Yeah, I don't understand why Blogger now requires javascript to read any blog. The content is just static HTML most of the time! Why are they pushing so hard to hide the content if you have javascript disabled?
They are making their properties require scripting, they threatened that javascript "would be replaced" with something that can support massive codebases (dart), and they have new protocols that use a persistent connection that can't really have a proxy between you and Google (Spdy).
I'm sure some of these came about organically, but they all contribute to moving from a publishing model (web 'pages') to an application model. Basically Google is making the web into an application, but like modern DRM in games, you have to be 'online' signed into google all the time to use it.
Make it personal 1:1 with google by killing proxies (require TLS like in Spdy), kill pages by requiring scripting. Result is a Ubisoft for the web. This is I think pretty clearly the destination that Google is pushing towards.
JavaScript is part of the web now. It's because people like interactive content, not because of some conspiracy to DRM their corporate advertising blog.
"JavaScript is part of the web now." It wasn't before? It's acceptable to have completely blank pages with no content, JavaScript 'or else'?
"It's because people like interactive content". And Google put '+' into everything because 'people like social', not some plan to compete with Facebook.
"some conspiracy to DRM their corporate advertising blog." Because clearly I was talking about a single blog.
"proxying works fine for SPDY" A SPDY -> HTTP proxy. When there's a SPDY-to-SPDY caching proxy and no man-in-the-middle you might say it works fine.
...that's a lot of spin from a Google employee. Maybe I hit pretty close to the mark.
You're right that it's odd that the page is blank when viewed in w3m. I'm guessing this is an oversight rather than something intentional. I will investigate.
(As for SPDY proxies, I use one every day at work. I'm not sure why you are so concerned about the ability to proxy, but I assure you it works fine.)
> Yep, that's at least one genetic advantage you have on most of us.
I think I kind of have the same problem as you do: not enough/too much sleep that messes up my day. But is this "genetic" like you saying? I don't think so. Can you point to any directions where to read about this, or at least, how to get better on sleeping enough hours?
I am not sure how you can get better at something which is most likely genetic.
I work full time and have a not terrible commute, and if I want to eat healthy and get a bit of exercise and spend just a tiny amount of time with friends and family... well, it's hard to get the hours of sleep I genetically need to function 100%.
Now, I can go for a very long time sleeping no more than 6 hours a night, but I can feel it slowly killing me.
Still, why would you want someone as a manager who would keep his own wife's car locked up at work because she failed to be properly respectful?Still, why would you want someone as a manager who would keep his own wife's car locked up at work because she failed to be properly respectful?
What in the hell kind of place are you working at!?
And indeed - by declaring yourself mature enough to handle a startup at a young age, you're also declaring yourself mature enough to act like a human being. Young people in prominent settings shouldn't get a free pass - if you want to be in the "big leagues", you've got to act like you belong there.
job interviews in which she was shown pictures of her interviewer's bare ass;
Holly horror story!
Sadly I am not surprised to hear this, because I've heard many similar stories. And yet out of the very large number of male friends in the industry I have, including myself, none of us have ever or would ever do anything like that. The paradox here is answered by the fact that a tiny share of creeps will always be found in any sufficiently large set of humans. And the larger the set, the bigger the number of creeps.
Thus I think the only way to guarantee this kind of thing becomes part of the past is to radically increase the share of women in the industry.
Now, that doesn't prevent creeps from being creepy, but it does guarantee that the small number that they must be, can never be creepy to a large number of women.
This is kind of depressing as it basically assumes we can never completely get rid of creeps. But does anyone believe 100% proper behavior, from 100% of the people, 100% of the time is possible?
I think you're correct that the best solution is to increase the number of women in technology.
However, as members of that community today, you and I and our male friends can call out the creepy dudes making inappropriate remarks 100% of the time we hear them. Creating an environment where people feel comfortable doesn't have to mean getting rid of all bad actors; it can be enough to make it clear that bad actors are found universally unacceptable.
Creeps are a part of every industry; they are more aptly described as "Bullies" - and can be both male and female (though I admit the male, sexist, bully is very prevalent in our industry).
These people tend not to just be sexist; they bully their male workers as well - crude remarks for example, put downs, superior attitudes.
I once had a female (client) lean over the desk to me, with a low cut blouse, and say "My cleavage intimidates you doesn't it".
I suggest that, as this blogger noted, the minority of creeps & bullies aren't really the problem. You can deal with them a lot more easily by moving on, firing them, refusing their custom - etc.
The issue is the sort of subtle remarks that the people making them don't realise are upsetting. They are not unlike-able, unlike bullies, just a bit clueless.
And fixing this is not easy, because you might really get on with the guys in your office, just wish they'd stop commenting on your ass!
I completely agree, such behavior is not gender related. But males are trending higher, usually because the percentage of male bosses is higher. Social status and power tend to release some inner devils.
Also agree about side comments - it is not easy to stop those. That's why it is important to understand each of those individuals and find a way to deal with each one. No need to be a hardass to the person, just need to punish specific actions.
While you are correct in this instance, the original article is complaining about subtle inequalities that go unnoticed or tolerated by a much larger portion of the industry than just the "creeps".
And the existence of that behavior is an obstacle to increasing the share of women in the industry.
Certainly not. But I can certainly empathize with a complaint raised in the article. Essentially, if you know "Lighten up" seems equivalent to acknowledging the lack of respect being shown, but refusing to own up to it. While it's easy for you to say "Oh, I only said one thing! Why is she so mad?" thats, sort of the entire point of the article - everyone just saying one thing adds up to a lot.
