> ...if you have a male resume, it gets put straight into the circular bin in favor of any other checkbox class. > [...etc] What hyperbolic garbage. Prove that happens on anything but a trace percentage of times. It doesn't even make sense for particular fields that men utterly dominate, like trucking. You'd never hire anyone!

> Is it true that men are advantaged over women "on average"? I can't speak from incontrovertible evidence, I find this question disingenuous or truly intellectually lazy. That or what passes for "incontrovertible evidence" for you has such a strict definition as to be impossible to meet. Geez man, open your eyes! You most certainly can speak from "incontrovertible evidence" with less than a minute's worth of internet clicks. I don't understand how anyone today can believe, after thousands of years of documented sex discrimination in law and custom, that a society could just pass a couple of laws and within a generation or two, everyone's an egalitarian! Society drops its traditional ideas and all our biases have magically flown away from us, yay, nobody discriminates any more! No. You can't just declare your culture as having no effect on you, you can't command biases to go away, laws don't rewire brains. I think we're -never- going to be rid of sex or other discrimination like that, because we're evolved to see patterns and we're evolved to make generalizations. The best we can do is recognize that literally everyone (no matter how smart you are) develops biases based on their individual experience and their culture, and then IF you want to be fair, you have to recognize that, consciously decide to mitigate it by implementing processes that reduce unfair bias as much as possible where appropriate, such as hiring decisions and promotions. But back to OP's original topic: > Men who are out of work and looking for a job are certainly not in a position of "advantage". Setting up a job fair to exclude such disadvantaged people is cruel. No it isn't. This assumes that it's the only job fair around, or that job fairs are the only way to get a job. Non-targeted job fairs way outnumber targeted ones. Non-targeted job hunting websites are all over the place. Again speaking generally, it also assumes there is literally no advantage just for being a man, which is demonstrably false. All other things being equal women will, generally, not be as likely to be hired, or if so, be treated as less capable and will be offered lower pay and/or a lesser position. If the idea of a job fair that targets people who have historically been (and provably continue to be) discriminated against makes you feel uncomfortable, I'd ask that you spend a little of your own time educating yourself why people want such a thing. People want to go where they're wanted. Job fairs for "everybody" clearly don't achieve this, or else we wouldn't need the targeted ones. Did you know there are numerous shared spreadsheets of companies that are considered good places for Black people to work? Is that fair? Ask yourself if it's fair that Black professionals' own experience drives a need for such spreadsheets. It's not unfair to target certain groups of people based on their appearance or other physical characteristics that they can't choose, to help them, who still often feel less than welcome in certain workplaces. This has been happening to women for thousands of years, and to Black and Indigenous Americans for centuries. It was only a few decades ago that women and minorities were either actively excluded, discouraged or ignored for certain jobs. Again these aren't the only job fairs around and they aren't the only way to apply for jobs. So I think men ought to be man enough to tolerate what seems like bit of unfairness for awhile, in the interest of leveling the playing field.

Don't know where you're getting your info but you can't just read the plain text of the US Constitution & Bill of Rights and broadly interpret it however it pleases you. Precedent and Congressional laws inform interpretation - there are corners, niches and loopholes all over the place and there are lots of people in prison who tried this kind of thing and failed.

All advertising in content of any kind during content aimed at minors, especially under around 12 years of age, should be banned completely. I don't know why anyone -- aside from corporations selling to children -- is arguing in favor of it, because it seems obvious to me that children don't have buying power and can't make buying decisions (at least not directly, we all know how "powerful" it can be to have a screaming child and be an exhausted parent, but that argues even more in favor of a ban). Advertising is intentionally designed to shortcut rational thought, and children simply do not have the cognitive skills or even the cognitive ability to counteract these propaganda techniques. The problem isn't just that it brainwashes people into massive consumerism and blind brand loyalty from a very early age, but advertisements also exploit stereotypes in order to get attention and sell their product, because those stereotypes go through those exact mental shortcuts. The persuasion tactics end up reinforcing stereotypes and by extension, prejudices, in society. My main source of this information is the book The Age of Propaganda but there are plenty of readily available sources, including research that supports what I've said. In Norway, and Quebec advertising to minors is not allowed, and in the UK, Denmark, Germany and Belgium, advertising to minors is restricted (see the Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...).

