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Comment Simple Works (Score 1) 95

by perew (#62889721) Attached to: Why Craigslist Still Looks the Same After 25+ Years
The website for the university courses I teach are barebones. No pictures. minimal clicks to get anything. Simple chronological format. The students say it is far more usable than the high graphics and module based format that is pushed at us. Its as complex as it must be, but no more than that.

Submission + - Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook To Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads (propublica.org) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Verizon is among dozens of the nation's leading employers — including Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Target and Facebook itself — that placed recruitment ads limited to particular age groups, an investigation by ProPublica and The New York Times has found. The ability of advertisers to deliver their message to the precise audience most likely to respond is the cornerstone of Facebook’s business model. But using the system to expose job opportunities only to certain age groups has raised concerns about fairness to older workers. Several experts questioned whether the practice is in keeping with the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, which prohibits bias against people 40 or older in hiring or employment. Many jurisdictions make it a crime to “aid” or “abet” age discrimination, a provision that could apply to companies like Facebook that distribute job ads.

Facebook defended the practice. “Used responsibly, age-based targeting for employment purposes is an accepted industry practice and for good reason: it helps employers recruit and people of all ages find work,” said Rob Goldman, a Facebook vice president. The revelations come at a time when the unregulated power of the tech companies is under increased scrutiny, and Congress is weighing whether to limit the immunity that it granted to tech companies in 1996 for third-party content on their platforms.

Submission + - Trump Wants To Modernize Air Travel By Turning Over Control To the Big Airlines (theverge.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Today, President Donald Trump endorsed a plan to hand over oversight of the nation’s airspace to a non-profit corporation that will likely be largely controlled by the major airlines. Republicans argue that privatizing air traffic control will help save money and fast track important technological upgrades. But Democrats and consumer groups criticize that plan as a corporate giveaway that will inevitably harm passengers. The air traffic reform proposal, which fell short in Congress last year, would transfer oversight from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to a government-sanctioned, independent entity that would be made up of appointees from industry stakeholders. The effort picked up steam when the union representing air traffic controllers endorsed the plan, citing years of understaffing by the FAA. Some passengers may balk at the idea of handing over day-to-day management of the nation’s highly complex air traffic control system to the same companies that rack up tens of thousands of customer complaints a year, and occasionally physically assault or drag passengers off their planes. But the Trump administration argues this is the only way to modernize a system that still runs on technology that’s been around since World War II. The FAA is already years into a technology upgrade known as NextGen, which involves moving from the current system based on radar and voice communications to one based on satellite navigation and digital communications. The FAA wants to use GPS technology to shorten routes, save time and fuel, and reduce traffic delays by increasing capacity.

Comment Re:eating less (Score 1) 256

by perew (#53394655) Attached to: Microbiome Changes Drive the Dieting Yo-Yo Effect, Study Finds

I have lost 50lbs and kept it off for over 3 years myself but it is hard, very hard to do. It was akin to getting my masters degree while working full time hard. .

Would love to talk to you off line about this. Since I'm currently doing a masters (just my capstone left) while working full time, your analogy is not lost on me. Your other points match my experience very closely.

Comment Re:ALICE from CMU (Score 1) 799

by perew (#30569456) Attached to: How To Teach a 12-Year-Old To Program?
The goal of programming is to do entertaining and/or useful things. Alice is a wonderful teaching tool because it allows the programmer to do entertaining and/or useful things without fretting too much about syntax and semantics. In the process, the student is exposed to objects, methods, variables, control structures, functions, events, etc.. For many school-aged kids, those entertaining and/or useful things may be creating a moderately complex game or just telling a story (essentially a small animated movie). Keeping kids engaged and quickly making visible progress toward the goal, while exposing them to strong programming principles, certainly makes Alice a good teaching platform.

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