Last 5 winners of the Hugo Best Novel: Ancillary Justice, Redshirts, Among Others, Blackout/All Clear, The Windup Girl/The City & the City.
So which ones are "message" novels?
Red Shirts sure as hell isn't. Ancillary Justice is interesting, but I certainly would consider it a hell of a lot less "mandatory message" driven than this year's The Dark Between the Stars.
THREE of the best five novellas are John C. Wright? I mean he is not a terrible writer, but seriously? That's what their team considers the best science fiction novellas published this year?
I agree they did nothing illegal. But their nominations are pretty shit compared to what was published this year. I think they managed not to include a single one of my top picks for novels, novellas, or novelettes.
Also, that nomination for Wisdom from My Internet is just embarrassing. At least as embarrassing as that dinosaur love story.
Actually, they don't flock to it because they would prefer not to have to put up with the sexism so prevalent in much of computer science/IT these days. Having been the only woman in a CS class, I can assure you that it's not fun. It gets even less fun when the teacher firmly believes that you cannot be a good programmer because of your gender. It doesn't help that many women do not feel safe in the computer lab at night.
If you think that tech is a meritocracy, you're not paying attention. If you think everyone has the same opportunities, and the same encouragement you do, you're not paying attention. If you think that there isn't discrimination against women, you're not paying attention.
But here is the interesting thing. In places where there are enough women, as a percentage, these things are not as problematic. And that is why encouraging women to enter the profession is a very good idea, and a self-reinforcing.
No, girls like flirting (just like guys do) on their OWN terms. It has no place in a professional context. At a conference, or at work, I want to be treated like a professional. If you are busy thinking about whether I'm attractive or not, you're not thinking about what I'm saying.
It's purely a reaction to comments like the ones you can read here, about how there is no such thing as a female programmer, or that female programmers suck or can't compete with the men. Think of it as counter-propaganda. It might not be true, but then neither is the statement it's refuting about the lack of ability of female programmers.
And you wonder why women don't feel welcome in the field? It's because of attitudes like yours. Between the "you're good for a woman" commentary, the "you can't be a real programmer, you've got boobs" and the stupid lechery it's a wonder any women stick it out in CS. When you boys grow up more women will join the ranks of programmers.
Really simple solution to the sexual harrassment issue: do group activities instead of one-on-ones. Talk to her in public, instead of behind a closed door. Don't touch unless you are invited to. The end.
We don't make fun of Kansas because it's rural (because it isn't, Kansas City is about as rural as Austin). We make fun of Kansas because they think it's a good idea to teach creaction science. And that would lead to a flunking grade in quite a few biology courses.
Conservatives make perfectly good scientists. And many scientists are socially, fiscally, or religiously conservative. But no reputable scientist, conservative or otherwise, will tell you that humanity has no effect on the earth.
Ms. Armstrong interviewed IT professionals at one Fortune 500 company. Based on this one set of interviews, she drew her conclusions. Maybe, just maybe, the actual environment had something to do with the women leaving. It also explains her ridiculous initial number of 41%.
Let's wait until some real scientists have a real study, shall we?
Well, it failed. The entire project, >$200M may have been toasted. What are the options?
Find a scapegoat. Claim the entire waste was due to some employee, subcontractor, part, etc.
Claim success. Claim that the real mission was accomplished, that all the data was salvaged, and that nothing particularly went wrong.
Claim providence. Show uncertainty. Emphasis on how hard the problem was to accomplish. Use big numbers. Ask to try again.
And then you have to think of the correct response:
Penalize NASA. The project failed due to NASA error, and NASA must figure out how not to fail. Error causes less funding. Success good. Failure bad.
Reward NASA. There is now more work to be done than if the probe were caught. Time to build another one, just like the last one. There is no fear in failure.
The author claims that school is a religion, so it is time to pass the hat.
Help out your local schools by donating school supplies at TrueGift Donations. You can donate cash on the "Paypal Donate" button, or ignore us and deliver what crayons, pencils, and scissors your local teacher needs.
In all of the commentary on our education system, no one has ever argued that having enough school supplies is part of the problem. Wouldn't you rather donate now than deal with the uneducated later? Once all the tax money has been spent on teachers, school buildings, administration, No Child Left Behind, etc., many teachers cannot teach basic lesson plans because of a lack of school supplies. School supply budgets for basic materials tend to run about $5 per student per year.
Great. Another Book of The Arcane.
on
Hardening Apache
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
There is a fundamental flaw with security hardening being in a separate book, sold by advertising and word of mouth, read separately and in a different medium than installation documentation, updated asynchronously, and expected to work. Would you accept a word processor with a separate book on "Master's Secrets on Keeping Your Word Processor From Crashing"?
