I'm sure that it was actually some small number of machines - could be 3 - so "3 machines had unlicensed software" vs. "75% of their Office installations were pirated" does make sense.
BUT!
I have no problem with individuals pirating software for their personal use. I, personally, have pirated just absurd quantities of software throughout the years - everything from Visual Studio and Office on to every Adobe and Macromedia app out there, and then into some really esoteric and freakishly expensive 3D software. And I learned how to use most of the tools I used professionally on pirated copies. However, if I found something useful and wanted to make it into a business, I bought a legit copy.
To me, using pirated software to make money is just flat out wrong. Not an acceptable practice at all. Even if it's "only" a couple of copies of Office (and, after all, MSFT is the devil) - still not acceptable. I am sure that Camden would be pissed if people stopped paying them for their work, or if people simply took their copyrighted works and re-published them to sell as their own. It's just not kosher.
If a business can't afford the tools they need to do a job, then they either need to find cheaper tools, change the way they do business, negotiate with the vendors, or get out of their field.
I don't like the bullshit tactics that the BSA uses, but I also don't think that anyone they stomp on is automatically on the side of the angels, either.
I used to spend about $50 a month on games, and now I spend about $20. This is entirely due to MMO's.
I started with Star Wars: Galaxies. Then went to City of Heroes. Then World of Warcraft. When I see a game on the shelf, where I used to just pick it up and take it back, I find myself asking if I'm really going to play it all that much, since I'll be playing my MMO...
Am I the typical gamer? Probably not, but I can't imagine that I'm that unusual.
Now, if we flip the question a bit, I am *DEFINITELY* paying more *per* game - I've been WoWing for over a year now - so figure 15 months @ 15 bucks = $225 there, and then I bought the game at retail for ~$50 - so $275 on one game, World of Warcraft, and I don't see myself quitting anytime soon.
I don't think the person you were replying to was talking about transport, but rolling obese people over for things like bed-pan work and cleaning. The confluence of more obese people in the general population + obese people being more likely to get hospitalized = stronger nurses not being a bad thing.
However, I do know that in some hospitals they're using equipment that lets even a tiny person roll a morbidly obese person with relative ease. Aside from reducing the strength requirement, it also frequently shames the heavy person into trying to lose weight. How mortifying it must be to require special equipment just to get a sponge bath.
I won't disagree with your experiences - I'll be the first to admit that psychology and social work are fields that are populated largely by women (though I won't say "dominated" at this point in time - but certainly the trend is towards that).
I also won't disagree that when things are stacked in favor of *either* gender in a field, the behavior by the dominant group tends to be awful. The evidence of this is growing - as women have begun to gain parity in management roles in various fields, harassment lawsuits against them have increased.
However, I submit that this kind of tendency - for either gender to act, basically, like a pack of assholes when they're running the show - is a very strong reason to encourage the underrepresented gender to enter the field, whatever the field is.
In my opinion, this tendency - in CS, in social work or psychology, in teaching, in nursing, in any field - will make it so that people who are most qualified from an aptitude and interest standpoint - will be *least* likely to enter into the field. They want to do the work, but don't want to deal with the bullshit interpersonal aspects. Reducing the ability for one type of individual to dominate a field can only help - it will encourage people who would be *outstanding* professionals in that field to enter, without worrying that something dumb is going to trip them up.
Summing it up: It doesn't matter what gender the assholes in charge are - if they're assholes, they're assholes, and it makes sense to take steps to limit their negative impact. I didn't see anyone suggest that women never abuse authority and positions of power - I'd certainly never say such a thing - it's all about power inequality.
The only reason that it's been fairly "men in charge" heavy in this thread is because of the field we're talking about due to the story - CS.
I think it would be interesting to know of the specific reasons of why the men felt uncomfortable. Maybe because they couldn't relate to their female co-workers in the same way the relate to other males (who's dick is bigger).
The general trends that showed up were:
- Female dominated industry = "You must be gay/not a man if you work in it" Several subjects said that co-workers would often try to match-make the guys with other men, on the assumption that they were gay. - Different modes of interaction, different dynamic (different humor styles, interpersonal modes, etc) - Negative treatment at the hands of female superiors - taunts, teases, general harassment (yep - sad to say that one of the things that female dominated workspaces prove is that women can be just as bad as men when it comes to this shit) - Lack of opportunity to follow their own interests. Male nurses are often pushed towards management roles by hospital administrators, while many men became nurses specifically so that they could focus on direct patient care - "You're strong - help me move this 500 lb. guy" - the general assumption that male = big strong guy and only good for heavy lifting. Getting paged to leave a unit to come help move a patient (typically a task for an orderly/transport worker)
Lots of other stuff was mentioned, but these were the most common ones. What really struck me is how they are similar in kind (but not necessarily detail) to the complaints many women have about male-dominated workspaces.
I have not once suggested - nor has anyone suggested, from what I can tell - that the relevant qualifications be reduced. Nobody is saying "Math is, like, HARD for girls, let's give 'em a pass!" What has been said is that there may be some pointless *social* barriers to women applying for these programs, and that such things should be looked at.
