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Submission + - Activists chase Joss Whedon away from twitter (bbc.com)

goose-incarnated writes: Joss Whedon has deleted his twitter account (again) after criticism and death threats were directed to him on twitter.

Fans may remember him fondly for Firefly (and later Serenity) but his most recent directorial effort, Avengers 2: Age of Ultron, attracted the ire of many feminists who accused him of being misogynistic and sexist.

"In the past, Whedon has used his Twitter account to voice his support for activist Anita Sarkeesian". In what many would view as an ironic turn of the tables, Whedon now has his peers and fans defending him from the curses and threats of the self-proclaimed activists.

Submission + - #GamerGate meet up in Washington DC subjected to bomb threat (reaxxion.com)

Motor writes: The consumer revolt going by the title #GamerGate arranged a real life event last night in a bar in Washington DC. The event was attended by a wide variety of people from all walks of life — all tired of the corruption and extremist gender politics in games media.

Despite efforts by so-called Social Justice Warriors to get it stopped by emailing and tweeting the bar owners, the meet up went ahead as planned — and a fine time was had by all. Later in the evening the event was temporarily halted as a bomb threat was called into the police.

The police are looking into the matter and bomb threats made in the US capital are, shall we say, no joke. It's going to be interesting to see the outcome of the investigation. Especially given some of the poorly-judged tweets sent by anti-gamers in the run up to the event.

Comment Re:Hmmmmm (Score 0) 676

Not sure where to go with this. I truly doubt I'll want the Republican candidate, but I don't particularly want Hilliary for President either. That doesn't leave much other choice. You heard me Libertarians/Greens/RonPaulFans

I do not understand American politics in this sense. Where are the alternatives? Is it always the choice of either a 90% guaranteed wackjob on the Republican side (you know who), or a massively (Emperor-grade) corrupt Democrat?
Do you somehow compare your Republicans to Gary Busey before they're allowed to run?
Do you require that your Democrats are atleast stage 4 on the Dark Side scale (not yet Palpatine but slightly worse than Vader)?

I hear about the Greens every now and then, but they seem to get less than 3% of the votes. It seems like you are all simply resigned to this cycle. Is that the case? Is it pointless to try and change the outcome? Just the let the giants battle it out?

Comment Re:The perfect summary of the case: (Score 1) 365

Or maybe they'd go; Gee whiz, we really are hiring mostly males for these positions. Perhaps we can take a closer look at these ladies to see what they're offering.

Then they'd be accused of soliciting prostitution.

Badum-tish.

Funny and informative at the same time, just like Sesame Street.

Comment Re:One more view. (Score 4, Insightful) 365

Jury: Kleiner Perkins not liable for Pao’s gender discrimination claims [Updated]
Trial highlighted Silicon Valley's male-dominated tech and investment culture. via http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

Absolutely loving the reasoning here. There are two possible outcomes.

1. Kleiner Perkins freed of all charges. This highlights just how male-dominated and sexist the tech industry is.
2. Kleiner Perkins guilty of all charges. This highlights just how male-dominated and sexist the tech industry is.

Perhaps this could be used as some sort of Turing test for feminazis?

Submission + - Did Neurons Evolve Twice? (quantamagazine.org)

An anonymous reader writes: When Leonid Moroz, a neuroscientist at the Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience in St. Augustine, Fla., first began studying comb jellies, he was puzzled. He knew the primitive sea creatures had nerve cells — responsible, among other things, for orchestrating the darting of their tentacles and the beat of their iridescent cilia. But those neurons appeared to be invisible. The dyes that scientists typically use to stain and study those cells simply didn’t work. The comb jellies’ neural anatomy was like nothing else he had ever encountered.

After years of study, he thinks he knows why. According to traditional evolutionary biology, neurons evolved just once, hundreds of millions of years ago, likely after sea sponges branched off the evolutionary tree. But Moroz thinks it happened twice — once in ancestors of comb jellies, which split off at around the same time as sea sponges, and once in the animals that gave rise to jellyfish and all subsequent animals, including us. He cites as evidence the fact that comb jellies have a relatively alien neural system, employing different chemicals and architecture from our own. “When we look at the genome and other information, we see not only different grammar but a different alphabet,” Moroz said.