Assuming this is to "replace" my cards and/or cash, why would I want something where, if the batteries are dead, I can't buy anything?
A woman is usually carrying a purse, if it's a man he's typically carrying a wallet for other things anyway, so not much of a win there.
Why give hackers yet another way to steal my money?
Why give the feds/megacorps yet another way to track me and my spending?
WTF is wrong with cash? These days I'm a lot more likely to have my credit cards/bank account hacked than to be mugged for my bills, and money just doesn't weigh that much.
Risk management, cost benefit analysis means no way in hell would I sign up for this. I can't think of any possible improvements that would change this, short of a bona fide, anonymous, non-battery-powered credstick.

I've been reading that there are a lot of people who expected not to retire, but are forced to - typically in their late 60s - due to health issues, and since they planned on working in very late life, their retirement resources aren't (or are just barely) enough to support themselves. This adds up to being majorly screwed, and this actually happened to my grandparents - my dad & uncle supplied the extra money they needed to get by :( People's own future state of health is something they may not have considered when, at age 30-something, they're --not-- planning for retirement.

As the daughter of a long time, now retired public school teacher and who has friends who are currently public school teachers, I'll chime in with supporting teachers to sell their plans and keep the money.

I'll also corroborate all the people saying that teachers make these lesson plans outside of class, at home. They also do all their grading at home, including over holidays and school breaks. They start school 1 week or more before all the students. Most teachers I know pay for a significant portion of non-textbook classroom supplies OUT OF THEIR OWN POCKETS.

Teachers may have summers off - at least, ones who don't teach in year-round districts - but what they often do with that time is get a part time job so they can make up for the crappy pay they get.

Frankly, I find it appalling that we do not consider teaching a true profession, yet we make teachers go through a long certification process before we let them in the public schools to do often thankless work for crap pay and shoddy treatment. I am one of those people who adores teaching and is good at it, but I've seen what the public school system does to people, and the pay won't even come close to covering my living expenses. No thank you.

So let them sell the lesson plans. If it gives teachers more time with their families and a little more spending money, they deserve it, and so do their families.

Look, there are studies that have shown that people have different abilities to suspend disbelief. People who are better at it are more tolerant of gore and violence in films as well as games.

Your statement is clearly true for you, but it's not universal. But there are people who enjoy cartoonish violence.

I repeat what I said in a previous comment. Games are about having fun. If it's not fun, don't play it. If you want the violence to be realistic, and it's less fun without it, then assuming you're a normal person, you probably are just better at suspension of disbelief, and the violence for you is no problem.

I don't like it when it's immensely gory. I can tolerate a certain level of violence because I realize I am playing a game and ultimately all I'm doing is causing lines of code to run. But for me, there comes a point where the level of gore and violence are so realistic that that knowledge doesn't help any more - the images are too compelling and I have to work too hard to remind myself it's not real. That is when I stop having fun and I'm not going to play any more. And why should I?? It's just a frickin game!

"If you're properly focused on a game you don't really notice the extras."

Well I'll say this much - the amount and detail of gore in the Wolverine demo put me off too much to continue playing long enough to get to that level of focus. Things like the bullet time shots with the partial faces flying off and blood spurting everywhere were what did it.

Just face it, some of us simply do NOT like violence over a certain amount. I just do not enjoy the game. I find myself sitting there feeling physically bad. The whole point of video games is to have fun. If I'm not having fun, I don't care what the reason is, I won't keep playing it (and quite honestly couldn't give a crap what anyone thinks of me because of it).

I don't see why I should "get used" to a game, or properly focus, or learn better how to suspend disbelief or whatever. It's just a frickin game. If I want personal growth, I'll go to a therapist.