Let me ask you this - don't you find it... odd... that not one single woman applied for this particular gig? I mean, women in CS make up more than 1% of the population, right? So why, out of 181 applicants was there not one single, solitary woman? Even an unqualified woman? This isn't about *accepting* applicants based on gender and not qualifications - it's about even *getting* applicants who aren't men.
Simply put, the demographics of the applicants and the demographics of the field in general are wildly out of whack - they're trying to figure out why this is. Nobody's talking about reducing the quality of people in the program, or even suggesting that (except for you and other people making your same point, ironically enough)
In this case, the question isn't about taking inferior candidates - it isn't that GNOME is saying "Okay, if you're a guy you'll need to have this, that, and the other thing. If you're a woman, just show up and we'll let you in."
What it is, is the fact that there were 181 applications, and all of them were from men. Not a single woman, if I read right. That's kind of odd, don't you think? Now, I am not saying "Oh, they need to make it 50/50 by any means necessary!" but what I am saying is that they certainly can benefit from examining why not one solitary female applicant was to be had.
If it turns out that there was a reasonable representation (whatever that means) of women for the other SoC group applications - well, that would make me think that GNOME's pitch just turned women off, and they can look at their stuff to find out why. If it turns out that, on the whole, women simply were not applying (and by that I mean not even in the ratios normally seen in CS) to the SoC at all - well, that's interesting too. What's changed to make this kind of thing even less attractive to women? These questions might not be interesting to some people, but that doesn't mean they aren't good questions.
So, I think I agree with you in general, but I'd go back a step further and look at the applicants and look at the general CS population and see where they differ and figure out why.
Do men that go into nursing get a preference because there's more women than men? (An honest question).
Emphatically, yes. Nursing programs are AVIDLY trying to recruit men.
I posted an explanation of why this kind of equalizing isn't a bad thing - why what *looks* like a level playing field with open access to all is not, in fact, level nor open. I'll give the short version here: it's about the social environment.
Many men don't go into nursing because they're afraid it will make them seem less manly. Many women don't go into tech because they're afraid they'll be in a socially/emotionally desolate nerdspace. If things can be done to reduce the social anxiety that is keeping people away from jobs they'd otherwise be highly capable of doing, then that's a good thing.
And to anyone who'd say "If they can't overcome a little anxiety, fuck 'em, we don't want 'em and they obviously don't want it enough!" - it isn't a *little* anxiety - it's a LOT. For anyone who disagrees, I suggest they go do something that is usually very at odds with their typical gender roles and see just how "little" anxiety they feel. The "If they can't hack it" line tends to come from people who are fortunate enough to have their interests and the social spheres line up well enough.
I have *NEVER* met a male nursing student, and I know quite a few nursing students. Nobody gives a crap about that?
Actually, there's lots of stuff being done by nursing schools to bring in male students. Partly to address the nursing shortage, and partly to achieve gender equity (or at least get closer to it) just for the sake of doing it.
For one of my classes last semester, we were supposed to pick an area where there was a huge imbalance in gender representation and explore the causes. I picked nursing, interviewed 100+ male nurses and nursing students and asked them why they picked the field, what issues they ran into etc. - almost all of them pointed out that it was so *incredibly* dominated by women that they felt uncomfortable in the environment. Further, many expressed concerns that they'd be percieved as less masculine by those outside their profession - basically "People will think I'm gay!" By the time I'd finished my report, several of the male students hd dropped out of their programs.
For women in technology (of which I used to be one before I went back to school to study psychology), a huge issue is the "swinging dick" factor. Women and men tend to have different priorites and needs in order to be happy in a workplace - one of the big ones for many women is the social sphere. I know that, for me, the deciding factor was that I wound up feeling as if I was spending a third of my life around people I didn't particularly like, didn't find to be particularly able to have small-talk with, and generally just left me feeling pretty cut-off from the world.
(And, for anyone who says "Work is about work, not socialization, silly female!" let me just say: Men tend to also have certain needs from a workplace that seem just as silly - that whole alpha monkey/competitive thing is pretty goddamn funny and sad. Isn't work supposed to be about work, not establishing who's dick is bigger?)
Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that yeah - women and men DO have (in the US, at least) the same theoretical access to whatever workplaces (with some exceptions) - but that doesn't mean that in practical terms a given professional space will be equally hospitable to both genders. Guys don't do "girl" jobs because they're afraid they'll look gay, gals don't do "boy" jobs because they they'll wind up in testosterone central. That kind of atmosphere presents a barrier to opportunity that a lot of people don't really see until they run right into it. So, from my point of view, a plan to address some of that stuff would be a good thing, regardless of the industry.
I'd love to see a game that could handle multiple instruments. Guitar, drum, keyboards. Throw in a DDR and Karaoke aspect, too. Let a whole bunch of people play simultaneously, each doing different things - that'd just completely rule.
There are some topic that are just off limits for political reasons. Look at the debate over the Bell Curve or Holocaust revisionism. It doesn't matter that the proponents are ultimately wrong, what's important is that they aren't even allowed to publicly state their positions.
