...to "Super-sketchy slimeball makes vague, unsubstantiated claim of having been hired by a Fortune 500 company".
Motherboard's headline at least acknowledges that all it's reporting is "ransomware gang claims that...", and the other report cited by the post says """ F-Secure’s security advisor Sean Sullivan doesn’t think the story sounds plausible. “It’s probably a young gun, just trying to make a hundred bucks. 95% chance he’s spinning a yarn,” """
I'm not saying it can't be true, but seriously, but why does/.'s headline upgrade crooks to people whose statements should be taken at face value?
...which would be a useful response if anyone was talking about replacing literacy training. Everyone is freaking out as though CS curricula in primary schools is something new, but it's really, really not. We were making turtles move around the screen in LOGO on my school's Commodore 64s in the 80s.
You have no clue what you are talking about do you? The internet was designed to carry bits, not content. They could be formatting, content or just protocol.
I... I just...
O.o
Yeah, now is the time on Sprockets when for my sanity's sake I assume that this person must be trolling.
Your bandwidth is not being "stolen". It's being used to help the creator of the content to which you feel so entitled pay for the bandwidth being used to serve it. As such, if either of you is stealing something (neither of you is, but if we had to go there), it would be you, consuming someone's content while circumventing the means by which the other party has the audacity to try to support themselves, or at least not lose money so they can entertain you for free.
A scorched-earth ad policy that ignores the difference between ads that support content creators with minimal impact on the user experience and Fucking Ads only makes it harder for people who are creating worthwhile content and trying to support themselves responsibly to do so (and if you don't think the content is worthwhile, why are you there in the first place?).
That said, I hope models like Patreon catch on enough to provide an alternative that is better for everyone, supporting artists directly and eliminating the need for ads and all the issues that come with them.
Do you expect me to be surprised that there exist women who have enjoyed easy integration into tech? I mean, of course there are! How sad would it be if that weren't so? That doesn't mean others don't have a harder time, that they aren't driven out by the kind of workplace engendered (so to speak) by people like the ACs upthread who are coming right out and saying that they think most women are naturally inferior when it comes to STEM, that they just whine, don't have real concerns, and how they fail to appreciate all the "attention" given to them by their helpful colleagues.
I actually agree with many of the author of this post's points, to an extent, but she's basically going from "my experience wasn't like yours" to "therefore yours isn't real", and that's not how that works. As people in this thread have so helpfully demonstrated, there are some really toxic attitudes out there, the kind that start with "I only want to judge people on how well they can code", but don't take long to get to "everybody knows girls just aren't as good at coding as guys are", and while it's great that a woman can have a career without encountering that, many do, which reinforces the "you aren't wanted here" message that things like girl-centric tech courses and, to bring this back to the original point, organizations sending a different message by doing things that acknowledging the importance of integration, are trying to circumvent.
If you think I came within a mile of "conceding" something as idiotic as the notion that men are "biologically" better at STEM than women, either I seriously mis-spoke or you seriously mis-read.
And then you top it off by suggesting that if someone concedes your stupid generalizations about race, they have to also concede your stupid generalizations about sex?
Umm, no.
Also, wtf?
But anyway, now that you've come out and admitted that you think women are inferior to you when it comes to IT, thank you for playing the "demonstrate the problem we've been talking about" game.
Ah, I see from another comment what I think you mean. You're right, I shouldn't have suggested that 99.9% of coders are white males. White males are still far from a marginalized group in the industry, though, particularly where I am in the US, which was my actual point.
Ok, fair point. Unless you're prepared to make the case that white males (or, as an actual counter to the proposed test, just males in general) are a marginalized class in IT it doesn't affect my thesis, but fair point about the racial demographics. Sorry about that.
Nobody is arguing against doing those things. But there's not much point to them if you don't have ways to measure your success, and someone has proposed a (not even "then", just "a") way to do that. You're creating a false dichotomy.
If some would-be Larry Bird was talking about how he wanted to break into basketball but was driven away by harassment, or just by a day-to-day hostile environment created by the racial equivalent of guys who think sexism is a net win for women because it's easier for them to strip for a living (seriously?), then we should listen to that guy, too.
As far as I know, there are a lot more talented women trying to say there's a problem in tech than there are talented white guys trying to say there's a problem in basketball, though, and more often than not their complaints are met with comments like yours. And then we wonder why there aren't more women in IT.
...and if we lived in a world where it was ever a question whether 99.9% of projects would pass your version of that test, you might have a point. In that world, the "white male" version would, for whatever other faults it has, at least be trying to provide a metric for measuring integration of a marginalized group. But as that is not the world in which we live, your version of the test is pointless at best, and offensive at worst not because it is inherently so, but because in the real world it can only serve to gatekeep on behalf of a currently empowered class, not to serve an unempowered one. That is why the tests are different.
