It does vary by industry, but "my part" of Florida, lately, has been North Central - quite a bit closer to the Heart of Dixie than South Florida, especially Miami, but even Naples -> Ft. Myers is more populated from the NorthEast than Georgia / Alabama.
First rule of Florida, nobody is from here. I'm sort of an exception, both my parents, myself, my brother, my wife and my first child were born in Florida. Even rarer is that we were born and lived most of our lives in-state, but we haven't all been living on "the family land" since the Indian Wars.
I suspect the "strength of bias" I am observing has to do with my location, in the U.S. South.
In that electronics factory, some interesting things came into play regarding productivity. First, our shop in Florida was non-union. Minimum wage was $3.35/hr then, and most of us made about $5.80/hr, plus time and a half for the 5 hours of semi-mandatory overtime most Saturdays. We had a sister plant in Ohio, union shop. Ohio had twice the number of people, working in 4x the square footage, making $11.50/hr to start with faster raises and better benefits. Our department consistently turned out 2x the amount of product as Ohio did, at 1/4 the cost. But, to get to your Asian reference, a few of the production girls were Vietnamese, their son (named Hung, can't forget that), interned the same summer I did. The industrial engineers established "rate" by test assembling a few things while they timed themselves. I watched over the guy's shoulder a few times while he did this. If he could make 4 parts in 15 minutes of focused effort, he'd set rate at about 50pcs per hour - his answer to my question on his math was "you'll get better with practice." Well, the Americans in the factory never did "make rate" on anything, but Hung could beat rate, sometimes by a factor of 2 or more, doing leaded component PCB stuffing.
So, we were the American factory with the occasional Asian sprinkled in, and while we were all incompetent compared to him, we still beat the crap out of the union shop in Ohio.
And you wonder how a circuit breaker for the B2 bomber could cost $1500?
Something I've encountered recently is an age discrimination / bias, working in a University town with a couple of firms heavily staffed with recent grads, there's a disconnect between the 25 year old idea of "proper work/life balance" and the 35+ year old perception of that concept.
It's not really so much age based, but as you say, when the kids are born, and then again when the kids enter school. My solution was to move out of the scrappy-graduate-company town and start working more with people my own age.
Sheeple are herd animals, and most kids starting out in the working world are sheeple.
If there's a heavily male dominated arena, women will shy away from it, and, strangely enough, vice versa.
I am well aware how unpopular this next statement is, and a major University admin had to resign not too long ago for saying it, but there are certain sex differences in raw ability - men are, on average, better at math, and women, in general, have superior "people skills." This should, and does, influence self selection of career roles. I certainly didn't choose Engineering school during my heavy hormone years because of the abundant babes there, I did it because I'm good at it, it takes me less effort to compete in that arena and come out on top, compared to say Psychology, Education or Business Administration.
But, back to the opening statement: these natural biases are magnified by the "following the crowd" effect, and reinforced by mentors and guidance counselors who dispense advice based on prejudice rather than the individual... that's what should be stopped, but it's an imperfect world, and a whole lot cheaper to pay $100 per female head than it is to "do it right, for all the right reasons."
As a white male, my standardized test scores were not quite enough to qualify for certain scholarships, special programs, etc.
A black male classmate of mine, with lower test scores, did qualify for all kinds of stuff based on those test scores plus his race...
I prefer it being "spelled out in black and white" minority race, disadvantaged sex, poverty background, whatever, as long as the rules are written and followed.
So much of life is decided based on unwritten, subjective decision making that so often boils down to these factors, but is unspoken, and can also hide nepotism, and worse.
Funny, I've worked in a bunch of different jobs since the 1980s, the stats ran like this:
Factory intern: lots of women, all in assembly. Repair techs were all ex-Navy and all male. Managers were all male. Out of 500 employees, there was one token male assembler and one token female manager.
Grocery stocker: all stockmen were male, all baggers were male, all managers and department heads were male, all cashiers and the office girl were female, except for one flamer... this is a major chain with hundreds of stores, they're all staffed basically this way.
