This is the fallacy of small numbers, a.k.a. hasty generalization. There weren't many CS majors (of either gender) in the 80s, so the gender ratio will be less representative of a real trend (consider flipping ten coins. Your probability of getting 50% heads isn't as good as it would be if you flipped a thousand coins). Most of my software engineer peers who got degrees in that era actually studied other fields, such as math or electrical engineering.

That said, the drop from 10-15 years ago is completely valid and this is indeed a problem.

(disclaimer: I did not listen to that story and I don't have stats at the ready to prove my observations)

Some tech writers have made this point already, and I probably won't get it out as clearly as they have, but the problem with smartwatches and our perception of them is that we're thinking about them in the here and now, and not in the future. Microsoft (well, Ballmer) famously laughed at the iPhone as too expensive and useless before it took off and crushed the Microsoft Mobile business into dust. He was thinking of the here and now, and not the future.

Interesting.

I think there's a difference though. When the iPhone came out it had this tremendous aura of Cool about it. I say that as someone who is in no way an Apple fan. I think just about everyone (or everyone who didn't have a vested interest in a competing product) could see that.

This is where Apple's so-called fanboys can be used to bootstrap a tech shift that would've taken much longer otherwise. When enough people start wearing these watches, they'll start to have more applications.

The thing is, I don't get that "Cool" vibe from these watches at all. I mean if the bootstrapping effect takes off then that's great, but I'll be surprised if they have the impetus needed to carry the change. Maybe I'm just not part of the target audience :)

And here is a link to the BIOS simulators (in Flash) for just about every Lenovo BIOS.

http://service.lenovo.partner-management.com/et.cfm?eid=1437

Here you can see BIOS settings and get familiar with the layouts. Not sure how helpful it is for security, but it is very informative.

It said "Virgin could take on Tesla", so I thought it was about a fellow Slashdotter forming his own company.

Elite doesn't mean anything without context. You've determined that playing well with others is the context, so, those who do play well with others are elite, and the rest crap.

You're incapable of creating an inclusive community. They require acceptance of all.

I've been finding that reading e-books is *more* popular among the older crowd. The Kindles, Nooks and reading on tablets allows people to adjust font sizes and zoom in ways that making reading pleasurable once again.

Also, try picking up a backpack from a middle schooler when they have it full of their books. They're back breakers. My daughter switched to e-books in college and loves them for the simple fact she isn't going to strain something just to lug them around.

Paper books will survive, but start to get relegated to niche status -- especially for anything technical or lots of non-fiction. That stuff becomes obsolete so fast I'd rather have the electronic, up-to-date versions.

If the NSA does not already have access to Cisco's obfuscated address system, then they are not doing their job.

There are a lot "constitutional democracies", in particular in Europe, that try to limit power to an intellectual elite.

I suppose we could start to have a "my-country-has-a-better-system-of-government-than-your-country" argument. I can't quite see how it would be either relevant or helpful, however. Perhaps if we stick to the matter at hand?

Of course, politics should say something about science: it should pick which scientific theories to believe and decide what policies to derive from them.

Of course. Someone with no scientific background and whose main priorities are getting re-elected and protecting the corporate issues of his campaign contributors is going to be much better placed to make objective assessments than someone whose training and career has been about quantifying objective phenomena. Yup. Totally buying that one.

Where did I say that they weren't "allowed to tell anybody"?

You said "scientists should not become politicians and they should not favor or advocate particular policies". If you say "should not" in the context of politics and lawmaking, you may well find that a lot of people interpret that as a call for sort of legislation or other prohibition.

There is a difference between telling people "an asteroid is going to hit earth" and "I want a law doing X".

If a scientist says "a giant asteroid is going to hit Earth" you can bet that someone will say "you're only saying that to force us to spend money on space exploration. Also the asteroid doesn't exist and will probably miss". Any public statement will be taken as a political one by someone who feels the data works against their interests.

As such, there are no purely neutral scientific publications. And the only way a scientist can stay aloof from accusations of politics is to remain silent.

Why is it always about "forbidding" with you people?

See previous point about "should not" in the context of politics. Perhaps you haven't been explaining yourself as clearly as you might have wished?

Scientists can do whatever they want, but as a society we should recognize that people who lobby for laws cease being responsible scientists and treat them accordingly.

We could apply that more broadly. I mean doctors are pretty much scientists. We should probably ignore them when formulating medical policy. Likewise we should probably not give any special consideration to teachers when it comes to Education. And we'll probably have to stop all those lawyers from exerting undue influence over lawmaking. And stop the bankers and financiers from influencing fiscal policy.

OK, so those last two almost seem like good ideas. I still think it wouldn't work :)

Actually, I really do think that's just an opinion.

No, sadly, it's historical fact.

Umm, which bits? The "all politicians are venal and corrupt" part? Or the implication that "only the political left has abused science in support of genocide, racism or political extremism"?

There may be facts in there somewhere, but I really don't think they come close to supporting the conclusion you appear to have drawn. Sorry, but it remains just your opinion.

If you want to use a Dell, I would advise to pick one from the "Business" line of products (Lattitude), instead of the "End-User" line (Precision).
Although they sometime don't have the latest bells and whistles, they tend to be much more supported, both hardware-wise (easier to find replacement parts later on) and software-wise (easier to get Linux running reliably on them).

I have a Latitude E6510.

He wasn't a genius, he was a figurehead for a popular opinion of the time.

Understanding that is key to preventing a repeat. For reasons that made sense to them, they chose him because he said "Let's get those fuckers" and they reacted eagerly.

