Of course, as far as race is concerned, it is just irrelevant. I mean, who but a racist would seriously believe that you have to be (fill in some race) in order to write web software for (same race)?
Unfortunately it is not irrelevant. Few people believe that a black person CAN'T do software development (for example). However it's a hard road for many, many black people to take, - especially if they are poor, which black people disproportionally are. What you have to realize is that even though the legal barriers have fallen, the social and economic barriers are alive and well.
I'll give you an example. I don't know if you're familiar with the radio show "This American Life". Anyway, on one episode they interviewed a number of talented but poor college kids that were given scholarships based on their academic achievements along with their lack of ability to afford college.
One of the kids was black and got an scholarship to MIT for some technical degree program (which I don't remember). He talked about how much he loved the classroom and lab work but how hard it was for him at the school. He felt like he didn't fit in. There were few other people there that shared his background. He felt like he continually had to prove that he deserved to be there. He had to dress better than most of his peers, and he had to behave better than most of them as well. His high school academic training had been woefully inadequate in some areas so he had to take additional classes to make up for that.
It was almost worse for him at home. While his family was proud, many of his old friends didn't want to hang around him, - accusing him of acting "too white" and selling out. Even the friends who stuck by him were on different paths and he couldn't share with them what was going on school and have them understand.
The other students told very similar stories. The point is that the inequalities in our society are deeply ingrained and won't go away simply by making it illegal to not hire somebody based on gender or ethnicity.
When you have certain fields dominated by a subgroup of people you have to ask the question why. In this case the question is why are well paying jobs in high tech companies going mostly to white men? Is it really because that genetically white men are more likely to have the necessary skills? I highly doubt it, at least not in the proportions we are seeing reflected in the hiring of technical talent.
So where is the problem? Many would argue that it starts well before Google and others make hiring decisions. I think it does too but I also think that having so few women and non-white males getting these positions helps perpetuate the problem. If you're a young child, knowing and seeing other people like you holding technical positions like that makes it more likely that you yourself would entertain them as an option.
As much we'd like to say that color and gender are no longer barriers, it's just not true. We don't treat everyone the same way.
Pro-baseball was brought up as an example. I don't know that it quite works as an argument in the way it was intended but sports is just one way I see people pigeonholed all the time when it comes to race or gender. My son loves football. We spent last year looking at different options for high school for him. Now, my son is not nearly good enough to make a career out of football and most of the criteria we were using for choosing a high school had nothing to do with sports.
However, he's good enough to at least play at a high school level. I did have one friend seriously say to me that if my son wants to play varsity football he should stay away from school "x" because a lot of black kids go there and he won't have a chance. Seriously? He'd never even seen my son play football.
Part of the problem happens well before Facebook or anyone else has a job opening. Not everyone has equal access to the education required for many of these positions.
Another part of the problem is the hiring process itself. An initial requirement for one position I've taken in the past was a Masters degree in computer science or related field. Nothing about the job required a Masters degree and they got no applicants. The reason for the requirement? The hiring managers all had MBAs. There is a tendency for people to hire people like themselves, - people who fit their stereotype.
I've also witnessed more direct discrimination. At a former company we were trying to fill several tech positions. Several of us were going through resumes when I discovered that my boss had tossed out a few of the candidates I had thought had potential. When asked why she said that their names weren't "American sounding" and she just wanted to hire Americans. She was at least honest about it. Many aren't or don't ever realize why they're excluding people.
Because auto/truck accidents are normally limited to streets and highways where people know to tread with caution. In order for a drone to deliver to your home it's flying over sidewalks, lawns, homes. etc. They are definitely big enough to hurt somebody. They are a bad idea for the same reasons that flying cars are a bad idea.
Even if they are safe I don't want them buzzing around my neighborhood.
"Even though I have no contradictory evidence to provide; I'm going to just ignore this data because I prefer my feels that crime must be getting worse"
And to be clear, I wasn't talking about the frequency of murders, violent crime, or criminal activity in general. I was talking about incidents like the one in Isle Vista: Mass Shootings.
You don't have to look any farther than the article you posted and the research that Mother Jones did. The author in your article didn't like Mother Jones' criteria for defining mass shootings but they used basically the same definition used in this report from the Congressional Research Service:
That article only shows stats until 2010 and lumps these shooting sprees in with crimes where there were motives other than just killing random people, - or where the perpetrators where not killing random people at all, but their own families.