Ignoring that back then the weather, the makeup of the atmosphere, and the mammal population were different, and your glib implication that coal and oil were created by CO2, what happens if currently temperate areas turn to desert instead of jungle? What happens in the Sahara, and other equatorial regions, when they get hotter? They could easily grow larger and become even more inhabitable. You don't think people will just stay there, do you? I don't think you've thought this through.

A couple of years ago I bought a Motion Computing tablet PC off of eBay, from a seller that was clearly well-established. It didn't come with an install disc, so I e-mailed Motion Computing's customer service, asking if I could please purchase another one. I told them I got it on eBay, and gave them the serial number. They replied within only a few days, and said, just send us your address - we'll send you one for free. And they did so. As a result, I tell people about how accommodating they were every chance I get.

Yet another "OMG does X mean the end of Y? We can only hope predict chaos/destruction/carnage/dogs and cats living together/mass schadenfreude! **CLICK ITTT** READ IT RIGHT NOWWWUH !" Twitter being hit by "a big phishing scam," yes it's news, but the headline is more than a little melodramatic, don't you think?

First I'll answer the question - most people don't have to care in order for a boycott to have an effect. If only one in ten people participate, that's a 10% loss in sales. Even if all you do is boycott DRM-protected media, any company would sit up and take notice of a 10% loss in sales, particularly in this economy. In short, it doesn't matter if everyone or even most people care - enough need to care that it causes noticeable loss.

At the time the iTunes store started, I felt like the DRM solution was the only way to lure / drag the recording labels, kicking and screaming, into the digital 21st century, and I felt like it was a lot better than the punitive approach of suing Napster and Limewire users. If you have been paying attention, the licensing terms for DRM tracks on the iTunes Music Store have been gradually relaxed. Now there are a number of ways to purchase non-DRM tracks legally and easily - not just iTMS, but Amazon.com, eMusic, Magnatune, and a number of other, smaller vendors. Furthermore, you have always been able to buy CDs yourself and rip them, and if you were a poor college student like I used to be, you could always buy used CDs and trade your old ones in that you never listened to, back before you could "rip" your music at all, let alone download it from some Russian MP3 site. It is my opinion that as distasteful as DRM technology may be, Apple's approach did open the door to the legitimate digital music download market - whether by provoking a response or goading the labels to provide *some* convenient, inexpensive method of legally aquiring music in virtual form. However, I think this should be an intermediate step only, and DRM needs to be abandoned as quickly as possible.

So I ask you, is a boycott of Apple entirely really necessary, or shouldn't we just stop buying DRMed tracks instead, and force the market down the path consumers wanted in the first place? That is the route I have been taking for the last 2 years. I don't buy DRM tracks any more unless I need it for reference (I'm also a musician), and I simply cannot find it anywhere else, either on CD or on one of my (legal) sources for digital music.

I have looked into these issues fairly recently and your recollection matches mine as well. A large number of medicines today in common use are derived from plants. Aspirin is a big one. Aspirin has a variety of medicinal uses. Furthermore science is finding all sorts of health benefits from consuming certain plants, such as cranberry juice and cranberry extract as an antiseptic, or wine for heart health. To dismiss all of plant-based medicine as worthless (as some have, though obviously not this book) is not only ignorant but flat-out wrong, and is complete denial of thousands of years of successful medicinal practice before the formal science of pharmacology even existed. We know for sure that not all substances believed to have medicinal properties actually had them, but frequently there was one active ingredient in a preparation which acted as some kind of illness or injury prevention or treatment. Kohl, for example, was used successfully to help prevent eye infections in the ancient Near East. To talk about herbal medicines made with tiger tooth or rhino horn or shark fin is a contradiction. These ingredients render the substance non-herbal by definition. To then claim that some herbal medicines are therefore contributing to animal extinction is straw-man argument. My reading has been that acupuncture can assist with certain types of chronic pain and can lower blood pressure. However, any time one studies pain or immune response, it appears that it's hard to isolate what works and what doesn't, because both seem to be very susceptible to the patients' biases and mental outlook.