Recent Comments

I'm sure the CEO of almost every company has some viewpoint I disagree with vehemently.

I will now go live in the bush as a hermit.

I find that a broader point about what is feminism - is it a philosophy/way of life, or a result of your genital organs/hormonal differences - is generally missing in these types of discussion. I have found out that a good way to tackle this problem is to understand that feminism (today) is a collection of competing ideologies that sprung up from women suffrage and its precursors.

For example, the identity of men is derived from a lot of... "tropes", shall I say. For example, office politics is said to be a "men's game", often by men. They will ask a phd student to "man up" and accept loss when his professor steals his work. Often it will be women saying "it is a man's world" when they see shitty country level politics. Thus, you get both men and women referring to politicking as a masculine trait. This is gender bias without a doubt, with 'feminism' being defined as a philosophical difference. "An employee is the boss' bitch and the manager is 'The Man'".

Then we have "sexism" where women are considered poor at maths, lack voting rights because 'they are prone to mood swings and irrational behavior', and until very recently lacked the rights to fight for their country because 'they are physically weaker'. Now, women in general ARE physically weaker, but it cannot be a basis for discrimination because of a lot of men are a lot weaker!

The feminist friend of GP was referring to the first type of discrimination. Look here for a TED talk by Tony Porter about it. It is not about 'expecting more' from both men and women, it is about removing this idea that 'delivering less' is girly (which GP possesses, sorry dude!). It is important to accept that a lot of boys DO get beaten up and that there shouldn't be a shame in getting beaten up by girls, there should be pride in standing up to a bully and shame in being the person who beats. Asking a parent/police to intervene shouldn't be talked about as being 'bitchy' and 'complaining like a girl'. That IS the right form of protest.

If you think about it, the philosophical difference is being called 'feminism' purely because your choice of words. If we didn't call politicking a "man's game", we wouldn't be fighting based on sex but we would be fighting over our collective worker's right.

Thank you for not using your position to down-mod the GP into oblivion. That, more than anything, shows conviction.

You can still get this knowledge on your own self-study schedule, but the University has it all wrapped up in a neat little package for you.
I've known people without degrees (of any kind, some of them) who are very bright, knowledgeable, accomplished and well-read, but they have the drive and self-discipline to seek out information, study and learn independently. I suspect they are the exception, rather than the rule. Personally, I benefited from the structure a formal education provided and would likely not be as skilled or functional in my chosen area had I elected to forgo pursuing a degree.

The Costco example was simply an accidental misnaming of merchandise. It was nothing too serious and was quickly remedied by the company when someone complained.

The Firefox example was one individual donating his own money to an organization. Again, hardly an issue and barely related to the company.

Chick-fil-a was using the company's policies to push their religious views. Starting to slide down that slippery slope here.

The Hobby Lobby case was - geez - the company challenging the healthcare of their own employees to serve their own religious beliefs. Sure hope SCOTUS knocks some sense into that company.

You can defiantly excel at computer science without a formal degree. With a lot of self-taught "street smarts" from working in the practical word, you can do some neat stuff. But, some of the more academic upper level courses are amazingly insightful.

Although I opted for "just the B.S." credential, I took over a dozen upper level classes that had zero effect on my chosen degree. And wow those classes where neat. You are unlikely to develop a large Prolog application in the real world. Or build a fully functional MIPS CPU using only NAND gates. Or understand the differences between Third normal form and Boyce Codd normal form. Or apply the math behind transformation matrices and construct your own 3D rendering library. Or calculate the bandwidth of digital communication channels with the Nyquist theorem. Etc, etc...

My point being, those that skip the formal classes are skipping a significant amount of background knowledge behind the degree. You can still get this knowledge on your own self-study schedule, but the University has it all wrapped up in a neat little package for you.

Why don't you go ahead and convert it?

I went through no less than 5 different gun icons. They all looked like crap IMO but I was spending too much time on it and I really just wanted something better than a chemistry beaker for the recent "gunshot victim" article. This icon in particular will probably get replaced.

I can't speak for science, but one certainly doesn't need an advanced university degree, or even an undergraduate degree (Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg, etc), to do fantastic work in software. People with a masters or Ph.D in CS from a well-regarded university tend to have a certain polish, though, with a practical understanding of the peer-reviewed research and fewer gaping holes in their base of fundamental knowledge. That would be important for professors, as even Dyson grudgingly acknowledges in the interview, I think.