The frustration stems from an inconsistency I've noticed in female behavior. I've asked a lot of my female friends the following, and none of them has been able to give me a clear, logical answer:
Because it's not about logic, it's about attraction. And men often don't get what characteristics are more attractive to many women. It's not women that don't like "nice" guys and that they don't want to be treated with respect. It's that they often aren't attracted to guys who struggle socially. They might feel sorry for them, they might like them as friends, but they're not romantically attracted to them. And let's be clear, you can be too nice. If you're being nice out of a fear of rejection or lack of self confidence, people can sense that. It's not a turn on.
My fellow males, you need to project confidence. You need to be comfortable with who you are. You need to be OK with getting turned down, and not crushed by it. And what I see far too often is guys frustrated that these incredibly beautiful women aren't willing to go out with them, while ignoring those women who gladly would.
That this sort of thing appears to be happening with greater frequency.
Number one problem seems to be an increasing number people who reach a point where they have little regard for life. Their's or anyone else's. They think of themselves as victims of some sort. "Entitlement" might be an appropriate word. Rodgers definitely felt as if the world was not delivering on something it owed to him. Don't know how common this is among similar perpetrators but I'm guessing it is.
This thread focuses on nerds but all the perpetrators probably share some form of mental illness that either contributed to their social awkwardness or was aggravated by their social awkwardness. I'm not saying nerds are mentally ill but social awkwardness is usually considered one of the defining traits. There are non-nerds who suffer from this too.
I do think our culture and media often portray young adults living an idealized lifestyle that few if any actually lead. And if you do surround yourself with people who are more affluent than yourself, it is not surprising that it would lead to some feelings of resentment. The fact is that life doesn't owe you a certain level of income or a good looking girlfriend/boyfriend. Some people do not seem to get this for whatever reason.
And perhaps acts like this beget more acts like this. Even the planning stages probably give the perpetrators a feeling of power that they haven't felt before.
As for the misogyny, it was a factor in this case and it could be in others, but not always.
We're looking at an increase overall of 2-4c for the atmosphere. Since the water temperature can't increase beyond ambient, how do you get multiple feet of water level rise out of just a few C difference in water temperature? To see any visible change in a flask of water requires a far larger swing in temperature.
Also remember that underground volcanic action is already dumping a lot of heat into the ocean here and there, so you probably would not even get the total atmospheric rise embodied in ocean temperatures that are already moderating much greater heat.
And also that greater heat means faster evaporation, which in turns means natural cooling...
How many flasks of water would you have to stack up to get to the average depth of an ocean? Now imagine the water in each of those flasks expanding by just a little bit. Don't you think the cumulative amount would be noticeable?
Until recently most of the rise in ocean depth has been due to thermal expansion. Now that the ice sheets are melting at an accelerated rate, that is starting to be the main factor, but thermal expansion is still occurring.
Rentals from Amazon or the iTunes store can be streamed or downloaded for later viewing. They get that you may want to watch a movie on an airplane or in the car while you have no reliable Internet connection.
I have two kids, one just out of single digits but she'll still watch the same episodes of A.N.T Farm, iCarly and others over and over again. With a Netflix and or Hulu subscription you can view whatever is in their catalog as much as you want. That includes lots of kid friendly movies and TV series. It's like having a video rental store in your home except that Netflix tends not to have newer releases.
For new releases if you have Amazon Instant video, which allows you can stream or download for a few bucks. There is however still value in having a DVD player even though you don't care to buy DVDs anymore. Redbox lets you reserve a DVD online for $1.00.
Remember that my response was to a poster who couldn't understand why anyone would see streaming as a desirable option compared to owning a hard copy. I understand why some people still prefer a DVD but there are plenty of good reasons why others don't. I get the impression that some folks don't really know what options exist today.
Personally, I don't often have a desire to see a movie more than once. Owning a hardcopy doesn't make a lot of sense when that is the case. In fact usually I can rent a movie online a few times before it would add up to the cost of buying a hard copy anyway.
I honestly don't feel like I'm missing out on much by watching HD streaming video vs a Blu-Ray and no you don't have to have an Internet connection to watch a movie you've previously downloaded.
