Of course it's not acceptable to demonize the entire demographic of gamers. Is this from the Leigh Alexander article? That was absolutely a really stupid article (though the right way to handle that is to criticize the content, not to harass the advertisers to drop the entire site). One pretty big sign of the article's utter nonsense is that it equates gamers and "game culture" with GamerGate, which is ludicrous. GamerGate is just a tiny fraction, and most of their targets are also gamers. In fact, more gamers criticize GamerGate than support it. Most gamers are actually a very inclusive, progressive and egalitarian bunch. GamerGate is hopefully just a last reactionary uprising before that attitude finally disappears from gamer culture.
That not true in the case of feminism. Feminism is incredibly large and diverse, and toxic voices in it absolutely do get addressed by other feminists.
I've never really noticed GamerGaters really address problems within their community (except when it involves PR risks, it seems). But that's probably also because GamerGate is a really tiny group. The best estimate I've seen was about 4000. That's a lot of people if you've got them all in one place, but negligible in comparison with something like feminism, which is global, and the principles are fairly universally supported by most men and women in most western countries (even if not everybody likes the label). 4000 is also tiny compared to the game community. It's even less than just the numbers of supporters for Sarkeesian's kickstarter. It's just that those 4000 people are really loud and put a lot of effort and organization into it.
True, but it's often used to shut someone up. It's harmful to people's ability to express themselves freely. Harassment can happen for many other reasons, and all of them are bad, but I think harassing someone for having an opinion you disagree with is among the most harmful. (Though harassing someone for belonging to a group you consider inferior (women, minorities) is also right up there.
No, it is never okay to harass, threaten of dox anyone. However, women are most definitely harassed for being women more than men are harassed for being men.
The fact that men are more prevalent on some internet forums is at least partially the result of women being made very unwelcome in those places.
And a note about collaboration: cartels are a function of lassaiz-faire economics, not free-market capitalism
I think this is the real important point here: many fans of laissez-faire economics call that "real capitalism". According to them, you can't say capitalism is a failure, because it simply hasn't been tried yet. Any government interference makes it not really capitalism anymore. But the one gem in capitalism, the one really, truly unmitigatedly good thing about it, is the free market. But with everybody looking to dominate the market in some way, the only way to keep the market free is to regulate it in a sensible way, break up cartels and monopolies, and force some competition in places where it is clearly needed (like the broadband internet market in the US, perhaps?).
And of course the regulators need to be independent from the industries they regulate. (Again, ISPs buying laws that block competition and ban community broadband is something that shouldn't even be possible. Or car dealers lobbying to block Tesla.)
Does capitalism depend on people being truthful all the time? Somehow I don't see that working. I thought the robustness of capitalism came from relying on everybody to be selfish bastards.
Car analogy: I can enter a Honda Civic in the Indy 500 race. I will only need to refuel once, won't need new tires, am likely to be reliable enough to finish every time, have AC and radio I can listen to. My only problem at this point is going fast enough to win the race, but that's "minor" compared to the rest according to you. You'd rather have a single impossible problem than 5 problems that you might have to actually work on but can solve.
It's a nice analogy, but you need to keep in mind that most people are just driving to work, not trying to win the Indy 500.
Performance is a very specific use case, and not remotely as important as it was during the 1980s.
I don't think that quote says anything about static versus dynamic typing, as each group is about 50/50 divided between statically and dynamically typed languages.
For really, really high performance code, of course you use the highest performing language. But that's a pretty extreme use case. Most games do not require huge numbers of simulated objects on the screen.
Are you really sure about this? It sounds like a "broodje aap" (urban legend). I'm no lawyer, but as far as I know, Dutch law tries not to punish sincerely helping people.
If he's untrained, he does not have the judgement to decide not to follow the instructions. If the instructions tell you to cut away the bra, you cut away the bra. If the instructions tell you to only cut away the bra in certain circumstances, you only cut it away in those circumstances. Charging him with sexual assault is only reasonable if he clearly went way beyond what the instructions told him to do.
It's not like creeps stand around with AEDs looking for women to save.
But if it's anything else, taxes are so great. "Pay your share!" Despite the fact that the government doing the taxing is just going to use those resources against you in the form of militarized police, warrantless wiretaps, and drone surveillance.
