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Comment Re:Come again? (Score 1) 225

So where's youtube.com? It's not a web page on the web is it? Oh, wait...

I think we can agree that the original article has some supremely sloppy writing. What they meant to say, if I interpreted everything correctly, is this:

* Modern browsers visiting YouTube directly will get HTML5.

* Folks embedding YouTube videos into other websites will be nudged toward HTML5 by encouraging folks to use the the embedded frame API, as opposed to embedding a flash app.

Does that decompress the situation properly?

Comment Re:Come again? (Score 1) 225

Yeah, I was sorta wondering this too. Do people browse YouTube in Chrome/IE/Safari/etc. on DVD or something?

Or is there a direct web interface that allows directly watching HTML5 videos, but doesn't involve a browser? And, presumably, doesn't involve spiders.... I'm interested in the World Wide Web, not a spiderweb.

Note that I don't really count wget / curl, since they just transfer files from the web server. There's no good reason to get web assets with wget / curl, and then browse them (sans web) with Chrome / IE / Safari / etc. on the local disk. It's a victory for pedantic semantics but also spectacularly missing the point.

Comment Re:There's more to it than that (Score 1) 332

Of course, I didn't follow his reasoning one bit:

Using 10-bit color may end up limiting chroma sub-sampling to 4:2:0.

The two details are completely orthogonal to each other!

In any case, 4:2:0 at UHD gives you as much color information as 4:4:4 at HD. You'd have a very hard time noticing the chroma subsampling....

Comment Re:Not surprised (Score 1) 65

My favorite things to laugh at were:

Well, among everything else in there. It seems that SkyMall has moved on from these favorites. But, they were reliable point-and-laugh items when I was flying regularly a few years ago.

Comment Who cares? (Score 5, Insightful) 648

I learned programming in Microsoft BASIC, assembly language and a touch of Pascal, prior to reaching college. I don't use any of those languages now. (Ok, I still program in assembly language, but for different processors.)

As long as it's actual programming, with variables, data structures, and code to manipulate those things, then great! I don't really care if it's VB, Python, TCL, Lua, Perl, C++14, Delphi, Haskell, LISP, Erlang...

The real point is to open up the computer as a programmable device, and to get kids seeing the computer as something they can extend themselves with their own creativity. For that to happen, you want to choose a language that students can pick up quickly enough to see interesting results early on. You don't want their first meaningful program to come in the last weeks of a year-long class.

Comment Re:perspective, rise (Score 1) 361

Interesting. I work in Texas also—and lived here full time since 1997—and I've found the environment at my employer to be very mature and inclusive, with women at all levels of the company. That includes my previous boss. When she retired (after 33 years at the company), she had risen to the rank "Fellow," which is a fairly high title at the company.

However, I don't know that the fact we're in Texas has all that much to do with it. One startup I interviewed with here definitely had a culture that was tilted in more the direction of a frathouse mentality, I think. They offered to take me to lunch at Hooters for an informal interview, and hinted they sometimes do lunch as more interesting places. *wink* *wink* I didn't join that company.

I see your point about my use of the term "rise". Overall, things have gotten more inclusive, not less. The specific moniker brogrammer is a recent one, and is perhaps more indicative of programming / development appealing to a wider range of personality types, including extroverted "bros", as opposed to shy and/or introverted geeks. Just the term itself is inherently gender biased.

Comment Re:genitals don't code, and Linus doesn't know my (Score 1) 361

"Everybody knows boys will be boys." Bullshit. Treating creepy, gross, harassing behavior as somehow normal, and that "everybody knows" it'll happen just perpetuates it. Not acceptable.

Read some of the horror stories from DEFCON 20. Whether or not you're there to get laid, none of that shit's acceptable, period.

Comment Re:genitals don't code, and Linus doesn't know my (Score 1) 361

The goal of diversity initiatives is to make the pool of qualified candidates more diverse. But it doesn't say anything about the differing attributes having anything to do with how qualified you are. Yes, diversity includes gender diversity. But, that has absolutely nothing to do with the (correct, but meaningless) assertion that people don't program with their genitals.

My statement was meant to be read as "We need more vaginas in here programming, as if vaginas have some role in the process of programming." They don't. And to suggest "diversity initiatives" imply that they do is a strawman.

Comment Re:genitals don't code, and Linus doesn't know my (Score 1) 361

It sounds like your workplace is respectful, and that race and gender rightfully don't factor into your opinions of each others' work. It sounds like your workplace happens to be diverse, which helps keep everyone centered on what does matter (technical chops), as opposed to what doesn't (gender, race, age).

But what are your feelings on the rise of brogrammers? Sexual harassment at conferences? Companies with cultures that do fixate on gender / race / what-have-you? Typically these cultures arise when the population is too insular, too homogeneous.

Diversity isn't about saying "we need more vaginas in here programming." What an irrelevant strawman. Rather, it's about preventing the myopic echo chamber that can result when things are too homogeneous.

Comment Re:100% Pure USDA-Disapporoved Bull (Score 1) 119

Right. But DerYeghiayan's testimony is just testimony, not factual evidence. The whole point of this cross examination is to discredit the testimony. Testimony doesn't rise to the same level as fact by default, as humans are unreliable. It's not the same as hard evidence or accepted facts that are undisputed in a case.

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