Except that's not true. The people who wrote the Bell Curve *were* allowed to publically state their positions - in the form of a published book. They were invited to debate and discuss their points on numerous television shows. They were interviewed and had their comments published in several newspapers. For the Holocaust denial people, ditto, and hell, Northwestern University even has one as a tenured faculty member. These people can publically state their opinions, and then they get those opinions ripped to shreds based on factual evidence. You say that these people can't even open their mouths, and I say that they *can* and *do* open their mouths and the backlash they get is because people can prove that the stuff they're saying is utter bullshit.
They're allowed to speak their piece, and people who disagree are allowed to speak theirs. And what usually happens is that idiots who want to say that the Holocaust didn't happen tend to get their asses handed to them. Which is EXACTLY how things should work - the side with better arguments based on better evidence should prevail.
Climatology is a field in which you will get less money if you say that everything's ok. No one gives a damn if the world is fine. People donate huge sums of money to save the world.
Pardon me, but that's just wrong. Do you really think that Exxon and other giant companies that have everything to gain (in the short term) from having "proof" that global warming doesn't exist DON'T fork over boatloads of cash? I'm pretty sure that I could very easily get a grant from some of their puppet "think-tanks" to research how pro-global-warming scientists are actually baby rapers or something. There's plenty money on all sides of this thing - and I am willing to bet that it is a *hell* of a lot easier to get it from corporate coffers than it is to get it from any number of environmental groups.
Look at the tobacco industry for a perfect example of this kind of funding. "Tobacco use does not cause cancer - the uptick in cancer and the uptick in tobacco use are entirely unrelated! We have proof! See, it turns out that another thing was also on the upswing - the year! Notice that in 1921 the incidence of lung cancer was only 1 in 100,000? And now in 1972 it has risen to 1 in 25,000? That's because 1972 is a bigger number than 1921!!! PROOF!!!!"
If it's the guide I'm thinking of (Joana's) then yeah, it's pretty OK. There are lots of free guides out there that will give as much or more info, but that one is freakishly fast. I've a friend who's run alts through it 2x on new servers, and he's been able to hit 60 both times in under 5 days/played, if I remember right.
Instead of obsessing about how unlockable features prevents you from having you your fun try thinking of them as spreading the fun over a longer period of time. If a game gave you everything at the start once you got bored with the game that would be it. However with unlockable content you still have new things to do even after you have begun to exhaust the possibilities of the game play provided at the beginning. So instead of buying a game that gives you 30 hours of fun you have bought a game that gives you 50 hours of fun. I would call that a good thing.
For you this holds true. Maybe even for the majority of people this holds true. But the entire point that the article was trying to make is that some people don't think or believe as you do about this. Simply put, they don't *want* the artificial barrier to fun - they just want to game and seem to be willing to accept the possible consequences of having all of it available immediately.
That said, I believe the issue can be handled pretty easily by cheat codes. Most modern console games nowadays have such granular cheat codes that one can enable any locked content pretty easily without having to, say, enable god mode or whatever.
For the record, my approach is on a game by game basis. For games like GTA, I will admit that I give the story an attempt, but as soon as I run into a mission that just completely flummoxes me, I tend to say "Fuck it," grab some cheat codes, and then have a hell of a lot of fun blowing shit up. To me, in the case of those games, I never feel a sense of accomplishment by figuring out how to pull off whatever - I really just like the game for the mindless fun of nuking things. For other games - say, Civilization 4 - I really enjoy the challenge of trying to figure out a strategy to beat the enemies in various different scenarios. Cheat codes in Civ *completely* invalidate the fun of the game for me. A third type of game would be Guitar Hero - I really do enjoy playing the game, and I really do feel a sense of accomplishment when I'm able to get my clumsy hands to finish a song with a reasonable score, but I'm also getting a bit bored of the same songs. I'd love it if, in free-play mode, they just had all the songs available from the get-go.
The attorney for one of them is attempting to make the claim that they were tricked. That's what they're supposed to do - what they're legally required to do. I think it would be rather unlikely to expect the guy's lawyer to say "Oh, yeah - they tricked my guy. He's too fucking stupid to walk and chew gum, they got him fair and square."
One of the guys could have clubbed a baby to death on national television with a rolling-pin, and the lawyer would have to find some way to blame it on Martha Stewart because her rolling-pins are deadly weapons and magnetically attracted to babies, and plus, the baby was kind of being a dick, you know.
Hells yes. I'm from Chicago, myself and "fancy" would be something along the lines of Alinea or Charlie Trotter's. A step down from that - more meat and potatoes - would be Gibson's or Smith & Wollensky. Below that would be a Ruth's Chris, and below that would be any number of the Lettuce Entertain You restaurants (well, the "nicer" ones) and then below that might be the less nice ones - concept Thai and so on. And below THOSE you'd have an Olive Garden or Chilli's.
The price differential is rather steep. A meal at Trotters (with "pretty good" wine) ran about $450-500/person a while back. Gibson's might be $150ish. Ruth's Chris figure about $75/person, and then you get down to $50/person for the LUEY, finally getting down to about $25 for an Olive Garden type place.
