If there were laws and policies in place that specifically protected those individuals, I would feel the same way.

I work at a University. Title IX is real, and everything that goes with it. If you don't think that women as a protected class (yes, literally, yes, factually) is not an issue, then you have no idea what goes on at Universities.

Yes, men are capable of all kinds of stupid shit. But men don't have the ability to end an interpersonal problem with, "She was harassing/intimidating me". Because men are not a protected class.

So it doesn't really matter how I sound to you. What matters is that the policies in place, and SERIOUSLY enforced, go one direction on this subject.

Do you understand this? Do you take the training each year that reinforces this exact position?

Thanks for your input though. It points out the fact that many people do NOT understand the situation as it is. As it is written in law, and policy. You should read up on it.

If you think that corporate jobs are unfair to women, just wait until these same laws and policies apply to the private sector. If you think it's no big deal, you have no idea how these things are written.

No...that poster was dead on.

About 3.5 years ago, when this wave of feminism was kicking off, I had a good friend who was a woman.

She and some of her comrades in arms decided to circle the wagons around feminism, and I was one of the victims.

Victim in the sense that they lodged a complaint against me. BUT- it was unfounded, and that was the outcome of all investigations.

Do you know how little good that did me? The fact that I didn't harass, but they 'felt as though they were being harassed' was all it took. Exactly as the poster said, lost my job, my friends, etc.

Why? Because I am part of the patriarchy, and they want to smash that...and it doesn't matter who gets in the way. Because here's the plan...men don't matter. We are less. Damaging a few men to get what you want is like stepping on ants. (Read the byline on the website that is linked.)

Women are not the problem by themselves. The problem is that we throw so much sympathy at them, that we don't pay attention to the facts. And this article that we are commenting on is a really good example of that. Some jackass out there is going to take this at face value, and start an affirmative action campaign to 'correct' the situation.

I hate working with women now. I view each of them as a time-bomb that will go off, pretty much independent of my own actions. It's happened before, it will probably happen again.

Will I actively work against them? Nope. But I will never again get into that trap...and now overall productivity is way down, because I spend my time avoiding getting on the wrong side of someone who one day will wake up, get a pixie cut, and decide that men are her problem- not the fact that she just hates her job like the rest of us.

The guy you responded to is experienced. And more and more men are gaining this experience of women using the laws/sympathy to get what they want.

To the ladies who don't do this. Sorry..but that's the way it goes. Same way you won't meet me in a dark parking lot. I am not a rapist, but you need to be careful- I understand that- so you act as though I might be a rapist. Sure, you are not the type to lodge a bullshit complaint, but I need to be wary, because the other women don't identify themselves ahead of time. So you all get tagged with the, "She will file a complaint against you" label.

Yay for women in tech...

Ha ha...I had a backdoor like this at my old job.

I created it about 15 years ago, when security was different. It would allow me to upload new code and have it working immediately- so I didn't need to login to a server, go through the dev->test->production cycle.

I got screwed over on that job and left about 3 years ago- not happy at all.

I spent about a week planning the complete destruction.

Then I realized I would spend the next 10 years watching my back, because eventually someone would figure it out.

I sent an email to an old co-worker and said, "Hey...you need to block this backdoor."

It was more for my own good than theirs. Very glad it is gone.

Lots of comments here from people who want this to be bad, but don't know what they are talking about.

I signed up for this yesterday- had no idea it was 'Launch Day'. I have already downloaded and started playing some of the games. In my mind, this will be worth the $10/month no problem.

I won't mention which games I've downloaded, because that will just elicit a list of 'problems' like, "That was free in December 2016" or, "That's an 8 year old game", etc. etc.

I will say that I signed up and it started working immediately. One game I will mention is Halo 5. Previously a friend had loaned this to me, so I had it on my Xbox- including the massive update. I was happy to see that it instantly recognized that it was part of the Game Pass, and activated it for me. No additional download (or worse- re-download).

I was able to go through the games list with my kids, and say "Yep, you can get whichever ones you want..." that was nice. And you know what? They don't care that a lot of the games are 360 backwards compatible...they are/were still good games! (Okay, another mention...Lego Batman. Still a great game!)

I had previously signed up for EA Access, and that wasn't bad. Loved the Plants vs. Zombies shooters. But that library was too limited. The Xbox Game Pass has a larger and more varied library.

99% of people complaining about this service haven't actually seen it, or used it. You can listen to those yokels if you want...but my experience (less than 48 hours) is that this seems like a pretty good deal and super convenient.

