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Submission + - The Programming Talent Myth

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Jake Edge writes at LWN.net that there is a myth that programming skill is somehow distributed on a U-shaped curve and that people either "suck at programming" or that they "rock at programming", without leaving any room for those in between. Everyone is either an amazing programmer or "a worthless use of a seat" which doesn't make much sense. If you could measure programming ability somehow, its curve would look like the normal distribution. According to Edge this belief that programming ability fits into a bi-modal distribution is both "dangerous and a myth". "This myth sets up a world where you can only program if you are a rock star or a ninja. It is actively harmful in that is keeping people from learning programming, driving people out of programming, and it is preventing most of the growth and the improvement we'd like to see." If the only options are to be amazing or terrible, it leads people to believe they must be passionate about their career, that they must think about programming every waking moment of their life. If they take their eye off the ball even for a minute, they will slide right from amazing to terrible again leading people to be working crazy hours at work, to be constantly studying programming topics on their own time, and so on.

The truth is that programming isn't a passion or a talent, says Edge, it is just a bunch of skills that can be learned. Programming isn't even one thing, though people talk about it as if it were; it requires all sorts of skills and coding is just a small part of that. Things like design, communication, writing, and debugging are needed. If we embrace this idea that "it's cool to be okay at these skills"—that being average is fine—it will make programming less intimidating for newcomers. If the bar for success is set "at okay, rather than exceptional", the bar seems a lot easier to clear for those new to the community. According to Edge the tech industry is rife with sexism, racism, homophobia, and discrimination and although it is a multi-faceted problem, the talent myth is part of the problem. "In our industry, we recast the talent myth as "the myth of the brilliant asshole", says Jacob Kaplan-Moss. "This is the "10x programmer" who is so good at his job that people have to work with him even though his behavior is toxic. In reality, given the normal distribution, it's likely that these people aren't actually exceptional, but even if you grant that they are, how many developers does a 10x programmer have to drive away before it is a wash?"

Comment Please! Stop lying like that!!! (Score 1, Informative) 1097

by Taco Cowboy (#49609761) Attached to: Two Gunman Killed Outside "Draw the Prophet" Event In Texas

Netherlands gun violence is high by European standards

And guess who is doing the shooting...
https://www.google.com/search?...

Those Moroccan kids here in the "gangs" are NOT MUSLIMS

Bold Faced Liesshould never be tolerated, so ... lemme get you guys the link ...
 
There ... http://lmgtfy.com/?q=percentag...

Click on the link above, son

Them Moroccan gangbangers are not moslems? Or you prefer to categorize them as Buddhists / Hindus, or even ... Christians?

Submission + - Two Gunman Killed Outside "Draw the Prophet" Event in Texas (go.com) 2

Submitted by cosm
cosm writes: ABC news reports that two armed gunman were shot and killed outside a "Draw the Prophet" event hosted in Garland Texas.

From the article: "The event, sponsored by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, featured cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, and scheduled speakers included Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who has campaigned to have the Quran banned in the Netherlands. The winner of the contest was to receive $10,000."

In light of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks, the Lars Vilks Muhammad drawing controversies, and the American show South Park's satirical depiction of the state of Muhammad phobia in the US and elsewhere, is there an end in sight to the madness associated with the representation of this religious figure?

Submission + - Tweeter account of senior female IS recruiter belongs to someone in Seattle (channel4.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: British's Channel 4 has revealed that the tweeter account of the senior female Islamic State recruiter belongs to someone living in Seattle

After Channel 4 has revealed her identity, it is reported that the young female student may have either moved to Saudi Arabia or keeping a low profile inside Denver, Colorado

Tweets from that account reveals that the individual loves American football and enjoys take out food

Why are we continually funding NSA if they do not even know anything about that senior Islamic State recruiter living INSIDE the United States of America?

Furthermore, if that senior female recruiter for Islamic State individual could reside in Seattle for so long without being discovered, and could successfully slip out of the United Sates of America so easily ( to Saudi Arabia ), could it be that that senior female Islamic State recruiter enjoyed inside help from the government of the United States of America all these while?

Why is Obama using NSA to spy on the Christian citizens of America and in the meantime never do anything to curb the terrorist support networks of Islamic States inside the United States of America??

Let us be fully awared that there are still A LOT MORE Islamic State active supporters living inside the United States of America, possibly with some kind of subtle assistance from the Obama Administration

Say *NO* to the White House which supports Islamic Terrorism!!

