Don't anthropomorphize The Law, otherwise those killer inanimate constructions will rise out of their foundations and smack you silly.

There's a book you should read, if you haven't already.

You could dismiss these concerns as activism, but that's terribly tunnel-visioned.

Only for some values of terribly.

Every African and every women who for some reason or another has missed out on the opportunity to study STEM is another mind that could potentially have been another Euler or Gauss but was denied the chance. Unless women are intrinsically less adept at math (which I personally do not believe is the case), we've been missing out on half the world's great mathematicians.

Well I'm glad you're willing to bet the future of the human race on a personal belief. I on the other hand want to see proof of what you claim.

Could you imagine how different the earth would be today if we had two Fermats, two Euclids, two Poincares?

Hell, why stop there? I'd aim a bit higher: two hundred Einsteins! Imagine what the world would be like if it wasn't how it is!

How much knowledge have we lost for the lack of women in math and science? This isn't about "leaving math and science alone" from activism. This is about untapping all the math and science talent that has been hidden away for hundreds of years.

No, it's activism. It's you putting some naive notion of equality together with a linear extrapolation on the number of geniuses to claim a justification for messing with a system of knowledge that's been evolving for nigh on two thousand years.

Personally, I want my mathematicians to be socially awkward, highly pedantic, focused individuals who would be happy to live three quarters of their adult lives in a darkened room full of books (aka a library), have people to cook for them and tidy their bedrooms. And to be honest, those qualities probably select for white, male, and privileged in our current world, but I don't care.

You should write a bot that posts on slasdot for you. You know, cut out the middle man and all that :)

Just break down all the employees into the smallest groups possible. Instead of "White" or "African", break it down to German, Swiss, Dutch, South African, Tanzanian, and so on. With everything down to a few dozen members per group, you'll have a nice flat diversity line. :P

Oh. Err, yeah, that works too, I guess. I was thinking castrate a few of the males and distribute some afro wigs to equalize the employee counts. But yeah, I guess we can do your thing.

She commented on the "gender inequality thing" herself.

I'm going to guess you've never given an interview in your life? Some guy (or girl) chats with you, asks 20 questions of you about lots of different things, then excuses himself (herself). You don't hear anything more for a couple of weeks, then you get to read a writeup containing 4 or 5 of those questions, with bits and pieces of your full answers cut and pasted into a shortened "narrative".

There's no way to know why she brought up the "gender inequality thing", if it was a short comment or a major theme for her. All we can say for sure is that journalists decide what they want to write about, and they make it look like it all came from the interviewee.

In the end, it's about selling magazine stories, and writing what the readers will like to see so that they are willing to give away some of their hard earned cash.

Please choose biometrics that aren't part of my extremities.

Who do you think you are, a civilian? A citizen accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic, defending it with his life, a civilian does not. What's a few extremities in the war against computer bugs?

A compelling illusion, but an illusion nonetheless. The metadata generated by even the most privacy conscious individual leaves a mark, and given the resources of an interested government, only the most dedicated living off the grid can escape their view.

That's a pretty trite comment, if you don't mind me saying so. We already know that *if we don't fight for it*, then privacy is at best an illusion. Duh. If I don't enter the lottery, I can't win either. My god, are you sure, really? I actually have to enter? I never knew that!

Privacy is a set of rights that must be demanded to be built into the system of government and society at large. It's one part of Liberty, and it's up to us to make it happen. We can make it happen through laws, we can make it happen through free software, we can make it happen through education, we can make it happen through threats and violence, etc. No single option is a silver bullet. All options can advance the cause in some small way. Figure out where your talents are then you'll start to see where you can help out (assuming you want privacy).

Let me tell you something, Mate. We Aussies don't do sportsing anymore, we do sporties. 'Cause in Oz, it's all about rooting for your favourite team.

While, I absolutely believe it's google's job to report illegal activity [...]

It really shouldn't be Google's job to report illegal activity. If a company is going to do cloud computing on the scale Google does, there should be privacy laws in place, similar to doctor/patient privilege, or lawyer/client privilege, or priest/confessioner privilege. Google might be put on the spot through a warrant or whatever, but should not volunteer any information of their own.

And before someone points out that I've somehow agreed to this through an EULA, I don't use their services but others do, and my stuff can easily end up there through no fault any people, but just because Google is too agressive about spying on everyone.

On the contrary, increasing the sample size to big data sizes of say 2 billion subjects would definitely fix that bias problem. [of course this is unrealistic].

Not that I disagree, but I think first we need a debate on what privacy means in light of modern technologies. The practical rules and assumptions of yesterday will not protect the same values and principles when faced with the technology of tomorrow. Put another way, for the spirit of the law to be preserved, the letter of the law may have to change, perhaps dramatically.

The technologies of today have not substantially changed from the technologies we had 20 years ago when privacy rules were put in place. CS algorithms are the same. Database principles are the same. Computers still have cpus, RAM, and hard disks. Networking is based on the old TCP/IP and UDP protcols from the 70s. Granted, we now use Javascript instead of C or VisualBASIC. We use HTML web apps instead of mainframe server apps and special client software.

The other problem is sample size. Psychology sample sizes are *way* too small. In a world of 8 billion people today, anything you find out in a psychological experiment that involves at most a few hundred subjects, often less, cannot have anything universal to say. The samples are just too small.

Here's an analogy. You plant a dozen tulips in your garden, and observe how well they grow when you do X. Now you claim all plants will grow like that when you do X. The claim is way too broad. Even if you had a dozen identical tulips, and you grew them on the himalaya while doing X, you'd have different results.

No, in small villages, YOU don't exist. You are just the most recent cog and are defined by the unforgettable history of your family, which you can make up as you please (with consequences)

FTFY. I completely agree that connections are important, but you're assuming that anyone is truthful about their identity and their past, which is not the case, especially if they move to start afresh somewhere else. One added advantage in Europe was the plethora of small states and local dialects/languages, you could move 50km away and be literally in a different country.

Saying things will be forgotten if it can't be Googled/Binged is like saying you won't get robbed so long as you don't post a sign that your door isn't locked.

Or, it's like saying you won't be robbed in a functional decent community, with security patrolling the streets regularly and enforcing laws. It's not a 100% guarantee, but if you deliberately let the neighbourhood decay with gangs and drug dealers ruling the streets, well you're an idiot.