I suppose not caring works, but it seems like this is a great vector to turn hardware players into Zombies. If I were a criminal, I could think of a lot of things that could be done with even 1% of the world's internet connected players. Do you really want your Blu-Ray player to be part of a botnet sending spam or participating in denial of service attacks?

If for no other reason, think of the impact on your bandwidth and electric bill. I certainly don't want a house full of hackable hardware. When (if) the internet of things arrives without security and 10% of the fridges, air conditioners, electricity meters, washing machines, pet doors, TVs and driers are all hacked because manufacturers couldn't be bothered to secure them, I think you'll probably care. It will bring the interwebs to its knees.

FTL is impossible, per Einstein. So yes, we know that it has to use the physics in this universe.

Weirdly enough, women were quite well represented in technology before the 80s. Clearly there was an interest - so what's changed?

Women in other countries are somewhat more well represented in technology and more likely to go into STEM fields - so what are those other countries doing differently?

There are a number of things that make a strong case for the reasons women aren't well represented in tech being related to artificial issues rather than natural tendencies.

Tech isn't singled out as the one and only important field, by the way. I'm not sure where you get that idea from, but if you look at most any field with a lopsided gender ratio you'll see concern about the gender imbalance and efforts to remedy it. Nursing programs will aggressively pursue male candidates, same for elementary teaching, for example.

In any case, my guess as to why tech is singled out is not that tech is singled out, but that you're probably primarily reading tech sites where this gets discussed, so it just seems that way.

A willingness to give partial credit for work shown, even if the ultimate answer was wrong, and other things like that. They may be more willing, in this case, to assume that the boy with the wrong answer was on the right track, while the girl with the wrong answer was just flailing around and guessing, even when the provided answers and work were the same.

Crunchbang had a good post-install script that would set up apache and mysql for you. It's probably safe to use until Debian Jessie is released. It's a shame that the distro is dead. In the long run, configuration management might serve you better than a distribution per se.

I see, it's not just ignorance - it's willful ignorance that forms the basis for your factually incorrect opinions, and when challenged on your ignorance, you lash out incoherently.

I'm sure you imagine you have a point - given that your stated opinions have no basis in fact, you probably imagine all kinds of crazy things are true. Please also feel free to imagine that you've put me in my place, if you like. I certainly don't see any point to continuing this discussion; I won't try to reason with someone clearly lacking it.

Except that there is a push to get more men into elementary teaching. And there is a push to get more men in to other industries dominated by women, like nursing.

You seem to have a very strongly held opinion (at least one that's strong enough to comment about and bash "SJW"s) that is clearly based at least in part on ignorance. I'd suggest learning more - not only will it help you avoid embarrassing yourself by displaying your ignorance, but it might even help you revise your opinions.

Also, side note, one of the reasons nobody gives much of a shit about there not being enough white players on pro basketball teams is because, statistically speaking, it isn't remotely relevant. How many pro NBA players are there? Now compare that to fields like software development or IT. Which one of those groups is more relevant for the average person who wishes to achieve upward mobility and has better odds?

Additionally, you're also ignoring the fact that white people were not, historically speaking, forbidden from playing in professional sports leagues and were not harassed and threatened (at least not for their race) when they joining the leagues. The fact that you so blithely ignore historical fact, once again, says to me that you form your opinions out of ignorance. Again, I suggest learning more so that you don't embarrass yourself by spouting off your uninformed nonsense.

I am aware of the Open Source / Free Software split. I also know that MIT/X11 is not a copyleft license. Let's not confuse this issue with facts. I don't really care what license they're releasing it under. That Microsoft can do this, not to a chorus of enraged howls, but to people pooh-poohing it as "too little too late," means that software freedom has won. I'm just saying though, it's probably a little premature to take RMS behind the shed. Winning is one thing, but there's no kill like overkill. Personally, I wouldn't cry if proprietary software stopped being a thing; I get paid either way.