Submission + - Vast network of salty aquifer found in the Antarctic (astrobio.net)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Many view Antarctica as a frozen wasteland. Turns out there are hidden interconnected lakes underneath its dry valleys that could sustain life and shed light on ancient climate change

Using an airborne imaging system for the first time in Antarctica, scientists have discovered a vast network of unfrozen salty groundwater that may support previously unknown microbial life deep under the coldest, driest desert on our planet

The findings, which are published in the journal Nature Communications, may shed light on how Antarctica has responded to climate change

They may even help scientists understand whether similar conditions could exist elsewhere in the solar system, especially beneath the surface of Mars

Jill Mikucki, a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, microbiology assistant professor, was part of a team that detected extensive salty groundwater networks in Antarctica using a novel airborne electromagnetic mapping sensor system called SkyTEM

The McMurdo Dry Valleys, situated along the Ross Sea coastline and discovered by polar explorer Robert Scott in 1903, is the largest region in Antarctica not covered by an ice sheet. It consists of an arid expanse of mostly dirt, small rocks and large boulders, dotted with a few frozen lakes

Co-author of the study, Professor Ross Virginia, from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, said: ‘This fantastic new view beneath the surface will help us sort out competing ideas about how the McMurdo Dry Valleys have changed with time and how this history influences what we see today’

The survey, which covered 114 square miles, may have just uncovered the proverbial tip of the iceberg

“It suggests that this ecosystem is extensive and connected. There could be a very, very large subsurface habitable environment throughout the Antarctic regions,” Ross Virginia, an ecosystem ecologist at Dartmouth College, told Discovery News

The researchers believe the newly discovered brines harbor similar microbial communities in the deep, cold dark groundwater. The brines may provide insight on how microbes survive such extreme conditions. They also may provide the basis for future exploration of a subsurface habitat on Mars

Snow appears white because it reflects most visible light that strikes it. Anything that does this means you see the whole spectrum of visible light, which looks white

Other objects appear different colours because they absorb certain wavelengths of visible light but reflect others — a green apple, for instance, reflects only mostly the green wavelength. But, as reported by JSTOR, when snow is deep enough it can actually appear blue. The reason for this is due to ice crystals in the snow, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC)

‘As light waves travel into the snow or ice, the ice grains scatter a large amount of light,’ the NSIDC explains

While most of the light is reflected, there is a very small tendency towards more red light being absorbed than blue

When you see just the surface of a pack of snow, the scattering of the blue light is almost completely impossible to notice

But if you look into a significant amount of snow, about 3.3ft (one metre) or so, more photons emerge towards the blue end of the spectrum than the red end

When snow appears red, though, it is for an entirely different reason. This effect is due to cold-loving, fresh-water algae known as Chlamydomonas nivalis that contain a bright red pigment

Also known as ‘watermelon snow’, it is ‘most common during the summertime in high alpine areas as well as along coastal polar regions’

SkyTEM produced images of Taylor Valley along the Ross Sea that suggest briny sediments exist at subsurface temperatures down to perhaps -68F, which is considered suitable for microbial life. One of the studied areas was lower Taylor Glacier, where the data suggest ancient brine still exists beneath the glacier. That conclusion is supported by the presence of Blood Falls, an iron-rich brine that seeps out of the glacier and hosts an active microbial ecosystem

Scientists’ understanding of Antarctica’s underground environment is changing dramatically as research reveals that subglacial lakes are widespread and that at least half of the areas covered by the ice sheet are akin to wetlands on other continents. But groundwater in the ice-free regions and along the coastal margins remains poorly understood

More links at
http://news.discovery.com/spac... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re...
http://news.ucsc.edu/2015/04/a...


Submission + - Could Nepal earth quake be twice as big? (qz.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: On April 25, Nepal was hit with the biggest earthquake in 80 years—but just how big was it?

Amidst the destruction, there was a spat on the issue between the US and China. The US Geological Survey (USGS), which monitors earthquakes worldwide, reported that the Nepal earthquake measured at a magnitude of 7.8. However, the China Earthquakes Network Center (CENC), which hopes to provide a similar service, measured the same earthquake at a magnitude of 8.1

While a difference of 0.3 in the magnitude of the seismic activity may not seem like much, the apparently small differences in magnitudes of earthquakes reported by different agencies around the world are, in real-life, huge. Because if we are to believe the Chinese data, the Nepal earthquake may have been twice in size than if we believe the US data

So who is correct?

