An ex post facto law need not criminalize anything. Even laws that add additional punishments after sentencing are considered an ex post facto law.
That ship sailed years ago. Basically they pretend all of those new punishments aren't punishments. Up to and including indefinite imprisonment. It started with the Gun Control Act of 1968 (forbidding felons from owning guns, even if they were convicted prior to the law) and it came to completion in 2006 with U.S. v. Comstock, allowing indefinite detention of convicted sex offenders after completing their sentence.
Are they going to ration power? Black out selected parts of the country to help keep the demand in check with the new available supply? Eliminate enough power generation technology, and you suddenly send your nation back to pre-Industrial Revolution economy... not good for a country that is the current technological leader of the entire planet.
The missing option you're looking for is "outsource even more power-hungry industry to China".
I get what you're saying about the legalities, but this really isn't a copyright issue, is it? This kid isn't attempting to publish the books or claim authorship, he's reselling.
No, it's a copyright issue. The content industries (and the appeals court) take the position that while copyright protection applies across the entire Berne convention, that copyright exhaustion -- the idea that by selling a particular copy, the copyright holder no longer can control distribution of that particular copy -- applies on a country by country basis. And that therefore importing a copy of a copyrighted item without the permission of the copyright holder, even when that item was lawfully sold in the country of origin in the first place, is illegal.
It's absolutely unjust and ridiculous (just like much of copyright law) -- which means the Supreme Court will probably support it.
White males have been, and continue to be, in a position of privilege.
Are we, now? I'm afraid someone didn't let me in on the secret handshake to get the privileges. Either that, or I'm just not white enough. Either way, I object to being attacked under the cover of "erosion of privilege".
I like being able to discuss things of a geeky nature at work too, but it's not the end of the world if you can't as there's plenty of other outlets for that kind of thing. If you truly love what you do as a developer (assuming you are one) then it shouldn't matter whether or not it plays nice to your subculture of choice.
Nothing's the end of the world short of the end of the world, but that doesn't mean things aren't seriously undesirable. And it most certainly does matter to me whether I (and the other developers around) have to either conform to the mainstream culture or be sanctioned for creating an unwelcoming work environment.
It's much harder to beat up on geeks for driving out blacks, hispanics, and LGBTs, so those articles are less likely to end up on slashdot. There actually have been quite a few complaints about the absence of blacks, however -- search for "blacks in silicon valley".
I'm reflecting what society has collectively decided with sufficient agreement to enact into laws.
Oh, so you're trolling. Since it's pretty clear there aren't laws against humming "Ocarina of Time", nor having Star Wars action figures in one's cubicle, nor wearing video game T-shirts to work.
Hm... I always relied on guidelines that were more or less directly opposite of that. An intriguing suggestion, though.
Which points to one way of looking at it... "society" has been telling male geeks in no uncertain terms that if you act like a geek you're not going to be popular with most women. Conform or suffer shunning. The geeks who remain geeks have decided we can live with that. Now we're being told that since women don't like our geekiness, WE are, by being geeky, excluding them, and should cut it out. Somehow this seems backwards.
The statement was that "using the term 'brogrammer' is as insulting as sexism." I pointed out that it is not some "made up term" that this article invented - there are people out there using the word, in earnest.
This article didn't invent the term, but it is just some "made up term", to describe a culture which doesn't really exist. The whole thing is a gag. If there's anyone using the term in earnest, they have been trolled.
I see, so you're saying that the presence of bigotry is something that's acceptable - as long as it's at low levels? I'm realistic enough to know you will never "eradicate" bigoted behavior, but that doesn't mean a good public shaming isn't in order for the small number of idiotic fools who happen to live in your community.
Bigotry isn't acceptable, but it is unavoidable in any large group. But shaming the whole community over the presence of a few bigots is counterproductive.
There's your problem. The majority of women drop out of the workforce for a period of several years in the middle of their careers, and in male autistic dominated developing environments have difficulty explaining the gap on their resume.
