So making leveling the playing field is punishing those who received unearned advantages WITHOUT working for them?
Yes. EVERYBODY wants to secure a good future for their children, grandchildren, and so on. Why should anybody feel guilty about that? You have it hard today because your parents were held down their whole life? Well, that sucks, but *now* you have the ability to secure a future for your own children. Instead of moping around about shit that happened in the past, do something about the future.
But this is not about leveling the playing field; it's about increasing the pool of applicants with the end goal of depressing wages. See also the current lawsuit against several tech giants, including Google, the Great White Hope for getting more women into IT, for colluding to not hire each other's employees.
One thing that I find very telling about this initiative and others like it is that none of these efforts to increase the number of women in IT ever state why that goal is important. Why is IT better for women than whatever other career path they choose? At my college, 73% of my class was female. They had to major in *something* in order to graduate; why does it matter that it wasn't IT, as long as they're happy with the fields they chose?
And that, is a lie, we both know it.
No, it isn't. You might have to work longer and harder to get to where you want to be, but if you think life is easy for *anybody* but the super-rich, then you're just plain delusional.
How was the statement sexist? The only way I can see that it could be perceived as such would be if you thought men and women are or should be the same, but that's just stupid. You're not stupid, are you?
So anyone who uses logic or points out hypocrisy is an MRA? Poison the well much? You might want to check your address bar; this is slashdot.org, not jezebel.com.
why is it that 90+% of the developers I've worked with, spanning some 20 years, are male?
A better question would be, Why do you even care about the gender of your coworkers? Aren't you just there to work? Or are you hoping to hook up with someone on the job? Seriously, explain this. As far as my coworkers go, I don't give a single fuck what demographics they belong to, only about their level of competence.
One of the side effects of white-knighting is that now and then you'll find yourself tilting at windmills, as you're doing today.
Nobody is complaining about competition; the problem is the tech giants' efforts to undermine skilled workers pursuing a career doing what they love in favor of less-skilled (read: cheap) ones who are only in it for the money. There is no regard for the quality of code produced, no effort to ensure that American tech companies remain relevant in a global economy, just the race to the bottom, and no amount of warm-and-fuzzy cooing about girls being just as good as boys or pastel websites about how awesome grrrrl coders are will change that.
Please also keep in mind that not only do women and foreigners tend to work for far less money than American men, they are much less likely to "talk back" or "make waves" or whatever else you want to call it, which is why there are concentrated, industry-wide efforts to push more women and H1-B's into tech, and no such efforts for more African-American or Latino-American men. It doesn't really get much more obvious, cynical, or self-serving than this, regardless of how desperately you want to believe in your own anecdotal evidence of a shortage that we all know simply does not exist. If your company can't find enough quality workers, then your company sucks at compensation, or recruiting, or advertising open positions, or anything else involved in the process of attracting, growing, and retaining talent.
There's been an ever-increasing push over the last 10 or 12 years to get more girls and women into tech, with almost no visible results; in fact, the number of women in tech has been declining for decades. This seems odd at first, but the reason this push is constantly being attempted at all is that it's part of a larger effort to increase the pool of applicants and decrease salaries. It's the same reason that Facebook, Google, et al. want to increase the number of H1-B visa workers.
There is nothing stopping a girl or woman from learning programming/networking/etc. if she wants to, and these increasingly bizarre, desperate, and creepy attempts to lure in women will end up pushing away the ones who might have pursued tech careers otherwise.
I wasn't aware of that, so thanks for sharing. Unfortunately, swipe-and-sign will still be available.
I commented elsewhere in this thread that nobody will pay for it, but now that I think on it more, the most likely scenario for paying for the switch is that banks will offer their customers a "New, more secure card!" for the low, low price of ($10? $20?). If people don't want to buy into it at first, they'll be forced to pay for it once their current card expires/falls apart/is stolen and they need to get a new one anyway.
Who would decide the point at which security had sufficiently improved, though? The chip-and-PIN system used in the civilized parts of the world is, of course, much better than magnetic swipe, and *should* become prevalent here in the states. Unfortunately, it would cost billions to upgrade the US's entire infrastructure to support it, and I honestly don't see anyone picking up the tab for any part of such an upgrade any time soon.
There is no such thing. The dollar, the yen, the pound, everything, they are *all* fiat currency. The only difference with bitcoin is that it's not controlled by a government and/or private corporation (a la the US Federal Reserve).
All kidding aside, I've never understood this seething hatred that so-called "hardcore gamers" exhibit towards Nintendo and its products. Regardless of anything Nintendo does, their detractors feel the need to get on the Internet and rage about "It's all kiddie games!" or "The graphics suck!" or, in this case, "The 3D sucks!" and these tirades are always accompanied by predictions of Nintendo's impending bankruptcy. Ironically, it's always struck me as a bit childish.