First "real" job: hired as the 4th male in an all male software department, adjacent to 4 other males in electrical, serving a production floor that had 4 male engineers and techs, plus 2 women who did wire wrap. Later added one woman in QA, three more doing assembly, and a string of all male software interns.
Big company, R&D engineering, 30 people, 28 male engineers plus 2 "documentation specialists" who seemed like secretaries to me.
String of small companies, roughly 80 engineering like colleagues in total, one female.
If it's illegal, there's a whole lot of law breakin' goin' on.
A Toyota Yaris with a 3" solid steel rod welded to the engine block will hurt quite a bit at 40mph, even if it is reinforced concrete. Now, repeat ram the wall 40 times...
I seem to remember stories of "ships offshore" during Vietnam firing something like a 16" gun to take out bridges 80+ miles inland... Could be distorting something, too lazy to Wikipedia right now.
At last, the US Navy, for so long the consumer of more tax dollars than NASA by some crazy high multiple, can be just as effective, but with a lower economic burden.
Slashdot Mirror
It does vary by industry, but "my part" of Florida, lately, has been North Central - quite a bit closer to the Heart of Dixie than South Florida, especially Miami, but even Naples -> Ft. Myers is more populated from the NorthEast than Georgia / Alabama.
First rule of Florida, nobody is from here. I'm sort of an exception, both my parents, myself, my brother, my wife and my first child were born in Florida. Even rarer is that we were born and lived most of our lives in-state, but we haven't all been living on "the family land" since the Indian Wars.
But, you might teach 'im to be a judge:
http://youtu.be/Grg5tULy0tY
I suspect the "strength of bias" I am observing has to do with my location, in the U.S. South.
In that electronics factory, some interesting things came into play regarding productivity. First, our shop in Florida was non-union. Minimum wage was $3.35/hr then, and most of us made about $5.80/hr, plus time and a half for the 5 hours of semi-mandatory overtime most Saturdays. We had a sister plant in Ohio, union shop. Ohio had twice the number of people, working in 4x the square footage, making $11.50/hr to start with faster raises and better benefits. Our department consistently turned out 2x the amount of product as Ohio did, at 1/4 the cost. But, to get to your Asian reference, a few of the production girls were Vietnamese, their son (named Hung, can't forget that), interned the same summer I did. The industrial engineers established "rate" by test assembling a few things while they timed themselves. I watched over the guy's shoulder a few times while he did this. If he could make 4 parts in 15 minutes of focused effort, he'd set rate at about 50pcs per hour - his answer to my question on his math was "you'll get better with practice." Well, the Americans in the factory never did "make rate" on anything, but Hung could beat rate, sometimes by a factor of 2 or more, doing leaded component PCB stuffing.
So, we were the American factory with the occasional Asian sprinkled in, and while we were all incompetent compared to him, we still beat the crap out of the union shop in Ohio.
And you wonder how a circuit breaker for the B2 bomber could cost $1500?
Plumbers can make considerably more money than garbage collectors, and as GP pointed out, it's not particularly hot or heavy work.
Something I've encountered recently is an age discrimination / bias, working in a University town with a couple of firms heavily staffed with recent grads, there's a disconnect between the 25 year old idea of "proper work/life balance" and the 35+ year old perception of that concept.
It's not really so much age based, but as you say, when the kids are born, and then again when the kids enter school. My solution was to move out of the scrappy-graduate-company town and start working more with people my own age.
Sheeple are herd animals, and most kids starting out in the working world are sheeple.
If there's a heavily male dominated arena, women will shy away from it, and, strangely enough, vice versa.
I am well aware how unpopular this next statement is, and a major University admin had to resign not too long ago for saying it, but there are certain sex differences in raw ability - men are, on average, better at math, and women, in general, have superior "people skills." This should, and does, influence self selection of career roles. I certainly didn't choose Engineering school during my heavy hormone years because of the abundant babes there, I did it because I'm good at it, it takes me less effort to compete in that arena and come out on top, compared to say Psychology, Education or Business Administration.
