It's been said a bunch of times in the comments section, but if you're going to refer to the 'Android' marketshare when talking about how they dominate the market, you have to talk about the 'Android' failure rate as well to make things equal.
If you want to talk about the 'high-end, not-crap' failure rate, you can only talk about the 'high-end, not crap' marketshare of Android phones.
I'm not sure what your point is here. The article basically claims you should call yourself an 'engineer' instead of a 'programmer'. These comments are (correctly) pointing out that you shouldn't be calling yourself an engineer unless you actually HOLD that designation. It's misleading at best, and outright illegal at worst.
Augh. It's not protectionism, it's a designation that brings with it certain legal rights and RESPONSIBILITIES. From the link which you CLEARLY didn't read:
"Affixing the seal on documents and drawings indicates the documents and drawings are final for the intended purpose and have been prepared by or under the supervision of a person licensed to practise professional engineering who is assuming responsibility for them. By sealing documents and drawings, licence holders acknowledge that they assume professional responsibility for the design, opinions, judgments or directions given in the documents and drawings. The seal is a "mark of reliance," indicating that a licence holder attests that other people can rely on the information provided in the documents and drawings."
You're not 'joining a club', you're being certified by an organisation that has the expertise to know whether or not you're qualified to handle that sort of responsibility.
I don't doubt it, but not everyone has big hands. With the way I happen to cradle my phone, even my fairly long fingers have to stretch a bit to reach the extremities. With a bigger screen, I'd either have to adjust my grip (certainly something I'd be willing to do; don't get me wrong) or use the phone with two hands. Most of the people I know have hands smaller than mine, so I suspect that the 3.5" screen size is very deliberate. You don't want people STRETCHING to get to the extremities; it should be comfortable and natural.
I don't know how big your hands are, but there's a pretty good reason why the iPhone still has a 3.5" screen and will probably never have one that's bigger.
It's worth noting that my own handspan is about 21cm, or 8.25 inches. I could use only a slightly larger screen without being able to touch the furthest corner away while holding the phone one handed. The iPhone screen is going to be nearly perfect for most of the population.
You replied to yourself about Apple shilling, and got modded up to 4/5-insightful? I call BS; you have some extra accounts with modding points out there?
Why is everything iPod compatible? Because basically everyone owns an iPod. And because there are so many iPod owners out there, people build devices compatible with the iPod because that's a really good way to make money. It doesn't take much to realise that it's profitable to produce products for a large market that's already proven that it has disposable income to spare.
The iPod still owns something like 3/4 of the portable MP3 player market and has sold millions and millions of units. Surely you can see how that could be leveraged to make some money.
Kobo's books are sold in ePub format, which means you can put them on a lot of different devices without having to convert them. Moreover, in Canada, there are licensing problems that Kobo doesn't seem to have.
Lastly, Kobo's books tend to be cheaper for the same thing. I've bought books from Kobo that cost me $1 or $2 that would have cost me $5-10 if I had a Kindle.
Kobo's a better book store; Amazon-Kindle is arguably a better contained system.
But both the Fire and the Vox are stupid devices. I bought an eReader for the eInk display. If I want to burn my eyes reading content, I'll do it on my iPhone or desktop computer.:/
It's an old story at this point, but Batman: Arkham Asylum was originally a rhythm game, of sorts. They worked out fight mechanics by having blocks collide against one another until the timing felt right. Easy idea, long iteration time. Tweaking for 'feel' is hard, but can ultimately make an exceptional experience.
But the story also goes that the game was fun even with coloured blocks and not full characters, so I agree with you to a point.:)
He talks about slashing the military budget all the time. He's often on about the 'military industrial complex', and the current state of US foreign policy. He's basically the only Republican candidate that never wanted to get involved in the current wars and demands ending the wars as they stand right now.
I'm a Canadian looking in, but I've heard LOTS about Paul wanting to cut back on the military.
Man, if that's the way you feel, write your own fucking games.
Seriously, these people don't OWE you source code. That's NOT the product you're being sold. If the game doesn't work, or it sucks, or whatever, too bad. They're selling you a finished product, for good or for ill.
