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Comment Re:How is this tech related? (Score 1) 156

by Carewolf (#49771393) Attached to: EU Drops Plans For Safer Pesticides After Pressure From US

IMO, this shouldn't be up to governments. They should act as a source of trusted advice, at best. The idea that the FDA might have killed more people than it's saved (by delaying the use of medicines that were later found to be safe and effective) is an interesting one, though I can't remember if it's ever actually been proven or is just some libertarian meme.

In other words, you are completely insane!

Saying it shouldn't be up to the goverment is saying anything should be allowed, so let in the lead paint. Surely the free market would never feed our children poison. It is not like they haven't done in numerous times before and continues to do so in counties with less regulation.
Programming

Google's Diversity Chief: Mamas Don't Let Their Baby Girls Grow Up To Be Coders 446

Posted by samzenpus from the starts-at-home dept.
theodp writes: Explaining the reasons for its less-than-diverse tech workforce, Google fingered bad parenting for its lack of women techies. From the interview with Google Director of Diversity and Inclusion Nancy Lee: "Q. What explains the drop [since 1984] in women studying computer science? A. We commissioned original research that revealed it's primarily parents' encouragement, and perception and access. Parents don't see their young girls as wanting to pursue computer science and don't steer them in that direction. There's this perception that coding and computer science is ... a 'brogrammer' culture for boys, for games, for competition. There hasn't been enough emphasis on the power computing has in achieving social impact. That's what girls are interested in. They want to do things that matter." While scant on details, the Google study's charts appear to show that, overall, fathers encourage young women to study CS more than mothers. Google feels that reeducation is necessary. "Outreach programs," advises Google, "should include a parent education component, so that parents learn how to actively encourage their daughters."

Comment Re:Soverign debt (Score 1) 743

by Carewolf (#49767397) Attached to: Greece Is Running Out of Money, Cannot Make June IMF Repayment

"Soverign debt is not like personal debt!"

As Dick Cheney famously said on the eve of the Iraq War, "Deficits don't matter".

He said that because sovereign debt really isn't like personal debt when the sovereign debt is in a convertible fiat currency. Because the difference between you and a nation is the power to issue currency. Do you know how many countries have ever actually paid off their debt? Take a guess.

The IMF is like a loan shark. They don't want countries to pay off their debts. They want countries to service their debts until such time as they can burn it down for the insurance (CDO) money.

What you are using a Dick quote as something other than a joke? What are you, a moron?

Comment Re:There is something to it, people are missing (Score 1) 743

by Carewolf (#49767383) Attached to: Greece Is Running Out of Money, Cannot Make June IMF Repayment

And that was new loans AT INSANE RATES.
Last time I've checked check dept per citizen numbers, Greek was roughly on the level of Germany.
But interest rates they are paying (and that mostly to German banks), oh my goodness:

Interest rates reflect the lenders perceived risk of not being able to retrieve the loan on time or at all.German citizens are vastly more productive than Greek citizens.

Not really, and that is not the main issue. The German government is a lot more reliable than the Greek one, and have been running a balanced economy for a long time, not just when they were forced to. It is one of the prime examples that austerity is the only was to prosperity. Of course every other North European countries has done the same, and have similar strong economies, only those who tried to spend their way out of debt are in trouble.

Comment Re:Unfortunately, this is women's perception (Score 1) 295

by Carewolf (#49762881) Attached to: Study: Science Still Seen As a Male Profession

As long as female culture remains the culture of fear

What is 'female culture?'
  Serious question.

Culture specifically targeting women and primarily consumed by women, such as women's magazines and a long range of TV show. I think you know a few if you think about it.