Mind you, the food is the food - I personally prefer a good Thai dive to a steakhouse - but if you want to talk about "fancy" there are quite a few steps above Olive Garden that one must go before that word really comes in to play.
(Side note: I'm in Thailand right now on some business, and earlier this evening I had what had to be one of the best meals I've ever had. With drinks, it came to 150 Thai Bhat, which is under $5 USD.)
I think both of those kind of answer themselves, honestly. If the prints of one crime scene where I was nowhere near (and can prove - I mean, think about it: the liklihood that a crime that I *could* have committed would be committed by someone with "close enough" prints to mine is pretty staggering. Most likely it would be the equivalent of the Chinese peasant thing) I've got no worries. And, if I'm so paranoid that I think the government would need to bother with any kind of ruse in order to pluck me off of the street... Well, at that point, I think I need to worry more about finding a good anti-psychotic medication, than I do about my fingerprints.
Y'know, I can certainly see why giving DNA to the government is ungood - there's a LOT of information in DNA that can be used for all kinds of stuff, and that information could be used in many bad ways.
With fingerprints... Enh, I just don't see it. How's knowing the pattern of whorls and swirls on my fingertips going to do *anything* but... well, help track down actual criminals?
Dusting for prints is a huge pain in the ass - it's not some simple task where, say, the police could go to a "known hangout of subversive types" and just dust the whole place, then hunt down anyone who's a match. It just doesn't work that way.
From a positive standpoint, wouldn't having fingerprints enable more effective enforcement of real laws?
So, with fingerprints... I am unable to think of a negative side of just fingerprinting kids at birth or at various points in their lives. Nobody in this thread has been able to provide any kind of negative side to that either. I mean, really, a fingerprint just isn't all THAT useful unless you're talking about a VERY limited set of circumstances. So, can someone give me any kind of plausible scenario in which the government will use the crushing power of fingerprints to destroy freedom?
With DNA - yeah, that's fucked. "Oh, this person has gene XYZ - that can lead to certain problems if she has kids, so we won't provide any obstetric coverage in her insurance" and so on.
I've had my prints taken 2x in my life - once when I was getting a security clearance, and once when doing a bonded/licensed thing. I remember, at the time, making jokes that I would have to remember to wear gloves if I ever committed a crime, but I *never* even once thought "Gosh, I sure hope this data about me doesn't fall into the wrong hands!" and I have read nothing in this thread to convince me otherwise about fingerprints.
People keep saying that, but I dunno... I've had people who never saw the originals watch all 6 and they say that the original 3 had more of a sense of fun, made more sense, and were generally better movies.
I don't buy it. Is anyone really dumb enough to risk the hellfire that getting caught hacking a military system would surely bring down just to play a video game?
My guess is that it's either kids thinking that claiming they're in the military will make them seem cooler somehow (or kids who've got family in service and want to be "closer" in some strange way) or that it's military folks who are accessing the game from Internet cafes over there (I think they have some - there was a documentary about troops over there, and they mentioned a whole bunch of times that they were able to use Internet cafes) but for some reason wish to lie.
I simply don't believe anyone capable of getting through the military systems (even the shitty ones) undetected and perfectly safely would also be so dumb as to mention in a more or less public place. That's begging to be caught.
If their target audience firmly believed that Kleenex was not the same as tissue, then no - I wouldn't think it's stupid at all.
PC once stood for "personal computer" - and, I suppose, in a strictly literal sense it still does - but what it *actually* means and what people commonly use it for nowadays is "a computer running Windows." Usage determines meaning in this case.
I personally would find Apple using the term "Windows PC" to be klunky in those ads. "This is my friend, Windows PC" or "This is my friend, a computer running Windows" or "This is my friend, a Windows PC" just don't work for me - they don't have any flow. To the people Apple is marketing to, and especially given Apple's image, flow trumps precision in this case.
Your point may be "correct," but it isn't "right" if that makes any sense to you.
Yes, I do think that's in Apple's advantage. But they should say "windows" rather then "PC", so they don't look like retards.
Apple is marketing to the general public - the people who use "PC" to mean a "computer using Windows" and "Mac" to mean "a Macintosh" or "Apple computer."
They're using informal language because the people they're targeting know exactly what they mean when they say "PC" - their audience knows that the "Windows" is implied.
They don't look like retards - no more than someone who says "Kleenex" when they really just mean "tissue" or "Band-Aid" when they really just mean "a little sticky bandage." "PC" means "a computer using Windows" to the vast majority of the people who use that term. Get used to it.
If someone is really going to make a console buying decision based on the name, that says more about them than it does about the console.
If it has good games and is fun I don't give a shit if they call it "The Hitler-Stalin Glorification of Fucking Yeast Infected Nuns in the Ass and Eating Babies and Anyone Who Buys One is a Homo StationCube 360"
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I'm sure that it was actually some small number of machines - could be 3 - so "3 machines had unlicensed software" vs. "75% of their Office installations were pirated" does make sense.