There isn’t an independent body that can verify which of the two data points we should believe. Also, the discrepancy may be due to using different parameters in measurement: USGS uses moment magnitude and CENC uses surface-wave magnitude

Submission + - How China flew its first satellite (spacedaily.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: 45 years ago, on April 24, 1970, China joined the "Space Club", when it successfully sent its first satellite, Dongfanghong-1, into orbit with its Long March rocket

Spacedaily.com carries an article detailing the blood, sweat and tears account of what the Chinese scientists had to go through to get their first satellite launched, in spite of all the hardships they had to go through, — which includes been beaten to death by the "Revolutionary Red Guard" and committing suicide rather than endure more brutal treatments

The Chinese versions of the article are available at
http://tech.gmw.cn/2015-04/25/... and
http://tech.qq.com/a/20150424/...

Comment Industry's deep pocket versus the people (Score 1) 109

Don't the people have a say in this?

I do not care how deeeeep the industry's pocket is, in a democracy the ultimate decider is still the PEOPLE --- those who vote, that is

The industry can only get something going if the people let them - and in this case, the people still have the right to SUE the government (and indirectly sue the politicians) over the passage of the laws

Since this happens in Canada the Canadians have to mobilize themselves to see that such laws be overturned and the politicians who are on-the-take be punished accordingly

Submission + - Russia 1,700 ~~~ America 0 (wakeupfromyourslumber.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Russia has evacuated 1,700 of its citizens from Yemen while the total number of United States citizens the government of the United States of America has evacuated from Yemen stands at a perfect ZERO

In fact, Russia has evacuated American citizens from Yemens while the State Department of the United States of America has yet to do anything
Please watch the vids at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
and at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... and read the news at
http://rt.com/news/253001-yeme...
and at
http://rt.com/news/252173-yeme...

Submission + - The creation of Fact-Free-Zone in the modern world (soufangroup.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: This report outlines how the Islamic State is able to create a Fact Free Zone with very little objective reporting coming from areas under the group’s control or areas it is contesting and the way Islamic States has purported the social media services, from Facebook, to Youtube, to Tweeter, to further its course

In this age of ubiquitous information-sharing technology the Islamic State’s media effort is an integral and essential part of its operations, on a par with its military and administrative effort. In this respect it is greatly helped by the decentralized nature of social media (particularly Twitter), which has allowed each of its supporters effectively to create and operate his or her own ministry of information, echoing a standard party line as well as creating and spreading IS’s messaging. In effect, IS is crowdsourcing its own propaganda

However, Islamic States' deliberate targeting, kidnapping, and brutal killing of journalists has resulted in a vacuum in which the job for 'news reporting' falls to the laps of avid supporters of the Islamic State

There is no precedent for this, given the novelty of social media platforms and file-sharing sites, and so, in a counterintuitive move, the group has indeed maximized control of its message by giving up control of its delivery

The importance of social media to the group is evident in the way that pictures of leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declaring the Caliphate on July 4, 2014 appeared on Twitter before the video of his full speech was uploaded on YouTube, helping to ensure that it would be carried on most major international news networks

For example, links to the violent hour-long video “Flames of War,” issued by The Islamic State on September 16, 2014 through its official outlet, al Hayat Media, were posted in several places on the widely-used file-sharing site justpaste.it. These links were then tweeted out to tens of thousands of online supporters, who then re-tweeted the links, and, importantly, created new pages and links on justpaste.it. The video was also uploaded to YouTube on many accounts in order to overcome the inevitable suppression of the video for violating YouTube standards of use. Just one randomly selected page promoting the video among dozens of others, recorded 18,034 views in just seven hours on September 18, 2014, showing the ease, breadth, and speed with which the group is able to spread its message directly to the intended audience. The problems with censoring such a decentralized distribution system were well-illustrated by the two days it took mainstream social media to take notice of what was happening

The crowdsourcing of messages negates the need for a single point of contact. This might leave the group vulnerable to unofficial messages polluting its media stream but it is a small annoyance compared to the gains it reaps

Submission + - Microsoft infringes other's patents (reuters.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: A judge of the International Trade Commission of the United States of America has found that the software giant used InterDigital Inc's technology in its mobile phones without permission

The judge, Theodore Essex, said that Microsoft infringed two wireless cellular patents owned by InterDigital, and that it would not be against the public interest to ban the Microsoft devices from being imported into the United States

The ITC has the authority to stop the import of products that it determines infringe a U.S. patent. Companies frequently sue at the ITC to win an import ban and in district court to win damages

InterDigital Executive Vice President Lawrence Shay said the company looks forward to "continued discussion" with Microsoft to license its patents

The case at the ITC is No. 337-613

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