The problem here is not the principle of paying your taxes, but that you guys keep electing the wrong people into office and don't punish them for giving you all that crap.
It doesn't matter what else you do. As long as you keep electing bad governments, you're going to get bad governance. Nothing is going to fix your problems until you fix that.
But that part is also sexism. Sexism is not just preventing women from doing interesting things, it's also treating them as valuable property. But the sexism was indeed not just NASA's; NASA obeyed the sexism in society as a whole.
Have you read the article? It mentions that she performed in the top 2%. It doesn't specify whether that was top 1.4%, but your blind assumption that her performance was not outstanding is quite clearly unjustified.
Parent has it right. All early spaceflight was about political stunts. The USSR used it to send a positive political message: one of gender equality (well, Gagarin was still the first, but women weren't all that far behind). The US sent a negative one: only men get to go to space.
Isn't the lesson to use the best people regardless of gender? In which case, why should she go instead of someone more qualified?
When she was tested, there weren't many that were more qualified. She should have been part of the Mercury 7.
Sending her now, well, it wouldn't make sense in a role more suited for someone younger, but if she could be sent as part of aging research, like John Glenn was, then that'd be great. But mostly the article laments that a great talent was denied something she'd have been perfect for because of stupid sexist notions from the 1950s.
I'm certainly no fan of Helvetica either. I actually prefer Google's Roboto. Roboto got criticized for having too many variations in how to handle some shapes, but it's those variations that make characters easy to distinguish. In Helvetica, everything looks the same and letters start to blend together in dense text. It's pretty, sure, but it's not the most legible.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course it's not acceptable to demonize the entire demographic of gamers. Is this from the Leigh Alexander article? That was absolutely a really stupid article (though the right way to handle that is to criticize the content, not to harass the advertisers to drop the entire site). One pretty big sign of the article's utter nonsense is that it equates gamers and "game culture" with GamerGate, which is ludicrous. GamerGate is just a tiny fraction, and most of their targets are also gamers. In fact, more gamers criticize GamerGate than support it. Most gamers are actually a very inclusive, progressive and egalitarian bunch. GamerGate is hopefully just a last reactionary uprising before that attitude finally disappears from gamer culture.
That not true in the case of feminism. Feminism is incredibly large and diverse, and toxic voices in it absolutely do get addressed by other feminists.
I've never really noticed GamerGaters really address problems within their community (except when it involves PR risks, it seems). But that's probably also because GamerGate is a really tiny group. The best estimate I've seen was about 4000. That's a lot of people if you've got them all in one place, but negligible in comparison with something like feminism, which is global, and the principles are fairly universally supported by most men and women in most western countries (even if not everybody likes the label). 4000 is also tiny compared to the game community. It's even less than just the numbers of supporters for Sarkeesian's kickstarter. It's just that those 4000 people are really loud and put a lot of effort and organization into it.
"Gamergate" happened because of a few frauds, and because of feminism need to rally around any woman whom they view as being "attacked."
> Gendered bigotry against women
This isnt a gender issue. Men are subjected to these attacks as well.
Like Chris Kluwe?
True, but it's often used to shut someone up. It's harmful to people's ability to express themselves freely. Harassment can happen for many other reasons, and all of them are bad, but I think harassing someone for having an opinion you disagree with is among the most harmful. (Though harassing someone for belonging to a group you consider inferior (women, minorities) is also right up there.
No, it is never okay to harass, threaten of dox anyone. However, women are most definitely harassed for being women more than men are harassed for being men.
The fact that men are more prevalent on some internet forums is at least partially the result of women being made very unwelcome in those places.
And a note about collaboration: cartels are a function of lassaiz-faire economics, not free-market capitalism
I think this is the real important point here: many fans of laissez-faire economics call that "real capitalism". According to them, you can't say capitalism is a failure, because it simply hasn't been tried yet. Any government interference makes it not really capitalism anymore. But the one gem in capitalism, the one really, truly unmitigatedly good thing about it, is the free market. But with everybody looking to dominate the market in some way, the only way to keep the market free is to regulate it in a sensible way, break up cartels and monopolies, and force some competition in places where it is clearly needed (like the broadband internet market in the US, perhaps?).
