Several posts have said, essentially, "shouldn't you hire the best person for the job, ignoring everything else?"
Thats what both Yahoo and Google are saying about why they want to hire a diverse workforce. Both of them realize that their clients and customers are a very diverse group of people, and they hope that by hiring a diverse group as well, they can better create products to meet a diverse set of needs. You can argue that gender and skin color still aren't great ways to find a diverse set of perspectives, and you'd be right, but its one small tool in the arsenal.
I find the last line in the summary pretty... odd. Both Yahoo and Google in their reports make it pretty clear that there are plenty of opportunities for anyone who is interested in working for them. This isn't about opportunity - it's about outcome. In the interview that Google's Laszlo Bock did with PBS (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/googles-diversity-record-shows-women-minorities-left-behind/) he cites the example of hiring 50% of the Black CS PhD graduates in one year - one person. Both companies, and many more in the industry, are trying to fix the problem at where they see the source is - candidates not going into the programs that feed into the industry.
It seems like there are three big differences between how Google is handling this and how Facebook handled this:
Google is blasting the notice pretty visibly all over the place. Open a tab and you can't help but see info about it. It is in your notifications. They are making it loud and clear that this is going to happen, and being pretty transparent about what it means.
Google is making it easy to opt out. If you opted out of some things, or if you're in an apps domain, you're already opted out. If not, there are prominent links telling you how to opt out of this.
This is only happening for public activities. You can argue if a +1 or a review should be public or if it violates Google's own concept of circles, but they're making it clear this won't apply to things you share privately.
I may have issues with how they're forcing some activities to be public only, but I can't fault them for trying to make it very clear what is public, what is private, and how they intend to respect the difference between the two.
I can tell you one telco that is absolutely desperate to shed itself of copper.
Verizon
Specifically, Verizon in New York City, who has so much rotten copper that six months after it was submerged in salt water after Sandy, they have absolutely no idea when they'll be able to finish yanking it all out and replacing it with fiber.
I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Google Takeout - lets you download all the data from google services that are almost completely unused in one easy step.
The Data Liberation group has a noble goal... but this is an incredibly lame step in that direction. Given how many years the group has been around, it is pretty sad that they've made such minor inroads. Perhaps this is the first real step in that direction... we'll see...
And what this means, in reality, is that if you're doing work for the Federal Government, you do all your work in Imperial Units, and then convert them to Metric. So you don't actually get "standard" metric sizes... you get "standard" Imperial sizes with metric units labeling them.
Any indication how the SMS will be handled? Google Voice has a pretty bad reputation for dealing with SMS messages, particularly Short Codes, although a lot of companies that promise to send you an SMS message are unable to handle a Google Voice Number and will silently drop the SMS message in these cases.
Has anyone seen how this will impact Virgin Mobile users, who use the Sprint network? Last time I tried to get Google Voice working with VM, I was told that conditional call forwarding was not available, thus making it a bit less than useful.
What this does demonstrate is that the cell carriers should focus on what they're at least moderately competent at - building and running the infrastructure and letting someone else run the features that make use of it.
When the web was new and I had to make presentations like this, I would do HTML pages (with bullets) instead of powerpoint slides. The big difference was that I would also provide lots of links to additional information and details on each point. It took longer to write (both because of the additional information, but mostly because we didn't have great tools to assist), but was more engaging with the audience and did provide the additional details that a bullet-list-slide didn't.
Nowadays, I might think about using something like Prezi for some of my briefings. While it does allow a linear path through a presentation, the information is layed out spatially and allows zooms and pans both through the path and independent of the path. This makes it pretty easy to provide additional information and show the relationship between some of the points. It does allow bullet points, but mostly so it can mock their use.
When Disney announced they were shutting down VMK, they did so after a quest weekend where they ended up accusing their players of cheating. The final week of VMK was run exactly as the entire history of the game was - filled with lies and empty promises.
Funny... when I install something like iTunes for Windows on my machine, I automatically get the Apple Updater. Which runs on its own schedule and not just when I run the programs that are installed.
Sounds like someone at Google was just making sure that OSX users had the same experience.
I went into reading about this very skeptical. I've been part of a few "no-subscription" virtual worlds aimed at kids, and watched a bunch of inventive and creative kids be horribly disappointed when the companies (I'm looking at you, Disney) pulled the plug on them.
But from the rather poor write-ups I'm finding, it sounds like this is Open Source, so even if its pulled there is still use for it.