Comment Re:Here's MY test (Score 4, Insightful) 522

If you can substitute the term "white male" into your premise and suddenly find it offensive, then was actually racist/sexist all along.

Why on earth would you find this offensive if you made the swap? Because you're a white male and it would highlight how virtually no software fails the white male test, but a huge amount fails the female test?

Why on Earth is it relevant if a software project passes the test? Does it make the code better?

This is a completely made up non-issue. Should we start rabblerousing about the white guy Bechdel test in the NBA? What about the unfairness of native English speaking programmers in Russia? Should we start a test for them? No, because it's fucking stupid, and contributes 0 to anything other than the wallet of those who get "offended" about "representation" as a profession.

Comment Re:Here's MY test (Score 1) 522

So you don't understand the difference between the words "minority" and "majority". Thanks for telling everyone.

I totes agree, that guy is a cock mongrel. How dare he imply that all people are created equal, like he's some Jefferson of misogyny. It's almost as bad as the patriarchy's so-called Charter of the United Nations and their oppressive hatespeech about equality and universal peace.

They should know by now that a minority is worth much more than a white guy. It's like duuh, of course you cannot be prejudiced against white cis males, what planet are you from? Stupid cis-scum the lot 'em, right?

(For reference, the UN charter http://www.un.org/en/documents... . Check out Ch 1 2, and Ch 1 3. Specifically,

To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; ...)

Note the "without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion". Does that sound like the Bechdel test?

Submission + - Leaked US Antitrust Report on Google Adds Weight to Rivals' Complaints (itworld.com)

itwbennett writes: The report, which was mistakenly provided to the Wall Street Journal as part of a public records request, reveals that FTC staff concluded in 2012 that Google’s business tactics had caused 'real harm to consumers and to innovation,' and the staff recommended a lawsuit against the company. Among the findings: Google inflated rankings for its own services and scraped other companies' content, while threatening to remove those sites from its search listing if they objected.

Comment This is beyond asinine. (Score 1) 367

What in the nine hells is this whining? It's a god damn app on a cell phone!
You want to "prevent the havoc"? Turn the damn app off! The world doesn't owe your delicate sensibilities a damn thing, and not every app must censor that which you may not want to hear.

Is this some kind of joke? Is it an Onion piece? Is it one of those far-far-far-left progressive campaigns again, where everything must be acceptable to everyone, or be literally Hitler and threatened off campus? I cannot make any sense of the accusations here, as it seems to be a completely voluntary situation.

Comment Misleading assertions (Score 2) 188

>>"But evolution seems to have mainly selected biomolecules that are quantum critical, implying that that this property must confer some evolutionary advantage. Exactly what this could be isn't yet clear but it must play an important role in the machinery of life and its origin."

A scientist should understand evolution sufficiently well to not use arguments like this.

Why are we carbon based and not silica based? Either works just fine. Evolution doesn't pick the "best" option, it picks a "functional" option. After something has proven to function, evolution stops caring (until it no longer functions). Why iron and not copper in our blood? Either works fine.

Why quantum critical "bio"molecules? Because they work. There is NO other criteria. They could be better than the alternative, they could be worse, they could be the same. But they work. That is all we can assert.

Comment Re:Two things (Score 4, Insightful) 247

1) Going to another country simply to resign is not the sanest action.

2) We really need a clear International consensu that governments do NOT have extra-territorial jurisdiction. Actions taken in one country should abide by the laws of that country, not any other country - even if it affects the other country. Any country that refuses to abide by this simple rule (I'm including my own beloved United States which routinely violates this simple legal concept.), should have punitive trade restrictions placed on them.

When I'm in New York state, I have to abide by NYS laws, not New Jerseys. Similarly, when I am in the US, I should abide by the US laws, not any other countries.

Sounds like a good idea, but how does that work when the internet is involved? Does Facebook count as everywhere? What about phone calls? Mail?

It's a tricky system to get right.

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