With any luck, many hardening techniques will migrate towards the Apache installation process, or at least the Apache documentation.
Just make the system work. Spend your limited political energy insisting that people who work hard in a field you know nothing about get the technical details correct. Write your senator and congress person and insist the procedure look more like the following: - Require the soldier to acquire a legitmate absentee ballot through the regular mail. (Upside: No forging a million servicemen. Downside: Screams about huge costs of sending physical paper in a war zone. Also, military on extended operations would not receive the mail. - The ballot should have clear instructions, including a direct order from the Commander in Chief or Joint Chiefs that the soldier be allowed to make his or her own choices, that the officer should allow privacy for these choices, and that the officer should not order, insist, or inquire about the vote of anyone in his or her chain of command. Upside: clear orders in the chain of command may prevent local abuses. Downside: trivial. - The mail would have a code required to put in your email correctly. It would also have a blank where where the soldier could either keep his or her own votes or some easy hash. (Upside: no forging the sender of the email without touching the physical mail. Downside: may be too complicated for some voters). - The email responds with a "thank you for your vote, your confirmation code is: . (Upside: soldier knows he or she has voted. Downside: very little. - The voting bureau sends another physical mail to the soldier confirming this hash code. (Upside: soldier knowns vote was properly received by voting bureau without tampering. Any forgery or tampering by third parties is evident. Downside: Another expensive physical mail.)
For patents, go to the PTO site (www.uspto.gov), find a patent you like. See the listing of patents that were cited by the patent you found. Click on the patent number, they are all hyperlinked to the patent itself. You can chain back all the way.
For research papers, go to citeseer.com. Type in the title of the paper you want. Follow instructions.
Isn't it great when people actually implement those great ideas you have?
You're talking about the Serial Number, which is assigned to a patent when it is first filed. This is different from the Patent Number, which is assigned to a patent when it is issued.
Both serial numbers and patent numbers are assigned sequentially. There is an 08 series, of serial numbers, that series was filed between January of 1993 and December 1997.
The cost of filing an inter partes reexamination is $8,800. However, it requires a full request, including prior art references, written in proper format. The prior art references must *address the claims* unlike most of the ranting on Slashdot. And the "real party of interest" must also be named.
Actual cost, if you use a lawyer will probably be in the range of $20K.
Ya know, in the US the people who go to the lawyers are the ones who are out of control. Lawyers don't just up & think... hmm... today I'll sue McDonalds. They get clients coming to them, asking them to sue. McDonalds is forced to reduce the temperature of their coffee to a reasonable level (so if you spill you won't need a skin graft), and Ladder companies have to tell you how much weight the ladder will support.
There are frivolous lawsuits. There are many more unethical companies, however.
Unrelated side note: Law firms are never corporations. They are partnerships.
And here I thought the US passed the PATRIOT Act. You remember this one? The one that allowed them to get a secret search warrant, go through your house, and NEVER tell you they were there. The one that allows them to access your bank account, library records, and everything else, and actively prohibit the bank/library from telling you about it.
They have also managed to declare CITIZENS "enemy combatants" and hold them permanently without charging them with any crimes. HELLO Habeas Corpus... you know, the constitutional guarantee that you will be charged within 48 hours or released? Yeah, that one.
The Schmeissers admitted that they were aware it was RoundupReady Canola (having tested it specifically), and then they saved the seeds & sowed it the next year in their fields. THIS is what they were being sued over, not the fact that the seeds that blew onto their property germinated on their own. It was the seed saving, of known patented seeds that was considered an infringement.
And you may note, if you read the opinion, that the issue addressed was only the patentability of genetically modified seeds.
Clearly, as another posted pointed out "headhunter" writing the article has an axe to grind. After all, if we find jobs on these boards, he's not getting the outrageous fees he once got for placement (about 1/3 of your annual salary!)
Also, there is one key facet missing. Many of us, myself included, see jobs listed on Monster.com and the like. We THEN go to our friends and say "do you have a contact at company X, they have a job posted, and I'm interested." So, with a little luck, your social network works, and you end up finding out a bit more about the company. You also end up putting your resume in through that person, instead of through Monster et al. So, what does this mean? It means that Monster.com did its job in alerting you to the availability of a position. But the "statistics" cited by Mr. Headhunter would show that you got your job through a personal referral.
Slashdot Mirror
Last 5 winners of the Hugo Best Novel: Ancillary Justice, Redshirts, Among Others, Blackout/All Clear, The Windup Girl/The City & the City.
