I don't know that the specific ratio as it stands is natural and not worth challenging, but I do know that there are some natural differences that go a long way towards explaining why that ratio -- and other ratios -- aren't 50/50, as some would seem to naively expect. And I know that those natural differences are often papered over by people who seem to be uncomfortable with the facts.

Past that, I don't see how your points in general relate to mine at all... however:

In the year since I was laid off and become a consultant, I've observed (and had confirmed to me by many) that my social skills are one my greatest assets. I'm technically as good as anyone I'm competing against, but I'm far better at customer relations than most. That seems like a distinctly female strength.

Oho, a sample size of one. I, also, am far better at customer relations than most. Is that now a male strength? Or are self-imposed inferiority complexes now a female strength? Personally, I would argue for neither.

So your comment is proof that we don't all know this already, but some of us do, thanks, and and an article about that would be much more interesting than this better-career-choice food fight fare.

Yes, there are significant biological differences between the brains of men and women... different hormones, different development, different structure. Actually, the way a man's brain works is more like the way a computer works, because there is more localized processing taking place; the way a woman's brain works is more like the way a computer network would work, because there are more connections and communication between processing centers. Two different designs, two different results, and if there were more articles about that than about this garbage, then no one would be surprised.

You sound like a absolutely terrible person to work for.

1. Hiring a fresh grad for 40-50k (especially one who is quick to learn) over someone with 10 years of experience for 80-90k+ will often come out ahead for those positions that do not absolutely need that 10 years. Even if it takes them a few months to get the hang of what youre doing, if they end up 75% as productive as your senior coders, you come out way ahead

2. I would take a less experienced programmer on my payroll over an outside vendor any day of the week for non-complicated tasks, and twice on monday. Anyone whos had to deal with a bad vendor will agree.

3. A new programmer will grow and learn far faster than an experienced one(especially if it is their first real job.) a new programmer could be 2 or 3 times as productive 6 months in as they were at 1 month in

Of course, since youve reduced all your employees to a number, things like these probably never cross your mind.

(PS. if all your inexperienced people miss every deadline, youre picking the wrong hires. Not only that, but dont ever assume that experience = no mistakes or failures. Or maybe the environment youve created is that detrimental to work flow.. Hiring someone with every expectation of their failure never did anyone any good)

Let's say the probability is 1/2. The solution to the system can be verified in polynomial time. If the solution is incorrect, run the algorithm again.

After you run it N times, the probability of error is 1/(2^N), and you only wasted polynomial time on verification. Clearly, when your probability of error is smaller than the cardinality of possible outcomes, the algorithm will perform as designed in a sane amount (polynomial) of time.

hate to rain on your sony crusade, but the person who would end up in jail is the person who was responsible for running the check. that may be a salesman, or a manager, or whoever. when it comes to this kind of fine/jail time, there is a lot of finger pointing and assigning blame, and companies will go to great lengths to make sure the blame is placed right. granted, this is more likely to be applied to larger purchases than your 20$ book purchase off amazon.

My point was, of course, to expose the flaws in the reasoning of the original post. Yes, people have problems with Windows (and with HTML).

Also, same here, re: the clean Windows setup and use of Gentoo. :)

Cheers!

Whoops -- it's not rand, it's CryptGenRandom.