What a stupid thing to do...

I replace "terrorist" with the word "peace loving hippie" and therefore can conclude that there is no terrorism!

So you're saying he also shouldn't hire any whites either then right? Because that would, by your calculation, discriminate against all other non-white groups too!

But wait - using your logic we've now shown that it is immoral to hire *anybody*. So something must not be right...

Perhaps it is your definition of "discrimination" as "hiring person A rather than person B." Well that is certainly discrimination by a strict definition of the term and is perfectly acceptable.

BUT what we're talking about is "racial and gender discrimination" which is favoring one population over another based on biological rather than qualification attributes. So that's a bit different. From experimentation we know that men will be judged more competent at certain tasks (math, programming, other "male subjects") than women (from double-blinded tests done using the same exact resumes with recognizably male or female names). And we know this affects everybody (men and women across different groups). Then we can assume that Apple is probably discriminating (on at least a subconscious level) against women already if they aren't aware that they are since nothing will have been done to off-set this effect.

So some people would propose off-setting that amount consciously rather than allow it to continue as an unconscious bias in corporate hiring philosophy. They do this by changing hiring methodology (perhaps removing names from resumes, doing phone and remote interviews rather than in-person, etc.). Perhaps they take the percentage they know to be 'bias' and give a slight advantage to the minority (in some cases they will break the tie in favor against the internal bias).

So *this* is what you think will be "reverse-discrimination" then? Offsetting a known bias? I'm interested in hearing how you may think this is wrong - and even *more* interested in hearing your solutions to the problem.

Careful. Your assumptions are very telling. Did you know college girls are often much more likely to be steered away from "male subjects" by counselors? Or to be questioned "are you sure you want to do this?" rather than encouraged? And to be given menial tasks as grad students rather than challenging ones which, while harder, have greater payoff?

Did you just disregard all of the evidence that supports the above (and yes, there is evidence for it) and replace that with "girls don't like hard work?" Or were you genuinely ignorant of the above? If the latter then this is your opportunity to learn. If the former then I'm afraid you have some critical thinking skills to work on.

Obligatory XKCD even: http://xkcd.com/385/

Your assumption is so horribly flawed. That is to say - you're assuming that the only reason to drop out is due to not being "obsessed with computers enough to excel." To begin with only a small percentage of students are "obsessed" with their subject. Others may be good, great, poor, etc. There's a spectrum. And I would say that the 5% females who did graduate are the ones who were obsessed. But to assume that all 95% of the remaining men *were* obsessed is just flawed reasoning.

When I was in school learning about the resistor color code a *teacher* told the students about the mnemonic "black boys rape only young girls but violet gives willingly." Sadly it's the only one I still remember...

But tell me - what does that do to inspire black students and girls to continue learning about electrical engineering?

What does equality mean to you? Equal access? Equal opportunity? Equal opportunity but only when it doesn't affect you personally?

What would you say if you entered a race that was touted as being fair. Yet participants of one "class" were put much further along the course than you for no better reason than chance (lets say they had even numbers on their shirts and you had odd). Would you consider that to be "equal" or "fair?"

Those scholarships that were specialized to minority groups and females had no affect on you. They were extra opportunities to those groups not removing opportunities from you. They are *in addition* to the other scholarships out there. The fact that you couldn't get one of those other scholarships is your own problem and it's shameful that you would blame minorities who struggle much more than you for something that wasn't their fault.

First - replace "the PC-crowd" with "people who are struggling to get a job as a minority." It is demonstrably true that people are more inclined to hire people of their same gender / color (one such source: http://www.pnas.org/content/ea...). Cook is recognizing that his company may be guilty of this and is looking to correct it.

Second - what better way to encourage more minorities to get the required education than to show that there are jobs waiting for them and they won't be unduly discriminated against? Cook would be providing the demand for these students need to begin with. Or did you expect a bunch of minorities and women to enter college on a prayer and dream?

It's already a NYT best seller. This isn't some un-read pamphlet. At this point the errors in it need to be addressed. Ignoring it won't make it go away.

Does the fact that the guy was 24 have any bearing on the story what-so-ever? Why not say "scam artist" or something more generic?

And this is my point - we're giving false legitimacy to the "look how cold this winter is!" every time we point out "look how hot this summer is!"

I really wish the pro-AGW side wouldn't focus on these events so much. It's pretty much irrelevant whether a month or quarter were "the warmest on record" and only leads to deniers pointing out all the "coldest on record" events as they happen.

AGW is about long-term trends. Focus on that.

You call that good TV???

FWIW I moved to Feedly / Beyondpod from Reader / Listen. Beyondpod can import feeds from Feedly too. It's not quite as seamless as Reader/Listen but it works out pretty well. I don't add new feeds terribly often though.

Because all Slashdot is these days is bitching about which programming languages suck the most.

It isn't...

NVM - I misread things (and confused copyright with patent).