If you want game companies to sell you the source code for games that they write, mail them and tell them that THAT'S the product you want to buy. But don't get confused and think that the source is the product you're entitled to. It's just a means to an end. If they were, instead, prodding faeries with popsicle sticks to get them to magically create games, the game itself would still be the final product, not the process or the infrastructure.
You're paying for the time and expertise of these people. You're paying for their SERVICE of creating the game. It takes quite a few people to make a pretty good game. You're paying them for their time and the infrastructure they have to maintain and the time and money they've put into making themselves game developers. The fact that you happen to understand what source code does is irrelevant. I think you should be allowed to manipulate the final product: the packaged art and executable, but you're not entitled to any of the original material in the least.
I don't understand how on one hand, you want companies to put the effort in to making a game, but on the other, if you don't happen to agree with the final product, you'd like them to just cede all the code and control to you. You want them to come up with the idea for a game, make some art and infrastructure for you to play in, and then just HAND IT OVER. What planet do you live on?
But, hey, you can think what you like. And you can do what you like. But seriously, if this is the sort of ecosystem you want, DO IT YOURSELF. I don't know how you'd make a living at it, or even get any satisfaction from it, but this is something you'll have to do on your own. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you're the next Steve Jobs and this is the natural evolution of the games industry.
But please, stop throwing around pejoratives like 'clueless' and don't tell me that I'm 'indifferent' about games, or that ANY game developer is indifferent about the things they make. It's incredibly rude and presumptuous.
I'm not just a programmer, I make video games for a living! I've been involved in Triple-A RPGs, a third person shooter, and recently, a kinect fitness game.
I play games on my iPhone. I play Dungeons of Dreadmore and Angband (both roguelikes). I enjoyed Portal, but haven't bothered playing Portal 2 yet. I spent years playing WoW, and I'll play the living crap out of Diablo III when it comes out. I like racing games, but I tend not to buy them; I don't have a racing wheel or the time to be good at the games. I loved Batman: Arkham Asylum, especially for the way the game solves such common game problems. I enjoy a lot of games both for the pure enjoyment of them and also to figure out how they solved certain problems common in my industry.
Really, the claim that these are 'games programmers play' is ridiculous. What about the sports programmers play? The foods programmers eat? Man, we're all just individual people. Today, I played a bit of Tiny Tower on my iPhone, and a card game called Ascension, and did a bike race in the afternoon. What does THAT mean?
What's that? We're all different? And there are many different kinds of programmers? And pigeonholing a group is the worst sort of abuse of statistics, AT BEST?
Abstractly, it sounds like the game might be neat, but that's a stupid title for the story.
That's a ridiculous statement. I can familiarize you with a pathologically bad system of doing things and then replace it with a new system that's much better. Usability will increase because now you're using the right tool for a job. Just because you're used to banging in a screw with a hammer doesn't mean that showing you a screwdriver makes the job harder.
For a more computer relevant example, we could look at the switch between the original command line and the first GUIs. Or tabs in our web browsers. Unfamiliarity didn't make those things worse to use.
Frankly, this is what Apple always capitalized on. There are ways to make things better.
No, the camera is on the back, and the volume controls are on the side. It really takes no effort in particular to use the volume button.
I've been running iOS 5 beta for a while on my iPhone 4 for a while. You'll note that the iOS 5 upgrade doesn't magically upgrade my hardware, so re-using the volume button on the phone is actually pretty nice. And for the sake of consistency, you may as well use it on the new phones, too. And that means no dedicated shutter button that may actually never be used, or accidentally pressed while someone is using their phone. You won't get a picture of the inside of your pocket.
I had a Sony camera-phone for a few years, with a dedicated shutter button. The experience isn't markedly better than using the volume button.
Apple refuses to let flash run on its iOS (and only iOS, right now) platforms because it's been a resource hog and security concern on its desktop OSes for years. They refuse to let a 3rd party application with a history of ruining the user experience onto a new platform that has a much more limited user experience, and which fewer resources and greater constraints
This isn't about Apple being the big bad mean tech company, this is about Adobe putting out a sub-standard product that drains battery life, causes crashes, opens up security holes, and otherwise ruins the web experience when things start to go sideways.
