or electronics flea market, and look around. All we have are old white guys.

  7. The team would get along better, and more good people would enter. People who don't like the stuff outlined probably don't keep it to themselves. This creates tension in the group.

    I am dealing with this every day. So many people of very high achievement walked off of a group - over time - that we had a full team of experienced people for a new one once we had a welcoming group for them.

  8. I don't think it would be a Hawaiian shirt. It would be a shirt that contained images or text that was directly related to the code of conduct. For example, a "shut up bitch" slogan on a shirt.

  9. Re:LLVM code of conduct on One Of LLVM's Top Contributors Quits Development Over Code of Conduct, Outreach Program (phoronix.com) · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's kind of funny how in one sentence you protested that you don't need a piece of paper to tell you how to believe, and expressed a bad attitude about having rules. All in the same sentence.

    I did tell a community I'm managing, in an email, that I never expect the rule to be exercised. They are all professionals. But the rule is working even when it is not exercised. Having rules is explicitly to do two things: 1. Exclude people who don't like them. and 2. Give a rules-based means for penalizing or ejecting people who violate them. #1 keeps #2 from happening.

  10. I don't know much about Outreachy. But a program that encourages participation by women and minorities requiring that funding candidates actually be women or minorities doesn't seem at all out of place for the purpose of the organization.

  11. Re:LLVM code of conduct on One Of LLVM's Top Contributors Quits Development Over Code of Conduct, Outreach Program (phoronix.com) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have recently seen a high-profile community project where a key engineer believed (among other things) women should be shielded and kept at home. This engineer, obviously, had conflicts with people in the organization. Actually maybe about 30 people. Eventually, the membership walked off en mass and founded their own project. The new project has essentially the same code of conduct we're discussing here.

    You need rules on paper for when stuff like this happens. It helps make slippery stuff like who offended who and whether such offense is out of scope for the project a lot easier to decide.

  12. Re:Let's look at first causes on Blue Light Like That From Smartphones Linked To Some Cancers, Study Finds (cnn.com) · · Score: 1

    You can supplement your melatonin. It's part of my travel regimen. But the reason you're looking at blue light when it can hurt you is that you're up too late.

    Also, you can go only so far with your antioxidants, since people have an oxidizing metabolism. People thought melatonin was a miracle drug a decade ago. It definitely helps with sleep, but didn't work any miracles regarding the rest.

  13. is this really progress? on Blue Origin Launches Its First Test Flight of 2018 (mashable.com) · · Score: 1

    The reason you see people a lot more interested in SpaceX is that SpaceX really is making it more affordable to put things in space, and soon people. For Blue Origin, that is all in the future and we hope that they get there but they seem to be in no hurry. So far it looks like SpaceX will start demonstrating short flights of the upper part of their next rocket design before Blue Origin has New Glenn. Things may be different someday...

  14. Let's look at first causes on Blue Light Like That From Smartphones Linked To Some Cancers, Study Finds (cnn.com) · · Score: 2

    If you're looking at a white screen background after 10 PM, yes it's going to be difficult to sleep and your biological clock is probably getting messed up in ways that may harm your health.

    Certainly going to white on black, and dim, when you're reading to go to sleep helps. But not driving yourself so hard and having a life helps more.

    Think about not spending your entire life doing what others expect of you.

  15. Re:Why are defective humans encouraged to breed? on In First, Doctors Treat Rare Genetic Disorder With an Injection In Utero (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Explain to me why eugenics is bad again?

    It really pisses me off the degree to which we seem to have forgotten World War II and are repeating all of its mistakes.

    The main problem is who decides that your personal trait is bad for society. Is it "genetic jewishness"? Does ADHD count? There goes Einstein, and probably me too. Color blindness? Me again. Dispraxia? Maybe me. Cancer? Me again.

    This does not, however, exempt you from personal responsibility regarding who you bring into the world. Conception is a choice.

  16. Oh come on on Hacking a Satellite is Surprisingly Easy (theoutline.com) · · Score: 1

    Satellite control systems are meant to be able to reload the entire program memory of the satellite, bypassing any ROM that might be in the satellite if necessary, because things tend to fail under radiation. This means relatively small-scale logic to load ROM from an all-hardware modem and reset the CPU. This is done using a radio command with relatively simple encryption - cubesats often use EOR with a constant. The processors are silicon-on-insulator (because it is resistant to radiation-induced latch-up) and are not the modern ones you're used to. They don't run IP at this level.