Reminds me of a video I saw about organic food at Walmart.

Some guy had an organic food company (Stony Mountain?) and he started selling through Walmart. He said that all of his colleagues were really putting him down. Telling him that Walmart was the devil, and he shouldn't do business with them.

I believe they went on to be the biggest supplier of organic food in the country.

His question for the rest of the industry was basically, "Do you want to support organic food, and do something good for the world? Or do you want to sit there on your high horse and sell organic butter to rich people in Marin? Because if you want to get organic food out to people, Walmart is a good way to do it."

He made a huge difference (depending upon your view of organics) because he thought that to make the biggest impact, you work with everyone even if you disagree with them.

Imzy was a place for people who already agreed with each other. The bubble was pretty strong, and when people 'told all their friends about Imzy', they were all just telling each other. Harvesting users from Tumblr wasn't going to make it grow, they should have reached out to people who didn't agree with them (!!!!) on every point.

But they pretty much cupped your crotch at the door, checking to make sure you fit the mold of a proper Imzurian.

I've been wondering about the racism on Slashdot. I've been here since 2003 (hence the username) and it has gotten pretty bad lately. On some posts about 1/2 the posts are absolute trash. I do remember when the GN(whatever the rest were) started, and and first it was at least unique, and impressive that they got so many first posts. Now though, it's sifting through garbage to find the decent stuff.

But, I do find that Slashdot feeds trolls less than most places, so that is nice.

Imzy can absolutely suck it. They are a bunch of hypocritical jagoffs.

I was on Imzy for the exact purpose it was created- to be a bit nicer. So tired of the Twitter and Reddit trolls. Imzy is nice, great!

I posted for a while and had fun. Then someone with the username of 'FuckGringos' commented on a few of my posts. Okay, this is supposedly not welcome here, so I emailed the admins. "Hey, umm...the user with the name 'FuckGringos' violates your terms of service".

That was elevated to 'Jessica' (Dan's SO I believe) who said, "We do not consider that username to be offensive, because it calls out the group who holds the power and therefore is not racist."

Oh...it's one of those.

So I figured, "Okay, evidently Imzy is not the place for me, so I will delete my account. Not a big deal..." I go through the stupid-complicated account deletion process- which is basically you posting to their admin board explaining why you want to delete your account. It's public, but that was their process. One of the questions is basically, "Please explain in detail why you want to leave." Well, it's because FuckGringos is not considered offensive, but 'FuckXXXX' (any other group) is offensive.

That caused a shit-storm because evidently I was 'calling out another user' blah blah blah. As far as Imzy was concerned, me complaining about 'Fuck Gringos' was offensive, but the username wasn't.

Essentially Imzy was a frigging hypocritical circle-jerk of 'progressive' people against hate...unless you happen to be white. Evidently I was supposed to allow my white guilt to over-ride all of their terms of service or something and embrace the idea that I was bad and should accept the shame that comes with being white.

I've been waiting for a while to hear this news about them shutting down, and I'm happy. Because they (Thanks Jessica) were absolute liars when they told everyone, "This is a nice place."

No- it's not. It's a place where the new rules where white/CIS/men are all bad things, and everyone else is good.

Personally, I have no problem with any people based on their demographics, but I really hate the people who are full of shit and misrepresent what they do as good...when they are as bad as it gets.

Good riddance. I hope they wasted a lot of their own money. And yeah, now I'm 'not being nice' on Slashdot...because rather than make the Internet a better place, they made it worse.

Does anyone know of anything good to come out of Imzy?

White male here.

Coincidentally, I left my last 2 jobs for the exact same reason (perceived mistreatment). I think it is a 'thing', and not just for protected classes.

That's why people leave their jobs. Were they expecting to hear, "I just lost interest in my job?"

No...people don't say that. They blame the job, and those assholes they left behind.

I work at a place that gets inspected by APHIS. APHIS also puts our material into quarantine.

We have permits for all kinds of things that sound icky and salacious. If someone read the reports they might think, "Wait, something bad is going on here- why are they doing this? Let's follow the trail and find out what they are doing!"

They would be very disappointed to find out what is really going on- that it is all part of 'normal' business. That the icky sounding stuff would be absolutely pedestrian if you understood it.

APHIS is a prettyboring place once you get over the idea of 'quarantine'. My guess is that these records would be boring at first glance, andpretty much just spreadsheet data regardingregular inspections once you have an understanding of what they are doing.