You know what else Apple tries to prevent from running on its OSes that have those same characteristics? VIRUSES. The fact that Flash has a potentially beneficial side effect doesn't actually sufficiently counter the downsides of running such an unbelievably poorly implemented piece of software. Apple has forced web developers to move on from an old and busted technology that was incumbent and thereby dominant to new technologies that are more secure, less resource hungry and more stable.
Flash was junk 10 years ago. The REAL failing of Flash is that it REMAINED junk for 10 years. Maybe if Adobe had found a way to fix their shit, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now, but it is what it is. Apple has not only the right but the responsibility to attempt to protect its customers from malicious software—even malicious software masquerading as useful software—when possible. Microsoft, too.
Well, the DSG design will slowly supplant the ordinary torque converter. It was a decent solution for the time, but it's not great anymore. It's just a matter of cost and adoption. It's harder, obviously, to make a DSG transmission because it involves a computer working very quickly to swap cogs in and out, whereas a torque converter is just a mechanical solution.
Not so ridiculous. You can see the effect in Europe, where half of all cars sold are diesels because of their superior fuel economy.
What you're ACTUALLY complaining about is that your mobility is restricted. Your mobility is restricted because even though many people are ALREADY in the situation of not being able to afford a car, most of the money spent by the government on 'transportation' is really just spent on highway infrastructure and roads.
Of course your mobility is restricted; there's a really limited number of ways to get from point A to point B if you don't have a car. MORE cars isn't actually the answer, believe it or not.
Trains, more effective city planning (that would let you be close to work AND amenities without a massive commute), busses, bike lanes, other forms of public transportation...that's what we need.
I agree that this is probably a bad time to raise the price of fuel, but we really can't afford to put it off that much longer, either.:/
It's pretty obvious that women were not really welcome in the workplace, especially when they were taking GOOD jobs that MEN could be doing. It was okay as long as women were secretaries and fetching coffee, but being a good programmer means taking on a measure of responsibility and power. If you promote a woman over a man, you're giving her some measure of power over that man, and for a long time, that was extremely discomfiting for the establishment.
Social norms have changed now. Well, mostly. I've still never had a boss that was female. (I make video games for a living.)
Capitalism in North America is about the profits, sure, but you're going to claim that every decision was exactly maximized to lift profits, even in the face of societal norms? Have you seen how many gay people have had to fight for benefits and the right to hold a job and not be fired because someone in the office is 'uncomfortable' with 'that kind of person'? Things are changing, but they're not quite equal yet, and they certainly haven't been equal all this time up until now.
Re:Lets run the fogcreek numbers per hiring catego
on
Girls Go Geek Again
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· Score: 1
I'll preface this comment by saying that my data was correct AT THE TIME, but it's been many years now since I bothered with the research.
In any case, I became interested in the statistics Canada database for a week or two a few years back. It had accurate census data on peoples' professions, how much they made, etc., etc. It wasn't a survey, so you didn't have to correct for statistical error or any of that garbage.
What I found was that even in female-dominated industries, like Nursing, the people making the most money were men. Even though they were a smaller proportion of the workforce, they were promoted faster and usually off into a desk job (which is a bit of a waste, honestly; one of the things most liked about male nurses is that they tend to be bigger and can do a lot of heavy tasks more easily. Nursing ain't easy).
Some of the problem is that we don't know where the inequality exists, precisely, and the factors involved in it. We're conditioned very differently as children, and that influences the way that we look at one another as adults. Certain things are expected of women, and certain other things are expected of men.
I shouldn't need to tell you that while your anecdote is a good story, it's not statistically relevant. Is this sort of thing systematic, or is it just one institution? Are you sure that the personality test you were subject to WASN'T the best way to select for that environment? You may think that the requirements are only technical, but then again, you're not running the place, and you could be wrong.
Be sympathetic AND work to change the unjust system in both directions. Why leave it up to others? Can you really think of no way to help other than to complain on slashdot about a job that didn't really go your way?
The design you're talking about is commonly referred to as a "dual-clutch" gearbox. When you're in gear, the transmission also simultaneously selects the next gear in line, when you (or it) shifts, it disengages the current gear and puts the "on-deck" gear into play. The shifts are fast and nearly imperceptible.