BUT!
I have no problem with individuals pirating software for their personal use. I, personally, have pirated just absurd quantities of software throughout the years - everything from Visual Studio and Office on to every Adobe and Macromedia app out there, and then into some really esoteric and freakishly expensive 3D software. And I learned how to use most of the tools I used professionally on pirated copies. However, if I found something useful and wanted to make it into a business, I bought a legit copy.
To me, using pirated software to make money is just flat out wrong. Not an acceptable practice at all. Even if it's "only" a couple of copies of Office (and, after all, MSFT is the devil) - still not acceptable. I am sure that Camden would be pissed if people stopped paying them for their work, or if people simply took their copyrighted works and re-published them to sell as their own. It's just not kosher.
If a business can't afford the tools they need to do a job, then they either need to find cheaper tools, change the way they do business, negotiate with the vendors, or get out of their field.
I don't like the bullshit tactics that the BSA uses, but I also don't think that anyone they stomp on is automatically on the side of the angels, either.
I used to spend about $50 a month on games, and now I spend about $20. This is entirely due to MMO's.
I started with Star Wars: Galaxies. Then went to City of Heroes. Then World of Warcraft. When I see a game on the shelf, where I used to just pick it up and take it back, I find myself asking if I'm really going to play it all that much, since I'll be playing my MMO...
Am I the typical gamer? Probably not, but I can't imagine that I'm that unusual.
Now, if we flip the question a bit, I am *DEFINITELY* paying more *per* game - I've been WoWing for over a year now - so figure 15 months @ 15 bucks = $225 there, and then I bought the game at retail for ~$50 - so $275 on one game, World of Warcraft, and I don't see myself quitting anytime soon.
Economics? Chargebacks? What the fuck does any of that have to do with customers? What happened to the customer being right?
They're customers of AOL. They're NEVER right.
I don't think the person you were replying to was talking about transport, but rolling obese people over for things like bed-pan work and cleaning. The confluence of more obese people in the general population + obese people being more likely to get hospitalized = stronger nurses not being a bad thing.
However, I do know that in some hospitals they're using equipment that lets even a tiny person roll a morbidly obese person with relative ease. Aside from reducing the strength requirement, it also frequently shames the heavy person into trying to lose weight. How mortifying it must be to require special equipment just to get a sponge bath.
I won't disagree with your experiences - I'll be the first to admit that psychology and social work are fields that are populated largely by women (though I won't say "dominated" at this point in time - but certainly the trend is towards that).
I also won't disagree that when things are stacked in favor of *either* gender in a field, the behavior by the dominant group tends to be awful. The evidence of this is growing - as women have begun to gain parity in management roles in various fields, harassment lawsuits against them have increased.
However, I submit that this kind of tendency - for either gender to act, basically, like a pack of assholes when they're running the show - is a very strong reason to encourage the underrepresented gender to enter the field, whatever the field is.
In my opinion, this tendency - in CS, in social work or psychology, in teaching, in nursing, in any field - will make it so that people who are most qualified from an aptitude and interest standpoint - will be *least* likely to enter into the field. They want to do the work, but don't want to deal with the bullshit interpersonal aspects. Reducing the ability for one type of individual to dominate a field can only help - it will encourage people who would be *outstanding* professionals in that field to enter, without worrying that something dumb is going to trip them up.
Summing it up: It doesn't matter what gender the assholes in charge are - if they're assholes, they're assholes, and it makes sense to take steps to limit their negative impact. I didn't see anyone suggest that women never abuse authority and positions of power - I'd certainly never say such a thing - it's all about power inequality.
The only reason that it's been fairly "men in charge" heavy in this thread is because of the field we're talking about due to the story - CS.
I think it would be interesting to know of the specific reasons of why the men felt uncomfortable. Maybe because they couldn't relate to their female co-workers in the same way the relate to other males (who's dick is bigger).
The general trends that showed up were:
- Female dominated industry = "You must be gay/not a man if you work in it" Several subjects said that co-workers would often try to match-make the guys with other men, on the assumption that they were gay.
- Different modes of interaction, different dynamic (different humor styles, interpersonal modes, etc)
- Negative treatment at the hands of female superiors - taunts, teases, general harassment (yep - sad to say that one of the things that female dominated workspaces prove is that women can be just as bad as men when it comes to this shit)
- Lack of opportunity to follow their own interests. Male nurses are often pushed towards management roles by hospital administrators, while many men became nurses specifically so that they could focus on direct patient care
- "You're strong - help me move this 500 lb. guy" - the general assumption that male = big strong guy and only good for heavy lifting. Getting paged to leave a unit to come help move a patient (typically a task for an orderly/transport worker)
Lots of other stuff was mentioned, but these were the most common ones. What really struck me is how they are similar in kind (but not necessarily detail) to the complaints many women have about male-dominated workspaces.
I have not once suggested - nor has anyone suggested, from what I can tell - that the relevant qualifications be reduced. Nobody is saying "Math is, like, HARD for girls, let's give 'em a pass!" What has been said is that there may be some pointless *social* barriers to women applying for these programs, and that such things should be looked at.