The concept of "local power" was first advocated by... Thomas Edison. He was advocating small power stations all around a municipality for local distribution via his DC-based systems.
Westinghouse's AC system, however, allowed for transmission of power great distances. Despite using his name, and some patents, most of what we use today owes more to Westinghouse than Edison.
Sounds like the "go local" movement is gaining strength when it comes to power generation, too. Wonder if we'll be able to go back to DC? Probably not.
You know, we sound pretty lame when we start talking about "insufficient competition".
At first, it was just "monopolies" that were bad.
Then we started talking about how cable and telephone companies, although competing against each other, didn't provide "enough" choices for consumers.
Now we're saying that seven four cell companies aren't enough competition for each other. And we point out as evidence that they're all doing essentially the same thing to rake money in hand over fist.
Don't get me wrong - I think that text prices are, from a consumers point of view, stupidly high. But it sure doesn't sound like adding more companies to the mix is actually fixing the problem.
I suspect that before they lost customers, they would get a TON of negative press - and negative press that people would understand. People's eyes glaze over when they hear about bandwith caps and filters - it means little to them. But if they hear on the news that a big ISP has blocked access to Google, a name they recognize, then people will lash out at them.
So ISPs are losing money because of Google? Fine. They should do what Sprint did and block all access to Google. Let their customers use the "Internet" of the ISPs email and the ISPs news. Let's see how long that lasts.
ISPs need to wake up and realize that people don't want their email, don't want their home pages, don't want their internet "content", and almost universally don't want anything the ISP provides except a pipe to the outside world.
First of all, you're not talking a copyright there either. You're talking about a trademark. Again - the differences in both term, scope, use, and who runs it are important.
Second - I'm not going to wade into the software patent issue. There are lots of articles, some of them very recent and up-to-date, discussing the current state of software patents. But consider this - all patents are ways of doing something with an existing invention. The question is if that "something" is significant. The lightbulb was just an application of glass, carbon, and electricity - all existing technologies at the time. 1-click was just an application of web cookies.
Slashdot Mirror
Several posts have said, essentially, "shouldn't you hire the best person for the job, ignoring everything else?"
Thats what both Yahoo and Google are saying about why they want to hire a diverse workforce. Both of them realize that their clients and customers are a very diverse group of people, and they hope that by hiring a diverse group as well, they can better create products to meet a diverse set of needs. You can argue that gender and skin color still aren't great ways to find a diverse set of perspectives, and you'd be right, but its one small tool in the arsenal.
I find the last line in the summary pretty... odd. Both Yahoo and Google in their reports make it pretty clear that there are plenty of opportunities for anyone who is interested in working for them. This isn't about opportunity - it's about outcome. In the interview that Google's Laszlo Bock did with PBS (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/googles-diversity-record-shows-women-minorities-left-behind/) he cites the example of hiring 50% of the Black CS PhD graduates in one year - one person. Both companies, and many more in the industry, are trying to fix the problem at where they see the source is - candidates not going into the programs that feed into the industry.
It seems like there are three big differences between how Google is handling this and how Facebook handled this:
I may have issues with how they're forcing some activities to be public only, but I can't fault them for trying to make it very clear what is public, what is private, and how they intend to respect the difference between the two.
I can tell you one telco that is absolutely desperate to shed itself of copper.
Verizon
Specifically, Verizon in New York City, who has so much rotten copper that six months after it was submerged in salt water after Sandy, they have absolutely no idea when they'll be able to finish yanking it all out and replacing it with fiber.
Mind boggling... but what is even more so are how many people are out there insisting that we have to get rid of psuedonyms.
It is a good thing that articles are being published debunking some of the myths... and not just by people who come across as ranting or rambling...
The oath that one takes when enlisting is:
I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Google Takeout - lets you download all the data from google services that are almost completely unused in one easy step.
The Data Liberation group has a noble goal... but this is an incredibly lame step in that direction. Given how many years the group has been around, it is pretty sad that they've made such minor inroads. Perhaps this is the first real step in that direction... we'll see...
Newsflash. In-house IT departments can be unreliable and pricey too.
And what this means, in reality, is that if you're doing work for the Federal Government, you do all your work in Imperial Units, and then convert them to Metric. So you don't actually get "standard" metric sizes... you get "standard" Imperial sizes with metric units labeling them.
Any indication how the SMS will be handled? Google Voice has a pretty bad reputation for dealing with SMS messages, particularly Short Codes, although a lot of companies that promise to send you an SMS message are unable to handle a Google Voice Number and will silently drop the SMS message in these cases.
