Several month old data?
Isn't that like... 90% of Windows operating files?

Most OS files are never overwritten until an update changes something.

This is +4 informative? Seriously?

For those who can't be bothered to read the summary, this is not about FO communications. Some guys are using the properties of fiber optics and light to figure out the temperature along a length of cable they dropped down a bore shaft to the ocean.

Hang on a second. One of the smartest things I ever read on the topic had nothing to do with tech - it was a female psychologist who also happened to be a private pilot, and she was talking about getting more females interested in flying. (I don't think somebody could write such a candid article about tech, unfortunately.)

Her basic premise was that females need more encouragement from other women who've "been there" in order to feel comfortable taking that path. Basically, the "odd one out" thing you mention. But males are more apt to do something even in the face of active discouragement. I've certainly observed this in myself and other males, barely (if ever) observed it in females, and it makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint as well (intuitively - I don't know if there are any studies that explicitly show this, but if risk-taking is on a bell-curve like most traits, in general the standard deviation in males is greater than in females). In professional flying, there's a lot of discouragement - it's hard, pretty thankless, the pay is crap for a long time despite needing a lot of expensive training just to start, and you're away a lot. Most pro pilots I know are in it for some version of prestige, which we know motivates women less than men.

In other words, to use your language, women are "herding creatures" to a greater extent then men (though I'd probably say "social creatures"). Men are more likely to find a niche in which they can excel, while women are more likely to stick to a "tried and tested" path. Note that I said "more likely", not "will always" - there are plenty of men who go into some boring average field, and plenty of women who don't, but on a societal level the averages and characteristics are important. And I don't think either of these characteristics are necessarily bad, or desirable to change. Both approaches to live have substantial downsides, and it's probably better to have a mix.

We knew what was going on when you ran your anti-IBM campaign, sometimes even positioning yourself as arguing on behalf of our community. It was a way to lend credence to IBM and MS arguments during the SCO issue. To state otherwise is deceptive, perhaps even self-deceptive.

Florian, you would not be devoting all of this text to explaining yourself if you didn't feel the need to paint your actions in a positive light. That comes from guilt, whether you admit it to yourself or not.

Go write your app, and if you actually get to make any money with it you can give thanks, because it will happen despite what you worked for previously. Keep a low profile otherwise because your credibility is well and truly blown and you can only make things worse. And maybe someday you can really move past this part of your life. But I am not holding out much hope.

Actually it's both.

Sexism is a huge issue. Both sexes do it too. In female dominated fields, they abuse and sexually harass the men. It's not about sex per se as much as it is "my group is in the majority and yours is in the minority".

But... minecraft has so many 9 year old male redstone programmers. And very few female redstone programmers. Etc. for the java side.

If you don't find programming entertaining- you are not going to excel at it like people who do. You are going to put in your 6 hours programming and go home while the other person puts in their 6 hours programming, goes home, and "plays" programming for another 6 hours.

In 30 years, I've worked with exactly 1 female who enjoyed programming. I worked with dozens who did it for a living. Some were quite good but they still didn't like coding per se. It was just a job. Many went into management. 70% of our team leads were female at my last corporate job.

My pre-obamacare insurance was useless. There were zero providers in my area accepting new patients. I had 0% coverage. So if I have useless coverage now, at least nothing is worse.

No, there is no guarantee that the user will not use a mobile phone to access his online banking (and the idiocy of some banks pushing out mobile apps for online banking doesn't actually improve security in that area either).

You can't make the user secure. You can only offer it to him and hope that he's intelligent enough to accept it.

In the U.S. they are different. But this statute is trying to link them, and I'm not sure that would stand up to a Constitutional test.

One thing our Supreme Court established long ago is that government cannot establish what is obscene by statute. It must be determined on a case-by-case basis. Look up the Miller Test.

And that is why they worded it this way. They aren't making artificial depictions of child pornography illegal; they're simply making them illegal *IF* they fail the Miller Test. But that's redundant, because things that fail the Miller Test are already, by definition, obscene.

So it's a law with no apparent purpose except grandstanding. Unless its purpose was to change the punishment for this particular obscene material.

I am not defending child pornography. But any responsible statute has to balance the good it does with the potential harm (because there is almost always some of both). Freedom of speech is an area in which legislators are obliged to tread very carefully.

This kind of argument deserves to be taken out behind the woodshed and shot dead.

The question here wasn't what someone is willing to risk. It was about what is LEGAL. And to answer your question: YES, as long as something I do is LEGAL, I am not going to cower in a corner and be afraid of the damage false prosecution would do to my perceived character. To do so would be abject cowardice.

Having said that, I do not intentionally involve myself in any way with ANY kind of depictions of child pornography, real or fake, simply because I find it morally objectionable. But in a free and rational society, morality informs the law, not the other way around. They are two very different things.

YES, they ARE! It's a search engine. Changing the order of the search results changes EVERYTHING.

And by their own admission, they're doing based on [A] payment, and [B] their subjective perception of whether the content is real.

I repeat: that *IS* modifying search results, and they're doing it for money.

When I search, I'm not searching for the highest bidder.

This is why I am using Google less and less now. I have actually started using Bing (which in some ways isn't much better), and I'm giving DuckDuckGo a serious try.

I think the vast majority of the votes are in by now, and "Surveillance For The Purpose Of Targeted Ads" was voted just plain evil.

A womans contribution requires 9 months, during which time any distraction, disruption or stress can cause the "person creation" process to fail catastrophically.

If that were true, the human race would have become extinct long ago. Pregnant women are actually pretty robust and remain capable of just about anything (except becoming pregnant again) for the great majority of the 9 months.

At the end of the day, the problem is people like you...

That's not the best way to start a sentence in which you care to make a point.

but lose the guilt-tripping SJW faux indignation BS.

I bet you care deeply about ethics in gaming journalism.