That's crap. Resume gaps are a problem in every field, and the objections to candidates with such gaps aren't made by the developers, they're made by HR screeners and pointy-haired bosses.
No reason for women, Blacks, Latinos to miss out on these good jobs and their good salaries and benefits, just because you aren't into the idea of changing 'your' subculture at all. Regardless of whether you like to or not, there are a lot of good people out there who want to encourage the BEST minds out there, not just the minds that previously watched Star Trek and played video games and happen to be attached to bodies with penises. So although you may not be interested in lifting even a baby finger to change the subculture, the hope is that the majority of tech folks are good people who DO want to welcome those best minds, and are willing to make minor changes to their conversation in order to make major demographic changes.
Just what is it about video games and Star Trek (or Star Wars) that drives women, blacks, and Latinos out? Should workplaces have rules preventing discussion of those subjects in order to provide a more welcoming environment to women, blacks, and latinos? And if they did so, wouldn't that create a hostile environemnt for the existing geeks?
This subject tends to make men believe they are being accused of being sexist.
And that belief is accurate.
So when it is suggested that we need to make special efforts to attract women to the IT industry it is not necessarily to redress a active sexist attitudes on a matter of principle or to be PC, but rather a simple and pragmatic approach to getting the other half of the population to contribute to the IT industry.
If that were the case, it actually would be a matter of principle, and arguably PC. But this article argues it isn't, that we men are actively driving women out. And, amusingly, that we're doing it through a culture which doesn't exist, except as a bunch of joke pages and videos -- "brogramming".
Now you could argue that many women believe that "brogramming" culture really exists and are put off by it, but it's been around less than a year, so it's hardly the cause of the problem. And you could argue (though I'd disagree) that the joke itself is sexist, but the same issue applies.
I left slashdot for a couple of years because I got sick of the misogynistic comments, and to be honest I don't know why I'm reading slashdot comments again as it's a huge waste of time.
Far as I can tell the misogynistic comments come mostly from two groups, trolls and divorcees. And misogynistic divorcees aren't strictly a geek thing by any means.
From that web page I originally misread the statement "Women: Need another beer? Let one of our friendly (female) event staff get that for you" as attempting to target women and wondered why I should care about the gender of the beer server. Needless to say when the intended meaning sunk in I was kind of wondering WTF these people are thinking.
Yeah, and a lot of people thought the same thing, which is why they lost sponsors.
Another occasionally reoccurring instance of sexism are the guys bonding by joking over how their wives act. I am standing in a circle with a few other guys after a sales meeting who all have probably a minimum of 20 years on me and they are talking about their "honey-do" list and I'm thinking to myself this is good example of some of the BS women don't want to put up with.
You lost all credibility with me here. Why would you think that's sexism? It's certainly a cultural clash, but an unmarried man your age would have been equally excluded.
Some other woman, a sysadmin, told me she made a point of wearing low cut business clothes (which should be an oxymoron) every couple of months so that people would take her more seriously. She also said she had more successful interviews when she went wearing that getup as opposed to more normal clothing. If that's not sexism I don't know what is. Personally it's not a theory I want to test.
Hmm... so a woman uses her physical appearance to gain an advantage in interviews, and it's the fault of men for falling for it?
I'm just pointing out that our subculture makes people outside that group feel uncomfortable, and shy away from it as a life choice.
Not really a valid complaint in and of itself. Asking geeks to give up geek subculture as a whole so others feel more welcome is unreasonable.
Why should a professional work environment have any cultural aspects, which honestly, having nothing to do with the work at hand?
Because it's difficult and counterproductive to render a workplace that sterile. The places where it is done are traditionally jobs people hate -- telemarketer comes to mind.
If we as an industry think that diversity is important, I think making others feel welcome is important.