But, back to the opening statement: these natural biases are magnified by the "following the crowd" effect, and reinforced by mentors and guidance counselors who dispense advice based on prejudice rather than the individual... that's what should be stopped, but it's an imperfect world, and a whole lot cheaper to pay $100 per female head than it is to "do it right, for all the right reasons."
My 1988 Engineering gradating class was more than 2/3 male, then most of the females went into MBA / management roles.
Worse than just the US, the Southern US - mostly Florida, also Texas.
40 years ago, the kids were still calling "Nigger" and meaning it with hate... we are making progress, but it's slow.
As a white male, my standardized test scores were not quite enough to qualify for certain scholarships, special programs, etc.
A black male classmate of mine, with lower test scores, did qualify for all kinds of stuff based on those test scores plus his race...
I prefer it being "spelled out in black and white" minority race, disadvantaged sex, poverty background, whatever, as long as the rules are written and followed.
So much of life is decided based on unwritten, subjective decision making that so often boils down to these factors, but is unspoken, and can also hide nepotism, and worse.
Funny, I've worked in a bunch of different jobs since the 1980s, the stats ran like this:
Factory intern: lots of women, all in assembly. Repair techs were all ex-Navy and all male. Managers were all male. Out of 500 employees, there was one token male assembler and one token female manager.
Grocery stocker: all stockmen were male, all baggers were male, all managers and department heads were male, all cashiers and the office girl were female, except for one flamer... this is a major chain with hundreds of stores, they're all staffed basically this way.
First "real" job: hired as the 4th male in an all male software department, adjacent to 4 other males in electrical, serving a production floor that had 4 male engineers and techs, plus 2 women who did wire wrap. Later added one woman in QA, three more doing assembly, and a string of all male software interns.
Big company, R&D engineering, 30 people, 28 male engineers plus 2 "documentation specialists" who seemed like secretaries to me.
String of small companies, roughly 80 engineering like colleagues in total, one female.
If it's illegal, there's a whole lot of law breakin' goin' on.
Discrimination by sex is allowed in more circumstances than race, religion, disability, etc.
Discrimination by age is even more permissible, but still forbidden in some circumstances.
For particulars, consult a lawyer familiar with the case law, and hope he's not lying to you to push his own personal agenda.
That's why we still have the cruise missiles, but it's a shame to waste them on adobe huts...
I was at U of Miami in 1990, they were just finishing up fancy new Physics and Engineering buildings, funded in large part by the Regan programs...
That explains it... all I ever heard were "big shells," assumed they were simple artillery.
A Toyota Yaris with a 3" solid steel rod welded to the engine block will hurt quite a bit at 40mph, even if it is reinforced concrete. Now, repeat ram the wall 40 times...
I seem to remember stories of "ships offshore" during Vietnam firing something like a 16" gun to take out bridges 80+ miles inland... Could be distorting something, too lazy to Wikipedia right now.
Now, picture a beowulf cluster of these rail guns firing an anti-aircraft pattern up from the National Mall toward an incoming aircraft....
What's the kinetic energy after 1 minute of ballistic flight?
It's what we're working on instead of the Large Hadron Collider / CERN.
Probably would work better if the emplacements were on the Moon.
Depends, is the target a bridge or a building?
Striking moving targets from 100 mile range is ballsy, even for the Navy.
At last, the US Navy, for so long the consumer of more tax dollars than NASA by some crazy high multiple, can be just as effective, but with a lower economic burden.
How does the rail gun range compare to the "big" conventional guns. I know the conventionals can take out bridges 100 miles inland.
I'm betting that $25K per shot includes the cost of launcher maintenance.
Even for military use, 10kg of solid projectile material shouldn't bill out at $25K.
So, while a ship might fire 2 or 3 missiles in an engagement, they can fire hundreds of these...