Two things:

1) It's Google, so probably not. There was a time when the things they did were interesting and relevant, but those days are long over. See Glass for more information.

2) More importantly, these classes are designed to lure uninterested people into becoming code monkeys. It will undoubtedly consist only of the most basic of concepts, and in Java, and won't bother covering the underlying math (sort of like Indian "universities"). It will attract people with both a victim complex and zero self-motivation, as people who have any are already enrolled in real CS courses. Everyone will get a certificate and a juice box when it's over.

The thought of this program being even remotely good gave me a bit of a chuckle, so thanks for that.

True. If this initiative does get even a few more women into tech, then it won't be a complete waste. It's an ingrained societal issue, after all, so baby steps are probably be the best that can be hoped for.

Because we didn't rig it, and we don't have the means to un-rig it. Unless you've got a few billion laying around that you'd like to spend on such an endeavor. Sadly, I have no such reserves.

Along with most of my friends and relatives, and quite a few of my coworkers. One doesn't need shitloads of money with the availability of loans and grants, *especially* if you're a woman or a minority. Go to smaller schools, which tend to be better in many ways than big brand-name schools, and you won't end up with a fuckton of debt when you're done (and you'll learn the same things because science works the same way no matter where you are). All told, I had to borrow less than $14k in the course of earning my BS from a small private college, and that will be paid off in five years. The idea of someone being $100k in debt for college (or anything that isn't a house, really) is completely fucking baffling and outrageous to me.

Likewise, this program is one that Google can trot out to say how "We're fighting sexism by trying to get more women into tech!" They know damned well it won't work; it's just bread and circuses to distract from the fact that they've been proven to be pretty fucking terrible employers.

In before "Netcraft confirms --"

Well, fuck.

You can reemphasize until the heat death of the universe, but that won't make it true. You've been reduced to a blubbering mess of baseless ad hominem and strawman attacks. Stop posting. You're just embarrassing yourself.

Please quote the part where I said any of that. Oh, wait, you can't, because I neither said nor implied any such thing. And you are acting like a baby. Stop it.

You're implying that men and women have the same interests? Not in the United States, but I don't know what country you're from, so it might be different where you are.

Hey, what did that strawman ever do to you? Who said they wanted to keep girls out, aside from a couple of AC trolls? Oh, yeah: nobody. Nobody said that. Nobody implied it. You completely pulled it out of your ass because you're not actually cut out for this. Generalizations are necessary when talking about a big picture, like an entire society. Most people involved in the discussions understand that, and that there are naturally going to be exceptions to whatever generalization is being made. You'd have to be a god damned tool to take offense at that.

Now if you'd piss off back to Jezebel.com, or just shut the fuck up and let the grownups talk, we would all really appreciate it. Thanks.

Yes. EVERYBODY wants to secure a good future for their children, grandchildren, and so on. Why should anybody feel guilty about that? You have it hard today because your parents were held down their whole life? Well, that sucks, but *now* you have the ability to secure a future for your own children. Instead of moping around about shit that happened in the past, do something about the future. But this is not about leveling the playing field; it's about increasing the pool of applicants with the end goal of depressing wages. See also the current lawsuit against several tech giants, including Google, the Great White Hope for getting more women into IT, for colluding to not hire each other's employees.

One thing that I find very telling about this initiative and others like it is that none of these efforts to increase the number of women in IT ever state why that goal is important. Why is IT better for women than whatever other career path they choose? At my college, 73% of my class was female. They had to major in *something* in order to graduate; why does it matter that it wasn't IT, as long as they're happy with the fields they chose?

No, it isn't. You might have to work longer and harder to get to where you want to be, but if you think life is easy for *anybody* but the super-rich, then you're just plain delusional.

How was the statement sexist? The only way I can see that it could be perceived as such would be if you thought men and women are or should be the same, but that's just stupid. You're not stupid, are you?

I didn't realize that absolutely no money at all was going to girls to get college educations. Thank you for enlightening us.

