Bravo sir. Bravo. That's right up there on the list of things I wish I had said myself. Too bad it was posted "AC."

I don't think that is the case at all.

People most often end up being who they are. People don't "learn" to be social. They either are or are not. There is biological cause for a lot of behavior and tendency. Why do we have to pretend that women and men are equal? We see a problem with the notion that "We need more female players in the NFL!" yet because IT work is less physically demanding, women should gravitate to it.

I think before people get back on the "women in IT" thing again, it would be better to understand why so few men are good at IT and to understand the personalities (irrespective of gender) who can get it. As much as we would like to be able to "train and set lose in the workplace," it is disasterous to do so. Not everyone is cut out to be a doctor or a lawyer or an artist or anything. There are factors which go beyond simple training and skillset and move into aptitude. If a person ain't got it, they ain't got it. Adding more training or opportunity ain't gonna make it happen any better.

Speaking for myself, fixing things is a compulsion disorder. Few people have it. VERY few women have it. As much as I would like to teach people to be like me, it's not something that can be taught.

"Tomboy" labels don't generally prevent women who are of that sort from being that. So you already inherently understand the nature of the problem. Fear of being called gay doesn't prevent people from being gay. Fear of being a "geek" doesn't prevent people from being a geek. Fear of being left handed doesn't prevent people from being left handed. How much "on and on" do I need to do?

Yeah, and I have sons who have shown little patience for understanding the details of how computers work and how to fix them and all that. Whatever "it" is, they don't have it. A quota system isn't going to foster "it." It seems apparent that "it" is more common in men than in women. You can't legislate biology.

In the US, it's built into the structure of the thing. However, the players in their arenas have been rendering those protections useless. We have the Freedom of Informaiton Act which is still in wide use today, but it's being heavily denied where it shouldn't be. We are supposed to have all manner of accountability and transparency, but somehow important things remain concealed. And the government is supposed to be representative of the will of the people but also address the needs and interests of the people. But thanks to uncontrolled sources of "big support" through large contributions, the interests of the people are not being served.

It was working for a while. It's just not working now.

You're trying to be sarcastic, but THAT actually happens a lot. I currently live in an area where there are lots of cyclists and they all run red lights and death happens often enough to make you wonder.

You cannot blame the supply. You cannot blame the demand. Those two things operate as they do and as they should. Almost no one acts out of conscience but rather out of self-interest.

The only way to fix such problems is "across the board," unilaterally, all at once. Regulation.

You can't blame people for being stupid. It is what we are. It is why government and regulation are simply necessary. Think about it. No one would voluntarily stop at an intersection without a stop sign or a stop light would they?

I haven't read through all the comments yet, but in a previous story on a similar topic, someone posted an interesting anecdote about a southern town in the pre-civil war US. This town had strong feelings in opposition to slavery and they eventually outlawed the practice. The town was unable to compete in various markets because the surrounding areas still allowed slavery. The town was doomed until they repealed the anti-slavery law.

This story illustrates an important thing. Economic factors trump moral factors. The only way to defeat the economic factors to enable moral factors is to dictate them by law... and even that's pretty difficult to do. Take the prohibition of alcohol in the US as an example.

And here's the kicker: We are talking about imports from nations outside of the legal structure of the US. (As much as the US keeps trying, the world IT still outside of its legal structure.) So if there is to be any progress in the area of quality of life for workers in other countries, there has to be some serious changes made. And the way to make those changes? Some pretty extreme things need to happen... things which most people in the US and in other nations oppose.

So either learn to live with the guilt or buckle down and support some serious changes in world government because the leaders of other nations are not going to adopt our ideals or beliefs willingly.

I never expected to read a story where the DMCA was actually used properly and could be used to "protect the little guy." It's amusing that he also managed to stumble upon a bees nest with a crazy queen running it. Talk about paranoid and simply out of control. Unforunately, I know people like that... funnier when it happens to other people.

Uh, no, porn and video games are NOT the same. Not by a long shot... (pun not intended)

He's not actually taking sides. He's showing that the government is the pot calling the kettle black.

Now what we're seeing here is Google being attacked by various parties... possibly at the behest of fewer parties. We just witnessed Google's $6 billion dollar law suit brought on by Oracle turn into an enormous waste of money and resources granting Oracle nothing but costing it expensive lawyers and a handful of patents which became invalidated after they were used as a weapon against Google. So Oracle lost in lots of ways. Would it be surprising if other Google opponents had friends in government who could call the DoJ to re-open some issues? Check out who contributes to the two representatives and you might find the answer.