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Comment: Climate Change is the new eugenics. (Score 4, Insightful) 363

by Atypical Geek (#39332809) Attached to: Solving Climate Change By Bioengineering Humans?

You may notice that many of the replies so far advocate population control* as the solution to climate change, aka anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

* Forced sterilization, mandated use of birth control and so forth.

A quick question for AGW proponents: do you want to give control over who can and cannot have children to the same people who gave you the TSA?

Your Rights Online

+ - Net companies consider the 'nuclear option' to com->

Submitted by Atypical Geek
Atypical Geek writes "Alec Liu of Fox News reports that Amazon, Facebook and Google are considering a coordinated a coordinated blackout of the internet to protest SOPA, the Stop Online Privacy Act being debated in Congress. From the article:

Such a move is drastic. And though the details of exactly how it would work are unclear, it's already under consideration, according to Markham Erickson, the executive director of NetCoalition, a trade association that includes the likes of Google, PayPal, Yahoo, and Twitter.

With the Senate debating the SOPA legislation at the end of January, it looks as if the tech industry’s top dogs are finally adding bite to their bark, something CNET called "the nuclear option."

"When the home pages of Google.com, Amazon.com, Facebook.com, and their Internet allies simultaneously turn black with anti-censorship warnings that ask users to contact politicians about a vote in the U.S. Congress the next day on SOPA,” Declan McCullagh wrote, “you’ll know they’re finally serious.”

Major media companies continue to press hard for the proposed law's passage. Richard Bennet writes in the New York Post that "SOPA is a careful and reasonable way of dealing with crime... protecting Americans from bogus Web sites should be a government priority.""
Link to Original Source

Comment: You are REALLY missing the point (Score 1) 645

by Atypical Geek (#38038892) Attached to: Is There an Institutional Bias Against Black Tech Entrepreneurs?
When a minority group is under represented in a particular field, the explanation is always bias, without regard to any other possible causes. My examples were intended to illustrate the logic failure of that argument.

Only an idiot would claim that men are discriminated against in maternity wards because it ignores the fact that men can't get pregnant. Likewise, claiming that one of every two Americans are women and therefore one of every two software developers must be a woman or else sexism is also absurd. *

Not everyone has the talent or inclination to work in a given career. The fact that some groups seem sparsely included in some jobs does not mean there is bias in the field.

*Substitute minority group or career as needed.

Comment: Re:Option 5: Victim Mathematics (Score 1) 645

by Atypical Geek (#38038196) Attached to: Is There an Institutional Bias Against Black Tech Entrepreneurs?
You are missing the point.

The argument that because group A constitutes Y percent of the population and therefore should/must also make up Y percent of persons in group B, otherwise group B must be hostile to group A is absurd.

It is like claiming that because 40 percent of all voters are Republican, then 40 percent of Democratic Party members should be Republicans.

Comment: The scientific consensus has been wrong before (Score 0) 535

by Atypical Geek (#37886934) Attached to: Droughts Linked To Global Warming

Eugenics was widely accepted in the U.S. academic community.[6] By 1928 there were 376 separate university courses in some of the United States' leading schools, enrolling more than 20,000 students, which included eugenics in the curriculum.[12] It did, however, have scientific detractors (notably, Thomas Hunt Morgan, one of the few Mendelians to explicitly criticize eugenics), though most of these focused more on what they considered the crude methodology of eugenicists, and the characterization of almost every human characteristic as being hereditary, rather than the idea of eugenics itself.[13]

By 1910, there was a large and dynamic network of scientists, reformers and professionals engaged in national eugenics projects and actively promoting eugenic legislation. The American Breederâ(TM)s Association was the first eugenic body in the U.S., established in 1906 under the direction of biologist Charles B. Davenport. The ABA was formed specifically to âoeinvestigate and report on heredity in the human race, and emphasize the value of superior blood and the menace to society of inferior blood.â Membership included Alexander Graham Bell, Stanford president David Starr Jordan and Luther Burbank.[14][15] The American Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality was one of the first organizations to begin investigating infant mortality rates in terms of eugenics.[16] They promoted government intervention in attempts to promote the health of future citizens.[17]

Source.

Education

+ - Teachers Union Boycotts LA Times Over Evaluations->

Submitted by Atypical Geek
Atypical Geek writes "According to Newsweek, the local teachers union is infuriated over the disclosure of teacher performance metrics.

Do parents have the right to know which of their kids' teachers are the most and least effective? That's the controversy roaring in California this week with the publication of an investigative series by the Los Angeles Times's Jason Song and Jason Felch, who used seven years of math and English test data to publicly identify the best and the worst third- to fifth-grade teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The newspaper's announcement of its plans to release data later this month on all 6,000 of the city's elementary-school teachers has prompted the local teachers' union to rally members to organize a boycott of the newspaper.

According to the linked Times article, United Teachers Los Angeles president A.J. Duffy said the database was "an irresponsible, offensive intrusion into your professional life that will do nothing to improve student learning.""
Link to Original Source

Comment: As explained by TFA: (Score 1) 911

by Atypical Geek (#33270462) Attached to: Convicted NY Drunk Drivers Need Ignition Interlocks

Offenders caught driving without an interlock -- by driving a buddy's car or renting a vehicle, for example, could land in jail for up to a year. Those who try to help an offender by blowing into an interlock are subject to the same penalty. Most models will be equipped with a camera.

Emphasis mine. And yes, I must be new here.

Comment: Don't record your life, live it. (Score 5, Insightful) 527

by Atypical Geek (#33253044) Attached to: Preserving Memories of a Loved One?

Honestly, you are wasting your time behind a camera. There is no innovative technological solution to immortalizing the dead. Everyone who suffers that kind of loss winds up forgetting, and later recalling little moments.

Take a cue from the movie 'Up'. Keep photos and cherished items. Use the tokens you preserve to jog your memory once in a while. But spend the time you have left with your wife fully engaged and enjoying every tiny slice of life as much as you can.

Politics

+ - U.S. To Train 3,000 Offshore IT Workers

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "A federal agency is providing $22 million to train Java specialists and other IT workers in South Asia to help them become more adept at handling tech work and other jobs farmed out from the U.S, InformationWeek reports. Word of this comes despite Obama's pledge to keep more hi-tech work on American shores."

Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs repainting. -- Billy Rose

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