So which ones are "message" novels?
Red Shirts sure as hell isn't. Ancillary Justice is interesting, but I certainly would consider it a hell of a lot less "mandatory message" driven than this year's The Dark Between the Stars.
THREE of the best five novellas are John C. Wright? I mean he is not a terrible writer, but seriously? That's what their team considers the best science fiction novellas published this year?
I agree they did nothing illegal. But their nominations are pretty shit compared to what was published this year. I think they managed not to include a single one of my top picks for novels, novellas, or novelettes.
Also, that nomination for Wisdom from My Internet is just embarrassing. At least as embarrassing as that dinosaur love story.
Are you actually asserting that Kevin J. Anderson's book is better than the latest William Gibson?
Are you seriously going to tell me that John C. Wright wrote THREE of the best five novellas of the year?
Either you have terrible taste in science fiction or you haven't actually bothered looking at the nominees yet.
Actually, they don't flock to it because they would prefer not to have to put up with the sexism so prevalent in much of computer science/IT these days. Having been the only woman in a CS class, I can assure you that it's not fun. It gets even less fun when the teacher firmly believes that you cannot be a good programmer because of your gender. It doesn't help that many women do not feel safe in the computer lab at night.
If you think that tech is a meritocracy, you're not paying attention. If you think everyone has the same opportunities, and the same encouragement you do, you're not paying attention. If you think that there isn't discrimination against women, you're not paying attention.
But here is the interesting thing. In places where there are enough women, as a percentage, these things are not as problematic. And that is why encouraging women to enter the profession is a very good idea, and a self-reinforcing.
Rules to workplace flirting:
1) don't, unless the other party expresses interest.
2) stop immediately if the other party expresses any discomfort.
Rules to behaving like a human:
1) treat everyone with respect.
2) do not treat people disrespectfully.
Easy, isn't it.
No, girls like flirting (just like guys do) on their OWN terms. It has no place in a professional context. At a conference, or at work, I want to be treated like a professional. If you are busy thinking about whether I'm attractive or not, you're not thinking about what I'm saying.
No consent necessary. Check the bloody law before you spout off. Insightful my ass.
It's purely a reaction to comments like the ones you can read here, about how there is no such thing as a female programmer, or that female programmers suck or can't compete with the men. Think of it as counter-propaganda. It might not be true, but then neither is the statement it's refuting about the lack of ability of female programmers.
And you wonder why women don't feel welcome in the field? It's because of attitudes like yours. Between the "you're good for a woman" commentary, the "you can't be a real programmer, you've got boobs" and the stupid lechery it's a wonder any women stick it out in CS. When you boys grow up more women will join the ranks of programmers.
Really simple solution to the sexual harrassment issue: do group activities instead of one-on-ones. Talk to her in public, instead of behind a closed door. Don't touch unless you are invited to. The end.
We don't make fun of Kansas because it's rural (because it isn't, Kansas City is about as rural as Austin). We make fun of Kansas because they think it's a good idea to teach creaction science. And that would lead to a flunking grade in quite a few biology courses.
Conservatives make perfectly good scientists. And many scientists are socially, fiscally, or religiously conservative. But no reputable scientist, conservative or otherwise, will tell you that humanity has no effect on the earth.
Thalia
Ms. Armstrong interviewed IT professionals at one Fortune 500 company . Based on this one set of interviews, she drew her conclusions. Maybe, just maybe, the actual environment had something to do with the women leaving. It also explains her ridiculous initial number of 41%.
Let's wait until some real scientists have a real study, shall we?
Thalia
And then you have to think of the correct response:
Is there a correct answer?
The author claims that school is a religion, so it is time to pass the hat.
Help out your local schools by donating school supplies at TrueGift Donations. You can donate cash on the "Paypal Donate" button, or ignore us and deliver what crayons, pencils, and scissors your local teacher needs.
In all of the commentary on our education system, no one has ever argued that having enough school supplies is part of the problem. Wouldn't you rather donate now than deal with the uneducated later? Once all the tax money has been spent on teachers, school buildings, administration, No Child Left Behind, etc., many teachers cannot teach basic lesson plans because of a lack of school supplies. School supply budgets for basic materials tend to run about $5 per student per year.
There is a fundamental flaw with security hardening being in a separate book, sold by advertising and word of mouth, read separately and in a different medium than installation documentation, updated asynchronously, and expected to work. Would you accept a word processor with a separate book on "Master's Secrets on Keeping Your Word Processor From Crashing"?
With any luck, many hardening techniques will migrate towards the Apache installation process, or at least the Apache documentation.