But...maybe that's all just a conspiracy...

I pretty much agree with you.

I create/run a fair number of web applications. Anything with a password associated with it runs https- if there is no password, then it runs insecure.

You want a picture of a peach? I'll serve up thousands- and let every man-in-the-middle know that you're looking at peaches.

You want to send me your email and password (that is probably the same you use on 10 other sites)? Now it is secure.

Asking a real question- why should we encrypt non-sensitive data?

Well, here is one really good reason: CHOICE.

People may prefer Google Now. But if you have no other choice- that sucks. Microsoft is trying to provide an option.

I can't imagine they are hoping for a big uptake on Cortana on Android. Google Now is so tightly integrated.

But for everyone complaining about this, or saying, "This is dumb, I don't want it!" - Better to have a choice than not.

So you don't like one of the choices. Cool. But it's always nice to have options.

Microsoft has been pretty public about their dropping support for Windows Phone.

They may come with a new phone- but for now they are pretty much in the, "Okay, that didn't work" mode. It's not a secret.

I have been using Windows Phone for a long time. I actually like it. Though now it seems like every month another feature dies on my phone. I just tell people, "My phone is full-on retarded."

They've also been very public about their plan to follow the customers to where they are- which is NOT on Windows Phone. Essentially my phone gets about zero support now. It's a shame, but not the end of the world.

You know what? You're on the right track...and sadly, this is the first comment I've seen regarding this. (I don't blame the others- this hadn't crossed my mind either)

Yes, there are real people losing jobs. That is a complete bummer. I feel bad for them.

But I still hate Twitter, and I hope they just go out of business entirely. Maybe the techies there can land a good job in some other company- I hope so. I don't want tech to die...just the garbage that is social media.

A millisecond of silence for the fallen techies of Twitter. For real...hate to see that happen.

Obviously you are being funny/sarcastic...but this is exactly why I left Twitter.

I made the mistake of calling the Twitter attack on a man a 'witch hunt'. Some poor guy made the mistake of defending the land-a-spacecraft-on-a-comet-guy during the whole shirtgate incident. Hundreds of level-headed concerned citizens went after that guy, including doxxing him. I believe my comment was, "Hey...this is turning into a witch hunt. Posting his personal details is not cool."

Which evidently was the worst thing I could have said. The attacks on me were fairly relentless...because 'witch hunt' is an attack on women, blah blah blah.

Twitter is a cesspool of bullshit. Where the more far out into safe space you get, the more popular you are.

I for one would like to see Twitter burn down.

I wasn't being facetious.

'Real Interest' whether it is through internal, external, intrinsic, etc. factors...it does not matter. Those 'outside factors' you speak of are probably parents, counselors, peers, etc. Whatever the reason and influence...Your dictionary definition did nothing to explain what you think those outside factors are.

What matters is- do they have a real interest? Is programming something they WANT to do?

I honestly don't really care if a girl was told that 'computers are for boys' when she was 8 years old. She was also told a million other things that led her to become the person that she is. Maybe she is a nurse now. Or a marketing director.

If that previous counseling caused her not to have an interest in programming- then move along. Devote your time to what your interests are and become successful. Your parents may or may not have made a good choice in which direction to steer you.

It is not the responsibility of those currently in the industry to attempt to cultivate an interest in programming within those people who were not encouraged earlier in life. In that case, we'd probably end up getting 1 in 500 or so of these unfortunates who actually develops an interest after our experiment with exposure.

I don't go around to other industries knocking on their doors demanding to be let in...despite the fact that I was never given an opportunity to develop an interest. In some cases I was dissuaded from entering into highly paid careers.

My grandfather was a big influence on my life. He hated two groups of individuals: the rich and the highly educated. My late-in-life and substandard education can be traced back to the conversations he and I would have in the afternoon after school. "If a doctor is so smart, why does it take them 10 years to get through school?" I was programmed not to become a doctor- one of the highest paid and most respected professions.

This doesn't mean that society owes me a foot in the door toward a medical career. I don't think we need to be concerned about these nebulous reasons that females don't prefer programming as a career. We don't need to go back in time and right the wrongs of our ancestors.

Moving forward? Sure, that is a different story. Treat the kids equally. But by the age of 25, I had spent at least 10,000 hours on computer programming. Yes, I had an advantage over a person who was not encouraged in that direction. That doesn't mean we need to be stupid and erase that history and put me on the same footing as someone who started programming in the 3rd year of college. I had an interest, and I exploited it.