Has anyone seen how this will impact Virgin Mobile users, who use the Sprint network? Last time I tried to get Google Voice working with VM, I was told that conditional call forwarding was not available, thus making it a bit less than useful.
What this does demonstrate is that the cell carriers should focus on what they're at least moderately competent at - building and running the infrastructure and letting someone else run the features that make use of it.
When the web was new and I had to make presentations like this, I would do HTML pages (with bullets) instead of powerpoint slides. The big difference was that I would also provide lots of links to additional information and details on each point. It took longer to write (both because of the additional information, but mostly because we didn't have great tools to assist), but was more engaging with the audience and did provide the additional details that a bullet-list-slide didn't.
Nowadays, I might think about using something like Prezi for some of my briefings. While it does allow a linear path through a presentation, the information is layed out spatially and allows zooms and pans both through the path and independent of the path. This makes it pretty easy to provide additional information and show the relationship between some of the points. It does allow bullet points, but mostly so it can mock their use.
I know you're trying to make a funny here, but... well... why wouldn't someone notice? (Given how much coverage /. has given it, someone has, anyway.)
Do they care, or just virtually care? Thats another question.
When Disney announced they were shutting down VMK, they did so after a quest weekend where they ended up accusing their players of cheating. The final week of VMK was run exactly as the entire history of the game was - filled with lies and empty promises.
Funny... when I install something like iTunes for Windows on my machine, I automatically get the Apple Updater. Which runs on its own schedule and not just when I run the programs that are installed. Sounds like someone at Google was just making sure that OSX users had the same experience.
I went into reading about this very skeptical. I've been part of a few "no-subscription" virtual worlds aimed at kids, and watched a bunch of inventive and creative kids be horribly disappointed when the companies (I'm looking at you, Disney) pulled the plug on them.
But from the rather poor write-ups I'm finding, it sounds like this is Open Source, so even if its pulled there is still use for it.
Care to actually tell us more about the platform?
The concept of "local power" was first advocated by... Thomas Edison. He was advocating small power stations all around a municipality for local distribution via his DC-based systems.
Westinghouse's AC system, however, allowed for transmission of power great distances. Despite using his name, and some patents, most of what we use today owes more to Westinghouse than Edison.
Sounds like the "go local" movement is gaining strength when it comes to power generation, too. Wonder if we'll be able to go back to DC? Probably not.
Heh... someone score that post up as funny, please. {:
I'm not sure if its "supply and demand" or just "demand". It sounds like the argument is that the supply is, currently, not a limiting factor.
You know, we sound pretty lame when we start talking about "insufficient competition".
At first, it was just "monopolies" that were bad.
Then we started talking about how cable and telephone companies, although competing against each other, didn't provide "enough" choices for consumers.
Now we're saying that seven four cell companies aren't enough competition for each other. And we point out as evidence that they're all doing essentially the same thing to rake money in hand over fist.
Don't get me wrong - I think that text prices are, from a consumers point of view, stupidly high. But it sure doesn't sound like adding more companies to the mix is actually fixing the problem.
So perhaps the problem isn't them.
Perhaps the problem is us.
Unfortunately, umpteen skrillion "Triple Play" customers disagree.
Ok, valid. I was using the term ISP to refer to just the data part of the trio.
I suspect that before they lost customers, they would get a TON of negative press - and negative press that people would understand. People's eyes glaze over when they hear about bandwith caps and filters - it means little to them. But if they hear on the news that a big ISP has blocked access to Google, a name they recognize, then people will lash out at them.
Sorry, to clarify a point. "What Sprint did to a company they claim was costing them money (ie - cogent)."
So ISPs are losing money because of Google? Fine. They should do what Sprint did and block all access to Google. Let their customers use the "Internet" of the ISPs email and the ISPs news. Let's see how long that lasts.
ISPs need to wake up and realize that people don't want their email, don't want their home pages, don't want their internet "content", and almost universally don't want anything the ISP provides except a pipe to the outside world.
But we American get email all the time offering to make our pipeline bigger!
Yes and no.
First of all, you're not talking a copyright there either. You're talking about a trademark. Again - the differences in both term, scope, use, and who runs it are important.
Second - I'm not going to wade into the software patent issue. There are lots of articles, some of them very recent and up-to-date, discussing the current state of software patents. But consider this - all patents are ways of doing something with an existing invention. The question is if that "something" is significant. The lightbulb was just an application of glass, carbon, and electricity - all existing technologies at the time. 1-click was just an application of web cookies.