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Comment Snowden modbombing in 3,2,1... (Score 1) 608

It is funny you try to claim he is a whistleblower when he made no effort to be a whistleblower. Selling IC secrets to the highest bidder is hardly whistleblowing.

It's even worse when one proves it by using it to gain safe passage between one hellhole(China) and the next(Russia). Those plane tickets weren't free, y'know.

Comment On the contrary (Score 1) 162

That's a case of being inordinately lucky. On the other hand, the US system doesn't need such good fortune - as education is not locked out like it is in other parts of the world.

What of individuals that routinely get stuck in a low-tier track but show high-tier competence at the wrong time?

Comment So your life is determined by a couple of tests? (Score 1) 162

That kind of rigidity is worse than the UK system, since it explicitly locks out education for having the wrong number. Any talent or otherwise demonstrated competence useful enough for higher-tier work gets killed off if not supported by The Number. The N-1 approach doesn't help since it throws you far enough behind to be clearly seen as a lower-tier individual and thus only worth lower-tier work arrangements.

Comment While the US shows how you are not correct. (Score 1) 162

UK-style streaming enforces a rigidity that have lifetime implications if someone is unlucky enough to be on the wrong side of the score.

In your system, despite having technical talent, low secondary scores would have shunted me off to a vocationally-oriented school that would provide a very limited scope of highly precarious work opportunities. I would have to possess some favorable peerage status (or be from a very wealthy/influential family) to overcome that in any reasonable amount of time.

On the other hand, the US system allowed me to fix my issues, attend a good university, and graduate at the top of my class. That, and I managed to find good FTE work for a non-agency-based employer during said education - something equally impossible for my UK equivalent.

Comment The US system is about freedom, not PCness (Score 1) 162

Mandatory streaming, as practiced outside the US, only makes the problem worse by divining one's entire life based on the performance of a small number of tests. Make the wrong score, get locked out of education save for bottom-tier, perpetually-unskilled vocational schooling.

On the other hand, the US system does not lock in status and concentrates on continual display of merit. It takes anyone and gives them the best opportunity to succeed. In the US system, AP Honors is a nice thing to have but not necessary for entry. Competence is recognized without the rigidity that you want to see in education.

Biotech

Genetic Access Control Code Uses 23andMe DNA Data For Internet Racism 312

rjmarvin writes: A GitHub project is using the 23andMe API for genetic decoding to act as a way to bar users from entering websites based on their genetic data — race and ancestry. "Stumbling around GitHub, I came across this bit of code: Genetic Access Control. Now, budding young racist coders can check out your 23andMe page before they allow you into their website! Seriously, this code uses the 23andMe API to pull genetic info, then runs access control on the user based on the results. Just why you decide not to let someone into your site is up to you, but it can be based on any aspect of the 23andMe API. This is literally the code to automate racism."

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Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?

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