Then some liberal, communist sympathizers had to go and ruin it. Insisted on destroying all but the lamest ones.
Of course it's apples and oranges. Relatively few people had much at stake in the production and maintenance of the nuclear arsenal. By contrast CO2 is a byproduct of our lifestyle. Any meaningful reduction will require more emphasis on energy conservation and cleaner ways to generate power.
The change will be definitely hard on some people. Most of us could benefit. We've become ridiculously addicted to gadgets that require electricity or gas. Case in point: My wife and I were looking at furniture a few weeks ago. We discovered that many recliners are now powered. We've even gotten too lazy to pull a lever to rest our fat asses on a lazy boy.
Let me explain some other things about current reality in America.
Democracy in the US has been severely eroded by big money. Federal gun control legislation that would not violate the 2nd amendment often doesn't even see the light of day due to threats from the NRA, - an organization that had $256,000,000 in revenues back in 2012. It doesn't matter if the legislation would be supported by the majority of Americans or not.
As to the "Gun Nut" comment. The constitution rightfully states that you can't take away somebody's right to bear arms because their behavior is merely "suspicious", or you don't like their politics, or you don't like their hobbies. As long as they have no previous history of felonies and they are mentally competent, they have that right.
Reality is though that lots of folks are shot for no legitimate reason by people with no felony record,- either intentionally or even accidentally. So, what to do? Fortunately the Constitution doesn't prevent the development of technology that would limit the ability of a weapon intended for self defense to be used for another purpose. Why would anyone be against that as long as using it for self defense is not unreasonably inhibited?
Note: I'm not saying wearing a watch is the right solution.
If it's a bad idea or poorly implemented, let if fail for that reason.
If it fails as a product because the developer or potential distributers feels that their personal safety is being threatened, that is wrong. And yes, I would consider posting the location of her P.O. box as threatening. What else would the intent be?
"I have no qualms with the idea of personally and professionally leveling the life of someone who has attempted to profit from disarming me and my fellow Americans," one commenter wrote."
The constitution doesn't prevent the nation as a whole from deciding which sort of weapons are appropriate for self defense and which aren't. Nor does the constitution restrict anybody from developing a weapon that has safeguards built in designed to prevent it from being fired by anybody other than its owner.
The above quote is a not so veiled threat and yes the poster has a right to question whether the person behind the quote is somebody who should be trusted with a gun, - constitutional rights aside.
One recommended change an auditing company made to us in regards to IT is that each member of the staff take at least 5 consecutive business days off each year without any contact with the organization. That's forces the staff to make sure they can adequately cover for each other.
Will you still have management responsibility for the IT functions of the company? If so, then you need to have regular meetings with this new staff person. Major purchase requests, major network, sever, and backup changes should still be discussed with you. Disaster planning, IT budgeting, information security you should be heavily involved in.
But day to day operations you should keep your nose out of once you are comfortable that they know what they're doing. Let them do their job. At the same time, keep copies of important passwords and contents in a secure place. I'm assuming you will still have to act as this person's backup if they're not available for whatever reason, so you need to maintain a working knowledge of your systems.
I once took a job as a programmer/sys admin for a small organization of about that size. By that point in my career I had lots of experience with both and was much more comfortable with the technology than the management person whose responsibilities I was supposed to be taking on. The thing is he could never quite let go and would second guess even the smallest of changes I wanted to make. Eventually I left. So don't make that mistake. Be aware of what they're doing, but don't micromanage.
That's a real problem, but it's a problem with our economic system and not how we choose to generate electricity. Tobacco farming has taken a huge hit since the 50's, does that mean we shouldn't have discouraged people from smoking?
Personally, I'm all for finding a way to pool some money to help people who are hurt by transitions like this. And I think as much as we want to make villains out of the Koch brothers, I'm sure part of their motivation is taking care of the people employed by their companies. At least I'd like to think so.
Nevertheless we have to look at the bigger picture and set policy that helps the most and harms the least. That is the best you can really do.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, as far as race is concerned, it is just irrelevant. I mean, who but a racist would seriously believe that you have to be (fill in some race) in order to write web software for (same race)?
Unfortunately it is not irrelevant. Few people believe that a black person CAN'T do software development (for example). However it's a hard road for many, many black people to take, - especially if they are poor, which black people disproportionally are. What you have to realize is that even though the legal barriers have fallen, the social and economic barriers are alive and well.