  17. Go after the C*O's or stockholders

    Old lady on pension that invests in Youtube assaulted by irate content author. News at 11.

  18. Guns? No, this is not because of guns. It's because we need mental illness checks. It's because the internet promotes violence. It's because of a feeling of entitlement promoted by liberal society. It's because of the decline of faith. It's because God is punishing us for embracing homosexuality. It's because of television. It's the Democrats fault. It's Obama's fault. It's Slashdot. It's Social Justice Warriors.

    Nah, it couldn't be because of Guns.

  19. And Musk should really have known, since SpaceX uses KSP to design its rockets :-)

  20. Re:Screenshot... on Google is Testing Self-Destructing Emails in New Gmail (techcrunch.com) · · Score: 1

    Screenshots would never be admissible as evidence.

    It's really astonishing how a statement so at odds with the law, and maybe even common sense, could be up-moderated on Slashdot.

    Screenshots are entirely admissible as evidence and have been used successfully in many cases.

    All evidence comes with the testimony, under oath, of the person who provides it. So, just as a photographer would testify that photographic evidence - which is certainly nothing new - is unaltered, a person providing a screenshot would testify about how they acquired it and would attest that it is unaltered.

  21. Re: several hundred feet of visibility ahead on Tesla Issues Strongest Statement Yet Blaming Driver For Deadly Autopilot Crash (abc7news.com) · · Score: 1

    This seems like a really good argument that this feature should not be allowed on public roads until the problem is solved.

    That just means it won't be allowed on roads at all, because it is most likely that strong AI will never be developed.

    It is, however, possible that a non-intelligent system will develop to the point that it is a more reliable driver than a human being.

  22. Re: several hundred feet of visibility ahead on Tesla Issues Strongest Statement Yet Blaming Driver For Deadly Autopilot Crash (abc7news.com) · · Score: 1

    Sigh. If you're going to post on Slashdot, you need to learn the difference between argument and mere contradiction.

    After you do that, you will need to consider that you are speaking with people who understand computers, radar, and other technology underlying the subject at hand. We obviously know that if a person can see a barrier, a computer will not naturally and obviously see it, because computers do not see the way people see at all, and most importantly: they can't think. If you believe otherwise, you might need to be informed that the "AI" you've been hearing about is not in any way "intelligent".

    Neither the sensors that Tesla cars are equipped with, nor the way that they process what they sense, are particularly like the way that humans process vision, nor will they be able to achieve that in the near future

    At that point, we need to consider how the Tesla computer senses objects and processes what it senses. The radar is the most important, and in this case there is not getting a good radar reflection. Radar senses metal much better than it senses concrete, because metal reflects RF. Thus, the rebar within the concrete is important. Ultrasonic is out of range until too late. The remaining sensors are optical (not LIDAR, but multi-position cameras that can produce a 3D image when they're close enough), and they aren't getting anything that looks different from an empty road ahead of them.

    Fixing this is potentially a really hard problem because it's really a problem for strong AI, which doesn't exist and we don't know how to make it.

  23. Re: several hundred feet of visibility ahead on Tesla Issues Strongest Statement Yet Blaming Driver For Deadly Autopilot Crash (abc7news.com) · · Score: 1

    I don't know for sure. It is likely however that concrete rebar or whatever other kind of railing there was edge-on to the radar.

  24. Re:several hundred feet of visibility ahead on Tesla Issues Strongest Statement Yet Blaming Driver For Deadly Autopilot Crash (abc7news.com) · · Score: 1

    Because it did not receive good radar reflections, and to lidar the barrier looked like more road.

  25. Re:Will it (finally) prioritise the user ? on 'Fuchsia Is Not Linux': Google Publishes Documentation Explaining Their New OS (xda-developers.com) · · Score: 2

    Actually, you're asking for the OS to break its promises in the name of interactivity uber alles. So, the system throws away its buffered I/O. What goes wrong after that? Quite a lot, actually.