Let me ask you this - don't you find it... odd... that not one single woman applied for this particular gig? I mean, women in CS make up more than 1% of the population, right? So why, out of 181 applicants was there not one single, solitary woman? Even an unqualified woman? This isn't about *accepting* applicants based on gender and not qualifications - it's about even *getting* applicants who aren't men.
Simply put, the demographics of the applicants and the demographics of the field in general are wildly out of whack - they're trying to figure out why this is. Nobody's talking about reducing the quality of people in the program, or even suggesting that (except for you and other people making your same point, ironically enough)
In this case, the question isn't about taking inferior candidates - it isn't that GNOME is saying "Okay, if you're a guy you'll need to have this, that, and the other thing. If you're a woman, just show up and we'll let you in."
What it is, is the fact that there were 181 applications, and all of them were from men. Not a single woman, if I read right. That's kind of odd, don't you think? Now, I am not saying "Oh, they need to make it 50/50 by any means necessary!" but what I am saying is that they certainly can benefit from examining why not one solitary female applicant was to be had.
If it turns out that there was a reasonable representation (whatever that means) of women for the other SoC group applications - well, that would make me think that GNOME's pitch just turned women off, and they can look at their stuff to find out why. If it turns out that, on the whole, women simply were not applying (and by that I mean not even in the ratios normally seen in CS) to the SoC at all - well, that's interesting too. What's changed to make this kind of thing even less attractive to women? These questions might not be interesting to some people, but that doesn't mean they aren't good questions.
So, I think I agree with you in general, but I'd go back a step further and look at the applicants and look at the general CS population and see where they differ and figure out why.
Do men that go into nursing get a preference because there's more women than men? (An honest question).
Emphatically, yes. Nursing programs are AVIDLY trying to recruit men.
I posted an explanation of why this kind of equalizing isn't a bad thing - why what *looks* like a level playing field with open access to all is not, in fact, level nor open. I'll give the short version here: it's about the social environment.
Many men don't go into nursing because they're afraid it will make them seem less manly. Many women don't go into tech because they're afraid they'll be in a socially/emotionally desolate nerdspace. If things can be done to reduce the social anxiety that is keeping people away from jobs they'd otherwise be highly capable of doing, then that's a good thing.
And to anyone who'd say "If they can't overcome a little anxiety, fuck 'em, we don't want 'em and they obviously don't want it enough!" - it isn't a *little* anxiety - it's a LOT. For anyone who disagrees, I suggest they go do something that is usually very at odds with their typical gender roles and see just how "little" anxiety they feel. The "If they can't hack it" line tends to come from people who are fortunate enough to have their interests and the social spheres line up well enough.
I have *NEVER* met a male nursing student, and I know quite a few nursing students. Nobody gives a crap about that?
Actually, there's lots of stuff being done by nursing schools to bring in male students. Partly to address the nursing shortage, and partly to achieve gender equity (or at least get closer to it) just for the sake of doing it.
For one of my classes last semester, we were supposed to pick an area where there was a huge imbalance in gender representation and explore the causes. I picked nursing, interviewed 100+ male nurses and nursing students and asked them why they picked the field, what issues they ran into etc. - almost all of them pointed out that it was so *incredibly* dominated by women that they felt uncomfortable in the environment. Further, many expressed concerns that they'd be percieved as less masculine by those outside their profession - basically "People will think I'm gay!" By the time I'd finished my report, several of the male students hd dropped out of their programs.
For women in technology (of which I used to be one before I went back to school to study psychology), a huge issue is the "swinging dick" factor. Women and men tend to have different priorites and needs in order to be happy in a workplace - one of the big ones for many women is the social sphere. I know that, for me, the deciding factor was that I wound up feeling as if I was spending a third of my life around people I didn't particularly like, didn't find to be particularly able to have small-talk with, and generally just left me feeling pretty cut-off from the world.
(And, for anyone who says "Work is about work, not socialization, silly female!" let me just say: Men tend to also have certain needs from a workplace that seem just as silly - that whole alpha monkey/competitive thing is pretty goddamn funny and sad. Isn't work supposed to be about work, not establishing who's dick is bigger?)
Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that yeah - women and men DO have (in the US, at least) the same theoretical access to whatever workplaces (with some exceptions) - but that doesn't mean that in practical terms a given professional space will be equally hospitable to both genders. Guys don't do "girl" jobs because they're afraid they'll look gay, gals don't do "boy" jobs because they they'll wind up in testosterone central. That kind of atmosphere presents a barrier to opportunity that a lot of people don't really see until they run right into it. So, from my point of view, a plan to address some of that stuff would be a good thing, regardless of the industry.
I'd love to see a game that could handle multiple instruments. Guitar, drum, keyboards. Throw in a DDR and Karaoke aspect, too. Let a whole bunch of people play simultaneously, each doing different things - that'd just completely rule.
There are some topic that are just off limits for political reasons. Look at the debate over the Bell Curve or Holocaust revisionism. It doesn't matter that the proponents are ultimately wrong, what's important is that they aren't even allowed to publicly state their positions.