I'll give you an example. I don't know if you're familiar with the radio show "This American Life". Anyway, on one episode they interviewed a number of talented but poor college kids that were given scholarships based on their academic achievements along with their lack of ability to afford college.
One of the kids was black and got an scholarship to MIT for some technical degree program (which I don't remember). He talked about how much he loved the classroom and lab work but how hard it was for him at the school. He felt like he didn't fit in. There were few other people there that shared his background. He felt like he continually had to prove that he deserved to be there. He had to dress better than most of his peers, and he had to behave better than most of them as well. His high school academic training had been woefully inadequate in some areas so he had to take additional classes to make up for that.
It was almost worse for him at home. While his family was proud, many of his old friends didn't want to hang around him, - accusing him of acting "too white" and selling out. Even the friends who stuck by him were on different paths and he couldn't share with them what was going on school and have them understand.
The other students told very similar stories. The point is that the inequalities in our society are deeply ingrained and won't go away simply by making it illegal to not hire somebody based on gender or ethnicity.
When you have certain fields dominated by a subgroup of people you have to ask the question why. In this case the question is why are well paying jobs in high tech companies going mostly to white men? Is it really because that genetically white men are more likely to have the necessary skills? I highly doubt it, at least not in the proportions we are seeing reflected in the hiring of technical talent.
So where is the problem? Many would argue that it starts well before Google and others make hiring decisions. I think it does too but I also think that having so few women and non-white males getting these positions helps perpetuate the problem. If you're a young child, knowing and seeing other people like you holding technical positions like that makes it more likely that you yourself would entertain them as an option.
As much we'd like to say that color and gender are no longer barriers, it's just not true. We don't treat everyone the same way.
Pro-baseball was brought up as an example. I don't know that it quite works as an argument in the way it was intended but sports is just one way I see people pigeonholed all the time when it comes to race or gender. My son loves football. We spent last year looking at different options for high school for him. Now, my son is not nearly good enough to make a career out of football and most of the criteria we were using for choosing a high school had nothing to do with sports. However, he's good enough to at least play at a high school level. I did have one friend seriously say to me that if my son wants to play varsity football he should stay away from school "x" because a lot of black kids go there and he won't have a chance. Seriously? He'd never even seen my son play football.
Part of the problem happens well before Facebook or anyone else has a job opening. Not everyone has equal access to the education required for many of these positions.
Another part of the problem is the hiring process itself. An initial requirement for one position I've taken in the past was a Masters degree in computer science or related field. Nothing about the job required a Masters degree and they got no applicants. The reason for the requirement? The hiring managers all had MBAs. There is a tendency for people to hire people like themselves, - people who fit their stereotype.
I've also witnessed more direct discrimination. At a former company we were trying to fill several tech positions. Several of us were going through resumes when I discovered that my boss had tossed out a few of the candidates I had thought had potential. When asked why she said that their names weren't "American sounding" and she just wanted to hire Americans. She was at least honest about it. Many aren't or don't ever realize why they're excluding people.
Because auto/truck accidents are normally limited to streets and highways where people know to tread with caution. In order for a drone to deliver to your home it's flying over sidewalks, lawns, homes. etc. They are definitely big enough to hurt somebody. They are a bad idea for the same reasons that flying cars are a bad idea.
Even if they are safe I don't want them buzzing around my neighborhood.
"Even though I have no contradictory evidence to provide; I'm going to just ignore this data because I prefer my feels that crime must be getting worse"
And to be clear, I wasn't talking about the frequency of murders, violent crime, or criminal activity in general. I was talking about incidents like the one in Isle Vista: Mass Shootings.
I never said that crime must be getting worse.
You don't have to look any farther than the article you posted and the research that Mother Jones did. The author in your article didn't like Mother Jones' criteria for defining mass shootings but they used basically the same definition used in this report from the Congressional Research Service:
http://journalistsresource.org...
Apparently the FBI uses that definition as well.
That article only shows stats until 2010 and lumps these shooting sprees in with crimes where there were motives other than just killing random people, - or where the perpetrators where not killing random people at all, but their own families.