VW markets this as a DSG transmission. You'll find it under various names. You can often get a car with such a transmission with paddles on the steering wheel (the so-called "flappy-paddle gearbox"), so you don't have to reach down to the transmission lever to shift.
It's all very clever. This system allows for both automatic shifting by the car, OR semi-automatic control by the driver (within certain constraints; most systems won't let you select a gear that will damage the engine).
Steve Jobs' innovation is that he actually cares about the interface to the products. He has a sense of design, and he makes sure that it reaches the customer.
Human-Computer interfaces is not an easy field. There are a lot of pitfalls, and there are a lot of things that people do with computers that feel subjectively good, but are objectively worse for them.
That Jobs has the sense to realise this early on and hire people that could hammer out effective specs is a big thing all on its own. He seems to have a gift for knowing attractive, usable, desirable products when he sees them. If he were an artist, we'd all praise his aesthetic sense. He's hired excellent people to do the hard work and iterate on the products, but so few other people do that. It's not wasted effort. I know that we're all a bunch of Unix/Linux geeks here, and the only thing we need is a command line and an xterm to be happy, but Apple has moved design—well, in a direction; 'forward' is subjective, but I'll call it that anyway—forward when everyone else was cranking out technically excellent hardware that nobody wanted to use. Now touch-screen phones are everywhere.
Praise Steve Jobs for the excellent work that he's done. You don't even have to LIKE it to realise the influence and the importance of it. He may not be the guy actually putting the hardware together or coding the OS, but he's managed to bring all those people together and make a product that's easy to use and that people not in the tech industry DESIRE. Don't short-change the man by relegating him to a mere 'salesman'.
Slashdot Mirror
It's been said a bunch of times in the comments section, but if you're going to refer to the 'Android' marketshare when talking about how they dominate the market, you have to talk about the 'Android' failure rate as well to make things equal.
If you want to talk about the 'high-end, not-crap' failure rate, you can only talk about the 'high-end, not crap' marketshare of Android phones.
I'm not sure what your point is here. The article basically claims you should call yourself an 'engineer' instead of a 'programmer'. These comments are (correctly) pointing out that you shouldn't be calling yourself an engineer unless you actually HOLD that designation. It's misleading at best, and outright illegal at worst.
Augh. It's not protectionism, it's a designation that brings with it certain legal rights and RESPONSIBILITIES. From the link which you CLEARLY didn't read:
"Affixing the seal on documents and drawings indicates the documents and drawings are final for the intended purpose and have been prepared by or under the supervision of a person licensed to practise professional engineering who is assuming responsibility for them. By sealing documents and drawings, licence holders acknowledge that they assume professional responsibility for the design, opinions, judgments or directions given in the documents and drawings. The seal is a "mark of reliance," indicating that a licence holder attests that other people can rely on the information provided in the documents and drawings."
You're not 'joining a club', you're being certified by an organisation that has the expertise to know whether or not you're qualified to handle that sort of responsibility.
I don't doubt it, but not everyone has big hands. With the way I happen to cradle my phone, even my fairly long fingers have to stretch a bit to reach the extremities. With a bigger screen, I'd either have to adjust my grip (certainly something I'd be willing to do; don't get me wrong) or use the phone with two hands. Most of the people I know have hands smaller than mine, so I suspect that the 3.5" screen size is very deliberate. You don't want people STRETCHING to get to the extremities; it should be comfortable and natural.
I don't know how big your hands are, but there's a pretty good reason why the iPhone still has a 3.5" screen and will probably never have one that's bigger.
http://dcurt.is/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches/
It's worth noting that my own handspan is about 21cm, or 8.25 inches. I could use only a slightly larger screen without being able to touch the furthest corner away while holding the phone one handed. The iPhone screen is going to be nearly perfect for most of the population.
This is why I think the Microsoft system is the best one. They control the OS updates, but allow vendors to compete on the hardware.
I own an iPhone myself, but I admit that sometimes the shiny new hardware of the Android phones tempts me. But it doesn't tempt me enough.
As for Windows phones, well, I think the system they've decided on is best, but I don't think that their OS or experience is best.