It's almost a truism that many or most of the best teachers on a given college campus are those who don't have tenure. Youthful energy, ambition, receptiveness to new ideas, lack of complacency and habits of political infighting, rapport with students, are some of the reasons commonly given.

Looks like I don't need to use OKCupid or Firefox. Spend more time worrying about yourself and less about others. You'll be a lot happier.

So on the okcupid page telling you not to use FF because the new CEO and inventor of Javascript is a bad man, the links are in Javascript. I can't tell if they are serious, trolling, or just using this poutrage for media attention.

Seriously, WTF? I come in here with my morning cup of joe and see this pink slime all over the place and a poll asking my opinions on craptastic website design where it seems that the full suckfest has already been implemented. Look, change it back, or I'm leaving. We are not your "customers" or your "audience." We submit stories, we edit them, we moderate them and we discuss them. The community IS Pipedot. We are not here for you to monetize us.

I move that we start a new site, AllPipedot, and prove that the community can take back what's ours. In the mean time, I urge everyone to stop submitting new stories, and all mod points should only be spent on Fuck Pipedot Beta posts. We need to send a strong message to our evil, if benevolent, overlord, Bryan.

When I wrote the original article, I was using Costco as an example of a corporation whose CEO's political/personal/religious/other views affect the way they manage the entity, not an example of a corporation which has undergone backlash for said views. The link I connected it to reflects that original example. If you want a good example of Costco backlash, though, try this one. ;)

And in other news: the editors here actually EDIT! Holy crap! I think it looks better than what I originally submitted, too. Thanks!

Now just kill the magenta and comic sans and it'll be perfect. Damn April 1st.

The gun icon has a couple of problems. It has a single action trigger but has no hammer, and the ejection port is on the wrong (left) side.

I like your point, we should expect more from each other, male or female. However, here are two concrete examples from my life which feel more nuanced.

My very young son loves to dance, ideally I would like to put him in dance classes, maybe even ballet to learn the excellent technique. I quite likely won't though because I fear the stigma for a boy in dance classes more.

A husband of a friend is currently under-enemployed. She brings home the money and does most of the domestic stuff. He is deeply embarrassed to not be providing money for his family but is quite hostile to asking for help, especially from his wife, even if it could result in employment. Helping with the domestic stuff may not heal his sense of worth to his family either

There may be more to being a man than current conventions allow. It's not just about allowing weakness in some frail sort of way, I suspect. What do you think?

I see today that everything I checked has been used against me. Oh, that I had stayed my hand!

If they make a good trilogy from the spinoff, more power to them. Hollywood seems to lack original story plots and material, so it is healthy when a new author's work breaks through to the mainstream.

I am still waiting for this generations Star Wars universe, though. I definitely think there is an opportunity for someone's grand vision with just enough depth to really capture the imagination.

Posting to add another article which chronicles the whole thing pretty effectively and readably. (What? Read the article? That's unpossible!) A choice quote:

"I worry that Mozilla is in a tough spot right now," (Mark Surman, XO of Mozilla) confided. "I worry that we do a bad job of explaining ourselves, that people are angry and don't know who we are or where we stand. And, I worry that in the time it takes to work this through and explain ourselves the things I love about Mozilla will be deeply damaged."

Clearly they are trying to address this. My question still stands, however: at what point do the CEO's views become representative of the company's? In any normal company, the answer would be either "often" or "always" - see Hobby Lobby , Chick-Fil-A , and Costco for examples of CEOs whose political, religious, and personal views affect their employees (and, arguably, their customers). Mr. Eich has stated, however, that his personal views do not apply to how he will captain Mozilla.

In the interest of disclosure: I'm torn because I'm a Firefox user - I consider it the best, most customizable browser ever - but I am also adamantly pro-gay-rights. I very much hope they fix this.

You guys are really mature, making fun of my handle.

Sent from my Netscape Communicator

I lurk on slashdot unintentionally. After so many years of reading the comments, the same arguments would pop up all the time and I could pretty much predict the circle jerk. It's at the point where I don't feel it's worth the effort to contribute.

Is it too late to recheck the box 'garish colors?'

You can recast your vote as many times as you like. Simply click the vote link. Your old votes, obviously, get replaced by the new ones.

Blinking Text? What about Marquee. I read faster if the words move too!

I know what the perfect browser is. Unfortunately, it doesn't exist.
Join the Campaign for a Nonexistent Browser!
http://theanna.org/Voo/
(And she's serious, even though that page is mostly a joke.)

I found it depressing. The green site doesn't have April fools anymore :-(
Long live the ponies!