Except that's not true. The people who wrote the Bell Curve *were* allowed to publically state their positions - in the form of a published book. They were invited to debate and discuss their points on numerous television shows. They were interviewed and had their comments published in several newspapers. For the Holocaust denial people, ditto, and hell, Northwestern University even has one as a tenured faculty member. These people can publically state their opinions, and then they get those opinions ripped to shreds based on factual evidence. You say that these people can't even open their mouths, and I say that they *can* and *do* open their mouths and the backlash they get is because people can prove that the stuff they're saying is utter bullshit.
They're allowed to speak their piece, and people who disagree are allowed to speak theirs. And what usually happens is that idiots who want to say that the Holocaust didn't happen tend to get their asses handed to them. Which is EXACTLY how things should work - the side with better arguments based on better evidence should prevail.
Climatology is a field in which you will get less money if you say that everything's ok. No one gives a damn if the world is fine. People donate huge sums of money to save the world.
Pardon me, but that's just wrong. Do you really think that Exxon and other giant companies that have everything to gain (in the short term) from having "proof" that global warming doesn't exist DON'T fork over boatloads of cash? I'm pretty sure that I could very easily get a grant from some of their puppet "think-tanks" to research how pro-global-warming scientists are actually baby rapers or something. There's plenty money on all sides of this thing - and I am willing to bet that it is a *hell* of a lot easier to get it from corporate coffers than it is to get it from any number of environmental groups.
Look at the tobacco industry for a perfect example of this kind of funding. "Tobacco use does not cause cancer - the uptick in cancer and the uptick in tobacco use are entirely unrelated! We have proof! See, it turns out that another thing was also on the upswing - the year! Notice that in 1921 the incidence of lung cancer was only 1 in 100,000? And now in 1972 it has risen to 1 in 25,000? That's because 1972 is a bigger number than 1921!!! PROOF!!!!"
If it's the guide I'm thinking of (Joana's) then yeah, it's pretty OK. There are lots of free guides out there that will give as much or more info, but that one is freakishly fast. I've a friend who's run alts through it 2x on new servers, and he's been able to hit 60 both times in under 5 days /played, if I remember right.
Instead of obsessing about how unlockable features prevents you from having you your fun try thinking of them as spreading the fun over a longer period of time. If a game gave you everything at the start once you got bored with the game that would be it. However with unlockable content you still have new things to do even after you have begun to exhaust the possibilities of the game play provided at the beginning. So instead of buying a game that gives you 30 hours of fun you have bought a game that gives you 50 hours of fun. I would call that a good thing.
For you this holds true. Maybe even for the majority of people this holds true. But the entire point that the article was trying to make is that some people don't think or believe as you do about this. Simply put, they don't *want* the artificial barrier to fun - they just want to game and seem to be willing to accept the possible consequences of having all of it available immediately.
That said, I believe the issue can be handled pretty easily by cheat codes. Most modern console games nowadays have such granular cheat codes that one can enable any locked content pretty easily without having to, say, enable god mode or whatever.
For the record, my approach is on a game by game basis. For games like GTA, I will admit that I give the story an attempt, but as soon as I run into a mission that just completely flummoxes me, I tend to say "Fuck it," grab some cheat codes, and then have a hell of a lot of fun blowing shit up. To me, in the case of those games, I never feel a sense of accomplishment by figuring out how to pull off whatever - I really just like the game for the mindless fun of nuking things. For other games - say, Civilization 4 - I really enjoy the challenge of trying to figure out a strategy to beat the enemies in various different scenarios. Cheat codes in Civ *completely* invalidate the fun of the game for me. A third type of game would be Guitar Hero - I really do enjoy playing the game, and I really do feel a sense of accomplishment when I'm able to get my clumsy hands to finish a song with a reasonable score, but I'm also getting a bit bored of the same songs. I'd love it if, in free-play mode, they just had all the songs available from the get-go.
The attorney for one of them is attempting to make the claim that they were tricked. That's what they're supposed to do - what they're legally required to do. I think it would be rather unlikely to expect the guy's lawyer to say "Oh, yeah - they tricked my guy. He's too fucking stupid to walk and chew gum, they got him fair and square."
One of the guys could have clubbed a baby to death on national television with a rolling-pin, and the lawyer would have to find some way to blame it on Martha Stewart because her rolling-pins are deadly weapons and magnetically attracted to babies, and plus, the baby was kind of being a dick, you know.
Hells yes. I'm from Chicago, myself and "fancy" would be something along the lines of Alinea or Charlie Trotter's. A step down from that - more meat and potatoes - would be Gibson's or Smith & Wollensky. Below that would be a Ruth's Chris, and below that would be any number of the Lettuce Entertain You restaurants (well, the "nicer" ones) and then below that might be the less nice ones - concept Thai and so on. And below THOSE you'd have an Olive Garden or Chilli's.
The price differential is rather steep. A meal at Trotters (with "pretty good" wine) ran about $450-500/person a while back. Gibson's might be $150ish. Ruth's Chris figure about $75/person, and then you get down to $50/person for the LUEY, finally getting down to about $25 for an Olive Garden type place.