If someone entering the field doesn't want to laugh at my geeky jokes, that's fine. If that person doesn't like my choice in T-shirts, that's their problem. If they don't understand why anyone would argue over an editor, that's fine too. But if they want me to change all these things so they can feel comfortable, they can go screw themselves, and I mean that in a perfectly gender-neutral way.
I don't think geek culture as a whole is hostile to women. It's true that most women find geeks 'weird' -- but most non-geeks find geeks weird.
Then don't go into programming, because without even SEEING a single software company's staff, I can guarantee you that female programmers are NOT attractive. On average, I bet my house that they are less attractive than the average woman.
I'd take that bet, except that demonstrating otherwise would probably get me fired, and your house likely sucks and the mortgage is underwater.
Yeah guys, this is an industry full of people self-proclaimed to be awkward and terrible with women, what makes anyone think there could be any bias or institutional sexism?
"You're awkward and terrible with women, therefore you're a sexist."
I don't really think that holds together logically.
I'm not a Ruby coder, I've never done anything serious with it. But to say that anything is inferior to Perl seems wrong. Even JavaScript with its type inconsistencies feels less of a patchwork than Perl. I hope I'll never have to work with Perl again in my life.
Well, PHP seems to me to be perl except without the powerful regular expression manipulation, so that would make it worse.
But to the original post on this thread: I don't know if PHP/Ruby/NoSql communities are the only ones driving women out, as I've mostly done backend, embedded, and some SQL stuff. But they're certainly not the only ones with a gender imbalance; every job I've had there have been a lot more male programmers. The worst was actually an embedded job; we had zero female embedded programmers, though some female front-end programmers.
Corporate profits always come first. Coal fires are a problem in some areas and at least one town had to be abandoned since the fires can last for decades and possibly centuries. Many towns had to be abandoned over industrial pollution and yet I constantly hear it's government regulations that cause the problems.
If you mean Centralia, PA, you might want to see which "corporation" started the fire.
Slashdot Mirror
If you don't like Comstock, look at the earlier Kansas v. Hendricks (1997), which did address (and dismiss) the ex post facto question.
Before you get into the garage, you have to go through his TSA simulator. It's a rubber glove on an articulated arm.
That ship sailed years ago. Basically they pretend all of those new punishments aren't punishments. Up to and including indefinite imprisonment. It started with the Gun Control Act of 1968 (forbidding felons from owning guns, even if they were convicted prior to the law) and it came to completion in 2006 with U.S. v. Comstock, allowing indefinite detention of convicted sex offenders after completing their sentence.
Color temperature is 2727K (a bit warm for my taste), CRI is a respectable 93. I guess we finally have a price for a halfway decent alternative bulb.
The biggest problem with the bulb (aside from price) would seem to be the light pattern.
The missing option you're looking for is "outsource even more power-hungry industry to China".
Two out of three isn't so bad.
If you want to be heard, posting on slashdot at all isn't the way to do it. You need a boatload of cash or a nuclear program, preferably both.
No, it's a copyright issue. The content industries (and the appeals court) take the position that while copyright protection applies across the entire Berne convention, that copyright exhaustion -- the idea that by selling a particular copy, the copyright holder no longer can control distribution of that particular copy -- applies on a country by country basis. And that therefore importing a copy of a copyrighted item without the permission of the copyright holder, even when that item was lawfully sold in the country of origin in the first place, is illegal.
It's absolutely unjust and ridiculous (just like much of copyright law) -- which means the Supreme Court will probably support it.
Are we, now? I'm afraid someone didn't let me in on the secret handshake to get the privileges. Either that, or I'm just not white enough. Either way, I object to being attacked under the cover of "erosion of privilege".
Nothing's the end of the world short of the end of the world, but that doesn't mean things aren't seriously undesirable. And it most certainly does matter to me whether I (and the other developers around) have to either conform to the mainstream culture or be sanctioned for creating an unwelcoming work environment.
Your wise old man should learn about local minima and maxima.