And of course the regulators need to be independent from the industries they regulate. (Again, ISPs buying laws that block competition and ban community broadband is something that shouldn't even be possible. Or car dealers lobbying to block Tesla.)
Does capitalism depend on people being truthful all the time? Somehow I don't see that working. I thought the robustness of capitalism came from relying on everybody to be selfish bastards.
Car analogy:
I can enter a Honda Civic in the Indy 500 race. I will only need to refuel once, won't need new tires, am likely to be reliable enough to finish every time, have AC and radio I can listen to. My only problem at this point is going fast enough to win the race, but that's "minor" compared to the rest according to you. You'd rather have a single impossible problem than 5 problems that you might have to actually work on but can solve.
It's a nice analogy, but you need to keep in mind that most people are just driving to work, not trying to win the Indy 500.
Performance is a very specific use case, and not remotely as important as it was during the 1980s.
I don't think that quote says anything about static versus dynamic typing, as each group is about 50/50 divided between statically and dynamically typed languages.
For really, really high performance code, of course you use the highest performing language. But that's a pretty extreme use case. Most games do not require huge numbers of simulated objects on the screen.
Germany goes one step further and it is a criminal offence to not to provide first aid. And if you screw it up you are protected.
I think Netherland has a similar law. The idea that helping makes you liable sounds very unDutch.
Are you really sure about this? It sounds like a "broodje aap" (urban legend). I'm no lawyer, but as far as I know, Dutch law tries not to punish sincerely helping people.
If he's untrained, he does not have the judgement to decide not to follow the instructions. If the instructions tell you to cut away the bra, you cut away the bra. If the instructions tell you to only cut away the bra in certain circumstances, you only cut it away in those circumstances. Charging him with sexual assault is only reasonable if he clearly went way beyond what the instructions told him to do.
It's not like creeps stand around with AEDs looking for women to save.
The world is bigger than your country.
But if it's anything else, taxes are so great. "Pay your share!" Despite the fact that the government doing the taxing is just going to use those resources against you in the form of militarized police, warrantless wiretaps, and drone surveillance.
The problem here is not the principle of paying your taxes, but that you guys keep electing the wrong people into office and don't punish them for giving you all that crap.
It doesn't matter what else you do. As long as you keep electing bad governments, you're going to get bad governance. Nothing is going to fix your problems until you fix that.
I'll have you know I had my home computer calculating all night long to generate a single flying toaster.
Why did this get modded down? I know Anonymous Coward regularly posts some inane crap, but this is a very valid question.
At what point would you say that one "knew" what America was. We know that Columbus didn't know it.
I don't know, but if it takes credit away from that genocidal pedophile slaver, I'll take it.
But that part is also sexism. Sexism is not just preventing women from doing interesting things, it's also treating them as valuable property. But the sexism was indeed not just NASA's; NASA obeyed the sexism in society as a whole.
Have you read the article? It mentions that she performed in the top 2%. It doesn't specify whether that was top 1.4%, but your blind assumption that her performance was not outstanding is quite clearly unjustified.
You think the first astronauts invented rockets and the necessary physics themselves?
Parent has it right. All early spaceflight was about political stunts. The USSR used it to send a positive political message: one of gender equality (well, Gagarin was still the first, but women weren't all that far behind). The US sent a negative one: only men get to go to space.
Isn't the lesson to use the best people regardless of gender? In which case, why should she go instead of someone more qualified?
When she was tested, there weren't many that were more qualified. She should have been part of the Mercury 7.
Sending her now, well, it wouldn't make sense in a role more suited for someone younger, but if she could be sent as part of aging research, like John Glenn was, then that'd be great. But mostly the article laments that a great talent was denied something she'd have been perfect for because of stupid sexist notions from the 1950s.
I'm certainly no fan of Helvetica either. I actually prefer Google's Roboto. Roboto got criticized for having too many variations in how to handle some shapes, but it's those variations that make characters easy to distinguish. In Helvetica, everything looks the same and letters start to blend together in dense text. It's pretty, sure, but it's not the most legible.
Great that people are finding out more about what shortens telomeres. But with all that data, can we also find out a way to repair them?