I can't seem to find a study which showed that while only %3 of men ever make such comments, women involved in our community experience this a steady stream of subtle harassment. And the sad fact is that this is due to the lopsided share of men to women.
If we had a 50/50 split some women would never hear such comments, some would hear then extremely rarely, while the percentage of men making them would stay the same.
And can we ever hope to get 100% of any large group anywhere, to never make occasionally offensive remarks? The crux here really is that this type of offensive remarks have only one target - women, and that combined with the lop-sided sex ratio results in harassment.
I can't seem to find a study which showed that while only %3 of men ever make such comments, women involved in our community experience this a steady stream of subtle harassment. And the sad fact is that this is due to the lopsided share of men to women.
This reminds me of growing up Asian in rural northern Appalachia. It also reminds me of discussions I've heard on local African American radio talk shows. There's this constant subtle pressure one feels, and it is the result of knowing one is subject to arbitrary disrespect coming from out of the woodwork. The fact that it's often "plausibly" deniable doesn't make it better.
Knowing that you have a target on you does have an effect. That it's fairly uncommon doesn't make it better, if it happens often enough that the possibility is always lurking in the background. It's easy to see how this could impact someone involved in creative activities.
Thank you for your comments. What you said about subtle, constant pressure made a lot of sense to me and put things into perspective. I have a better understanding now.
Sorry, but if one person in 30 is being a jerk, that is a steady stream of subtle harassment. Most professionals deal with what, 60 people on a weekly basis? That's two jerks every week.
And your math is off. Even if there was only one woman in tech anywhere, reducing 100% male interaction to 50% male interaction would only decrease the jerk count by a factor of two.
I don't know about you, but I deal with jerks all of the damn time. But luckily no more or less than all of my peers. This would be very different if I was a woman.
And we wouldn't reduce male interaction by 50%, we would increase female participation by hundreds of percents.
That way if someone is being a jerk, many people can all confirm he's being a jerk.
...I deal with jerks all of the damn time. But luckily no more or less than all of my peers. This would be very different if I was a woman.
Indeed. Jerks like this often associate in groups. As a result, women sometimes find themselves in a bizarro social context where their inferiority is just a good joke and the resulting humiliation is considered something like a blow for truth and "good clean fun."
That way if someone is being a jerk, many people can all confirm he's being a jerk.
Since women are such a minority in tech, they are sometimes subject to this sort of mob scene. Unless you've been in those shoes, it would be difficult to understand.
I like the bizarro social context expression. It's a great way to describe how I work with female programmers and both my project managers are female and nothing like the described behavior would ever be tolerated for a second, and yet each female programmer I know has such horror stories.
I guess the best advice is when you find yourself in a situation like that, get the hell out. But even I as a top notch experienced white male coder can't change jobs at the drop of a hat.
I would expect most professionals deal with fewer than 30 people on a weekly basis. Thinking back on my last four jobs, I don't know if I ever dealt with more than fifteen, and I was a project manager in two of those roles.
No, the plot of Inception really is very complicated, unless you're a computer programmer
Personal anecdote: My friend who is in marketing and is not at all a geek also thinks if you have half a brain the plot is obvious. She has no special math training beyond an MBA, and has done absolutely zero programming in her life.
I do have at least one acquaintance that watched it multiple times to understand it. In fact this acquaintance convinced me to go watch it, as I was actually curios about what's so hard to understand about it. And while watching it, I kept asking myself what's the big deal with it, as the plot unfolded itself pretty linearly.
So there is something about it that makes it hard to understand for some people, although my non-technical wife also had no problems with it.
Well, no. They suggest that the camera shake wasn't added in after the fact with postprocessing of an existing image -- or at least that the image was fairly high-res and blur was also added after the fact. He doesn't rule out that the whole video wasn't computer-generated, nor that the dude was running into a greenscreen, nor for that matter a green cable that was digitally altered out, or anything like that. Some of these would venture into "faked" as opposed to CGI -- a cable which did not need to be shopped out might be an example, although whether you could have a nice construction crane nearby to operate it would be a worthwhile question, since the video doesn't give it much place to hide and the larger it is the more dangerous it would be to hang someone off of it and then move it from point A to point B.
There is a very real possibility that the wing was pulled by a cable. The kite adapted is actually one of those ones you usually pull behind a boat and which glides you up into the air.
That's also something I haven't considered. Whether or not this was really done, if you wanted to create the same effect by faking it, you could do it at least in part by doing two different "takes" -- one where you pull the guy from the front and view with a camera behind him, and another where you pull the guy up from behind and view with the camera on his head. There is a blurry whitish splotch when he first gets air which could be a tree in the distance, but if you wanted to fake it, that could be a way to disguise the cable.
This would give a plausible way to fake the first and the last scenes, where you see the man from behind, as well as the "in the air" scenes where you just see from his perspective: you could in principle put him in a boom lift vehicle -- perhaps suspended from it or perhaps even just sitting in it -- and the image would look very similar.
The side-view shot would be much more difficult to fake.
Why are there no birds even close to the weight of adult human males? Why do birds have a huge keel-like breastbone on which equally huge and powerful flight muscles attach? If energy required to take of scales geometrically with weight, how much force would an adult human need to generate to take flight and which muscles, attached where on the human skeleton, would be used for this?
Flapping wings do not simply vibrate vertically. Wings are hinged so they can greatly reduce the amount of air they push back up on the up stroke and to generate significant amounts of lift it takes a really dramatic motion. You can see how bad the motion is by compare flapping motion 35 seconds in vs an actual bird.
Also, trying to generate the type of energy required for flight with your arms is significantly harder than your legs.