You replied to yourself about Apple shilling, and got modded up to 4/5-insightful? I call BS; you have some extra accounts with modding points out there?
Why is everything iPod compatible? Because basically everyone owns an iPod. And because there are so many iPod owners out there, people build devices compatible with the iPod because that's a really good way to make money. It doesn't take much to realise that it's profitable to produce products for a large market that's already proven that it has disposable income to spare.
The iPod still owns something like 3/4 of the portable MP3 player market and has sold millions and millions of units. Surely you can see how that could be leveraged to make some money.
Kobo's books are sold in ePub format, which means you can put them on a lot of different devices without having to convert them. Moreover, in Canada, there are licensing problems that Kobo doesn't seem to have.
Lastly, Kobo's books tend to be cheaper for the same thing. I've bought books from Kobo that cost me $1 or $2 that would have cost me $5-10 if I had a Kindle.
Kobo's a better book store; Amazon-Kindle is arguably a better contained system.
But both the Fire and the Vox are stupid devices. I bought an eReader for the eInk display. If I want to burn my eyes reading content, I'll do it on my iPhone or desktop computer. :/
It's an old story at this point, but Batman: Arkham Asylum was originally a rhythm game, of sorts. They worked out fight mechanics by having blocks collide against one another until the timing felt right. Easy idea, long iteration time. Tweaking for 'feel' is hard, but can ultimately make an exceptional experience.
But the story also goes that the game was fun even with coloured blocks and not full characters, so I agree with you to a point. :)
He talks about slashing the military budget all the time. He's often on about the 'military industrial complex', and the current state of US foreign policy. He's basically the only Republican candidate that never wanted to get involved in the current wars and demands ending the wars as they stand right now.
I'm a Canadian looking in, but I've heard LOTS about Paul wanting to cut back on the military.
You shouldn't be zooming at all, actually, since it's all done in software, and like most small cameras, there is no optical zoom.
Take the picture at the normal size and crop it later. All the zoom bar does is pre-crop the image for you.
Additionally, who zooms WHILE taking the picture? Zoom, then click. The screen wobble problem is a complete non-starter.
Man, if that's the way you feel, write your own fucking games.
Seriously, these people don't OWE you source code. That's NOT the product you're being sold. If the game doesn't work, or it sucks, or whatever, too bad. They're selling you a finished product, for good or for ill.
If you want game companies to sell you the source code for games that they write, mail them and tell them that THAT'S the product you want to buy. But don't get confused and think that the source is the product you're entitled to. It's just a means to an end. If they were, instead, prodding faeries with popsicle sticks to get them to magically create games, the game itself would still be the final product, not the process or the infrastructure.
You're paying for the time and expertise of these people. You're paying for their SERVICE of creating the game. It takes quite a few people to make a pretty good game. You're paying them for their time and the infrastructure they have to maintain and the time and money they've put into making themselves game developers. The fact that you happen to understand what source code does is irrelevant. I think you should be allowed to manipulate the final product: the packaged art and executable, but you're not entitled to any of the original material in the least.
I don't understand how on one hand, you want companies to put the effort in to making a game, but on the other, if you don't happen to agree with the final product, you'd like them to just cede all the code and control to you. You want them to come up with the idea for a game, make some art and infrastructure for you to play in, and then just HAND IT OVER. What planet do you live on?
But, hey, you can think what you like. And you can do what you like. But seriously, if this is the sort of ecosystem you want, DO IT YOURSELF. I don't know how you'd make a living at it, or even get any satisfaction from it, but this is something you'll have to do on your own. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you're the next Steve Jobs and this is the natural evolution of the games industry.
But please, stop throwing around pejoratives like 'clueless' and don't tell me that I'm 'indifferent' about games, or that ANY game developer is indifferent about the things they make. It's incredibly rude and presumptuous.
I'm not just a programmer, I make video games for a living! I've been involved in Triple-A RPGs, a third person shooter, and recently, a kinect fitness game.