They had one of these (not necessarily this vendor) on the floor of one of the wings of the Burlington Mall in Massachusetts 5+ years ago (it may still be there). It's a fun toy, but it has little practical applications beyond games and promotions. There's no reason this couldn't be on a wall or table though.

Restaurants: I see this technology as the future of table service at restaurants; consider your white tablecloth as your touchscreen, capable of breaking down into one screen per patron (the camera notes where people are seated) or one big screen for everybody to watch a video presentation. This becomes your menu. The camera can also note when you are running out of drink, when it's appropriate to bring out your next course, and when to clear your plates, which allows the wait staff to better optimize their time. Perhaps the bussers are even drones.

Gaming: A ceiling-mounted camera and projector are far cheaper than a coffee-table sized tablet, and you don't have to worry about spilling drinks on your tabletop destroying your system. This can replace board game equipment and other tabletop games and activities. Giant jigsaw puzzles and multi-day wargames can be saved and cleared to make room for something else, then resumed on demand.

So basically, you support the use of referenda to determine policy on important scientific matters? That seems to be what you're saying. So who decides what's important enough for a plebiscite and what isn't?

Plebiscites are usually held once people collect enough signatures indicating that they want one to be held.

Doesn't work that way in my constitutional democracy :) Still I'm quite happy to discuss the matter with reference to US electoral procedure. Just bear with me if I'm ignorant on some points. Like I say, I don't know my plebiscites from my cenobites.

My point is that science by itself has nothing relevant to say about politics at all.

I don't actually disagree with you about that. Of course, by the same token politics shouldn't say anything about science either, which doesn't seem to be the case at the moment. That brings me back to my initial point: politicians tend to see everything as politics and they any publication of scientific findings as either an attack on their position or welcome support for what they've been saying all along.

The trouble is that, at the level of formulating policy, too many politicians think that evidence is something you commission a think-tank to write for you. They see "science" as another think-tank and if they don't like the findings, they assume that they must be politically motivated. I don't think this is entirely helpful.

These days, of course, it would be easy to give the people the power to vote on pretty much every law. What objection would you have to that?

None whatsoever. Although it would seem to require electronic voting, and are still issues around the technology that, until they get resolved, it's unlikely there'll be enough trust in the technique to make it viable for wider use. But that's wandering off into a whole other discussion.

Quite the opposite: scientists should not become politicians and they should not favor or advocate particular policies; it corrupts the science.

I'm not sure that's consistent with your earlier declaration that "The only way science should ever influence policy in a democracy is by convincing a majority of voters". I mean if scientists aren't allowed to lobby for laws based on their findings and if apparently they're now not allowed to tell anyone about those findings, then what are they allowed do? Going back to the case of the hypothetical extinction event asteroid, the human race may well perish while the scientists are waiting for an actual politician to read their papers and learn that a threat exists.

Also, it does seem as though you're forbidding people from participating in the political process based on their profession. I'd have thought that you'd have had problems with that, yourself.

And more to the point, isn't this the very activity that the political right have used to brand scientists as hypocrites and liars in the past.

And the political right is correct on these points. That's not just an opinion or a preference, it's a lesson that history has taught us painfully in the form of racism, socialism, and genocide: all of them justified by science and scientists, and often motivated by a crisis that scientists claimed to have recognized.

Actually, I really do think that's just an opinion.

It's pretty easy to hold a plebicite in such a case on short notice

I'll take your word for it. I always get my plebiscites mixed up with my ammonites and my cenobites.

It's pretty easy to hold a plebicite in such a case on and the question certainly is important enough to do so

So basically, you support the use of referenda to determine policy on important scientific matters? That seems to be what you're saying.

So who decides what's important enough for a plebiscite and what isn't? I mean the extinction event asteroid is a clear enough case, but what about the edge cases? How do you do that without setting policy based on scientific evidence?

Are you sure you've thought this through?

You certainly haven't,

No. No I haven't. The proposal that "The only way science should ever influence policy in a democracy is by convincing a majority of voters" is your idea. That means that thinking it through is your job. I'm just trying to find out if you have in fact done so as well as you seem to think.

since even your absurdly literal interpretation of my statement, combined with your unrealistic straw man

Given that a straw man argument is where you deliberate misrepresent anothers's position in order to discredit it, I don't think you can combine a straw man with an absurdly literal interpretation - that would be a contradiction in terms.

I gave you a hypothetical situation and asked my interpretation of your idea was correct. You corrected my understanding of your idea. I believe that's called "debate". (I will admit to poking fun at your argument, but that's not in itself a logical fallacy.)

still admits a simple democratic solution.

I suppose the simplicity of the thing is one of the aspects that bothers me, really. Solutions that propose a single inflexible criteria for deciding potentially complex cases are very often ill-conceived in my experience.

For instance, aren't you basically saying that if a scientist has data that he feels demands a change in policy, the scientist has to stop doing science and become a politician? I mean since that's basically the profession of swaying public opinion in order to affect electoral results. Wouldn't that then stop them from doing the things they get paid for? Or from refining their results?

And more to the point, isn't this the very activity that the political right have used to brand scientists as hypocrites and liars in the past? You know, the idea that they're playing at politics when they should be doing science?

Do please correct me if I've misinterpreted anything that you've said. I'd hate to think I was putting words into your mouth.

Yeah, but Elon Musk doesn't make big claims like this, and intentionally generate hype, without having something genuinely interesting up his sleeve.

You sure sound like an elitist...