Not enough blinking text. Can you put that back please?

From the developer side of things, can we just say Internet Explorer X, where 4 ≤ X ≤ 11? I've never used anything below IE4. Metro and lack of standards compliance get double votes.

But seriously, that site is awful. Given the size of that project, I expect better from them.

I CAN NEVER UNSEE THAT SH!T, THANKS! ;)

I have to admit I got a real LOL when I refreshed my Pipedot page today.. Talk about a great colorscheme! (and the "Beta" joke... hahaha)

Can we keep it past April Fool's??? :)

Holy crap, some of those proposed logos are damned good looking! I didn't take the time to try to figure out if some guidelines were proposed, but they seem to all fall into a certain color scheme, and they are mostly variations of a certain play on the shape of the letters P and D. I thought there would be some entries using the pipe and dot characters; maybe before the end there will be.

Meanwhile, I'm impressed!

I doubt these are created by |. lurkers though. There's probably a community of hungry graphic designers hanging around that site waiting for contests. They don't have a connection to the site, they just know how to do art and when somebody needs something, they jump in to compete.

This is all brute supposition, of course.

I should add: had you used Comic Sans in the body text I'd probably have had to dig out my own eyeballs with a spoon. Catastrophe averted!

Glad to have a laugh. My favorite part was squeezing in the word "Suckage." Not sure it's in the dictionary.

Hey, Happy April 1st. The site looks great! But knowing what I know now I think I'd like to back and vote again. Is it too late to recheck the box 'garish colors?'

This is the only site carrying on the noble tradition of trashing itself visually on the 1st of the month. Probably because it's the only site with a decent CSS scheme that permits doing so with little effort! MUST HAVE MORE PONIES ...

Actually an overly feminist friend of mine posted a story on my facebook page about how we need to stop telling our boys to "man up". Reading the article was like driving screwdrivers into my eye sockets. The whole premise was we use things like "your such a girl" as an insult thus we're implying that women are weak and a suitable insult, but instead of saying we should expect our girls to be more emotionally stable, intelligent, hard working and strong we should expect our boys to be more like our girls. That's to say we should let our boys to be emotionally vulnerable, tell them it's ok to fail and *require* someone else to help them.

Why The Men's Rights Movement Is Garbage

I'm really not ok with that. I don't understand why instead of expecting *more* from our girls we should be expecting *less* from our boys.

Hindi: " "

Very High. Here's the most recent stats I could find from soylentnews.

It looks like the raw daily page views are in the 6-figure range, while daily comments are in the 3-figure range. That's (very) roughly around 10000 page views per comment.

I'd love to compare between sites. My guess is pipedot would be about the same or slightly higher, while slashdot would be orders of magnitude worse.

#1 should be able to answer that.

As the rights of women to be strong or masculine rises, at least in some parts of the world, it is interesting to ponder that the rights of men to be weak or feminine has not risen equally. It would seem that changing stereotypes and assumptions is not a zero sum game that is always in some sort of balance.

I wonder what the member to lurker ratio is on sites like slashdot, soylent and now pipedot?

Oh, or the abuse of scrolling to animate the page. I'm not really sure what you call it, but here is an example: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/os/

I'm always tempted to put best viewed in Netscape Navigator 3 on my pages, just for the "get off my lawn" power it has.

¡Qui© grande!

Show more idiocy on results pages. Because there is no pagination, there is no easy way to quickly move forward among the results, so you have to repeatedly scroll down and click Show more . If you leave the page you often lose your position and have to start all over again. Stupid UI trend which has no place in anything other than simple interfaces. There should at least be a simple way of setting the offset.

Same here. I wish there was a +1 Flamebait moderation, as this deserves it!

This place must have a lot of lurkers

A picture of the /. Logo having the stuffing beaten out of it with phb money and users flying out. The fwd slash flops over, picks itself upright and fades to |. blue. The |. description "without the corporate slant" ffades in under.

Αυτά μου φαίνονται αλαμπουρνέζικα.

こにちわ
Привет
γειά σου
¿alo?
Fancy quotes: "hello world"
Em dashes: foo - bar
Math: sin²(θ) + cos²(θ) = 1

ROFL. At first I was wondering if you where speaking in haiku, or maybe you where still lost in Usenet with the manual line breaks, but then I read the Capitalized vertical letters.

Nice.

I was most of the way down the list before I realized I was essentially ticking all of the boxes.

Thanks, that's now no my long list of things to check out.

It seems that the Apache folks are trying to corner the market on open source Big Data projects...