It's much harder to beat up on geeks for driving out blacks, hispanics, and LGBTs, so those articles are less likely to end up on slashdot. There actually have been quite a few complaints about the absence of blacks, however -- search for "blacks in silicon valley".
Oh, so you're trolling. Since it's pretty clear there aren't laws against humming "Ocarina of Time", nor having Star Wars action figures in one's cubicle, nor wearing video game T-shirts to work.
Which points to one way of looking at it... "society" has been telling male geeks in no uncertain terms that if you act like a geek you're not going to be popular with most women. Conform or suffer shunning. The geeks who remain geeks have decided we can live with that. Now we're being told that since women don't like our geekiness, WE are, by being geeky, excluding them, and should cut it out. Somehow this seems backwards.
This article didn't invent the term, but it is just some "made up term", to describe a culture which doesn't really exist. The whole thing is a gag. If there's anyone using the term in earnest, they have been trolled.
Bigotry isn't acceptable, but it is unavoidable in any large group. But shaming the whole community over the presence of a few bigots is counterproductive.
That's crap. Resume gaps are a problem in every field, and the objections to candidates with such gaps aren't made by the developers, they're made by HR screeners and pointy-haired bosses.
Just what is it about video games and Star Trek (or Star Wars) that drives women, blacks, and Latinos out? Should workplaces have rules preventing discussion of those subjects in order to provide a more welcoming environment to women, blacks, and latinos? And if they did so, wouldn't that create a hostile environemnt for the existing geeks?
And that belief is accurate.
If that were the case, it actually would be a matter of principle, and arguably PC. But this article argues it isn't, that we men are actively driving women out. And, amusingly, that we're doing it through a culture which doesn't exist, except as a bunch of joke pages and videos -- "brogramming".
Now you could argue that many women believe that "brogramming" culture really exists and are put off by it, but it's been around less than a year, so it's hardly the cause of the problem. And you could argue (though I'd disagree) that the joke itself is sexist, but the same issue applies.
Far as I can tell the misogynistic comments come mostly from two groups, trolls and divorcees. And misogynistic divorcees aren't strictly a geek thing by any means.
Yeah, and a lot of people thought the same thing, which is why they lost sponsors.
You lost all credibility with me here. Why would you think that's sexism? It's certainly a cultural clash, but an unmarried man your age would have been equally excluded.
Hmm... so a woman uses her physical appearance to gain an advantage in interviews, and it's the fault of men for falling for it?
Not really a valid complaint in and of itself. Asking geeks to give up geek subculture as a whole so others feel more welcome is unreasonable.
Because it's difficult and counterproductive to render a workplace that sterile. The places where it is done are traditionally jobs people hate -- telemarketer comes to mind.
If someone entering the field doesn't want to laugh at my geeky jokes, that's fine. If that person doesn't like my choice in T-shirts, that's their problem. If they don't understand why anyone would argue over an editor, that's fine too. But if they want me to change all these things so they can feel comfortable, they can go screw themselves, and I mean that in a perfectly gender-neutral way.
I don't think geek culture as a whole is hostile to women. It's true that most women find geeks 'weird' -- but most non-geeks find geeks weird.
I'd take that bet, except that demonstrating otherwise would probably get me fired, and your house likely sucks and the mortgage is underwater.
"You're awkward and terrible with women, therefore you're a sexist."
I don't really think that holds together logically.
Well, PHP seems to me to be perl except without the powerful regular expression manipulation, so that would make it worse.
But to the original post on this thread: I don't know if PHP/Ruby/NoSql communities are the only ones driving women out, as I've mostly done backend, embedded, and some SQL stuff. But they're certainly not the only ones with a gender imbalance; every job I've had there have been a lot more male programmers. The worst was actually an embedded job; we had zero female embedded programmers, though some female front-end programmers.
If you mean Centralia, PA, you might want to see which "corporation" started the fire.
I imagine it lies with Alcatel-Lucent... I wonder if they'd be willing to sell the corpse of Bell Labs.