And to the people jumping on Dave420 with stats about national and world population in response to him using the term "minority", please note the "for programmers" part of the title here. The fact that women are a majority of the population at large has zero relevance to a point about their minority status within the relevant context i.e. the industry, other than to underscore the fact that maybe that disparity is indicative of a problem we should look at and have ways to measure our success at addressing.
The article doesn't provide many details on what these exploits actually were, but in case anyone else is curious like I was they appear to be published on the ZDI site:
Yes, and their about page, which the OP clearly didn't bother checking, says:
"Code.org is a registered public 501c3 nonprofit, with support from the general public."
Yeah, the.org by its self doesn't mean anything, but it does mean you should probably check for obvious answers to questions like "what is their business model?" before jumping straight to the conspiracy theories.
I am absolutely disgusted by the number of people on this thread who seem to be threatened by the idea of encouraging an early interest in CS. I've been volunteering with Hour of Code this week, meaning that, unlike everyone else I've seen on this thread, I actually have some first-hand knowledge about it. I've done the exercises myself, and have seen kids using them start to "get it". How many of them will keep with it? Idunno. But if more kids get into coding because they were given the right tool or had access to a CS curriculum earlier, and they keep exploring it, and that leads to more developers on the market, if they have half as much fun getting there as I did, then that's awesome. I'm not a big enough asshole to value my own special snowflakeness over exposing kids to as many opportunities as possible, and I'm ashamed of how many people around here seem to be.
As for those who scoff and turn up their noses at drag and drop interfaces like Scratch, oh man... where to start? First, it's an INTRODUCTORY tool. Nobody is pretending that this is what professional developers do. Second, it's an excellent way to provide that introduction! Your first language is often the hardest to learn, right? Why? Because you're not just learning the language, you're learning how to think like a developer, how to break down problems and structure solutions in a particular way. Language is an implementation detail. Thus, tools like Scratch abstract it away so you're dealing with the most essential presentation possible of concepts like variables, control structures, and so on. You get that down first, then you start writing "proper" code. IMO it's a brilliant approach.
...ah, I think I see what you mean ("aggregating public information" == addresses of stores and whatnot, and assuming "nearby" to be relative to some arbitrary address), whereas the way I always use "search nearby" is on my phone, with "nearby" being relative to my current GPS coordinates....which kinda makes this whole conversation moot for me, since I've never been happy with Google's interface for that, and generally just use Yelp instead. *shrug*
...oh, and while I haven't tried it, a while back I polled friends for good two-player games and a surprising number recommended cribbage, which I bet there are ways to play online.
First, I'm really sorry you've had to deal with all the dickish responses to your post. You know that doing the long-distance thing will be hard, so you're making plans for ways to stay bonded during that time. Kudos to you and all the best.
As far as games are concerned, one thing I haven't seen suggested much are (virtual) board and card games. Especially if you both have iPads (though there's also varying levels of support for Android, PC, etc versions, depending on the game), there are a ton of good co-op and vs 2-player games that can be played remotely. My girlfriend is actually way more into these than I am, but here are a few off the top of my head:
- Hive (I love this one. It's chess-like but novel, and free on iOS and Android (the physical set is also a great travel game)) - Forbidden Island (here's a video of Wil Wheaton playing it with John Scalzi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxG_ahmF1uM) - Ticket to Ride (pretty sure this one's also available for PC/Mac) - Ascension (iOS only, afaik) - Dominion (also iOS only, I think) - Magic (available on everything except Android, including consoles)
The nice thing about these games is, if you find one you like, you can hit up a site like boardgamegeek.com to find more like it.
It sounds like you might actually be female, but "You know what girls like to play? [the Sims and Facebook, basically]" was some varsity level mansplaining, regardless. How do you even get from there to the actually reasonable "frankly speaking, it all depends on the girl as to what will and won't work"? It's like you responded to your own comment.
(btw, my gf was/obsessed/ with Draw Something for months, as were a bunch of her friends across the nerdiness spectrum; but I'll be sure and let them know they were all doing it wrong)
>> "They HAVE an ID, Pass and IP" > Which of those are "UUIDs, software versions"?
Regarding part of your question, the answer to "which of those is a UUID?" is.... "ID". That was a fun game! But surely if you're informed enough to be willing to just dismiss the previous commenter as an idiot, you would know that a UUID is just a randomly-generated ID number, which is much more practical than distinguishing users by username.
You would also, of course, be able to infer that storing software version information might make more sense in the context of a software provider managing updates and support than in the context of a secret plot to reveal to the government who hasn't upgraded to the latest version yet.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone else? ...anyone?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZZT-oop
...to "Super-sketchy slimeball makes vague, unsubstantiated claim of having been hired by a Fortune 500 company".