Also, you might want to see a doctor about that giant chip on your shoulder.

So anyone who uses logic or points out hypocrisy is an MRA? Poison the well much? You might want to check your address bar; this is slashdot.org, not jezebel.com.

A better question would be, Why do you even care about the gender of your coworkers? Aren't you just there to work? Or are you hoping to hook up with someone on the job? Seriously, explain this. As far as my coworkers go, I don't give a single fuck what demographics they belong to, only about their level of competence.

One of the side effects of white-knighting is that now and then you'll find yourself tilting at windmills, as you're doing today.

Nobody is complaining about competition; the problem is the tech giants' efforts to undermine skilled workers pursuing a career doing what they love in favor of less-skilled (read: cheap) ones who are only in it for the money. There is no regard for the quality of code produced, no effort to ensure that American tech companies remain relevant in a global economy, just the race to the bottom, and no amount of warm-and-fuzzy cooing about girls being just as good as boys or pastel websites about how awesome grrrrl coders are will change that.

Please also keep in mind that not only do women and foreigners tend to work for far less money than American men, they are much less likely to "talk back" or "make waves" or whatever else you want to call it, which is why there are concentrated, industry-wide efforts to push more women and H1-B's into tech, and no such efforts for more African-American or Latino-American men. It doesn't really get much more obvious, cynical, or self-serving than this, regardless of how desperately you want to believe in your own anecdotal evidence of a shortage that we all know simply does not exist. If your company can't find enough quality workers, then your company sucks at compensation, or recruiting, or advertising open positions, or anything else involved in the process of attracting, growing, and retaining talent.

There's been an ever-increasing push over the last 10 or 12 years to get more girls and women into tech, with almost no visible results; in fact, the number of women in tech has been declining for decades. This seems odd at first, but the reason this push is constantly being attempted at all is that it's part of a larger effort to increase the pool of applicants and decrease salaries. It's the same reason that Facebook, Google, et al. want to increase the number of H1-B visa workers.

There is nothing stopping a girl or woman from learning programming/networking/etc. if she wants to, and these increasingly bizarre, desperate, and creepy attempts to lure in women will end up pushing away the ones who might have pursued tech careers otherwise.

Self repairing machines maybe science fiction now, but so were cell phones with internet browsers in 1995

The EU also has spent billions of dollars on a brain mapping/simulation project as well.

If that ever gets significant progress it wouldn't be too far fetched for machines to self diagnose and self repair.

The difference between the buggy and whip and auto makers is the automakers still required people to work.

I think the question should be asked when will automation be good enough to exclude any human input. Even the engineers and artists will be out of job.

I heard a VR software developer say "People overestimate technological change for a year, but under estimate change when you talk about a decade."

Something to that effect...

So its worth to give a bit of thinking on what happens when machine learning is good enough to eliminate current jobs and all possible jobs after that.

Besides who is going to foot the bill to retrain all 14 million truck drivers when Google self driving cars are good enough? I highly doubt they are all going to be robot repairmen.

Hrm... I take it you haven't tried the product yet or watched the reaction of people who have used it.

I'm a child of the 90's so I used to play those VR games for a dollar for 5 minutes in the arcades and have to agree those were pretty shitty.

However, the Oculus Rift is something else to behold.

I own a dev kit and I actually get "Oh shit" moments in the Rift playing the roller coaster demos. Regular games don't do that for me. I get vertigo playing Minecraft in the Rift when I am high up building something. Regular Minecraft doesn't do that.

When I play Euro Truck Simulator 2 in the Rift I find myself looking left and right and checking my mirrors just like I drive a car in real life. I even look out the window to look at the scenery. Without the Rift I don't do that.

And this is a low rez version without positional tracking.

Its not a gimmick and its not going away. 2 billion dollars says its not going away. Even if you hate Facebook you can invest in one of the other kickstarters like AntVR and use their product.

I've been participating in the RiftMax shows and it reminds me of the scene in Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex where they are in a virtual chat room on the net.

This is going to be big.