Admittedly it has been many years since I took a CS class as a student, but there was always an 'Us' vs 'Them' attitude. We were the under appreciated group and we would show 'Them'.

During my University years this would take the shape of our classes arranging to have exclusive assess to the University's Computer Labs (kinda like gerrymandering) during assignments submissions (which adversely affected other students outside of our CS course) and taking a dim view of people who took CS units as an elective.

I now teach in IT and I have to say this attitude is still displayed by many male students. Sometimes the attitude of the males students to the few females in the class is appalling, and I always call them on it.

The industry isn't racist or sexist, but I have to say that sadly many of the practitioners in our industry appear to be and THAT IS JUST AS BAD.

As an Industry we do need to be aware of this and address it as early as possible and punish those who display these sexist and racist attitudes and not punish the victims of these behaviors.

It will take time, but if we claim to be inclusive that means that we have to work at making sure that, as an industry, we are, and we also need to identify those who are not.

You see, I used to use Winamp back in the day, and for my meager MP3 collection it was perfect, but I never really liked the management of playlists/library.

I do remember sending an email to the "Development Team" in 1998 asking about what changes were going to occur with the Library/Playlist manager and I got an email back that basically was full of abuse that I would dare ask such a "Fucking stupid question" and that I should "Fuck off and die"

Yeah, so I never used Winamp again. Sonique was pretty good, but that is also a proprietary license, so doesn't answer your question

The whole thing breaks down when you view it as the way we are trained look at things to in a capitalist society, yes. The concepts of Communism are not the evil that many people play them out to be, just as the conceptual good of Capitalism is not the same as people make it out to be.

Truthfully we probably cannot properly exist in either extreme and reality is somewhere in the middle, until we can free ourselfs from the need to work, and spend our time in the upper layers of Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Woz and Apple have a history, he was the brains behind the hardware and Jobs was the salesman... and a Salesman managed to convince people that his truth was the truth?

Wow, what a surprise... I guess that you don't trust anything that is said by anyone, ever. Though I would like to see the evidence that Woz had the wool pulled over his eyes. He didn't make out as well as Jobs did, but there were more factors that Steve Jobs at play there.

I assist at a local high school with their Robocup program (admittedly we mostly use LEGO Mindstorms, but some of the senior students use Arduino) and I think that is an awesome way in.
Robocup
Get yourself whatever kit you like and try to make a soccer robot, or a rescue robot, it will give you a nice and clearly defined target to aim for, but will also allow you to experience the little technical challanges that you will need to overcome. Even if you have no intention of competing, it is a good base to start from, and if you have the time or the desire you can assist schools and kids getting involved in the hobby too.

The most pertinent question here I believe is the "Contract" question. EULAs have been ruled on a few occasions in assorted court cases to be agreements, not contracts.

Personally I think this will go nowhere, but IF the Italian courts rule that a EULA it is indeed a contract then EULAs will take on a new legal meaning, at least in Italy, and possibly the rest of the Eurozone (I am not a legal expert, so I don't understand the full ramifications of this, just postulating)

I remember the China example but you will have to remind me of the small breast thing

Personal Manufacture is your right, ah, unless that is stated in the laws of the land (and it isn't in Australia) then I call bullshine on that.

This may come as a surprise but we have fairly good gun control in Australia, people who hunt are allowed to own guns, all gun owners are licensed (except for illegal guns of course) and gun violence is fairly uncommon (it has flared up a bit of late, a few drive bys and shootings, but every time someone gets shot that is a national news item so yeah, not at all common) so I have no issue with what the police are suggesting here, but as I have said, very difficult to regulate.

Your freedoms are defined by law, and as such will always be at the whim of politics. You do not have "Freedoms" just because you think you should.

A creative enough person could kill another without a weapon, and a weapon could be made from many ordinary household objects.

But this gun is only a gun, an unliscenced, unregulated gun that has proven to be less safe than an actual gun.
I see no problem which what the police are saying here, but it is a very difficult thing to regulate.

This is pretty awesome, but Largest LEGO model, no way
LEGO House

We use bittorrent to move MS ISOs at work. We are an Educational institution and as such we are allowed to offer students access to MS products. (not the Office suite, but OS's .NET and the like) This is done via the Dreamspark site where students can get their license keys but from our internal network they can use bittorrent to get the ISOs

So we legally give access to MS OS via torrents (^_^)

I'm in Australia and my average is 237ms, and they say that we don't need the NBN...
I'm sure that is a provider problem, as well as a shitty infrastructure problem. Once a year my Internet/phone line drops out for a day or two and then I have to call out a tech to look at the exchange, and each time they find a problem with it...

Yeah, Guest account would be the best way... Pretty straight forward, or you could create a standard account and lock it down with AppLocker and/or local policy. Parental controls can also be useful here. Of course, you will probably need Win 7 Professional for most of this.

All of this from an Apple user ;)

I cannot believe how many comments here are attacking Adria. Sure, she did an increadibly dumb thing by going straight to Twitter, and I can understand why SendGrid are distancing themselves from her, but I can completely understand why she did what she did.

Women are treated like absolute crap by most of the IT industry, I have worked in the field for years and now work as a IT teacher, most individuals are reasonably respectful, but by-and-large it does become a 'mens club'.

Adria was offended by what was said, whether that was right or wrong is not the issue, the issue was that as an attendee at PyCon and she was exposed to behaviour that had no place at a IT conference. And to be honest, I think people are understating how difficult it can be to confront people who cause offence. The best solution would be to talk to those who caused offence, but in some social situations that isn't the simple task most people here are making it out to be, are you all that socially capable?

The attitudes need to change, and that isn't going to just happen. Hopefully this serves as a example about what behaviour is expected by IT professionals when interacting with people. Given the comments made here I suspect that there is a lot of "But these women make my life less fun, and they souldn't be allowed too" and that only helps fuel this very problem.

Dude, you ARE living in a world where the whims of the minority are being enforced, because they have the money to start the lobby groups, hire the lawyers and make life difficult for those who oppose them.

Not to say your points are not valid, 'cause they are, just that participation of raising awareness of a problem and being vocal about it is kinda what Democracy relies on to you know, function.

oh sorry, I forgot, Democracy doesn't function....