... like the Russian populace becoming too educated to put up with him any more.

That this is a widespread social problem and not something restricted to just the nerdy professions. Project much?

That's what I was trying to figure out how to say. Thanks for being more eloquent than I. Though, at the same time, there is the issue of the scare quotes around the word "problem" in the OP's post.

I think that while your statement about this problem not being isolated to nerd communities is dead-on and an important point, I also think it is reasonable to interpret OP's post in the way Jawnn did.

And, perhaps most importantly, it seems like the adversarial thing (yours and Jawnn's) isn't going to help any of this. It's not going to help Jawnn understand that nerds aren't the bad guys (though there are bad guys among nerds), and it won't help Rinikusu (OP) accept that there is a problem overall.

Feminists and nerds should be working together. Nerds have been subject to prejudicial sterotyping, too. That should (and I think does) make us more understanding of the problem, not less. Instead of sniping at each other, let's bury our hatchets and work the problem.

Phrasing of the questions in a survey is important to fully understanding the problem that is being examined. Here are the study questions. Two of the most relevant questions are these:

32. Have you ever personally experienced inappropriate or sexual remarks, comments about physical beauty, cognitive sex differences, or other jokes, at an anthropological field site?

39. Have you ever experienced physical sexual harassment, unwanted sexual contact, or sexual contact in which you could not or did not give consent or felt it would be unsafe to fight back or not give your consent at an anthropological field site?

The PLOS ONE document itself is very thorough, and worth reading through to more fully understand the issue.

The referendum was a binding vote because it was approved by the Queen and Parliament in the confusingly titled "The Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedule 5) Order 2013"

David Cameron's father is Scottish, so he doesn't need to steal a heart on this matter.

I'm English, but I was pleasantly surprised to find most of the 16-17 year olds giving well reasoned opinions on why they were voting Yes or No.

Actually the UK stole countries with the East India Tea Company and some well chosen wars.

That was to a certain extent true in England too.

If Scotland went independent, every English voter I spoke to made it clear their view would be "Good Riddance" and that they expected England to negotiate the best possible deal i.e. no sharing the pound unless it could be proven to be economically advantageous for England, making it advantageous for Scottish firms to relocate South of the Border etc.

In staying, I think the Scots made the right long term decision.

FTFY:
The USA is a very fascist country, not free at all. It is ruled by wealthy business and a corrupt politican caste and voters have a choice between evil and evil.

Hello,

Driver support, which was mature under XP because of its longevity, took a hit when Microsoft released new models for Vista and was late in delivering its DDK. On the other hand, driver support in Windows 7 and up have been pretty mature. In the case of Windows 8 to 8.1, my employer was able to get away with little to minimal updates of our software, which uses filter drivers, for compatibility with the new version of the operating system. The level of compatibility had previously been rare in Windows for us.

As far as hardware goes, the difference between specifications for Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 has been pretty small. A 1 GHz CPU, 1GB RAM and some disk space were the basic minimum requirements for each, if memory serves. Don't expect it to run great on that kind of systems for all uses, though, but it will run.

And, yes, a new version of Windows usually means new features, both in terms of hardware and software. So, it's not a bad idea to try and time your hardware upgrade cycles to coincide with Windows releases if you want the latest shiny bits, which, as you noted, third-party devs are developing for.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Hello,

Did you mean Windows 95 or 98? Or perhaps were you thinking of Office 97?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

How do you know what the growth rate in the 50s and 60s would have been had the tax rates in the US been lower?

I only deal in empirical evidence. The warnings about higher taxes killing GDP growth are demonstrably false by comparing observed results over the past 70 years.

What's that about being ignorant?

Imagining things that might have been does not count as presenting evidence.

It is stupid if you are paying credit card rates. The US government pays insanely low interest rates and a few times, they've been negative! If someone pays you to borrow money, you'd be stupid not to take it.

The problem is that those interest rates change; our debt is revolving. When the interest rates go up, we're going to have to have to pay down the debt while our interest nut is climbing. So either we'll be showing a higher risk of default or we'll devalue the dollar; either way, the interest will climb even more. This has been repeated dozens of times in history. Every time a country has tried it, with the possible exception of Japan right now, it has ended badly. And most economists think that in Japan is about to hit the wall -- they're going to be our canary in the coalmine.

Really? Doesn't seem that that far out of line.

Really? You're not very good at math. Average from 1950 - 1969: 17%. Average over the past five years: 15.22%. (17 - 15.22) / 15.22 = 11.69%. Twelve percent higher seems like a lot to me.

Now taxation per capita, adjusted for inflation, is way up.

So is income, which is why I, and the chart you linked to, and anyone who understands economics, uses percentage of GDP.

And spending is even growing faster...

By all means, cut spending. I'm all for it. Until we get there, though, we can't just not pay our bills.

instead of trying to preserve the high tax state?

Historically low total tax as a percentage of GDP in a very long time. Lower than most of the first world. What high tax state are you talking about? 'Cuz it's clearly not the US.

And, we are running a gigantic deficit. We have to pay our bills, because paying the interest on credit cards is stupid, period. So, cut spending, then we can bring taxes back down to the current level.

And may I repeat: Historically low total tax as a percentage of GDP. Far lower than during the 50's and 60's, when we experienced the fastest sustained GDP growth rate of any first world country *ever*. So any Laffer Curve argument you want to make would just make you sound ignorant.