I have been reading this site for close to 20 years now. Based on GP's very similar user ID I suspect he has too. I agree with the GP. I too have noticed a substantial shift towards conservatism in Slashdot's discussions in about the last 2 years. My experience in the software industry during the same time frame is consistent with the GP's observation of disproportion.

It would be interesting to study this and see if there's been a shift or an influx in the population.

But on the senior level companies complain they can't find good developers.

I'm a senior developer. Here's the problem as I see it in the senior recruitment arena: The majority of company HR departments and recruiters are bad at recruiting senior developers.

The modern tech landscape is filled with hundreds of different technologies technologies and tools. HTML, CSS, Javascript, hundreds of Node modules, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Linux, Windows, OSX, C++, Java, Python, Go, Rust, Perl, Git, Agile, Waterfall,.... the list is immense. No two companies use exactly the same tech stack but HR's job postings ("Required: <specific list of 18 technologies>") indicate they are filtering for someone from a company that does. It is reasonable for employers to expect that new technologies can be picked up on the fly but employers either don't seem to recognize this or are demanding someone who is going to be productive on hour 1 of their new position.

Another problem is that many recruiters and HR people think in terms of "years of experience" with each technology. This is a rather meaningless and often un-quantifiable metric for an engineering job. Example: I use Perl maybe once a month in the job I've held for the past 11 years, but only for a day and to write some "run once, throw away" type of script. I've known Perl for 20 years. How many years experience is that? There's no standard answer and no way to answer in "years of experience" that doesn't involve a lot of explanation and make the answer useless for comparison purposes - but someone who says they have 20 years Perl experience passes HR's resume filter while the more honest and nuanced answer does not.

Successful tech companies do not care about finding an exact match for their tech stack. They look for problem solving skills.

the game platform should have all the logs and records needed to make an easy case for prosecution

Some thoughts:

• - This particular instance started in a game but as I understand it, the incriminating chatter happened over Twitter. There's no reason to assume games will be involved in every, or even any, future instance. What we're really talking about then is that all chat platforms analyzing and reporting to authorities about private conversations.
• - There's no business case for creating this feature so it'd have to be required by law. It's doubtful such a law would survive First/Fourth Amendment challenges in the US.
• - Only developed apps in the country with the law would be effected. Even many games are developed outside the US.
• - Many game servers are run on private computers owned by private citizens, not by the game developers. Implementing the analysis and reporting you're suggesting MUST imply either:
  1. - It can be interfered with and rendered useless by the owner of the reporting device
  2. - All manner of frightening unintended consequences - for example, unblockable outbound internet traffic.

Not all of it. :)

For example, here's an obvious straw man... I do not live in Alabama, but I know that people were saying the exact same things about Virginia, where I do live. This has not happened at all here.

Here's a straight up troll... Maybe instead of talking down about your favorite constituents, you all should actually try helping them?

*sigh* The quality of discourse on this site continues to concern me. I notice in this case of this thread a lot of unsubstantiated assertions appealing to the political right coming from ACs, in some cases modded up even though they add nothing to the discussion. This sort of thing should scare all rational people regardless of political leanings.

Snopes lost all credibility years ago...

No problem. They're just providing an information hub. Since they cited sources we can assume Snopes isn't credible and go a level deeper.

... for something that did not happen?

Yes. Why should this be a problem?

If the credibility of the sites Snopes links to is highly questionable then that's something that can be demonstrated. I propose we start with the local news station, WHNT. http://whnt.com/2015/09/30/alea-announces-driver-license-office-closures-includes-two-in-north-alabama/

According to wikipedia there is an WHNT TV station in the area: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHNT-TV.

A short look at their front page shows no obvious political baiting that would lead one to believe this site just exists to push an agenda. (Try this test with Fox News' front page...)

I'm going to ignore the rest of your comment because I think we need to determine what the facts are before we can have any sort of sensible discussion on the results of those facts.

Here's a snopes link on the subject. It links to local news articles related to the subject.

https://www.snopes.com/2015/10/01/alabama-drivers-license/

Assuming you still maintain the position that this did not occur, can provide links to back up that position?

From article: "more than one of these guys in the video repeated some variation of “I don’t care what anyone thinks about me”. I.don’t believe you? If there’s one thing most humans care deeply about, it’s what other people think about them, particularly when you’re driving million-dollar, pulsing-neon supercars around the world’s most populous city."

I don't have the means to drive a anything close to a multi-million dollar car but I am a car enthusiast. So here's what I suspect the quoted person's response would be to reading this....

This says more about the writer than the person being quoted. The writer's perspective is very self-centered - "you did a thing to impress me, and I will not accept any other explanation". No - I did it because *I* find it beautiful and enjoy having this fusion of art and engineering around, and would enjoy it even if even if I was the only person on the planet.

That information (with the possible exception of SSN - I will be interested to see what you all can find) is easy to derive from my email address, which is at the top of my post. Have at it.

If the KKK said tomorrow "Sorry guys, we were just trolling" does that make everything they have said OK? Not in my book. If you're an ass like this guy, I feel I have a right to know who you are so I don't accidentally become your friend or offer you a job. Admitting he's a troll absolves him of nothing. He absolutely has the *right* to post every nasty hateful thing he can think of (short of promoting violence, etc.). But based on those actions I have the right to hold him in disgust, to not invite him into my workplace and my living room. CNN is doing me a disservice by withholding that information.

Anonymity is a necessary measure in certain cases - oppressive regimes, for example. This is not one of those cases - he's not under threat from the government, he's trying to avoid being held accountable. By abusing anonymity, he and other trolls strengthen the case against it, and have done immeasurable harm. We should be discouraging that.

It's quite mind-boggling why a third party won't pop up and have 90% votes immediately (ie, anyone with a shred of brain left).

The US electoral system mathematically dictates that the US have a two-party system. This explains why much better than I could.

We desperately need to overall this system.

VPN protects against MitM. Are we assuming everyone was using that for some reason?

Why would a "rogue" access point that actually delivers your packets be bad?

Because unfortunately not everything is hardened against MitM attacks yet. Everything should be, but not everything is.

I think this is a question of him at heart not being opposed to this idea.

Putting words in his mouth about a Muslim registry takes attention away from legitimate criticism (practicality of a border wall, treatment of women, financial plans, etc.) and therefore works in his favor.