Motherboard's headline at least acknowledges that all it's reporting is "ransomware gang claims that...", and the other report cited by the post says
"""
F-Secure’s security advisor Sean Sullivan doesn’t think the story sounds plausible. “It’s probably a young gun, just trying to make a hundred bucks. 95% chance he’s spinning a yarn,”
"""
I'm not saying it can't be true, but seriously, but why does /.'s headline upgrade crooks to people whose statements should be taken at face value?
...which would be a useful response if anyone was talking about replacing literacy training. Everyone is freaking out as though CS curricula in primary schools is something new, but it's really, really not. We were making turtles move around the screen in LOGO on my school's Commodore 64s in the 80s.
You have no clue what you are talking about do you?
The internet was designed to carry bits, not content. They could be formatting, content or just protocol.
I... I just...
O.o
Yeah, now is the time on Sprockets when for my sanity's sake I assume that this person must be trolling.
Your bandwidth is not being "stolen". It's being used to help the creator of the content to which you feel so entitled pay for the bandwidth being used to serve it. As such, if either of you is stealing something (neither of you is, but if we had to go there), it would be you, consuming someone's content while circumventing the means by which the other party has the audacity to try to support themselves, or at least not lose money so they can entertain you for free.
A scorched-earth ad policy that ignores the difference between ads that support content creators with minimal impact on the user experience and Fucking Ads only makes it harder for people who are creating worthwhile content and trying to support themselves responsibly to do so (and if you don't think the content is worthwhile, why are you there in the first place?).
That said, I hope models like Patreon catch on enough to provide an alternative that is better for everyone, supporting artists directly and eliminating the need for ads and all the issues that come with them.
Excuse me, that creaking sound you heard was me just dying of old age.
Do you expect me to be surprised that there exist women who have enjoyed easy integration into tech? I mean, of course there are! How sad would it be if that weren't so? That doesn't mean others don't have a harder time, that they aren't driven out by the kind of workplace engendered (so to speak) by people like the ACs upthread who are coming right out and saying that they think most women are naturally inferior when it comes to STEM, that they just whine, don't have real concerns, and how they fail to appreciate all the "attention" given to them by their helpful colleagues.
I actually agree with many of the author of this post's points, to an extent, but she's basically going from "my experience wasn't like yours" to "therefore yours isn't real", and that's not how that works. As people in this thread have so helpfully demonstrated, there are some really toxic attitudes out there, the kind that start with "I only want to judge people on how well they can code", but don't take long to get to "everybody knows girls just aren't as good at coding as guys are", and while it's great that a woman can have a career without encountering that, many do, which reinforces the "you aren't wanted here" message that things like girl-centric tech courses and, to bring this back to the original point, organizations sending a different message by doing things that acknowledging the importance of integration, are trying to circumvent.
If you think I came within a mile of "conceding" something as idiotic as the notion that men are "biologically" better at STEM than women, either I seriously mis-spoke or you seriously mis-read.
And then you top it off by suggesting that if someone concedes your stupid generalizations about race, they have to also concede your stupid generalizations about sex?
Umm, no.
Also, wtf?
But anyway, now that you've come out and admitted that you think women are inferior to you when it comes to IT, thank you for playing the "demonstrate the problem we've been talking about" game.
Ah, I see from another comment what I think you mean. You're right, I shouldn't have suggested that 99.9% of coders are white males. White males are still far from a marginalized group in the industry, though, particularly where I am in the US, which was my actual point.
Yeah, telling of how long it's been since I've followed basketball. :P
But again, are you saying these stories are out there? If so, they should be listened to. If not, what's your point?
Ok, fair point. Unless you're prepared to make the case that white males (or, as an actual counter to the proposed test, just males in general) are a marginalized class in IT it doesn't affect my thesis, but fair point about the racial demographics. Sorry about that.
Nobody is arguing against doing those things. But there's not much point to them if you don't have ways to measure your success, and someone has proposed a (not even "then", just "a") way to do that. You're creating a false dichotomy.
If some would-be Larry Bird was talking about how he wanted to break into basketball but was driven away by harassment, or just by a day-to-day hostile environment created by the racial equivalent of guys who think sexism is a net win for women because it's easier for them to strip for a living (seriously?), then we should listen to that guy, too.
As far as I know, there are a lot more talented women trying to say there's a problem in tech than there are talented white guys trying to say there's a problem in basketball, though, and more often than not their complaints are met with comments like yours. And then we wonder why there aren't more women in IT.
Since when was I talking about race rather than gender in the statement to which you're responding?
...and if we lived in a world where it was ever a question whether 99.9% of projects would pass your version of that test, you might have a point. In that world, the "white male" version would, for whatever other faults it has, at least be trying to provide a metric for measuring integration of a marginalized group. But as that is not the world in which we live, your version of the test is pointless at best, and offensive at worst not because it is inherently so, but because in the real world it can only serve to gatekeep on behalf of a currently empowered class, not to serve an unempowered one. That is why the tests are different.