Just because it's a morality that you disagree with does not mean he is amoral. He is an extremist — that's why he's useful. He makes any other Open Source advocate seem like a moderate, when in fact the software industry has changed radically in the last 15-20 years.

RMS may be a crackpot, but he's a very influential crackpot. The largest software vendor in the world just open-sourced their core programming platform. Do you remember how loony Open Source used to be? No one is laughing at the "freetards" any more. RMS may still be risible, but he may yet have the last laugh.

RMS occupies a point of morality that makes far fewer compromises than most people are willing to do. He has a great deal of moral authority, and he's been pretty oracular in the past. No one else is willing to make the same choices, but it's not necessarily important.

What is important is that he keeps on moralizing. Because it makes positions nearer to that (with acceptable compromises) seem more normal. So far it's working great. The crazier he gets, the more sane the rest of us sound. Well, not that I think he's changed his message much in the last 30 years, but you take my point.

You don't need a minicomputer to call 911. You don't need a minicomputer to text your wife that you're running late. You might be surprised what a smartphone is useful for though.

I've had a smartphone for about six months now, and before that I didn't really think I needed one. Now I know I don't need one, and right now I don't even have cell service, but I have found a number of uses for it anyway. I've used mine as a flashlight, a level, as a compass, and to check my pulse. They make you wish you had a real camera, thus fueling the economy, and they will do in a pinch if you need photographic evidence of something. It makes a great guitar or instrument tuner. It will translate text on a billboard. It saves paper for grocery lists. And there are about a half million things that any networked, powerful computing device would be useful for: games, alarm clock, programming, et cetera.

However, I think I have an even better example. I came home for the holidays to Valdez, Alaska in 2011. As undoubtedly nobody knows, Valdez is by far the snowiest city in America with about 325 inches (8.25 m) of snow in a given year. That year was an extraordinary year for snow. By late January 350 inches lay on the ground, and this in a place where snow showers in May were not unheard of. Boats sank. Buildings collapsed. Everyone who could was shoveling. After the second time I cleared our roof the snow pile reached the second-story windows on every side of the house. This became a slight problem at about the same time when the heating fuel started to get low — the (chest-high) fill pipe for the house was now buried three times its height in snow. You'd think that these sort of permanent-house-features would be easier to find in this sort of situation. I spent about three days digging for the damn thing, but then remembered something a friend had mentioned: the magnetometers in smartphones can be used as metal detectors. I tromped in, borrowed my mom's cell, and found the pipe almost immediately. I'd come within a few inches of it, but then been digging in the wrong direction. It wasn't exactly a life or death situation, but it was pretty dire, and it was pretty much the only tool available that could have helped in that situation.

I get your point that smartphones enable some people to be rather conspicuously vapid, but I'm not sure that they wouldn't be just as irritating with some other toy. I do think it's wrong to disdain the tool because of the users. I'm glad you don't need one. I'm glad I had one when I needed it. I'm pretty okay with having one now, even if I don't use it much. Most especially I'm glad that my mom doesn't live in a place that gets thirty feet of snow in a year. However, if you do happen to visit that terrible place, I highly suggest you bring a smartphone. You never know when it might come in handy.

Exactly that.

The extra information is irrelevant. It doesn't matter that his idiot identified as a feminist, and it didn't matter that the creep I described identified as a men's right's activist. They are an idiot and a creep, respectively, and it says absolutely nothing about other people who may have some label in common.

Given that I didn't say whatever it is you think I said, I'm not entirely sure why you seem so miffed.

I said that by changing the way they presented the company they were able to appeal to a segment of the workforce that previously had not been applying. I said nothing about what men value or that men stopped applying, just that more women began applying after they emphasized certain existing benefits.

In fact, given that I described the company's engineering group as mostly married men with children, and those benefits were already existing, one could infer that men can (and do) value child care and work/life balance.

You need to socialize with real human beings more if you think a minor disagreement with you on an internet forum is enough to ruin someone's day, princess.