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Businesses

Reddit CEO Ellen Pao Bans Salary Negotiations To Equalize Pay For Men, Women 892

Posted by samzenpus from the all-things-equal dept.
sabri points out that Reddit CEO Ellen Pao plans to ban salary negotiations in an attempt to equalize pay for men and women. "After losing a sex-discrimination lawsuit in Silicon Valley last week, Ellen Pao continues on her crusade to bring gender equality to the tech world, but this time with a focus on her home turf. As Reddit’s interim CEO, Pao said she wants to eliminate salary negotiations from the company’s hiring process. In her first interview since the lawsuit, Pao told with the Wall Street Journal Monday that the plan would help level the playing field. 'Men negotiate harder than women do and sometimes women get penalized when they do negotiate,' she said. 'So as part of our recruiting process we don’t negotiate with candidates. We come up with an offer that we think is fair. If you want more equity, we’ll let you swap a little bit of your cash salary for equity, but we aren’t going to reward people who are better negotiators with more compensation.'"

Comment Good Riddance (Score 0) 42

Metal Gear is a great game, but after playing through most of the series all I can say is "good riddance." Hideo seems rather arrogant and self-indulgent, his ego leaves too big of an imprint on the game and tarnishes its quality. Getting rid of him is no guarantee it will get better, but at least there's a chance.
United States

How To Execute People In the 21st Century 1081

Posted by samzenpus from the end-of-the-road dept.
HughPickens.com writes Matt Ford writes in The Atlantic that thanks to a European Union embargo on the export of key drugs, and the refusal of major pharmaceutical companies to sell them the nation's predominant method of execution is increasingly hard to perform. With lethal injection's future uncertain, some states are turning to previously discarded methods. The Utah legislature just approved a bill to reintroduce firing squads for executions, Alabama's House of Representatives voted to authorize the electric chair if new drugs couldn't be found, and after last years botched injection, Oklahoma legislators are mulling the gas chamber.

The driving force behind the creation and abandonment of execution methods is the constant search for a humane means of taking a human life. Arizona, for example, abandoned hangings after a noose accidentally decapitated a condemned woman in 1930. Execution is also prone to problems as witnesses routinely report that, when the switch is thrown, the condemned prisoner "cringes," "leaps," and "fights the straps with amazing strength." The hands turn red, then white, and the cords of the neck stand out like steel bands. The prisoner's limbs, fingers, toes, and face are severely contorted. The force of the electrical current is so powerful that the prisoner's eyeballs sometimes pop out and "rest on [his] cheeks." The physical effects of the deadly hydrogen cyanide in the gas chamber are coma, seizures and cardiac arrest but the time lag has previously proved a problem. According to Ford one reason lethal injection enjoyed such tremendous popularity was that it strongly resembled a medical procedure, thereby projecting our preconceived notions about modern medicine—its competence, its efficacy, and its reliability—onto the capital-punishment system. "As states revert to earlier methods of execution—techniques once abandoned as backward and flawed—they run the risk that the death penalty itself will be seen in the same terms."

Comment Mod Parent: Bullshit (Score 0) 169

by TheNinjaroach (#49252409) Attached to: Swedish Authorities Offer To Question Assange In London
I'd love to spend these mod points sending your bullshit DailyBeast link back down to the -1 Flamebait that it deserves, but this level of idiocy is worth calling out. That dirtbag Nungesser raped her and several others and the author of that article Cathy Young has built a career out out of rape-denial pieces - consistently manipulating details to fit her bullshit narrative.

Mods, if you have *any* interest in this story, there is plenty more detail to this story that you can read over here.

Please don't mod parent up, it's dishonest undeserving bullshit.

Signed with UID,
TheNinjaroach

Comment Junk App (Score 3, Informative) 367

by TheNinjaroach (#49214363) Attached to: Yik Yak Raises Controversy On College Campuses
I recently downloaded the app and gave it a spin that lasted about two weeks. It's a new spin on a very old concept but it doesn't work well at all.

That 1.5 mile radius is incredibly limiting - if you start a conversation at home you can't participate in it once you get to work. The anonymous comments are filled with so much bitching and whining of spoiled brats it really makes me resent the student body at my local university. There's a huge amount of group-think that's baked into the app itself - say something unpopular and earn just a few downvotes and Yik Yak will delete your comment forever. That's when it's not losing your comments to begin with: that crappy service lost nearly 20% of my comments, but continued to alert me for updates to conversations that have completely disappeared.