Back on topic, I haven't gotten a 3DS yet for one reason: The lack of must-have games.
And on that subject, what system since the Super NES had a really compelling launch lineup? I honestly can't think of one.
especially with their most recent round of egregious bullshit, but does anyone actually use Buzz? I was messing around with it earlier today, and it seems a lot less annoying than Facebook; I just don't think I know ANYONE that uses it. Maybe it's just still too new? It's hard to say, but the way FB does things is getting more ridiculous all the time.
That actually threw me off for a second; reading it in the summary, I got this mental image of an inmate with an actual hard drive (with the cover removed, for some reason), and had a real "WTF?" moment before I realized what was really meant.
That's not the "medicine" part, that's hand holding.
It's usually called bedside manner, and it's very important to a very large number of people. To some people, it's the most important quality they look for in a doctor (especially parents looking for a pediatrician). Getting defensive and being a dick about it won't change that and doesn't really contribute to the discussion at all, and I'm a bit surprised that your comment was modded Interesting (which you usually are, but not this time). Retorting with one-word answers is pretty lame, especially for someone who needs to make compelling arguments on a regular basis in his line of work. You might just be taking the "lawyers and patients" snip a bit too much to heart.
You missed the part where the poster logs IPs. If a hiring manager goes looking into shit that has no relevance to the position applied for, and then uses that as a basis for not hiring someone, then the employer is guilty of discrimination. Not that I'd expect a corporate suit to understand that.
All they have to say is that they didn't hire you based on
This is an excellent example of how employers circumvent discrimination laws. "No, it wasn't discrimination, it was...er...some other reason. Honest!" Thanks for that.
Slashdot Mirror
So making leveling the playing field is punishing those who received unearned advantages WITHOUT working for them?
Yes. EVERYBODY wants to secure a good future for their children, grandchildren, and so on. Why should anybody feel guilty about that? You have it hard today because your parents were held down their whole life? Well, that sucks, but *now* you have the ability to secure a future for your own children. Instead of moping around about shit that happened in the past, do something about the future. But this is not about leveling the playing field; it's about increasing the pool of applicants with the end goal of depressing wages. See also the current lawsuit against several tech giants, including Google, the Great White Hope for getting more women into IT, for colluding to not hire each other's employees.
One thing that I find very telling about this initiative and others like it is that none of these efforts to increase the number of women in IT ever state why that goal is important. Why is IT better for women than whatever other career path they choose? At my college, 73% of my class was female. They had to major in *something* in order to graduate; why does it matter that it wasn't IT, as long as they're happy with the fields they chose?
And that, is a lie, we both know it.
No, it isn't. You might have to work longer and harder to get to where you want to be, but if you think life is easy for *anybody* but the super-rich, then you're just plain delusional.
How was the statement sexist? The only way I can see that it could be perceived as such would be if you thought men and women are or should be the same, but that's just stupid. You're not stupid, are you?
I didn't realize that absolutely no money at all was going to girls to get college educations. Thank you for enlightening us.
Also, you might want to see a doctor about that giant chip on your shoulder.
But you and the other MRAs
So anyone who uses logic or points out hypocrisy is an MRA? Poison the well much? You might want to check your address bar; this is slashdot.org, not jezebel.com.
why is it that 90+% of the developers I've worked with, spanning some 20 years, are male?
A better question would be, Why do you even care about the gender of your coworkers? Aren't you just there to work? Or are you hoping to hook up with someone on the job? Seriously, explain this. As far as my coworkers go, I don't give a single fuck what demographics they belong to, only about their level of competence.
One of the side effects of white-knighting is that now and then you'll find yourself tilting at windmills, as you're doing today.
Nobody is complaining about competition; the problem is the tech giants' efforts to undermine skilled workers pursuing a career doing what they love in favor of less-skilled (read: cheap) ones who are only in it for the money. There is no regard for the quality of code produced, no effort to ensure that American tech companies remain relevant in a global economy, just the race to the bottom, and no amount of warm-and-fuzzy cooing about girls being just as good as boys or pastel websites about how awesome grrrrl coders are will change that.
Please also keep in mind that not only do women and foreigners tend to work for far less money than American men, they are much less likely to "talk back" or "make waves" or whatever else you want to call it, which is why there are concentrated, industry-wide efforts to push more women and H1-B's into tech, and no such efforts for more African-American or Latino-American men. It doesn't really get much more obvious, cynical, or self-serving than this, regardless of how desperately you want to believe in your own anecdotal evidence of a shortage that we all know simply does not exist. If your company can't find enough quality workers, then your company sucks at compensation, or recruiting, or advertising open positions, or anything else involved in the process of attracting, growing, and retaining talent.