I play games on my iPhone. I play Dungeons of Dreadmore and Angband (both roguelikes). I enjoyed Portal, but haven't bothered playing Portal 2 yet. I spent years playing WoW, and I'll play the living crap out of Diablo III when it comes out. I like racing games, but I tend not to buy them; I don't have a racing wheel or the time to be good at the games. I loved Batman: Arkham Asylum, especially for the way the game solves such common game problems. I enjoy a lot of games both for the pure enjoyment of them and also to figure out how they solved certain problems common in my industry.
Really, the claim that these are 'games programmers play' is ridiculous. What about the sports programmers play? The foods programmers eat? Man, we're all just individual people. Today, I played a bit of Tiny Tower on my iPhone, and a card game called Ascension, and did a bike race in the afternoon. What does THAT mean?
What's that? We're all different? And there are many different kinds of programmers? And pigeonholing a group is the worst sort of abuse of statistics, AT BEST?
Abstractly, it sounds like the game might be neat, but that's a stupid title for the story.
That's a ridiculous statement. I can familiarize you with a pathologically bad system of doing things and then replace it with a new system that's much better. Usability will increase because now you're using the right tool for a job. Just because you're used to banging in a screw with a hammer doesn't mean that showing you a screwdriver makes the job harder.
For a more computer relevant example, we could look at the switch between the original command line and the first GUIs. Or tabs in our web browsers. Unfamiliarity didn't make those things worse to use.
Frankly, this is what Apple always capitalized on. There are ways to make things better.
No, the camera is on the back, and the volume controls are on the side. It really takes no effort in particular to use the volume button.
I've been running iOS 5 beta for a while on my iPhone 4 for a while. You'll note that the iOS 5 upgrade doesn't magically upgrade my hardware, so re-using the volume button on the phone is actually pretty nice. And for the sake of consistency, you may as well use it on the new phones, too. And that means no dedicated shutter button that may actually never be used, or accidentally pressed while someone is using their phone. You won't get a picture of the inside of your pocket.
I had a Sony camera-phone for a few years, with a dedicated shutter button. The experience isn't markedly better than using the volume button.
I'm sorry, but this is a humungous pile of crap.
Apple refuses to let flash run on its iOS (and only iOS, right now) platforms because it's been a resource hog and security concern on its desktop OSes for years. They refuse to let a 3rd party application with a history of ruining the user experience onto a new platform that has a much more limited user experience, and which fewer resources and greater constraints
This isn't about Apple being the big bad mean tech company, this is about Adobe putting out a sub-standard product that drains battery life, causes crashes, opens up security holes, and otherwise ruins the web experience when things start to go sideways.
You know what else Apple tries to prevent from running on its OSes that have those same characteristics? VIRUSES. The fact that Flash has a potentially beneficial side effect doesn't actually sufficiently counter the downsides of running such an unbelievably poorly implemented piece of software. Apple has forced web developers to move on from an old and busted technology that was incumbent and thereby dominant to new technologies that are more secure, less resource hungry and more stable.
Flash was junk 10 years ago. The REAL failing of Flash is that it REMAINED junk for 10 years. Maybe if Adobe had found a way to fix their shit, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now, but it is what it is. Apple has not only the right but the responsibility to attempt to protect its customers from malicious software—even malicious software masquerading as useful software—when possible. Microsoft, too.
Well, the DSG design will slowly supplant the ordinary torque converter. It was a decent solution for the time, but it's not great anymore. It's just a matter of cost and adoption. It's harder, obviously, to make a DSG transmission because it involves a computer working very quickly to swap cogs in and out, whereas a torque converter is just a mechanical solution.
Not so ridiculous. You can see the effect in Europe, where half of all cars sold are diesels because of their superior fuel economy.
What you're ACTUALLY complaining about is that your mobility is restricted. Your mobility is restricted because even though many people are ALREADY in the situation of not being able to afford a car, most of the money spent by the government on 'transportation' is really just spent on highway infrastructure and roads.
Of course your mobility is restricted; there's a really limited number of ways to get from point A to point B if you don't have a car. MORE cars isn't actually the answer, believe it or not.
Trains, more effective city planning (that would let you be close to work AND amenities without a massive commute), busses, bike lanes, other forms of public transportation...that's what we need.
I agree that this is probably a bad time to raise the price of fuel, but we really can't afford to put it off that much longer, either. :/
I wish I could score you up higher. Thanks for saying what everyone else is thinking.