Just make the system work. Spend your limited political energy insisting that people who work hard in a field you know nothing about get the technical details correct. Write your senator and congress person and insist the procedure look more like the following:
- Require the soldier to acquire a legitmate absentee ballot through the regular mail. (Upside: No forging a million servicemen. Downside: Screams about huge costs of sending physical paper in a war zone. Also, military on extended operations would not receive the mail.
- The ballot should have clear instructions, including a direct order from the Commander in Chief or Joint Chiefs that the soldier be allowed to make his or her own choices, that the officer should allow privacy for these choices, and that the officer should not order, insist, or inquire about the vote of anyone in his or her chain of command. Upside: clear orders in the chain of command may prevent local abuses. Downside: trivial.
- The mail would have a code required to put in your email correctly. It would also have a blank where where the soldier could either keep his or her own votes or some easy hash. (Upside: no forging the sender of the email without touching the physical mail. Downside: may be too complicated for some voters).
- The email responds with a "thank you for your vote, your confirmation code is: . (Upside: soldier knows he or she has voted. Downside: very little.
- The voting bureau sends another physical mail to the soldier confirming this hash code. (Upside: soldier knowns vote was properly received by voting bureau without tampering. Any forgery or tampering by third parties is evident. Downside: Another expensive physical mail.)
You can.
For patents, go to the PTO site (www.uspto.gov), find a patent you like. See the listing of patents that were cited by the patent you found. Click on the patent number, they are all hyperlinked to the patent itself. You can chain back all the way.
For research papers, go to citeseer.com. Type in the title of the paper you want. Follow instructions.
Isn't it great when people actually implement those great ideas you have?
You're talking about the Serial Number, which is assigned to a patent when it is first filed. This is different from the Patent Number, which is assigned to a patent when it is issued.
Both serial numbers and patent numbers are assigned sequentially. There is an 08 series, of serial numbers, that series was filed between January of 1993 and December 1997.
The cost of filing an inter partes reexamination is $8,800. However, it requires a full request, including prior art references, written in proper format. The prior art references must *address the claims* unlike most of the ranting on Slashdot. And the "real party of interest" must also be named.
Actual cost, if you use a lawyer will probably be in the range of $20K.
Thalia
Ya know, in the US the people who go to the lawyers are the ones who are out of control. Lawyers don't just up & think... hmm... today I'll sue McDonalds. They get clients coming to them, asking them to sue. McDonalds is forced to reduce the temperature of their coffee to a reasonable level (so if you spill you won't need a skin graft), and Ladder companies have to tell you how much weight the ladder will support.
There are frivolous lawsuits. There are many more unethical companies, however.
Unrelated side note: Law firms are never corporations. They are partnerships.
And here I thought the US passed the PATRIOT Act. You remember this one? The one that allowed them to get a secret search warrant, go through your house, and NEVER tell you they were there. The one that allows them to access your bank account, library records, and everything else, and actively prohibit the bank/library from telling you about it.
They have also managed to declare CITIZENS "enemy combatants" and hold them permanently without charging them with any crimes. HELLO Habeas Corpus... you know, the constitutional guarantee that you will be charged within 48 hours or released? Yeah, that one.
Grow up & look around you.
The Schmeissers admitted that they were aware it was RoundupReady Canola (having tested it specifically), and then they saved the seeds & sowed it the next year in their fields. THIS is what they were being sued over, not the fact that the seeds that blew onto their property germinated on their own. It was the seed saving, of known patented seeds that was considered an infringement.
And you may note, if you read the opinion, that the issue addressed was only the patentability of genetically modified seeds.
Thalia
Clearly, as another posted pointed out "headhunter" writing the article has an axe to grind. After all, if we find jobs on these boards, he's not getting the outrageous fees he once got for placement (about 1/3 of your annual salary!)
Also, there is one key facet missing. Many of us, myself included, see jobs listed on Monster.com and the like. We THEN go to our friends and say "do you have a contact at company X, they have a job posted, and I'm interested." So, with a little luck, your social network works, and you end up finding out a bit more about the company. You also end up putting your resume in through that person, instead of through Monster et al. So, what does this mean? It means that Monster.com did its job in alerting you to the availability of a position. But the "statistics" cited by Mr. Headhunter would show that you got your job through a personal referral.
Bad statistics lead to bad results.
Thalia
If you actually look at the Thinkgeek USB watch, you'll find that it's the SAME watch.
Which, by the way, looks mighty uncomfortable. Look at the back of the band. It has this huge line on it for the USB cable. Ouch.
T.