They ironically tend to be way more sexist (against women even) than mainstream culture.
Science

Study: Science Still Seen As a Male Profession 295

Posted by Soulskill from the need-an-opposite-for-bill-nye-the-science-guy dept.
sciencehabit sends news of a study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology which found that science is still perceived as a predominantly male profession across the world. The results were broken out by country, and while the overall trend stayed consistent throughout (PDF), there were variations in perception. For explicit bias: "Countries where this association was strongest included South Africa and Japan. The United States ranked in the middle, with a score similar to Austria, Mexico, and Brazil. Portugal, Spain, and Canada were among the countries where the explicit bias was weakest." For implicit bias: "Denmark, Switzerland, Belgium, and Sweden were among the countries with the highest implicit bias scores. The United States again came in at the middle of the pack, scoring similarly to Singapore. Portugal, Spain, and Mexico had among the lowest implicit bias scores, though the respondents still associated science more with men than with women."
News

Ireland Votes Yes To Same-Sex Marriage 623

Posted by Soulskill from the have-it-your-way dept.
BarbaraHudson writes: Reuters is reporting that the citizens of Ireland voted overwhelmingly to legalize same-sex marriages. While it's also legal in 19 other countries, Ireland was the first to decide this by putting the question to the citizens. "This has really touched a nerve in Ireland," Equality Minister Aodhan O'Riordain said at the main count center in Dublin. "It's a very strong message to every LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) young person in Ireland and every LGBT young person in the world." Observers say the loss of moral authority of the Catholic church after a series of sex scandals was a strong contributing factor, with priests limiting their appeals to the people sitting in their pews. In contrast, the "Yes" side dominated social media.
Encryption

'Logjam' Vulnerability Threatens Encrypted Connections 71

Posted by Soulskill from the another-day-another-vulnerability dept.
An anonymous reader writes: A team of security researchers has revealed a new encryption vulnerability called 'Logjam,' which is the result of a flaw in the TLS protocol used to create encrypted connections. It affects servers supporting the Diffie-Hellman key exchange, and it's caused by export restrictions mandated by the U.S. government during the Clinton administration. "Attackers with the ability to monitor the connection between an end user and a Diffie-Hellman-enabled server that supports the export cipher can inject a special payload into the traffic that downgrades encrypted connections to use extremely weak 512-bit key material. Using precomputed data prepared ahead of time, the attackers can then deduce the encryption key negotiated between the two parties."

Internet Explorer is the only browser yet updated to block such an attack — patches for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari are expected soon. The researchers add, "Breaking the single, most common 1024-bit prime used by web servers would allow passive eavesdropping on connections to 18% of the Top 1 Million HTTPS domains. A second prime would allow passive decryption of connections to 66% of VPN servers and 26% of SSH servers. A close reading of published NSA leaks shows that the agency's attacks on VPNs are consistent with having achieved such a break." Here is their full technical report (PDF).

Comment Re:So, when has this not been true? (Score 1) 609

by Carewolf (#49727339) Attached to: The Demographic Future of America's Political Parties

Except I don't know anybody who said "ya know, I didn't hate blacks and gays when I was a kid, but the older I get, the more I'm bothered by shit that has absolutely nothing to do with me."

Yes, you may get more fiscally conservative the older you get, but few people get more socially conservative the older they get. Which is why the number of people with libertarian sympathies continues to grow.

Actually that does happen. The older and weaker you get, the more prone you are to scare tactics and the more likely you are fear the unfamiliar,
Education

Microsoft To Teachers: Using Pens and Paper Not Fair To Students 387

Posted by samzenpus from the are-books-still-allowed? dept.
Freshly Exhumed writes: Pens and paper have no place in the modern classroom, according to Lia De Cicco Remu, director of Partners in Learning at Microsoft Canada. "When was the last time you used a piece of chalk to express yourself?" De Cicco Remu, a former teacher, asked the Georgia Straight by phone from Toronto. "Kids don't express themselves with chalk or in cursive. Kids text." Given the Microsoft Study Finds Technology Hurting Attention Spans story posted to Slashdot in the last few days it would seem that Redmond's Marketing and R&D people are at cross-purposes.

Comment Re:No self driving trains? (Score 4, Informative) 393

I'm baffled that we just might get self driving cars before self driving trains.

Do I really have to state the obvious? It's on *rails*.

We have self-driving trains, but somebody needs deal with the inevitable delays and malfunctioning signals at winter and look out the window to check people do not get stuck in the door, etc. The self-driving once are usually in mostly underground metros where each station is manned, or a personel can get to within 5 minutes if the need arrises.

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"More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined." -- Fred Brooks, Jr., _The Mythical Man Month_

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