It's pretty obvious that women were not really welcome in the workplace, especially when they were taking GOOD jobs that MEN could be doing. It was okay as long as women were secretaries and fetching coffee, but being a good programmer means taking on a measure of responsibility and power. If you promote a woman over a man, you're giving her some measure of power over that man, and for a long time, that was extremely discomfiting for the establishment.
Social norms have changed now. Well, mostly. I've still never had a boss that was female. (I make video games for a living.)
Capitalism in North America is about the profits, sure, but you're going to claim that every decision was exactly maximized to lift profits, even in the face of societal norms? Have you seen how many gay people have had to fight for benefits and the right to hold a job and not be fired because someone in the office is 'uncomfortable' with 'that kind of person'? Things are changing, but they're not quite equal yet, and they certainly haven't been equal all this time up until now.
"Intents and purposes", not "intensive purposes".
I'll preface this comment by saying that my data was correct AT THE TIME, but it's been many years now since I bothered with the research.
In any case, I became interested in the statistics Canada database for a week or two a few years back. It had accurate census data on peoples' professions, how much they made, etc., etc. It wasn't a survey, so you didn't have to correct for statistical error or any of that garbage.
What I found was that even in female-dominated industries, like Nursing, the people making the most money were men. Even though they were a smaller proportion of the workforce, they were promoted faster and usually off into a desk job (which is a bit of a waste, honestly; one of the things most liked about male nurses is that they tend to be bigger and can do a lot of heavy tasks more easily. Nursing ain't easy).
Some of the problem is that we don't know where the inequality exists, precisely, and the factors involved in it. We're conditioned very differently as children, and that influences the way that we look at one another as adults. Certain things are expected of women, and certain other things are expected of men.
I shouldn't need to tell you that while your anecdote is a good story, it's not statistically relevant. Is this sort of thing systematic, or is it just one institution? Are you sure that the personality test you were subject to WASN'T the best way to select for that environment? You may think that the requirements are only technical, but then again, you're not running the place, and you could be wrong.
Be sympathetic AND work to change the unjust system in both directions. Why leave it up to others? Can you really think of no way to help other than to complain on slashdot about a job that didn't really go your way?
Automatics don't waste fuel, torque converters waste fuel.
The design you're talking about is commonly referred to as a "dual-clutch" gearbox. When you're in gear, the transmission also simultaneously selects the next gear in line, when you (or it) shifts, it disengages the current gear and puts the "on-deck" gear into play. The shifts are fast and nearly imperceptible.
VW markets this as a DSG transmission. You'll find it under various names. You can often get a car with such a transmission with paddles on the steering wheel (the so-called "flappy-paddle gearbox"), so you don't have to reach down to the transmission lever to shift.
It's all very clever. This system allows for both automatic shifting by the car, OR semi-automatic control by the driver (within certain constraints; most systems won't let you select a gear that will damage the engine).
Steve Jobs' innovation is that he actually cares about the interface to the products. He has a sense of design, and he makes sure that it reaches the customer.
Human-Computer interfaces is not an easy field. There are a lot of pitfalls, and there are a lot of things that people do with computers that feel subjectively good, but are objectively worse for them.
That Jobs has the sense to realise this early on and hire people that could hammer out effective specs is a big thing all on its own. He seems to have a gift for knowing attractive, usable, desirable products when he sees them. If he were an artist, we'd all praise his aesthetic sense. He's hired excellent people to do the hard work and iterate on the products, but so few other people do that. It's not wasted effort. I know that we're all a bunch of Unix/Linux geeks here, and the only thing we need is a command line and an xterm to be happy, but Apple has moved design—well, in a direction; 'forward' is subjective, but I'll call it that anyway—forward when everyone else was cranking out technically excellent hardware that nobody wanted to use. Now touch-screen phones are everywhere.
Praise Steve Jobs for the excellent work that he's done. You don't even have to LIKE it to realise the influence and the importance of it. He may not be the guy actually putting the hardware together or coding the OS, but he's managed to bring all those people together and make a product that's easy to use and that people not in the tech industry DESIRE. Don't short-change the man by relegating him to a mere 'salesman'.