There's been an ever-increasing push over the last 10 or 12 years to get more girls and women into tech, with almost no visible results; in fact, the number of women in tech has been declining for decades. This seems odd at first, but the reason this push is constantly being attempted at all is that it's part of a larger effort to increase the pool of applicants and decrease salaries. It's the same reason that Facebook, Google, et al. want to increase the number of H1-B visa workers.
There is nothing stopping a girl or woman from learning programming/networking/etc. if she wants to, and these increasingly bizarre, desperate, and creepy attempts to lure in women will end up pushing away the ones who might have pursued tech careers otherwise.
Are you saying the WTC "attack" wasn't carried out by Silverstein, Bush, Cheney, et al?
There's India, North Korea, China, Iran, and so on.
Are we pretending that Congress gives a fuck about anything we have to say?
I wasn't aware of that, so thanks for sharing. Unfortunately, swipe-and-sign will still be available.
I commented elsewhere in this thread that nobody will pay for it, but now that I think on it more, the most likely scenario for paying for the switch is that banks will offer their customers a "New, more secure card!" for the low, low price of ($10? $20?). If people don't want to buy into it at first, they'll be forced to pay for it once their current card expires/falls apart/is stolen and they need to get a new one anyway.
refuse to accept it unless security is improved
Who would decide the point at which security had sufficiently improved, though? The chip-and-PIN system used in the civilized parts of the world is, of course, much better than magnetic swipe, and *should* become prevalent here in the states. Unfortunately, it would cost billions to upgrade the US's entire infrastructure to support it, and I honestly don't see anyone picking up the tab for any part of such an upgrade any time soon.
That's going to change next year.
Incidentally, 2015 is also the year of Linux on the desktop.
Ok, but what does that have to do with JavaScript?
real money
There is no such thing. The dollar, the yen, the pound, everything, they are *all* fiat currency. The only difference with bitcoin is that it's not controlled by a government and/or private corporation (a la the US Federal Reserve).
Nobody said it was logical.
You must be new here.
...
Nice UID, by the way. This shouldn't surprise you at all.
Wrong Bush. GHW = Bush Sr, who was not reelected, but lost to Clinton.
Pachter? Is that you?
All kidding aside, I've never understood this seething hatred that so-called "hardcore gamers" exhibit towards Nintendo and its products. Regardless of anything Nintendo does, their detractors feel the need to get on the Internet and rage about "It's all kiddie games!" or "The graphics suck!" or, in this case, "The 3D sucks!" and these tirades are always accompanied by predictions of Nintendo's impending bankruptcy. Ironically, it's always struck me as a bit childish.
Back on topic, I haven't gotten a 3DS yet for one reason: The lack of must-have games.
And on that subject, what system since the Super NES had a really compelling launch lineup? I honestly can't think of one.
especially with their most recent round of egregious bullshit, but does anyone actually use Buzz? I was messing around with it earlier today, and it seems a lot less annoying than Facebook; I just don't think I know ANYONE that uses it. Maybe it's just still too new? It's hard to say, but the way FB does things is getting more ridiculous all the time.
Putting Blackberry aside
Why would you put Blackberry aside? It's a sizable chunk of the smartphone market.
Apple individually sells more smart phones than most all other companies put together.
Oh, okay. Spin, indeed.
A Zappa reference on Slashdot? You are my new hero.
That actually threw me off for a second; reading it in the summary, I got this mental image of an inmate with an actual hard drive (with the cover removed, for some reason), and had a real "WTF?" moment before I realized what was really meant.
That's not the "medicine" part, that's hand holding.
It's usually called bedside manner, and it's very important to a very large number of people. To some people, it's the most important quality they look for in a doctor (especially parents looking for a pediatrician). Getting defensive and being a dick about it won't change that and doesn't really contribute to the discussion at all, and I'm a bit surprised that your comment was modded Interesting (which you usually are, but not this time). Retorting with one-word answers is pretty lame, especially for someone who needs to make compelling arguments on a regular basis in his line of work. You might just be taking the "lawyers and patients" snip a bit too much to heart.
Is it a game that cause the guy to become delusional, or was he susceptible to delusions in the first place?
Sadly, this question could just as easily apply to the judge as to the defendant.
You missed the part where the poster logs IPs. If a hiring manager goes looking into shit that has no relevance to the position applied for, and then uses that as a basis for not hiring someone, then the employer is guilty of discrimination. Not that I'd expect a corporate suit to understand that.
All they have to say is that they didn't hire you based on
This is an excellent example of how employers circumvent discrimination laws. "No, it wasn't discrimination, it was...er...some other reason. Honest!" Thanks for that.