The frustration stems from an inconsistency I've noticed in female behavior. I've asked a lot of my female friends the following, and none of them has been able to give me a clear, logical answer:
Because it's not about logic, it's about attraction. And men often don't get what characteristics are more attractive to many women. It's not women that don't like "nice" guys and that they don't want to be treated with respect. It's that they often aren't attracted to guys who struggle socially. They might feel sorry for them, they might like them as friends, but they're not romantically attracted to them. And let's be clear, you can be too nice. If you're being nice out of a fear of rejection or lack of self confidence, people can sense that. It's not a turn on.
My fellow males, you need to project confidence. You need to be comfortable with who you are. You need to be OK with getting turned down, and not crushed by it. And what I see far too often is guys frustrated that these incredibly beautiful women aren't willing to go out with them, while ignoring those women who gladly would.
That this sort of thing appears to be happening with greater frequency.
Number one problem seems to be an increasing number people who reach a point where they have little regard for life. Their's or anyone else's. They think of themselves as victims of some sort. "Entitlement" might be an appropriate word. Rodgers definitely felt as if the world was not delivering on something it owed to him. Don't know how common this is among similar perpetrators but I'm guessing it is.
This thread focuses on nerds but all the perpetrators probably share some form of mental illness that either contributed to their social awkwardness or was aggravated by their social awkwardness. I'm not saying nerds are mentally ill but social awkwardness is usually considered one of the defining traits. There are non-nerds who suffer from this too.
I do think our culture and media often portray young adults living an idealized lifestyle that few if any actually lead. And if you do surround yourself with people who are more affluent than yourself, it is not surprising that it would lead to some feelings of resentment. The fact is that life doesn't owe you a certain level of income or a good looking girlfriend/boyfriend. Some people do not seem to get this for whatever reason.
And perhaps acts like this beget more acts like this. Even the planning stages probably give the perpetrators a feeling of power that they haven't felt before.
As for the misogyny, it was a factor in this case and it could be in others, but not always.
We're looking at an increase overall of 2-4c for the atmosphere. Since the water temperature can't increase beyond ambient, how do you get multiple feet of water level rise out of just a few C difference in water temperature? To see any visible change in a flask of water requires a far larger swing in temperature.
Also remember that underground volcanic action is already dumping a lot of heat into the ocean here and there, so you probably would not even get the total atmospheric rise embodied in ocean temperatures that are already moderating much greater heat.
And also that greater heat means faster evaporation, which in turns means natural cooling...
How many flasks of water would you have to stack up to get to the average depth of an ocean? Now imagine the water in each of those flasks expanding by just a little bit. Don't you think the cumulative amount would be noticeable?
Until recently most of the rise in ocean depth has been due to thermal expansion. Now that the ice sheets are melting at an accelerated rate, that is starting to be the main factor, but thermal expansion is still occurring.
Not by half.
Not by half of what? The oceans are thousands of feet deep and cover 2/3 of the planet.
water also expands as it warms.
Hmmm. Which is more fun? Making spaceships and awesome cars or making batteries for somebody else's ho-hum cars.
Tell that to this guy: http://applemanbicycles.com/re...
His business is custom built carbon fiber bikes but he got through the lean times by repairing CF frames. He still does it and he's not the only one.
It's newsworthy because in this age of constant surveillance it's amazing that anything like a commercial airliner can just disappear.
Rentals from Amazon or the iTunes store can be streamed or downloaded for later viewing. They get that you may want to watch a movie on an airplane or in the car while you have no reliable Internet connection.
I have two kids, one just out of single digits but she'll still watch the same episodes of A.N.T Farm, iCarly and others over and over again. With a Netflix and or Hulu subscription you can view whatever is in their catalog as much as you want. That includes lots of kid friendly movies and TV series. It's like having a video rental store in your home except that Netflix tends not to have newer releases.
For new releases if you have Amazon Instant video, which allows you can stream or download for a few bucks. There is however still value in having a DVD player even though you don't care to buy DVDs anymore. Redbox lets you reserve a DVD online for $1.00.
Remember that my response was to a poster who couldn't understand why anyone would see streaming as a desirable option compared to owning a hard copy. I understand why some people still prefer a DVD but there are plenty of good reasons why others don't. I get the impression that some folks don't really know what options exist today.
