What they're talking about is simply called a licence plate

That's why I failed at French but managed to speak a fairly fluent English.

Nah. They're just glad to get a chance to actually use and practice what they had to learn at school. And it's part of the "getting things done" attitude. Use the language that poses the lowest language barrier.

And most people know alone the German concet of grammatical gender will drive any student to madness and back again.

Good luke with that opinion in Cologne or Düsseldorf.

I'm no expert in US constitutional law, but I doubt that it's modeled after chatholic church law. And Ex-presidents shouldn't be as surprising as having an ex-pope for the first time.

Jokes aside, I think this legal status is modeled after that of an professor emeritus (at european universities) when a professor still keeps his earned title and privileges, but is honorably disbanded from his academic duties.

But as I said, I'm no expert in church law either.

It's from what I remember from when the last one resigned: That was such an unusual event that they had to find a new title for him. He is now "Papa emeritus", Which boild down to "a retired pope is still a pope".

OK, that work day is down the drain anyway. I declare my last post as "open season for anecdotal evidence". Keep the good stories comming.

But if possible, companies should take measures to make the tech community more "diverse" (or "equal-rights" or "whatever"). But some stupid quota hiring is not helping.

Nice example.

I prefer statistically, there are usually 1.4 popes per square kilometer living in the Vatican State. And current rate is even up to 2.8!

Shouldn't be such a big difference if unqualified applications are distributed evenly among relevant minorities. But would be a really interesting research subject, too.

Everyone is ignoring the most important number!

Difference between percantage of [minority] employees and percentage of [minority] applicants.

Heck if you only have 2% white employees, that makes you the most diverse employer ever if only 0.5% of applicants were white.

It would take some steam out of this whole discussion to have a look at those numbers.

Granted, with numbers as in my hypothetical example would definitely point out a problem (or at least an interesting statistical anomaly), but outside the scope of the hiring company. And of course nothing should keep a company from starting programs in schools end universities to fix that problem, but not through some skewed hiring policy.

Yes, but that's a completly different matter, usually based on outsourcing the first candidate screening to HR, or basing the whole recruiting process on mindlessly copying what someone read in a magazine on how (ironically) Google does their recruitment process to find the best and most creative tech skills.

I haven't heard either that (in large enough corporations) gender or skin color were part of the interview process either.

Oh i thought those were called "cellphone"

So how can I get a smartphone if I'm outside of AT&T's market?

I guess I'll go to a shop, ask for a smartphone and go to a phone company and ask for a phone&data plan....

But in your example, why would I buy a phone from AT&T if I'm going to get a GoPhone sim? Won't I be paying for two phone plans then? AT&T (unused, but still per month costs) and GoWhatever?

What the heck is a feature phone anyways? I never met anyone who claimed to have one.

But here the important point is: do they have a OS that deservs it's name? Then it's only a matter if you count switches within that "featurephone" market too

And with a mostly two-players market I'd bet that most people who switch to Android came from iPhone.

Either it's your first phone, then you're not counted as switch, any subsequent phone upgrade from then on won't be a OS switch either or, if it IS a switch, it will be back and forth between Android and iOS.

So this is a non-fact.