The only reason I care about Ubuntu updates is that they are followed by Mint updates. I really don't see why anyone would still want to use Ubuntu when there is an equally good (if not better) Debian/Ubuntu-based distro, especially given Shuttleworth's complete and utter contempt for the open source community.
I argue your premise that "less girls in coding" is currently caused by a past social injustice. Or a present one for that matter.
I'm sure the history of female education (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_education_in_the_United_States) had *nothing* at all to do with it. It's not like actively discouraging women from pursuing math and education would have any effect on the number of female programmers right?
Quick story: I happened to have lunch with my grandmother today. I asked her about the retirement home she lives in, and how many Nobel prize winners lived there. She said 4, but here's the interesting part: in the same breath she exclaimed "and so many woman doctors!" It's easy to forget that being a femaie doctor used to be an incredible thing, in the same league as getting a Nobel prize, just a mere two generations ago.
Maybe it's desirable to have a profession like programming VASTLY dominated by people who are treated with equal benefit and respect and want to program -- regardless of gender.
Of course it is. But what does that have to do with paying teachers to encourage female programmers? Won't those girls they encourage want to program as much as male programmers?
Unless you somehow think it's a good thing to have programmers start with a relatively large gender wage gap in favor of women?
Huh? Again what does that have to do with encouraging girls to program?
And what about the hundreds (thousands?) of soldiers who died? Or the thousands more who were maimed for life, either physically or mentally: was it good for them too?
And that's not even mentioning the tens (hundreds?) of thousands of Iraqis who died or were similarly maimed in the war. Life's much better for them because Saddam is gone, right?
Wow, it's amazing how so many posts here completely forget about
Just because something is discriminatory doesn't make it bad, and if you live in a fantasyland where you think history just goes out the window, and everyone is equal now so we should all just be treated exactly the same
Now, that being said, there are often less discriminatory ways to fix past social injustices. Take affirmitive action: you can do it by race and be controversial, or you can do it by social class. If (say) African-Americans really are doing worse in society (as they are), they will be over-represented in the poorest social classes, and so a social-class based affirmitive action system would have the effect of benefiting (poor) African-Americans, without explicitly singling them out.
But it's not like Google can say "if you're a kid (of either gender), and you can see in to the future that you're not going to become a programmer, we'll give you $100". So in this case singling out girls is absolutely the right way to go, unless you think it's a good thing to have a highly desirable profession like programming VASTLY dominated by men.
Does anyone in the open source community even care what anyone from Canonica/Ubuntu has to say anymore? They've basically ostrasized themselves to anyone I know who cares about Linux.
What if we start overreacting and drawing conclusions that are in no way supported by any scientific research (in the original article or elsewhere)?
Please. Old people have been fearfully complaining about the youth doing things differently since the dawn of time. And human society hasn't ended, nor have we all turned in to gibbering idiots. Nor will we ever.
Get over it grandpa, technology does not mean the end of rewarding or fun activity.
It doesn't matter what James Clapper's beliefs are, because he's just one person and we shouldn't judge the entire NSA organization just on the beliefs of a single member.
Yes, he does. And you have the right not to work for or use any of the products of that company. As long as he isn't actually discriminating against anybody, no laws are being broken.
Totally with you so far.
I may not agree with the position, but it's not my business as long as he doesn't discriminate.
Right, but he already has discriminated: he threw several thousand dollars to try and prevent LBGT people from having equal rights. I strongly disagree with that position, and I absolutely think it's my business to care. If the head of Taco Bell suddenly started donating to "BlacksAreMonkeys.com", I'd absolutely boycott Taco Bell. And if I worked for Taco Bell I certainly might tweet my displeasure, (assuming I didn't outright quit).
That logic totally holds up; after all, the responsibilities of the CEO of a company are identical to the average employee in that company, right?
We've had blacklisting based on political associations before, and I thought we all agreed it's a bad thing?
Yeah, we all agreed it's bad. Like remember when the world blacklisted apartheid South Africa and its supporters? That was terrible wasn't it?
So what if that unpopular opinion was that blacks are dirty monkey people who are inferior to the glorious white man
Private entities pay for cops all the time, this isn't as radical as it seems. For instance, when I used to be involved in student government we knew that part of the cost of having a big event was having to pay for the mandatory number of cops who had to be there. The city knew that college students in large groups were trouble, and they didn't want to have to foot the bill, so they passed an ordance that required us to foot the bill for any event with X number of people expected (I forget what X was).
I'm pretty sure the same thing happens with some concerts, sporting events, etc.: the municipalities don't want to pay, so they make the entity responsible pay for it. Then again, lots of stadium owners have cozy deals with the city, which probably avoid this sort of thing.
In any case, the only unusual thing about this that I can see is that's a full-time gig.
Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which otherwise require harder thinking. -- Jerome Lettvin