Personally, I don't often have a desire to see a movie more than once. Owning a hardcopy doesn't make a lot of sense when that is the case. In fact usually I can rent a movie online a few times before it would add up to the cost of buying a hard copy anyway.
I honestly don't feel like I'm missing out on much by watching HD streaming video vs a Blu-Ray and no you don't have to have an Internet connection to watch a movie you've previously downloaded.
Then some liberal, communist sympathizers had to go and ruin it. Insisted on destroying all but the lamest ones.
Of course it's apples and oranges. Relatively few people had much at stake in the production and maintenance of the nuclear arsenal. By contrast CO2 is a byproduct of our lifestyle. Any meaningful reduction will require more emphasis on energy conservation and cleaner ways to generate power.
The change will be definitely hard on some people. Most of us could benefit. We've become ridiculously addicted to gadgets that require electricity or gas. Case in point: My wife and I were looking at furniture a few weeks ago. We discovered that many recliners are now powered. We've even gotten too lazy to pull a lever to rest our fat asses on a lazy boy.
Let me explain some other things about current reality in America.
Democracy in the US has been severely eroded by big money. Federal gun control legislation that would not violate the 2nd amendment often doesn't even see the light of day due to threats from the NRA, - an organization that had $256,000,000 in revenues back in 2012. It doesn't matter if the legislation would be supported by the majority of Americans or not.
As to the "Gun Nut" comment. The constitution rightfully states that you can't take away somebody's right to bear arms because their behavior is merely "suspicious", or you don't like their politics, or you don't like their hobbies. As long as they have no previous history of felonies and they are mentally competent, they have that right.
Reality is though that lots of folks are shot for no legitimate reason by people with no felony record,- either intentionally or even accidentally. So, what to do? Fortunately the Constitution doesn't prevent the development of technology that would limit the ability of a weapon intended for self defense to be used for another purpose. Why would anyone be against that as long as using it for self defense is not unreasonably inhibited?
Note: I'm not saying wearing a watch is the right solution.
This is a tough one for lots of developers.
If it's a bad idea or poorly implemented, let if fail for that reason.
If it fails as a product because the developer or potential distributers feels that their personal safety is being threatened, that is wrong. And yes, I would consider posting the location of her P.O. box as threatening. What else would the intent be?
"I have no qualms with the idea of personally and professionally leveling the life of someone who has attempted to profit from disarming me and my fellow Americans," one commenter wrote."
The constitution doesn't prevent the nation as a whole from deciding which sort of weapons are appropriate for self defense and which aren't. Nor does the constitution restrict anybody from developing a weapon that has safeguards built in designed to prevent it from being fired by anybody other than its owner.
The above quote is a not so veiled threat and yes the poster has a right to question whether the person behind the quote is somebody who should be trusted with a gun, - constitutional rights aside.
One recommended change an auditing company made to us in regards to IT is that each member of the staff take at least 5 consecutive business days off each year without any contact with the organization. That's forces the staff to make sure they can adequately cover for each other.
Will you still have management responsibility for the IT functions of the company? If so, then you need to have regular meetings with this new staff person. Major purchase requests, major network, sever, and backup changes should still be discussed with you. Disaster planning, IT budgeting, information security you should be heavily involved in.
But day to day operations you should keep your nose out of once you are comfortable that they know what they're doing. Let them do their job. At the same time, keep copies of important passwords and contents in a secure place. I'm assuming you will still have to act as this person's backup if they're not available for whatever reason, so you need to maintain a working knowledge of your systems.
I once took a job as a programmer/sys admin for a small organization of about that size. By that point in my career I had lots of experience with both and was much more comfortable with the technology than the management person whose responsibilities I was supposed to be taking on. The thing is he could never quite let go and would second guess even the smallest of changes I wanted to make. Eventually I left. So don't make that mistake. Be aware of what they're doing, but don't micromanage.
That's a real problem, but it's a problem with our economic system and not how we choose to generate electricity. Tobacco farming has taken a huge hit since the 50's, does that mean we shouldn't have discouraged people from smoking?
Personally, I'm all for finding a way to pool some money to help people who are hurt by transitions like this. And I think as much as we want to make villains out of the Koch brothers, I'm sure part of their motivation is taking care of the people employed by their companies. At least I'd like to think so.
Nevertheless we have to look at the bigger picture and set policy that helps the most and harms the least. That is the best you can really do.