Mind you, the food is the food - I personally prefer a good Thai dive to a steakhouse - but if you want to talk about "fancy" there are quite a few steps above Olive Garden that one must go before that word really comes in to play.
(Side note: I'm in Thailand right now on some business, and earlier this evening I had what had to be one of the best meals I've ever had. With drinks, it came to 150 Thai Bhat, which is under $5 USD.)
I think both of those kind of answer themselves, honestly. If the prints of one crime scene where I was nowhere near (and can prove - I mean, think about it: the liklihood that a crime that I *could* have committed would be committed by someone with "close enough" prints to mine is pretty staggering. Most likely it would be the equivalent of the Chinese peasant thing) I've got no worries. And, if I'm so paranoid that I think the government would need to bother with any kind of ruse in order to pluck me off of the street... Well, at that point, I think I need to worry more about finding a good anti-psychotic medication, than I do about my fingerprints.
Y'know, I can certainly see why giving DNA to the government is ungood - there's a LOT of information in DNA that can be used for all kinds of stuff, and that information could be used in many bad ways.
With fingerprints... Enh, I just don't see it. How's knowing the pattern of whorls and swirls on my fingertips going to do *anything* but... well, help track down actual criminals?
Dusting for prints is a huge pain in the ass - it's not some simple task where, say, the police could go to a "known hangout of subversive types" and just dust the whole place, then hunt down anyone who's a match. It just doesn't work that way.
From a positive standpoint, wouldn't having fingerprints enable more effective enforcement of real laws?
So, with fingerprints... I am unable to think of a negative side of just fingerprinting kids at birth or at various points in their lives. Nobody in this thread has been able to provide any kind of negative side to that either. I mean, really, a fingerprint just isn't all THAT useful unless you're talking about a VERY limited set of circumstances. So, can someone give me any kind of plausible scenario in which the government will use the crushing power of fingerprints to destroy freedom?
With DNA - yeah, that's fucked. "Oh, this person has gene XYZ - that can lead to certain problems if she has kids, so we won't provide any obstetric coverage in her insurance" and so on.
I've had my prints taken 2x in my life - once when I was getting a security clearance, and once when doing a bonded/licensed thing. I remember, at the time, making jokes that I would have to remember to wear gloves if I ever committed a crime, but I *never* even once thought "Gosh, I sure hope this data about me doesn't fall into the wrong hands!" and I have read nothing in this thread to convince me otherwise about fingerprints.
Who says it's the same people bitching?
People keep saying that, but I dunno... I've had people who never saw the originals watch all 6 and they say that the original 3 had more of a sense of fun, made more sense, and were generally better movies.
I don't buy it. Is anyone really dumb enough to risk the hellfire that getting caught hacking a military system would surely bring down just to play a video game?
My guess is that it's either kids thinking that claiming they're in the military will make them seem cooler somehow (or kids who've got family in service and want to be "closer" in some strange way) or that it's military folks who are accessing the game from Internet cafes over there (I think they have some - there was a documentary about troops over there, and they mentioned a whole bunch of times that they were able to use Internet cafes) but for some reason wish to lie.
I simply don't believe anyone capable of getting through the military systems (even the shitty ones) undetected and perfectly safely would also be so dumb as to mention in a more or less public place. That's begging to be caught.
If the vast majority of people who referred to it called it "a PC" then yes.
Language is one of those things where, even if they're wrong, the majority is right.
If their target audience firmly believed that Kleenex was not the same as tissue, then no - I wouldn't think it's stupid at all.
PC once stood for "personal computer" - and, I suppose, in a strictly literal sense it still does - but what it *actually* means and what people commonly use it for nowadays is "a computer running Windows." Usage determines meaning in this case.
I personally would find Apple using the term "Windows PC" to be klunky in those ads. "This is my friend, Windows PC" or "This is my friend, a computer running Windows" or "This is my friend, a Windows PC" just don't work for me - they don't have any flow. To the people Apple is marketing to, and especially given Apple's image, flow trumps precision in this case.
Your point may be "correct," but it isn't "right" if that makes any sense to you.
Yes, I do think that's in Apple's advantage. But they should say "windows" rather then "PC", so they don't look like retards.
Apple is marketing to the general public - the people who use "PC" to mean a "computer using Windows" and "Mac" to mean "a Macintosh" or "Apple computer."
They're using informal language because the people they're targeting know exactly what they mean when they say "PC" - their audience knows that the "Windows" is implied.
They don't look like retards - no more than someone who says "Kleenex" when they really just mean "tissue" or "Band-Aid" when they really just mean "a little sticky bandage." "PC" means "a computer using Windows" to the vast majority of the people who use that term. Get used to it.
If someone is really going to make a console buying decision based on the name, that says more about them than it does about the console.
If it has good games and is fun I don't give a shit if they call it "The Hitler-Stalin Glorification of Fucking Yeast Infected Nuns in the Ass and Eating Babies and Anyone Who Buys One is a Homo StationCube 360"