And to the people jumping on Dave420 with stats about national and world population in response to him using the term "minority", please note the "for programmers" part of the title here. The fact that women are a majority of the population at large has zero relevance to a point about their minority status within the relevant context i.e. the industry, other than to underscore the fact that maybe that disparity is indicative of a problem we should look at and have ways to measure our success at addressing.
The article doesn't provide many details on what these exploits actually were, but in case anyone else is curious like I was they appear to be published on the ZDI site:
Broad strokes for new discoveries
Details for older exploits
Yes, and their about page, which the OP clearly didn't bother checking, says:
"Code.org is a registered public 501c3 nonprofit, with support from the general public."
Yeah, the .org by its self doesn't mean anything, but it does mean you should probably check for obvious answers to questions like "what is their business model?" before jumping straight to the conspiracy theories.
THANK YOU.
I am absolutely disgusted by the number of people on this thread who seem to be threatened by the idea of encouraging an early interest in CS. I've been volunteering with Hour of Code this week, meaning that, unlike everyone else I've seen on this thread, I actually have some first-hand knowledge about it. I've done the exercises myself, and have seen kids using them start to "get it". How many of them will keep with it? Idunno. But if more kids get into coding because they were given the right tool or had access to a CS curriculum earlier, and they keep exploring it, and that leads to more developers on the market, if they have half as much fun getting there as I did, then that's awesome. I'm not a big enough asshole to value my own special snowflakeness over exposing kids to as many opportunities as possible, and I'm ashamed of how many people around here seem to be.
As for those who scoff and turn up their noses at drag and drop interfaces like Scratch, oh man... where to start? First, it's an INTRODUCTORY tool. Nobody is pretending that this is what professional developers do. Second, it's an excellent way to provide that introduction! Your first language is often the hardest to learn, right? Why? Because you're not just learning the language, you're learning how to think like a developer, how to break down problems and structure solutions in a particular way. Language is an implementation detail. Thus, tools like Scratch abstract it away so you're dealing with the most essential presentation possible of concepts like variables, control structures, and so on. You get that down first, then you start writing "proper" code. IMO it's a brilliant approach.
...you do know what ".org" means, right?
...ah, I think I see what you mean ("aggregating public information" == addresses of stores and whatnot, and assuming "nearby" to be relative to some arbitrary address), whereas the way I always use "search nearby" is on my phone, with "nearby" being relative to my current GPS coordinates. ...which kinda makes this whole conversation moot for me, since I've never been happy with Google's interface for that, and generally just use Yelp instead. *shrug*
How does "search nearby" work without knowing your location (aka "tracking you")?
...oh, and while I haven't tried it, a while back I polled friends for good two-player games and a surprising number recommended cribbage, which I bet there are ways to play online.
First, I'm really sorry you've had to deal with all the dickish responses to your post. You know that doing the long-distance thing will be hard, so you're making plans for ways to stay bonded during that time. Kudos to you and all the best.
As far as games are concerned, one thing I haven't seen suggested much are (virtual) board and card games. Especially if you both have iPads (though there's also varying levels of support for Android, PC, etc versions, depending on the game), there are a ton of good co-op and vs 2-player games that can be played remotely. My girlfriend is actually way more into these than I am, but here are a few off the top of my head:
- Hive (I love this one. It's chess-like but novel, and free on iOS and Android (the physical set is also a great travel game))
- Forbidden Island (here's a video of Wil Wheaton playing it with John Scalzi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxG_ahmF1uM)
- Ticket to Ride (pretty sure this one's also available for PC/Mac)
- Ascension (iOS only, afaik)
- Dominion (also iOS only, I think)
- Magic (available on everything except Android, including consoles)
The nice thing about these games is, if you find one you like, you can hit up a site like boardgamegeek.com to find more like it.
Have fun!
It sounds like you might actually be female, but "You know what girls like to play? [the Sims and Facebook, basically]" was some varsity level mansplaining, regardless. How do you even get from there to the actually reasonable "frankly speaking, it all depends on the girl as to what will and won't work"? It's like you responded to your own comment.
(btw, my gf was /obsessed/ with Draw Something for months, as were a bunch of her friends across the nerdiness spectrum; but I'll be sure and let them know they were all doing it wrong)
>> "They HAVE an ID, Pass and IP"
> Which of those are "UUIDs, software versions"?
Regarding part of your question, the answer to "which of those is a UUID?" is.... "ID". That was a fun game! But surely if you're informed enough to be willing to just dismiss the previous commenter as an idiot, you would know that a UUID is just a randomly-generated ID number, which is much more practical than distinguishing users by username.
You would also, of course, be able to infer that storing software version information might make more sense in the context of a software provider managing updates and support than in the context of a secret plot to reveal to the government who hasn't upgraded to the latest version yet.