TL;DR - Yik Yak is a gimmick and a poorly made one at that.
Mozilla

Mozilla: Following In Sun's Faltering Footsteps? 300

Posted by Soulskill from the don't-let-the-sun-go-down-on-them dept.
snydeq writes: The trajectory of Mozilla, from the trail-blazing technologies to the travails of being left in the dust, may be seen as paralleling that of the now-defunct Unix systems giant Sun. The article claims, "Mozilla has become the modern-day Sun Microsystems: While known for churning out showstopping innovation, its bread-and-butter technology now struggles." It goes on to mention Firefox's waning market share, questions over tooling for the platform, Firefox's absence on mobile devices, developers' lack of standard tools (e.g., 'Gecko-flavored JavaScript'), and relatively slow development of Firefox OS, in comparison with mobile incumbents.
Businesses

One In Five Developers Now Works On IoT Projects 252

Posted by samzenpus from the that's-a-whole-lot-of-things dept.
dcblogs writes Evans Data Corp., which provides research and intelligence for the software development industry, said that of the estimated 19 million developers worldwide, 19% are now doing IoT-related work. A year ago, the first year IoT-specific data was collected, that figure was 17%. But when developers were asked whether they plan to work in IoT development over the next year, 44% of the respondents said they are planning to do so, said Michael Rasalan, director of research at Evans.

Comment Personal Preference (Score 1) 264

by TheNinjaroach (#48807229) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Linux Database GUI Application Development?
My personal preference is web-based, with apps running on a Linux webserver (dirt simple & highly reliable) and data being saved to SQL Server. It's a fairly rare combination, which we used to accomplish using the FreeTDS library but more recently switched over to Microsoft's official ODBC Driver for Linux.

As a big fan of RDBMS, I would say stay away from MySQL, it can be convenient but it's generally crap. (Citation: ALLOW_INVALID_DATES) If I had to use an open-source DB it would be Postgres all the way.

Programming language? For you, I'd suggest Java based on your familiarity with C#. That would open you up to doing both web and "fat client" development and as a bonus your fat clients would be cross-platform.
Technology

Gun Rights Hacktivists To Fab 3D-Printed Guns At State Capitol 573

Posted by samzenpus from the from-my-cold-dead-printer dept.
giulioprisco writes On January 13th Come And Take Texas (CATI) will be manufacturing 3D-printed firearms on location at the State Capitol. In 2013 Defense Distributed made public the 3D printable files (STL files) for the world's first fully 3D printable gun. Their more recent Ghost Gunner is designed to automatically manufacture publicly created designs with nearly zero user interaction. According to CATI’s website, “In the last year and a half Texan Gun Rights Groups all around the Lone Star State have walked, assembled, and engaged in Humanitarian efforts all while Open Carrying their Long Guns and Black Powder Pistols. This has succeeded in Educating the Public as well as Law Enforcement, to show that the presence of Firearms in Public is not only Safe but Highly supported.”

Comment Posting from MacOS.. (Score 1) 598

by TheNinjaroach (#48741063) Attached to: Tumblr Co-Founder: Apple's Software Is In a Nosedive
Apple's last 12 month's at software have been pretty impressive. The iCloud / Continuity / Handoff stuff is awesome and well-integrated into their OSes and I don't see Microsoft replicating that soon enough. Google without a real desktop OS isn't even in a position to compete with it yet.

That said, their hardware and software both have their fair share of frustrating warts. Finder sucks, Yosemite broke GPU-switching and some of the newest Macbooks suffer embarrassing Bluetooth vs Wifi conflicts. Some good, some bad, Apple seems to be the way they've always been.

Comment ircmaxell (Score 5, Insightful) 112

by TheNinjaroach (#48700995) Attached to: Over 78% of All PHP Installs Are Insecure
I would have never recognized him by the name Anthony Ferrara, but ircmaxell immediately rings a bell for me. That dude is smart, kind and helpful in situations on IRC where most people aren't. He took a lot of time helping me get a patch or two submitted and accepted into PHP, in spite of my rudimentary git submissions.

If you're reading this ircmaxell, thanks for the help. The PHP Project is better for it.

Comment Don't Order From Slashdot Deals (Score 4, Interesting) 70

Sorry to hijack, but I'm leaving this post (with UID) to warn other Slashdotters to NOT order from Slashdot Deals.

I asked my girlfriend for the cheap pair of headphones they are selling over there. She received a blank shipment confirmation (no tracking number, no ship date, all basically details missing from a form letter) and then waited two more weeks before following up with customer service. They told her her order still hadn't shipped (19 days after ordering!) but then it was received the very next day.

What did we receive? A retail package for the headphones... without any headphones on it. All the accessories were still there but somebody ripped the headphones out before shipping the package.

It's been 22 days and this issue has yet to be resolved. Bottom line: DO NOT order from Slashdot Deals.

Comment Please (Score 1) 229

by TheNinjaroach (#48652277) Attached to: GCHQ Warns It Is Losing Track of Serious Criminals

One major drug smuggling gang has been able to continue flooding the UK with Class A narcotics unimpeded for the last year after changing their operations.

As if Class A narcotics weren't available in the UK when these excuse-stuffed buffoons did have unimpeded access to everyone's private communications.

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